The Field

“Dave Lapp's "The Field" is deceptively simple,” noted the judges. “Drawn with minimalistic black and white cartoon images, it's about neighborhood kids doing their best to entertain themselves throughout a long summer... Yet darkness and cruelty are constantly at the edges of their lives... The pacing is slow and methodical but never dull, allowing for subtlety and nuance in the story. The simplicity of the art evokes the worldview of a child while being well-crafted and precise. By interspersing high-stakes moments with the utterly mundane, Lapp doesn't merely present a sentimental story of a distant past; instead, he recreates childhood in a way that the reader becomes fully immersed and experiences what it's like to be a kid again.”