LDCOMICS ONLINE COMICS FAIR 2025! Maddy Buck’s cartooning career began at the University of Michigan Law School, and her quest to distill large amounts of information into easily digestible comic strip form has continued in self-published zines, online journals, and print comics. All of this is linked to on her site. Her longest previous comic was a 25-page adaptation of a scientific paper, Shaping AI. (Don’t) Go To Law School is part of a longer narrative in her journey to Law School, which is available exclusively throughout July from the LDComics Online Comics Fair.
Buck begins her story with three pages quoting Hilary Clinton’s 2016 concession speech after losing the Presidential election to Donald Trump, a chilling way to set the scene for her mindset in law school. “But that day, I wanted to reach out and lay my hand on the shoulder next to me, to hug everyone else who felt taken down with Hilary.“
Through flashbacks Buck relates how from a young age she wanted nothing to do with becoming a lawyer, preferring the fantasy life of a princess or wizard. However, the other side of the argument is presented in a well executed sequence of three consecutive full-page illustrations which show the positive effects of a law degree for women historically. The way the middle-page flashback is placed in time by a single word balloon is particularly impressive.
The artwork throughout (Don’t) Go To Law School (and her other work, as well) is deceptively simple, refined down to the barest minimum of lines to carry the text of her narrative forward. Although there are big blocks of text in the story, including the page I quoted from above which only has a small illustration amidst a page of exposition, Buck has the rare ability make this unbalanced sequential narrative approach work well for the story she wants to tell.
Based in Minnesota, Maddy Buck is one of many creators from outside the LDComics UK base featured in their Online Comics Fair. Check out (Don’t) Go To Law School for an exceptional start to a, hoped for, longer examination of the intersection of her cartooning and law careers.
Maddy Buck (W/A) • LDComics Online Comics Fair, £3.00
Review by Gary Usher
The LDComics Online Comics Fair runs across the month of July. Read all our coverage of the comics on offer here at BF.
