'The Cowardly Clerics of Rigel V' (from: 'Wizards For Hire - Cheap!').
Von Allan is a self-taught Canadian comic book artist, who self-published the indie graphic novels 'The Road to God Knows' (2009) and 'Stargazer' (2010-2011), the comic book series 'Wolf's Head' (2017- ) and several short story collections.
Early life
Von Allan was born in 1974 in Arnprior, a town in Souther Ontario, Canada. By 1980 his parents had separated, and he and his mother were living in a working class neighborhood in Ottawa. With his childhood years troubled by bullying, poverty and his mother's severe mental health problems, he found refuge in books, superhero comics, science fiction and wrestling. In 1994, he was hired to run Perfect Books, a small independent Ottawa bookstore. After a couple of years running the store, Von Allan started pursuing his own creative ambitions, and picked up writing and drawing his own comic stories.
'The Road to God Knows', 2009 version of page 65 vs. the redrawn 2017 version.
The Road to God Knows
Allan spent four years developing his debut graphic novel, 'The Road to God Knows' - a semi-autobiographical tale about a teenager's trying to cope with her mother's schizophrenia - which he self-published in 2009 under the Von Allan Studios imprint. Kelly and Marie - the graphic novel's main characters - reappeared in Von Allan's subsequent short stories 'Brawl', 'Fast Friends' and 'The Old Crow', that were collected in the book 'Li'l Kids' (2008). Because of his openhearted graphic novel, Von Allan was contacted in April 2015 by film maker Megan Durnford, who worked on a documentary about the impact of parental mental illness, called 'I Am Still Your Child'. The cartoonist was interviewed for the film giving an honest account of his mother's story. For the occasion, Von Allan remade several pages and panels from his graphic novel to be shown in the film. 'I Am Still Your Child' was released in 2017.
'Stargazer'.
Graphic novels and story collections
After 'The Road to God Knows', Von Allan continued to work on his own comic project, all the while improving his graphic skills, with support and help from his wife and editor Samantha Boswell. In April and May 2014, he released two issues of his digital-first comic book series 'Metal Gods', described as a "an action and adventure comic featuring magic, cults, and devil worship in contemporary America!". In 2010 and 2011 the two installments of 'Stargazer' appeared, a graphic novel about three friends hanging out on a camping trip when they are transported to another world. Since 2017, Von Allan has been creating new episodes of his comic book series 'Wolf's Head', about a former police officer who has to help her mother with keeping a newly born Artificial Intelligence safe from the corporate executives and scientists who created it. The Von Allan Studios also released short story anthologies like 'Wizards For Hire - Cheap!' (2017) and 'Stories! 2015 to 2019' (2019).
'Wolf's Head'.