Successful graphic novelist on growing up with a mentally ill mother

Von Allan remembers the time he was 12 or 13 and his teacher at Glashan Public School began to lecture him about his poor attendance record.
“Some teacher was getting angry at me. I was missing a lot of classes. And I had literally, the night before, picked my mom up off the floor because she had passed out,” he said.
“That was one of the realizations that I had as a kid that this whole school-reality-marks thing is bulls—. My mom’s in trouble. That’s what I n