iFanboy Upstarts: Blue Delliquanti

Minneapolis-based cartoonist Blue Delliquanti has made a career for herself in comics by doing a little bit of everything, and doing a lot of it. She’s currently working on her own serialized webcomic series O Human Star, but has also done a variety of short comics and even a graphic novel about South Carolina politics. Delliquanti’s work has the rounded, personalized linework that draws you in — but she compliments that by a thoroughly deliberate eye for detail when it comes to designs, landmarks and surroundings.

Delliquanti’s most recognized work to date is probably drawing the 2012 graphic novel The Accidental Candidate by political journalists David Axe and Corey Hutchins. It follows the unlikely ascent of an unemployed African-American army vet into the halls of the U.S. Senate, beating the Tea Party, The Republican Party and even his own Democratic Party. Delliquanti’s work really personalizes these potentially larger-than-life characters, but carries a layered story like an episode of The Wire and sorts through a variety of facts, figures and opinions.

As mentioned earlier, Delliquanti’s main work right now is her own series O Human Star. The series, which won a grant from Prism Comics Queer Press last year, follows a man named Alastair Sterling who discovers that he’s dead — and been living artificially as a robot for the past 16 years. That startling revelation leads him on a path to discover who killed him, who brought him back, and what they hope to gain out of it. O Human Star is chocked full of emotions but also robots, mixing dystopian futures with a humanizing look at technology.

I’ve collected together sample of Delliquanti’s work from both O Human Star and The Accidental Candidate, as well as her string of short stories and earlier works.  In addition to that, I’ve thrown in some amazing commissions the artist has done — maybe you’re in the market?