Fantasy worlds are often shaped by ancient kingdoms, secret orders, and carefully balanced power struggles. But in Serpent, illustrator and comic artist Yael Nathan, better known online as Ygramul, uses that familiar framework to tell a different kind of coming-of-age story, one centered on women.
The webcomic follows a young girl born into a rigid society where women have little control over their own futures. Determined to forge her own path, she joins a mysterious guild and is drawn into a world governed by strict traditions, dangerous rivalries, and complex hierarchies.
Nathan has said she created Serpent after realizing that many fantasy stories she loved growing up, even those with female protagonists, still revolved around predominantly male worlds. Wanting to challenge that pattern, she built a richly imagined universe populated by women with distinct personalities, ambitions, and roles, allowing them to occupy every level of the story rather than the margins.
