Created Fathers

Saving a father from debilitating illness is a great trope for art. Not that great art necessarily makes life easier.

In Undertown, Jim Pascoe's manga of Sama's search for the Sugar Stone that is his father's only chance for salvation, an entire dark imaginary universe is lit with hope. (Vol. 1 is out; V.2 is due in Nov. '08.)

And Phillip Toledano's tribute to his "Days with My Father," thirty-five images and text of his father's journey into Alzheimer's, is an extraordinary creation of joy and even sadness stolen from encroaching death. Physically, Toledano's father can't be saved, but something about his spirit and the connection between father and son has been built to last for an eternity.

Alas, art may inspire life, but, unfortunately, it can't fix it. Sama will no doubt find the cure for his father many, many volumes from now, it will be a fictional fix. And, no matter how wondrously Toledano has saved his father's image and spirit from death, the shadow over his art is that he (and now we) will lose him to memory.