July Sunday Xtina

July, the Sunday of Xtina is a comic strip created by Monica

The Xtina comic strip follows the life of Xtina, a young museum assistant navigating the everyday realities of working life. Through her experiences, the strip captures the challenges, frustrations, friendships, and relationships that shape the life of a modern working woman in the twenty-first century.

 

Xtina — concept, artwork, and script by Monica.

From the introduction by Gianfranco Goria:

Here she is: Monica. I’ve been told she’s the daughter of an artist, and she certainly seems to have a natural affinity for the great American newspaper strip tradition—deceptively simple, remarkably effective, and notoriously difficult to master.

Her clean, economical line is perfectly suited to the web, yet works just as beautifully in print. These are strips to read lightly, rewarding the reader with a smile and, often, a thoughtful insight.

At the time of writing, Monica is only a few years older than her protagonist, XTINA, a nineteen-year-old museum employee confined to the information desk. That desk gives her financial independence and a measure of freedom, yet at the same time traps her in a routine from which she constantly escapes through imagination. (As a former white-collar office worker myself, I know exactly how she feels.)

Art reaches her desk every day, although perhaps not in the way she would have hoped. But Xtina isn’t the only one dreaming of something more. There’s also a young security guard who, for the moment, seems to be struggling just as hard to find what he’s looking for.

Still, there’s no reason to give up. Absolutely not. Life is only beginning. After all, every new year is a blank page waiting to be written… well… assuming it doesn’t end up in the wastebasket first.

I can easily imagine young women readers identifying with Xtina. I can also imagine their fathers recognizing—and perhaps discovering—their own daughters in her. And I find myself looking forward to the many strips still to come, wondering whether Xtina, too, will grow within her world of comic strips and eventually discover the good things in life that are waiting just around the corner.