Catana Chetwynd is from my neck of the woods - the part of New York that we all agree is actually "upstate," even if we draw the line as far north as Albany. (I tend to aim about Poughkeepsie, these days, maybe because I went to college there.) I want to say she's the most famous cartoonist from Saratoga Springs, but then I wonder if there isn't some 19th century racing-horse cartoonist I'm forgetting about. Still, at the very worst she's the second-most famous cartoonist from Saratoga Springs, and rising in the charts.
She's been publishing short-form cartoons - some single panels, but it looks like mostly newspaper-style longer sequences of panels (three or four a lot of the time, but plenty that run longer) - on various social media for about a decade. She has a website, which is probably the best way into her work these days.
And she's published five books of her cartoons, the most recent of which (beginning of this year) is Still Smitten. The books seem to have vague themes, but, reading between the lines, I think they're mostly just collections of Chetwynd's newer comics: those are her regular themes anyway.
These are cozy cartoons, focused on her home life and relationship with her partner John - and a bit about their two dogs. Very domestic, very comforting, very sweet. She's got a crisp, cartoony style that I think was influenced by Sarah Andersen - especially in the way Chetwynd draws eyes. She's definitely in that school of modern cartooning: women telling stories about their ordinary lives, a little goofy but mostly straightforward and honest, with an emphasis on specific moments and common experiences.
This book is sweet and fun, if maybe a little too focused on this one relationship. Chetwynd's comics are easy to read quickly - both her bold lettering and her clean, rounded figures - so I can see why they work well on social media. I might like to see if she does cartoons on slightly wider topics, but this is swell for what it is.
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