The Artist
Morgan Bryn Lees is a nonbinary comic creator, writer, and artist who grew up in Michigan, USA. After spending many years in the theatre, including time designing lighting and sound, designing makeup, and directing plays, they switched their focus to writing and comics. They have completed one webcomic, Corner the Maze, which is available online and in print through self-publishing, and have written two novels set in the same universe that they're seeking representation for.
When not working, Morgan enjoys playing and running roleplaying games, playing computer games, reading, racing karts and sim racing, hiking, photography, and cycling. They also work part-time as a web designer and study historical martial arts.
If you want to keep up with other things Morgan is doing, they can be found at Tumblr, Bluesky, Mastodon, Cara and their newsletter/blog.
The Comic
Rowan Monaghan knows they must hide their non-human heritage. But when their mother vanishes into the shadow-wood, they choose seeking her over safety, setting them on a collision course with the darkest of family secrets and finding out who their true friends are.
Since the Darkening, humanity has persisted in isolated cities lit by the Beacons which keep at bay the reaching branches and twisted creatures of thorn and vine that roam a land cloaked in perpetual twilight. The seas and oceans are safe from the darklings, and so cities accessible from the same waterways have banded together against the fearsome creatures of the eternal night.
Before the Darkening, humans existed at peace with faeries and the other supernatural beings that lived on the Earth. Wise people learned from the non-humans among them, and some of the more human-like beings lived with humans and mingled freely. The Darkening shattered that peace. Humans blamed faeries for the tooth-filled shadows that ravened over the world; forests filled with twisting thorn-covered vines and branches and glittering with hostile eyes. Faeries blamed humans for despoiling nature’s gifts and bringing the wrath of the Earth down on them, and retreated into their hollows and hills, no longer friendly to humans they encountered.
At first the shadow-wood of the Darkening spread only through wilder areas, but soon enough it swallowed farms, towns, and cities. Attempts to drive the woods back only seemed to make things worse: modern technology began to fail, wiping out decades of progress and leaving humanity reliant on the small magics they’d learned before the Darkening. Great magical lamps known as the Beacons were erected to keep the nightmares of the shadow-wood at bay, tended by the Lightkeepers – the only humans bold enough to venture out into the Darkened lands and bring back what was needed to keep the Beacons running.