LDCOMICS ONLINE COMICS FAIR 2025! I Am Perfectly Normal is Lindsey Sheehan’s first published full-length comic, which is available exclusively during July through the LDComics Online Comics Fair. This comic perfectly encapsulates the tagline on her Bluesky profile: “I am queer and autistic and delightful”.
Sheehan comes the roundabout way to comics from a Creative Writing MA at Swansea University to a 15-year career as an editor and copywriter (according to her site). She also participated in the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) 2023 Graphic Novel Intensive program, resulting in her short ‘Good Faith’ in the Push Pull anthology.
That all brings us to this “delightful” conceptual comic! Sheehan’s I Am Perfectly Normal starts out with the author’s stand-in sitting at her desk at work, depicted in a dreary gray pencils-only tone. When Lindsey leaves work to go to lunch the gray follows her, although the closer she gets to the park the more color seeps into the panels. As Lindsey approaches the entrances to the park it is bathed in a blinding light, passing through the entrance the panels explode into fully painted color! This moment of contentment is interrupted by a miscreant denizen of the park screaming at Lindsey…
The artwork snaps back to black and white, simplified linework denoting Lindsey’s mounting anxiety after being shocked out of her reverie. There is a, rare to alternative comics, double-page spread that literally maps out her emotions after this encounter. No spoilers, so you’ll have to buy the comic to find out where Hannibal Lecter and the Knife Angel statue (as mentioned in the solicit copy for the comic) come into play.
There are basically two types of fantasy: one dealing with magical worlds and one dealing with the idle daydreaming of the inner mind. Lindsey Sheehan’s I Am Perfectly Normal deals with the latter unlike very few other comics, as the fantasy takes a turn for the dark pulling the rug out from under our expectations.
Lindsey Sheehan (W/A) • LDComics Online Fair, £4.00
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.
