A lot of her major works focus on adolescents; particularly young girls who are questioning their own place within the surroundings they find themselves in. A few of the characters that Tamaki draws also deal with their own queer identities, closeting their own selves due to the naivety of the people around them and the unsure nature of genuine acceptance.
Many characters in Tamaki’s work embody these traits: from Kim Cameron, who is called Skim as a nickname by her friends, finds solace in witchcraft (a common attribute to Tamaki’s work) and comfort in a teacher’s friendliness; Windy in This One Summer as a good friend of the main character Rose whom only see each other when their families vacation at their cottages; and Marsha from Supermutant whose outspoken nature comes out during her friends’ D&D games but is withheld from opening up about her feelings on her best friend.
Jillian’s cousin Mariko writes some very free flowing scripts for both Skim and This One Summer, with Jillian’s own writing during the webcomic run of Supermutant and other short works; the true emotion of the titles comes out within the pencil work. Tamaki’s penciling is so gorgeous, one can even see the maturity to her style transition from Skim to This One Summer. Skim features a more stark black and white composition with some particularly stand out pages that are free from the restraints of the smaller frames; it really feels like the black and white style is suitable as an understanding of the world around the high school students, with the occasional feeling of freedom when Skim finds herself in the nearby forest or in the comfort of her room. This One Summer has a blue tinge to the pencil work, giving a real warm tone to the overall graphic novel, with some very wide, sprawling frames when the beach or sky are of particular focus. The sense of space is captured so well within both Skim and This One Summer.
The real impressive thing about Tamaki is, and not to belittle the great writing, is the ability to draw facial and bodily expressions that speak volumes about the emotions felt by each character. Seeing Skim react, open-eyed, arms tight to her body, timid, after realizing her teacher, Ms. Archer, is the only person that she could open up to and perhaps not feel like an outsider, yet, Skim cannot find the words; that can all be felt within the images in the frames. Windy’s face from Summer is so expressive when she is talking about a variety of topics to Rose (from her lesbian aunts to the horror movies they watch together) and with the way she dances so freely, without the need to sing along. A conflicting balance can be seen when Windy speaks about her questioning sexuality from a distance, in which Windy is hopeful for a warming curiosity by Rose but when Windy dances, without words, Tamaki shows Windy free, as herself, without any care of being judged, if just but for those few moments.
There are many things that can be said about Jillian Tamaki’s work, with each of her graphic novels and individual smaller works, deserving of their own focused feature. Respectively, Tamaki’s work needs to be read and absorbed to get a true understanding of the poetic nature of her pencil work, by getting lost in the nuanced images and words on a smaller, personal, individual level, extending towards a larger, collective, conflicting identity. These works also belong on the curriculum for high schools in this day and age, hopefully finding comfort on the desks of those that feel conflicted and perhaps overwhelmed by their peers and the world around them. The sorrows that one faces, both interior and exterior, requires a bonus dash of humour to make the absurd reality around us more evident, in order to recognize ourselves and others under the same blue sky.