Long absence, small press and three little girls

[ed_rex]

The prodigal blogs!

Truly, April was the cruelest month!

It's a little hard to believe how far I have fallen as a Livejournaler (Dreamwidther?). Oh hell, call it personal blogger and be done with it.

I have been extremely busy. The driving gig alone saw me hit Montreal 13 times in the span of two weeks, along with a trip to Trois Rivières in the same period. And I've been struggling with the Mystery Ghost-Writing gig, as well as a long-form debate about socio-biology (I am, largely, fer it) when time allowed.

And of course, prettying up True North on a weekly basis and trying to give my sweetie the attention she deserves have also kept me on my proverbial toes.

And I have, finally, finished a review of the conclusion of Ottawa indie cartoonist Von Allan's children's fantasy, Stargazer. I bought the book back in December, if memory serves, finally read it about a month ago, and have (yes, 'finally') finished typing up my thoughts. (And Von, if it's any consolation, I bought a copy of Eddie Campbell's The Years Have Pants in January and haven't read even half of it yet. Of course, if you'd comped me, I would have felt obliged to be speedier ... But I digress.)

A black and white comic book featuring three pre-pubescent girls in the role of unlikely heroines, Stargazer features a Magic Doorway in the tradition of Alice's rabbit-hole and Narnia's wardrobe (and the Starship Enterprise's warp drive, for that matter).

What I called a "gentle adventure" in my review of the first volume of the story, proves in its second and concluding chapter to be considerably more than that.

What seemed to be turning into an exercise in that hoary old "And then she woke up!" cliché becomes something very different — and very memorable — by the time the story is over.

A little rough-hewn, Stargazer nevertheless has considerable virtues. This story of friendship and loss just might be a gateway drug to comics for that young boy or (especially) girl in your life — but keep a kleenex handy. My full review is at my site: The monster, the robot and the Artifact".