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I’m sure you can guess what inspired this comic…

In the summer of 2024, my little mountain town experienced a forest fire. It was a small lightning strike fire that began about 15 kms down the valley from town. It was far, small and didn’t seem that big of a threat. Forest fires are common in BC in the summer, and many of them don’t impact communities, but I was truly humbled by this one.

The night things got bad, we were having a few friends over for a barbeque after the boys had gone biking, it was a nice day and we were enjoying a good meal out on the back deck. The wind started to pick up and my friend Jon, who volunteers with the local fire department, got a call that the fire was spreading, FAST.

We of course took to the internet to see if anyone had posted about the fire, but it was spreading so quickly that we didn’t really need to. We could see it clearly from the hill near our house. The friends we had visiting went home (towards the fire) and though they weren’t under an order to evacuate, they were on the edge – physically and emotionally. From their home the fire was basically across the valley and very visible, especially as the sun went down and a red blaze covered the valley.

There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to forest fires, and our brains do not like uncertainty…

This comic was inspired by the events of the first night of the fire, when I was feeling raw, wrung out and scared. Family, friends, and my work at the time, were in the path of the flames. People I cared about were physically out fighting it, it was something I’ve never experienced before. I tried to capture the fear and uncertainty I felt in that moment and I especially think the panel of the bear walking around on a black background with all the ‘what ifs’ surrounding her does that. If you have ever found yourself in a ‘terrible situation’ you have zero control over, I know you have done the same. Our minds are designed to show us these worst-case scenarios as a way to protect us, to prepare us to run, hide or fight. In the modern world, this of course doesn’t really help. I was reeling in a cycle of refreshing online information posts, and worry about what to do next. I was grasping for anything that would give me a sense of control or contribution.

Our friends who were visiting that evening asked if they could come back and stay here, as it was much farther from the main fire danger, and of course I said yes. This small act of helping actually made me feel a lot better. I think doing something, anything, to make a big shitty thing a tiny bit better was I all needed to pull out of the mind spiral of doom. I didn’t feel happy or calm or safe, but I did feel like I wasn’t useless, which was so meaningful in that moment.

This was the first (and so far, only) comic of mine ever published. Our little local newspaper “The Golden Star” published it. My brother-in-law, who writes for them, shared it with the editor and they decided to print it and do a short write up about me. I cried when I saw my work in print. I will be forever grateful to the paper and my bro (thanks Mark!), for doing this. It has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid, who only ever read the Sunday funnies section of the paper, to see something I drew in a newspaper.

This comic, inspired by something so stressful, shitty and terrifying, lead me to realize a dream. The experience has shown me that dreams don’t have to be on the scale of fame or wealth to be significant. Just like the small act of helping a friend in a scary situation, things don’t have to be monumental to be meaningful.