I dropped off my son for his first day of Grade 1 today.
That brief event brought me back. Sure, it was decades ago for me, but seeing all of the kids, anxious for themselves yesterday and excited to see each other today, fresh from their summer-long escapades, took me back to the school yard of my youth. Their wide grins and happy horseplay, and even the nervous tears from some of the kids, were my own.
They were once long-gone emotions, from a day a long time ago.
From teacher introductions to class line ups against the brick wall, it made me think of all the wonderful things inherent with school experiences and events that integral to the time we have on this earth. Recess chatter. Birthday celebrations. Note passings. Comic book trading. Tag relays.
And first loves.
And, as we age, second loves. And third loves. And so on and so forth to today.
Time marches on, stopping for no one and for nothing. But the solitary constant is love and that love’s touch is timeless, moving forwards and backwards across the days, months and years of our lives, always unique and always wonderful. Just like the hardcover graphic novel Always Never, now translated into English for the first time and released for eager, romantically reminiscing readers, today.
Written and illustrated by the award-winning Spanish cartoonist, Jordi Lafebre (Glorious Summers, La Mondaine, Lydia) and published by champion of the comic book arts, Dark Horse Comics, Always Never is as special a book as love is an experience.
Ana and Zeno have been madly in love with each other for decades, but they have also lived separate lives. Ana is a brilliant, small-town Mayor with a family of her own and Zeno is a bookstore owner, theoretical physicist, and a stubborn bachelor. Still, their lives have been guided by an unseen hand, inexorably intertwining each of them other over the years and weaving a wonderful tapestry of beautiful chance meetings, passionate letter-writing, tender conversations, heartbreaking movements, and love.
Always Never expresses the complexities of life and the important twists and turns it presents. It also shows us that although time may seem an absolute in its endeavors, love exists outside and far beyond its reach. Perhaps we need only reminisce our own lives – from our early school yard days to the moment in which we currently exist in order to realize these truths.
Or, as the chapters uniquely count down to that first inevitable meeting where love blossoms, we can read the wonderful Always Never and be reminded.
Make the run to your better comic book shop today and pick up the spellbinding Always Never and see life and love again, anew.
For a sneak peek at the Always Never HC, you can click here.