2025 Eisner Award Nominee – Sunflowers by Keezy Young

Getting a comic made is no easy feat, but the greatest things in life never are. Even when you finish writing, the work is just beginning. This is on top of navigating the pressing matters in your life. For most of us, we can’t spend all of our time working on art. Keezy Young acknowledges this and how it relates to her mental health in her Eisner nominated, autobiographical comic, Sunflowers, released through Silver Sprocket.

Defining Bipolar Disorder

Young specifically deals with her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the mania it can cause. She starts by giving a definition of where mania can start, with hypomania. Defined as an episode of revved-up energy or activity level, it lasts about four days but can sometimes last longer, with more severe symptoms accompanying it.

Young, in raw passages, describes how mania affects her and what happens when she is manic. There is a euphoric part, but also a dark side. In these confessions, Young bares her soul, but also provides information about mania and the terminology for it’s different states.

Narrative Control

The narrative itself is compelling. Being able to control the pace in any medium can be tricky, especially in comics. Young’s use of vocabulary and the sizes of sentences and their corresponding dialogue boxes helps with the many differing speeds in this book.

LIST OF 2025 EISNER NOMINEES

Keezy Young’s art for Sunflowers isn’t the most conventional artwork you’d see in comics, but that’s the best part of it. There is a retro feel to the colors and imagery used, which is helped by references to classic bands such as the Mamas and the Papas and the Monkees. As expected, there are multiple renderings of sunflowers throughout the book.

Performance Art

This feels like performance art on the page. In some circles, I feel like the words “performance art” have a lot of stigma and baggage attached to them. We’ve all seen movies depicting that coffee shop where the outcasts hang out and perform in front of a sparse crowd. Throwing paint on a stage while cathartically letting out raw emotions and fits of screams juxtaposed with moments of silence. A lot of these slice-of-life autobiographical comics are that exact thing.

Overall grade: 8/10

I give this comic an 8/10. While comics have a way of transcending other media formats, they also have a way of evolving them. Keezy Young’s Sunflowers does both of these things well. Its raw, emotional, and informative storytelling told from a distinct yet relatable perspective. It may be short in pages, but it is big on emotion. Keezy Young’s nomination for Best Single Issue/One-shot is well-deserved.

It is available for here at purchase at the Silver Sprocket website.