Canopus by Dave Chisholm

12.45am, 13th March 2022, Montréal, Québec

I finished reading a fucking intense novel at 12 o’clock, and needing to unwind I decided to pick up the comic book/graphic novel I had in my suitcase, rather than dive into a film.

It turns out the writer/artist Dave Chisholm is also a jazz musician and educator, with a sprawling back catalogue of music and writing and artwork.

I bought this book because of its title and because of its title only: I was hoping this would transport me, somehow, back to the world of Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos: Archives, but it didn’t, instead it was (to summarise) a trippier mash-up of the blockbuster sci-fi psychological thrillers Moon by David Bowie’s son and Interstellar by the guy that made Inception.

It’s about a woman who wakes up with amnesia on a distant planet, slowly realising she is on an essential mission to save Earth, surrounded by monsters and troubled by memories.

It’s fun, it’s good, it uses the page and framing in a really interesting way to convey passage of time and flashbacks, and though it does deal in some classic sci-fi genre tropes, it acknowledges this by having the protagonist discuss how her situation is clichéd at the story’s opening. It may not be the world’s most original concept, but it’s definitely a fresh, engaging version of the existentialist solo space explorer narrative, hitting up themes of mortality, humanity and hope in the face of hopelessness.

It looks good, and it functioned as a suitable – lighter – palate cleanser following the bleak, harrowing ending of the novel I finished a few minutes earlier.

Nothing more to add, just a little post!

More info & links to purchase from Chisholm’s website here!