Technical Metadata
Title: Mormon Ladybug
Format/Genre: Adult Graphic Memoir
Page Count/Word Count: 224 pages/ Approx. 17,000 words
Status: Complete (Manuscript and Artwork)
Target Audience: Readers of The Arab of the Future, Dendo, and Wilson
Format/Genre: Adult Graphic Memoir
Page Count/Word Count: 224 pages/ Approx. 17,000 words
Status: Complete (Manuscript and Artwork)
Target Audience: Readers of The Arab of the Future, Dendo, and Wilson
Overview & Visual Approach
Mormon Ladybug explores the psychological cost of losing oneself to institutional demands of obedience and loyalty, and the messy path toward reclaiming personal autonomy. Set against the backdrop of the mid-1990s AIDS epidemic, homelessness, and structural racism of the California Bay Area, the narrative follows a naïve nineteen-year-old protagonist who finds his efforts to save souls by way of institutional control inadequate and isolating, leading to a deeper lesson of love by way of letting go.
The graphic novel utilizes a precise architectural framework: an overarching visual metaphor of a ladybug captured in a jar alongside a shifting monochromatic color palette charting the protagonist’s psychological state. The color transitions express different emotional states experienced by the protagonist, which coincide with the alternating external spaces and relationships he is forced to work within.
Narrative Breakdown
Part I: Disruption and Displacement (Lavender and Orange)
The memoir opens with a full-page, borderless splash of a lone ladybug flying above the flowers and bushes into the open sky, which quickly transitions into an innocent lavender palette as a young Konden captures the ladybug and seals it into a glass jar. It dies in captivity. Raised in the highly insular, generational religious culture of suburban Utah, Konden is taught the importance of prophetic voices who warn against belonging to the wicked world and its imminent destruction. The repetitive nature of these religious messages through semi-annual television broadcasts encourages the internalization of this religious mandate to offer salvation from this impending doom. While still wearing his high school graduation gown, Konden’s life is upended with a letter from church headquarters, calling him to serve a mandatory mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in San Francisco and Oakland. In a striking visual cue, the shadow of a giant hand reaches down to pluck him up, directly mirroring his childhood capture of the ladybug.
The aesthetic abruptly shifts to a rigid, institutional orange palette as Konden enters the walled-off Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. It is here where Konden is transformed into Elder Smith, donning the familiar black name tag, short hair, and business suit and tie. Within the heavily regulated and surveilled environment, the psychological demands are normalized as Elder Smith is surrounded by hundreds of similarly disoriented missionaries. By the end of this month-long rigorous indoctrination, Elder Smith’s worldview has been reframed through an institutional lens as he boards a plane for Oakland.
Part II: Anxiety, Ridicule, and Fanaticism (Grays, Blues, and Pinks)
In a new green color palette representing the newness of missionary life, Elder Smith is thrust onto the chaotic streets of downtown San Francisco, armed with church pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon. Elder Smith’s sense of divine purpose and religious mission quickly clash with the realities of those suffering from the AIDS epidemic, poverty, mental health crises, and structural racism. As a means of breaking up the monochromatic color palette, fully colored pages interrupt the text about every 20 pages, better positioning Elder Smith within his new urban environment.
After a call from the mission president, Elder Smith is sent to Oakland with another companion, where the color palette shifts to depressive gray tones, as his desire to follow missionary rules with exactness is suppressed by his new companion’s lack of dedication to the work. A strong contrast is then drawn as Elder Smith returns to San Francisco with a more zealous companion, Elder Skelter. In this new burst of over-enthusiasm, Elder Smith and Skelter attempt to convert Catholic priests and set all-time mission records. Despite these efforts, messages by Church authorities connect such efforts to missionary success that never materializes, inspiring conversations about personal autonomy and institutional conformism.
Part III: Burnout and Reclamation (Orange and Yellow)
In the last part of his mission in a suburb of Oakland, Elder Smith completely surrenders to the conformist ideals of missionary life, symbolized by his newly parted hairstyle. Now on a bicycle, Elder Smith is repeatedly a target of ridicule, which entrenches him deeper into this perceived divergence from the wicked world, believing that all opposition is merely an effort from a petty satanic force offended by missionaries. Consequently, Elder Smith commits to the missionary model of exact obedience, which serves to further isolate him from the world around him.
The final stretch of his mission is defined by an orange color palette, visually coding his mournful sense of lost youth and missionary burnout. Elder Smith is assured by church leaders that his sacrifice is worth it, and is told to instead translate that anxiety into greater obedience and institutional submission, inspiring a deeper sense of alienation. The breaking point occurs when Elder Smith argues with a ward member over the importance of church obedience, just as a ladybug lands on his suit jacket. In a point of symbolic crisis that reveals Elder Smith’s fanaticism, he grabs the ladybug and smashes it. This is a moment betraying his sense of individual autonomy for the collective order, but one that from then on haunts him.
The narrative concludes two years later as Elder Smith finally flies home and is formally released as a missionary. Dropped back into secular society, the transition is jarring: his own birth name sounds foreign, his civilian clothes feel wrong, and his disconnect with the world feels increasingly isolating. Recognizing a deep sense of ignorance of the world he had long demonized, Konden pursues a formal education, which deeply challenges his views. The book culminates in an expansive, clear yellow and light blue palette as an adult Konden stands with his young daughter. When she discovers a ladybug, rather than trapping it, they watch it fly away together. In a perfect visual mirror of the opening layout, the final borderless splash page follows the ladybug ascending high above the horizon—signaling that it is only through the difficult act of letting go that Konden can truly see the world, achieving genuine peace and personal freedom.