It Really Is

A Canadian winter takes its toll

Winter begins with good intentions—baking, flower arranging classes, and trips to the farmers market to keep fresh produce in the house. Despite these considerable efforts, something inside of Cole seems to go rotten every winter and stays that way until spring begins to peek up through the snow.

It Really Is is an auto-fiction comic based on the phenomenon of the winter slump, documenting the slow descent into a full-on winter-induced depression with humour, sensitivity, and talking geese.

“Degenstein’s distinct mark-making, his manner of moving from abstraction to realism, and his ability to communicate expansively with spare words, result in works that sit in their own realm of illustration, graphic novel, and poetry – stories that oscillate between tender depictions of intimacy, rural life, queerness, and domesticity.”
— Sasha Khalimonova, Montreal Review of Books

About the Author

Hailing from the prairies and based in Montréal, Cole Degenstein is an artist whose work takes form in illustration, comics, and bookmaking. Tenderness is at the core of his work, which centres itself in storytelling about intimacy, rural life, gay history, and domesticity.

Publication Details

ISBN: 9781772621037
96 pages, 4.25 x 6.25 inches
b&w, trade paper
October 2024