Morningside

Once Upon A Time In Morningside

My childhood autobiographical story, set in Scotland.

A poetic take on the Scottish childhood of writer Sean Michael Wilson, in comic book form, drawn by lovely Swedish artist Hanna Stromberg. The book mixes together 13 intimate and interesting childhood stories and adventures, with a touch of magical realism.

Pages from the book can be seen at the bottom of the page.

At last out in a beautiful paper version!

“This is a poetic take on the Scottish childhood of writer Sean Michael Wilson, in comic book form, drawn by lovely Swedish artist Hanna Stromberg. The book mixes together 14 intimate and interesting childhood stories and adventures, with a touch of magical realism.”

This is a special version of 72 pages, with a different cover than on the digital version, for only $6.50 (or 650 yen in Japan) from Nagoya based publisher, BigUglyRobot.

GET THE BOOK HERE, IT'S LOVELY:

From the Japanese publisher:
http://biguglyrobot.storenvy.com/collections/54321-print-comics/products/17064891-once-upon-a-time-in-morningside

Or in the US:
https://www.birdcagebottombooks.com/products/morningside

Now also available from european online digital comics website IZNEO

https://www.izneo.com/en/graphic-novel/slices-of-life/once-upon-a-time-in-morningside-42941/once-upon-a-time-in-morningside-93713

This is a poetic take on my own childhood. It mixes an accurate account of certain small scale personal events with an element of magic realism in the presentation. It's all set in one specific location - the woods and streets near my childhood home in Edinburgh, Scotland, late 70's and early 80's. All the action will take place in that wood or the streets around it, a conscious decision to narrow the story to just THAT one area. It gives the story as sense of place and anyway, many interesting things happened there. No adults will be seen in the story, or following the old cartoon tradition of Tom and Jerry, only their feet and lower body will be seen - this is a world of children.

It's not one continous flow, but several interesting anecdotes sewn together, with some 'over' narrator aspects woven in. Meaning that their will be some reflections from the later me, the adult me as a ghost like presence, as captions ending or introducing the anecdotes. A fluid interweaving of the childhood visuals with adult narration in a poetic way, to juxtapose the words and visuals. The book has an introduction showing the adult me going to the childhood area, and beginning the reflection process. It is drawn together at the end also, as we see the adult me having gone through this process and leaving his childhood place behind.

This is not an autobiography about some terrible time, such as war, or coping with a debilitating disease or living in a dictatorship. Quite often comic book autobio books are about those unusual times and places, and that is fine, they are very interesting. But what about all the ordinary little things that happen in normal lives? All the small triumphs and adventures , laughs and sadness that fill the life of most children - that is interesting too. Once upon a time in Morningside is that kind of book.

It is also about the sense of loss and melancholy that we often feel when thinking back to our childhood time – that’s what the adult ‘ghost Sean’ is feeling as he observes these old childhood scenes. But, in the end, he comes back to present reality and gets on with his life, his responsibility to look after his son, who is now in childhood himself.

Facebook page Please LIKE it and we'll keep you up to date on developments with this book:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Once-Upon-A-Time-In-Morningside/524046781034147

Nice of well known Scottish writer, Ian Rankin, to tweet about our book.

Digital versions

My childhood autobiography now available for easy digital download to Tablet, IOS, Android, etc...

On KINDLE: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018B0QCCU

On KOBO: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/once-upon-a-time-in-morningside

125 pages. $4.97 (about 3 UK pounds) What a bargain!