Charity Begins at Home: Hello How Are You, Tillie Walden?

Interviews Emily Rems | August 11, 2026 Charity & Sylvia (Drawn & Quarterly, 2026) by Tillie Walden The first indication of the level to which Tillie Walden's star has risen comes when I attempt to fact check the name of the little Vermont town where she currently lives with her wife, cartoonist Emma Hunsinger, and their son. “I’d prefer my town not be named,” she says via email from the studio she shares with Hunsinger. “My fans can get a little intense.” This kind of caution is not usually the case with graphic novelists, but Walden is not your average comics creator. A bona fide prodigy whose first breakout book, The End of Summer (2015), was released to critical acclaim when she was just 19 years old, Walden honed her craft at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. It was there, where she met Hunsinger, launched one of the most prolific and successful comics careers of her generation, and where she is now a teacher. Her award-winning YA releases over the last decade—including On a Sunbeam, Spinning, and The Walking Dead’s Clementine Trilogy—have made her an icon of millennial storytelling. But now, it seems, the world of adult concerns is calli...