If you haven’t, this book doesn’t sugar-coat the journey. If you’ve been in that headspace yourself, you know what it took to get there.

Existing on the social, economic, sexual, and even philosophical margins, the notion of security is becoming increasingly alien to her : she identifies as female but presents as either gender depending on her “take” on a given situation she makes ends meet (or, perhaps more accurately, attempts to) as a sex worker she flirts with nihilism and suicidal ideation in a matter-of-fact, almost casual way, even remarking at one point that she’s arrived at a place in her mind where her “life doesn’t mean that much to me anymore.” Nothing about protagonist Felina’s life in Seattle is easy. Part character study, part monologue, part “funny animal” narrative, part gut-punch, this is a book you’re guaranteed to read more than once - in your first sit-down with it. If 2017 was the “year of the woman” in comics - and I would contend that, thanks to the exemplary efforts of Emil Ferris, Eleanor Davis, Mimi Pond, Gabrielle Bell, Jillian Tamaki, Sophia Foster-Dimino, November Garcia, Annie Koyama, and numerous others, it most certainly was - then 2018 may just prove to be the “year of the trans woman.” We’ve already had Tommi Parrish’s incredible graphic novel The Lie And How We Told It, a bold and confident statement of artistic intent that has elevated Parrish into the top tier of contemporary cartoonists, and just a couple of months on from that comes The Pervert, a collection of collaborative strips by writer Michelle Perez and artist Remy Boydell, originally serialized in Brandon Graham’s Island anthology, that gain new weight and heft and import when presented in their entirety, as Image Comics has done here.

The Pervert by Michelle Perez