By Juan Calvillo
“In Love & Pajamas” author and artist Catana Chetwynd uses cute comic strip drawings and funny situations to showcase the theme of loving others.
The book is 50% of Chetwynd’s Instagram comics which chronicles her relationship with her fiancé.
The other half is entirely new drawings that follow the theme of loving someone, despite their quirks.
She uses common, everyday scenes, to illustrate the different ways love affects relationships.
While the book may rely on Chetwynd’s relationship for effect, it’s not hard to see how these situations can translate into most other relationships.
One such strip shows Chetwynd’s character searching for her snacks only to come to the realization her fiancé has already taken them.
In today’s COVID-19 environment of living, it seems inevitable for this to happen, especially with family and siblings.
Yet the truth remains that despite the transgression, families still care and love each other.
Taking a family member’s snacks is not really all that bad. It’s moments like these that put people’s flaws on display.
This is when love of others allows people to look past a situation and still love their family or partner.
This is not to say that the book’s panels all translate into familial situations.
Some of the scenes Chetwynd has included in her novel are the epitome of relationship situations.
Most of these comics come from moments that are uniquely from a pair in love.
Scenes showing this best are usually devoid of speech bubbles or any writing at all.
They consist of Chetwynd’s character hugging or marveling at her fiancé while he is doing physical activities. It’s the sense that admiring a partner, or needing a partners touch is essential to having a good day.
Chetwynd’s book asks people to simply go with it and appreciate love in all its forms.
This message of loving partners and people despite their flaws springs off of every beautifully drawn page.
Chetwynd has an effective and expressive style of art. Clean and precise characters show happiness and anger in an almost animated cartoon style.
The art style makes flipping page after page fun, with a constant happy surprise at how much can be conveyed with such a clean style. Scenes focusing on distance between the characters is always a laugh.
Readers will assume the pair is far away but, as the panels show, they reveal that it becomes a hysterical observation on COVID-19 living arrangements.
At 126 pages of an average four-panel comic, “In Love & Pajamas” is short but entertaining.
With such an important and insightful message, this book is a must-read for those who may not be as appreciative of their current situations. The author explains her message perfectly in her introduction.
“Being yourself with your partner, and embracing your partner’s quirks, is such an important part of a relationship and is the very foundation for all the moments,” Chetwynd said.
In today’s climate, this feel can easily include all relationships that people create and maintain.