LDCOMICS ONLINE FAIR! Beatrijs Brouwer (aka Beastly Worlds) has been building up quite the profile for her beautifully illustrated fantasy comics. It was in no small part thanks to the championing of her work by Broken Frontier’s Lydia Turner last year at BF that I decided to include her in the 2025 iteration of our annual ‘Six to Watch’ programme. Her visuals are magical, entrancing, rife with imagination, and yet curiously relatable and recognisable at the same time. This month, as part of the LDComics Online Fair, we have a new Beastly Worlds comic to enjoy as she takes us on a journey across the Shimmer Paths.
The star of this comic is a young kitten called Kibbeling who lives with his owners Pieter and Raymond. When an otherworldly serpent-like creature opens a strange mystical rift in their apartment Kibbeling is thrown into another world. Here he meets another cat called Kroket. Together the two begin a weird journey to return home by way of the shimmer paths that allow them to traverse different dimensions. On the way they will pass through lands where cats are worshipped, where they rule, and where giant mice prey on them. Some are terrifying, some are hallucinogenic, and some seem oddly parallel. Can the pair retain their nine lives and finally get Kibbeling back to Pieter and Raymond?
On a superficial level Shimmer Paths feels like simply a fun fantasy romp; an uncomplicated quest storyline that serves to showcase Brouwer’s gorgeous artwork and fertile creativity. It’s far more than that, though, when you start considering it in more depth. There’s a whole thematic layer about friendship and support as the two feline co-stars face the ordeals that await them. And also an exploration of adapting to change and accepting life’s challenges. There’s an especially sweet coda to the story that reminds us to consider all possibilities before we make rash judgements about people.
The artwork here is sublime. Brouwer works in watercolours and inks, using colour effectively to capture the tone and realities of each of the mystical realms the characters visit. In that regard the world-building here is wonderful and the only regret is that we feel like our stay in each dimension is so short that we could all benefit from another trip through the Shimmer Paths and these strange environments that we are invited to get lost within.
Joyful, hypnotic in its illustrative pull, and with a nuanced message or two to impart, Shimmer Paths underlines exactly why Beastly Worlds is a creator to watch, and to watch very closely…
Beatrijs Brouwer/Beastly Worlds (W/A) • LDComics Online Fair, £9.00
Review by Andy Oliver
The LDComics Online Comics Fair runs across the month of July. Read all our coverage of the comics on offer here at BF.
