Check Out This Exclusive Look Inside Katie Cook’s Nothing Special: Through the Elder Woods

Sketches and interior art from Katie Cook’s new graphic novel!

March 1, 2024, 5:24pm

Nothing Special: Through the Elder Woods is coming soon, and ComicBook.com has an exclusive look inside the graphic novel — the first in a new series from cartoonist Katie Cook, which is coming to book and comic book stores from Ten Speed Graphic. The book is set for release on March 5, so get your preorders in now if you want to be able to start the series with the rest of fandom in the early weeks of release. To tease what’s coming, Cook has provided ComicBook.com with some interior pages, as well as a look at the cover and some concept sketches, from pencil through to basically completed work.

Videos by ComicBook.com

Nothing Special, which has been released as strips at Webtoon since 2016, introduces fans to Callie, a teen who has struggled to find her place in the world due to her father’s job. Callie’s father is an antique collector, which doesn’t sound that chaotic until you realize that he only collects antiques in the spirit world. Since she spends half of her time in each realm, she’s had a hard time adjusting, that is until her father disappears in the spirit realm, and it falls on her to find him.

“It’s a story about adventure, family, magic, budding friendships, and about finding out who you are and where you fit in in life,” Cook said at the time of its launch. “Crazy, right? I can’t wait to share Callie’s story with everyone.”

Here’s how the publisher describes Nothing Special: Through the Elder Woods:

Two not-so-human teenagers and a friendly ghost radish face the fantasy adventure of a lifetime in this captivating graphic novel, featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes material, from the inimitable Katie Cook.

In the grand scheme of the worlds at large, Callie thinks she’s nothing special. Sure, she’s friends with the ghost of a radish and her dad owns a magical antique shop–but she’s spent her life in the human world. Her dad won’t let her join him on his collection trips in the magical realm “for her own protection”, so she’s only caught glimpses of that world through the gates of the town where her father’s store is.

On her seventeenth birthday, Callie goes home with her friend Declan to find her home in disarray and her dad missing. Signs of a struggle point to the portal to the magical realm and when there are signs, you follow them. Now it’s up to Callie, Declan, and Radish to band together and bring him home. As they face creatures good and bad, and all sorts of adventure, Callie and Declan may just find out that they are both special in their own ways after all.

The first season of mayhem, magic, vegetables and adventure from Katie Cook’s beloved Webtoon, Nothing Special, is collected in this gorgeous graphic novel, which also features exclusive behind-the-scenes content.