COMICS PAGE: An Alien in Manitoba
In more ways than one
An explainer for this one: for those who don’t know, Manitoba, in central Canada, can get inhumanely cold in winter. It’s pretty common for temperates to reach -35°C (-31°F). Even temperatures of -45°C (-49°F) with the windchill are not unusual.
I know this first-hand, as Manitoba is the place I call home. Specifically, Winnipeg, the capital city of Manitoba.
This is not where I’m originally from though. I was born in the UK, where I lived until 2010, when I married my lovely wife, Becky, and made the move over to here. I’m now a Canadian citizen, but whenever winter hits I’m acutely aware of the fact that I myself am an “alien” in Manitoba. And I myself have have experienced the sentiment: “what is this place?!?!”
In my case, I didn’t experience the Manitoba weather in the same order as the alien in this strip — my first visit here was actually in early-January. One of my first memories of this place was walking out of the doors at Winnipeg airport and immediately coughing as the icy cold air hit my throat. My next trip was the following summer, so I essentially had the reverse experience.
Because here’s the thing about Manitoba’s summer — from mid-spring until mid-fall, the weather is generally very nice - lots of blue skies and warm weather. And in that sense, Manitoba sort of masquerades as a “normal” place for several months of the year, and it has struck me that if somebody was to “land” here in, say, early summer, and were not warned by anybody of what was coming, they could be easily forgiven for believing that they were somewhere, well… reasonable. Then winter would strike.
This is what I wanted to capture in this strip, which was actually created for the December 2023 edition of COMRAD - a comic anthology series celebrating Winnipeg artists and storytellers.
Having the comic in this anthology was quite a big deal for me, as, whilst I’ve had quite a number of opportunities to see my illustration and graphic design work in a printed format; have experienced my cartoon-based work in animated video format; and have published comic strips online, this is actually the first time I’ve been able to experience a comic strip of mine in printed format.
I had the idea for the strip a few months ago, and then became aware of the anthology series at a recent independent comics festival. When I found out that the theme for this particular edition was “Below Zero” I felt like it would be a good fit.
But the big irony is that I’m writing this on December 6th — 6 days shy of the of the date I assigned to the last panel in the strip, and unbelievably, it was actually +6°C (42.8°F) today!
Quite pleasant really.