Tillie Walden

Tillie Walden (born 1996) is an American cartoonist who has published several graphic novels and a webcomic. Walden won the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for her graphic novel Spinning, making her one of the youngest Eisner Award winners ever.

Early life Walden grew up in New Jersey and Austin, Texas. She was a competitive figure skater.

Walden is named after her paternal grandmother, an artist who died before Walden was born. Walden's first comic was a black-and-white comic "about never knowing her [grandmother] but following in her footsteps. A workshop led by Scott McCloud was a major turning point in her career; it "really inspired [her] to draw some comics, and around this time [she] was also becoming increasingly bored with fine art."

Growing up, Walden read a lot of manga, which had an influence on her work, in particular the art of Yoshihiro Togashi, Osamu Tezuka, and Rumiko Takahashi. Walden has also said, "Studio Ghibli has completely shaped my visual vocabulary and how I think about stories."

Her second graphic novel, I Love This Part, was published by Avery Hill in November 2015 and tells the story of two teenage girls who fall in love.

Walden's third graphic novel, A City Inside, was published by Avery Hill in 2016. It won the 2016 Broken Frontier Award for Best One-Shot.

Spinning, Walden's first graphic novel memoir about her years as a competitive ice skater, was published by First Second Books in September 2017. Originally, Spinning was Walden's thesis work for the Center for Cartoon Studies during her second year of schooling there.

Walden's On a Sunbeam, a science fiction webcomic, was nominated for the 2017 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic. The webcomic was adapted into a graphic novel that was released in October 2018 by First Second Books, with the UK edition published by Avery Hill Publishing. Set in space, the story revolves around a crew in charge of restoring old structures. As Mia, the newest member, gets to know her team, in the present timeline, a flashback occurs to her past at school, where she fell in love with another student named Grace. The graphic novel won the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

To commemorate International Women's Day, Walden's piece "Minutes" was featured as a Google Doodle on March 8, 2018.

In 2019, Walden published Are You Listening? from First Second Books, which earned her the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album-New.

In 2020, Walden published Alone in Space: A Collection, which compiled her previously published I Love This Part and A City Inside, as well as several previously unpublished comics, sketches, and works from magazines, including her piece What It's Like To Be Gay In An All-Girls Middle School.

In 2021, Walden was approached by Skybound to write a trilogy of graphic novels centering on Clementine from The Walking Dead. Clementine: Book One was released in 2022, Book Two in 2023, while Book Three was released in 2025.

In 2022, Walden and Emma Hunsinger published My Parents Won't Stop Talking! from First Second Books.

In 2023, Walden illustrated the graphic novel Junior High, written by Tegan and Sara. A sequel, Crush was published in 2024.

In May 2024, Walden took up residency at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History to write a graphic novel about the relationship between Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant. The Sheldon Museum has many records from the couple, which Walden used to write the novel. The project was commissioned by Vermont Humanities and the Vermont branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The book was released in June 2026 from Drawn & Quarterly, entitled Charity and Sylvia. On June 29, 2026, historian Rachel Hope Cleves stated on social media that while she appreciated Walden's graphic novel, Walden had not adequately acknowledged that the graphic novel was based upon her book with a similar name (Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America), and had adapted it "without credit or compensation", laiming Cleves' research "for her own". She said she was disappointed that Walden's media appearances will make her book "harder for readers to find, not easier, and diminish its... enormously positive impact." She later told Comics Beat that she wanted Walden's publisher, Drawn & Quarterly, to give her the option for the adaptation and to "co-credit her, with appropriate compensation." In a statement on July 2, Drawn & Quarterly defended Walden and her research, and noted that Walden had cited Cleves. Cleves responded that the graphic novel was an uncredited adaptation for which Walden and D&W should acknowledge, with appropriate compensation, rather than "profiting off eight years" of her labor, as she stated on social media. Before she came out, Walden avoided including queer characters in her stories, feeling that she "couldn't draw openly gay characters if [she] was still scared to be openly gay." On October 4, 2023, the same day as Clementine: Book Two was released, Walden gave birth to her and Hunsinger's first son, Walter. Walden has two cats named Stanley and Tatiana. Published works

The End of Summer (Avery Hill Publishing 2015) I Love This Part (Avery Hill Publishing 2015) A City Inside (Avery Hill Publishing 2016) Spinning (First Second Books 2017) Mini Meditations on Creativity (Liminal 11, 2018) On a Sunbeam (First Second Books 2018) Are You Listening? (First Second Books 2020) Alone in Space (Avery Hill Publishing 2021) Junior High by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2023) Clementine: Book Two (Image / Skybound 2023) Crush by Tegan Quin & Sara Quin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2024) Clementine: Book Three (Image / Skybound 2025) Charity and Sylvia (Drawn & Quarterly, 2026)

Awards

Broken Frontier, 2016 – A City Inside Ignatz Award, 2016 –The End of Summer Ignatz Award, 2016, Outstanding Artist – The End of Summer Ignatz Award, 2016, Promising New Talent – I Love This Part Eisner Award, 2018, Best Reality-Based Work – Spinning Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 2018 – On A Sunbeam Eisner Award, 2020, Best Graphic Album-New – Are You Listening?