Keezy Young

Keezy Young makes comics that feel like discovered artifacts — suffused with retro warmth, late-summer light, and the ache of being alive. They first gained a devoted readership with Taproot (Oni Press, 2017, re-released 2022), a queer supernatural romance about a young gardener who can see ghosts and the charming specter who’s been haunting him for years. Blending gentle horror with tender queer longing, Taproot became a word-of-mouth sensation and established Young’s signature: emotionally generous storytelling wrapped in deceptively simple, lushly colored art.

Their 2024 release Sunflowers, published by Silver Sprocket, is an autobiographical short comic about living with bipolar I disorder. Across 24 full-color pages, Young traces the arc from mania to depression to the fragile balance of everyday life — using sunflowers, retro pop culture (the Mamas and the Papas, the Monkees), and subtle horror imagery to give form to the experience. It’s the kind of comic that makes you feel seen. The book earned nominations for the 2025 Eisner Award (Best Single Issue/One-Shot) and the 2025 Ignatz Award (Outstanding Comic), won the 2025 Graphic Medicine Award, and drew glowing reviews. As Andy Oliver of Broken Frontier put it: “Undoubtedly one of the finest comics to have come out from Silver Sprocket to date.”

Young’s forthcoming graphic novel Hello Sunshine (Little, Brown, September 2025) shifts into queer horror: a missing teenager named Alex who had a breakdown before he vanished, his friends and brother searching for answers as eerie things begin to happen. They’re also at work on a full-length follow-up to Taproot. Young’s short comics have appeared in anthologies and they speak frequently about career, craft, and mental health in interviews.

Perfect for fans of Tillie Walden’s Spinning, Noelle Stevenson’s The Fire Never Goes Out, and ND Stevenson’s queer supernatural storytelling — autobio and genre comics with deep emotional intelligence.

Explore Keezy Young’s comics: Sunflowers, Taproot.