Unrequited love, underage drinking, and teen angst rule at a high school for mutants and witches

The New York Times and New Yorker illustrator Jillian Tamaki is best known for co-creating the award-winning young adult graphic novels Skim and This One Summer--moody and atmospheric bestsellers. SuperMutant Magic Academy, which she has been serializing online for the past four years, paints a teenaged world filled with just as much ennui and uncertainty, but also with a sharp dose of humor and irreverence. Tamaki deftly plays superhero and high-school Hollywood tropes against what adolescence is really like: The SuperMutant Magic Academy is a prep school for mutants and witches, but their paranormal abilities take a backseat to everyday teen concerns.
Science experiments go awry, bake sales are upstaged, and the new kid at school is a cat who will determine the course of human destiny. In one strip, lizard-headed Trixie frets about her nonexistent modeling career; in another, the immortal Everlasting Boy tries to escape this mortal coil to no avail. Throughout it all, closeted Marsha obsesses about her unrequited crush, the cat-eared Wendy. Whether the magic is mundane or miraculous, Tamaki's jokes are precise and devastating.
SuperMutant Magic Academy has won two Ignatz Awards. This volume combines the most popular content from the webcomic with a selection of all-new, never-before-seen strips that conclude Tamaki's account of life at the academy.

Author: Jillian Tamaki
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Published: 04/28/2015
Pages: 224
Weight: 1.5lbs
Size: 8.40h x 6.10w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781770461987
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/06/2015
Booklist 04/15/2015 pg. 40
School Library Journal 05/01/2015 pg. 128
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/02/2015 pg. 40

About the Author

Jillian Tamaki is a Canadian illustrator and cartoonist living in Brooklyn, New York. Her illustrations have won gold medals from the Society of Illustrators and the Society of Publication Designers. Tamaki is the co-creator of the graphic novel Skim, which was listed as a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2008 and was nominated for four Eisner Awards and a Governor General's Literary Award. This One Summer, her second co-authored work with Mariko Tamaki, was published in mid-2014 and spent more than a month on the New York Times bestseller list. Her two books of personal work are Gilded Lilies and Indoor Voice.