SUPER SECRET CLUE: Fans of Yee’s urban gothic webcomic The World in Deeper Introspection will want to keep their eyes peeled for a special cameo appearance by a certain Jersey Devil detective… While autumn and the approaching Halloween season are an excellent time of year to enjoy this spooky but sweet middle grade graphic novel, Séance Tea Party is a gorgeous comic that you’ll want to return to again and again, no matter what the season. There are gutter-free splash pages that will leave you breathless, while other pages feature gutters crammed with adorable drawings – and all of it is intentional.Īs Yee told The Beat in an interview earlier this month, everything about the page layouts has been considered and designed to convey additional layers of meaning.Īnd like other RH Graphic books, Séance Tea Party includes some stellar back material, including the 2016 artwork that inspired the graphic novel, glimpses into the creative development of the comic, and details concerning the raw materials Yee used to create Lora, Alexa, and Diana’s world. Taking inspiration from vintage Halloween artwork, every page of this graphic novel is something to behold. It is impossible to read Séance Tea Party without marveling at Yee’s craftsmanship, both narratively and aesthetically.
It’s an important message, and for certain young readers, it will undoubtedly be a message that they need to hear. Ultimately, Lora is able to learn how she can lay personal claim to some of the trappings of adulthood that she had previously found alienating, and this results in an empowering self-actualization by the comic’s conclusion. Instead, the story takes the time to consider Lora’s feelings, and then allows her to navigate them in an earnest, honest way. While some stories that concern characters that are reticent to grow up culminate with perfunctory conclusions, Séance Tea Party is not content with surface-level solutions. Thoughtful meditations on meaningful themesĪnd the themes of Séance Tea Party are certainly worth considering. Without spoiling too much of the narrative, suffice to say that Diana’s introduction into the narrative provides an essential additional perspective that allows the themes of the story to fully bloom. Rounding out the dramatis personae is Diana, who is Alexa’s childhood friend. While Lora is hesitant, Alexa encourages her to open up to her friends about the topics that Lora is actually interested in, and in the process, Lora ends up forging the foundations of genuine friendship – and complicating her presumption that she had no interests in common with her friends.
Soon after Lora has summoned Alexa, the pair decides to trick or treat together, and coincidence leads them to connect with one of Lora’s estranged friends, who is having her own party. Interesting relationships between characters
This leads to plenty of interesting scenes that give us glimpses of how a ghost reacts to a tablet as well as plot-relevant revelations about Alexa’s life. Séance Tea Party does a particularly excellent job of anticipating the questions which readers will have surrounding the supernatural elements of the story and then thoroughly exploring them. The endeavor is an unequivocal success, and Lora meets and befriends Alexa, the ghost she summoned. When her closest friend allows Lora’s twelfth birthday – the day before Halloween – to go unremarked, Lora resolves to conduct her own séance and summon a new friend (well, what do you expect from a scorned Scorpio).
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