Canopus
Dave Chisholm, story & art
Scout Comics, 2021
Helen is an astronaut who comes to marooned on a planet orbiting the star Canopus, 309.8 light years from Earth. She has to get that information from her in-suit navigation system, because she does not remember where she is, how she got there--or even who she is. Suffering from nearly total amnesia, she is the very definition of an "unreliable narrator," but things just get worse from there.
One of the only things she remembers is that she was on an important mission and must return home. There's no signal from Mission Control on Earth, and she needs to obtain materials from the planet to print the necessary parts to repair the ship for launch. A strange little robot named Arthur appears: he knows her name, and says she's his mom.
As the pair trek towards the needed materials a series of bizarre events occur, all seemingly drawn from Helen's memories (while the ever-helpful AI keeps reminding her "Proceed to the route," and Arthur keeps reminding her "please just breathe"). However positive they seem at first, they soon morph into something nightmarish and threatening. Helen's memory seems to be coming back, but her confusion is still intense. She doesn't know what's going on, and neither does the reader. After a long, complicated path Arthur finally reveals all he knows, and Helen realizes the power to shape reality that she has had all along.
Dave Chisholm (Instrumental, Chasin' The Bird) is a jazz trumpet player and cartoonist. His biggest projects have combined jazz and illustration, but here the story is firmly in the science fiction genre, while also exploring themes of memory, identity and forgiveness. Canopus collects a five-issue miniseries, a surreal, dreamlike voyage through a thoroughly alien world that ultimately feels like home.
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