Battling the 'Man Flu'...

One should never be subjected to illness while one is on annual leave from one's profession.    But that is the situation I have found myself in.   In recent days, I have felt like doing Nothing (not even working on NED KELLY).   I am told this is the "Man-Flu" (and more of that in another later Blog!).   This is a supposedly-derogatory term coined up by those who are of the opposite sex to prove any given male's weakness or inability to suffer.   (Or is there a far more sinister purpose as to its currency that I am unaware of??!)

In order to prove my wife (the delightful Mrs Carlene Comical) and daughter Natalie Mahal wrong, I rose from my sick bed in order to spend some quality time with them.    ("You are always on that damned computer" I am told with alarming frequency.   Some wives do not understand the sacrifices they must make in order to have Comics Published and Released to the World to make it a Better Place.)    Anyway the point I am making - and I know I am being long-winded, but Mrs Comical is having a Sunday Sleep-In - and possibly coming down with the Flu I have benevolently shared with her - and I have an opportunity to get on this damned computer without (I hope) distraction....   

Now, what was that point I was making??    I was distracted!   I rose from my sick bed and accompanied (and helped navigate) Mrs K and Natalie to the Markets in Davies Park (West End, a river-side suburb in inner Brisbane).   I even did it without complaining.   And even found the whole day rewarding....

Natalie Mahal found me a copy of The Dreamer by Will Eisner (a second printing from Kitchen Sink Press in 1986).    For $5 how could I say No??!   It was bliss going home and reading it...   And there are parts in Will's Foreword that I wish to share with you today....

"At best, society tends to regard its dreamers with tolerance.

"Dreamers journey through life to a cadence all their own.   They make decisions or enter undertakings that often seem naïve and confounding to the pragmatists, who, in the end, thrive on opportunities set in motion by fantasy and imaginings."

Will Eisner then went on to talk about the essence and genesis of this Graphic Novel, before concluding:

"[The Graphic Novel The Dreamer] comes out of the cluttered closets where I store ghosts of the past, and from the yellowing memories of my experience."

And dear Dear Reader, I just wanted to share that with you.   For no reason, except that it resonated with me while I lay on my sick bed and dreamed dreams of old and new Australian comic stories being available for all future Australians to share and savour....