Von Allan was born red-headed and freckled in Arnprior, Ontario, just in time for Star Wars: A New Hope. The single child of two loving but troubled parents, Von split most of his childhood between their two homes and, consequently, spent a lot of time in the worlds of comics and wrestling. And, to be perfectly honest, what comics and piledrivers didn't teach him, science fiction did. He worked at a small independent bookstore in Ottawa for many years, all the while working on story ideas in his spare time-- eventually, he decided to make the leap to a creative life, and the road to god knows… was the result.

Von currently lives in Ottawa, Canada, with his writer/editor geek wife, Moggy; a husky dog, Rowen; and two feisty cats, Bonny and Reilly. Von is just finishing his first original graphic novel, the road to god knows..., and he will be starting work on his second novel in the very near future.

The road to god knows... originally serialized online at GirlAMatic and is now archived online right here.

The road to god knows... is the story of Marie, a teenage girl coming to grips with her Mom’s schizophrenia. There’s no handbook, no guide to help her deal with what life throws at her. As a result, she’s struggling to grow up fast; wrestling with poverty, loneliness, and her Mom’s illness every step of the way.

Betty, Marie’s Mom, can’t help; she’s living with an illness that’s slowly getting worse and increasingly frightening, and she just doesn’t have the resources left over at the end of the day to help Marie. With her Mom absorbed in her own problems, Marie is essentially alone while she learns to deal with the chaos in her young life.

Marie’s youth makes it that much harder for her to cope—as a teenager, she just doesn’t have the life experience to feel confident about her decisions. At the start of the story, we see a scared young girl, uncertain and overwhelmed, but as Betty collapses into a full nervous breakdown, Marie is forced to examine herself and her life and come to a decision: does she continue to be a child, reacting to what’s happening around her? Or does she take control of her life, come what may?

In the end, galvanized by a positive event that she orchestrated herself, Marie makes a bold decision about the direction of her life—she chooses to control her destiny and grow up. By the last page of the story, we see the makings of a confident young woman, determined to counter every punch that life throws at her.

An early review of the Advance Reader Copy can be found at Sequential Tart

Blog: My Livejournal Blog

Web: My main website with art samples and such!

The road to god knows... is tentatively scheduled for 2009. ISBN 0-9781237-0-0 (ISBN-13 978-0-9781237-0-3)


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