By Dan Brown

SPOILER WARNING: This column contains plot details from Maurice Vellekoop’s I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together, so if you value surprise, stop reading now! 

Here’s the rundown on the most recent meeting of the L.A. Mood Graphic-Novel Group, which took place Saturday, May 10.

The book: I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together by Toronto graphic artist Maurice Vellekoop. 

The discussion: The book we all read falls squarely into the Canadian school of graphic memoirs – for some reason, homegrown creators are really good at telling their own origin stories. In fact, they are the best in the world.

In this particular case, Vellekoop puts the focus on his own upbringing as the son of religious Dutch immigrants who settled in Toronto. 

L.A. Mood Comics & Games co-owner Carol Vandenberg pitched the book in January for our 2025 reading list as she, too, is the child of a Dutch immigrant family.
 
Carol said she recognized a bit of her experience in the book’s details, like Vellekoop’s mother making clothes for her children and his childhood home being decorated with Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings.

It was the Walt Disney movie Fantasia that sparked Vellekoop’s imagination as a child. He attended a screening with his father, who is a central figure in the artist’s story. One moment his dad is spanking him, the next spoiling him. Talk about mixed messages!

During our opening lightning round – everyone around the table gets two minutes to share their initial thoughts – almost every group member said they enjoyed or appreciated the book. 

We did talk about the graphic nature of the story – there are a number of sex scenes as Vellekoop embarks on his voyage of self-discovery. We briefly discussed how much of a creator’s personal life the reader ought to see, with some members noting how Vellekoop wanted to be transparent about his identity.

One central paradox runs through the whole story: According to their religious beliefs, his parents indicate it’s fine for Vellekoop to be gay, but he can’t get into heaven if he ever acts on his sexuality.

Naturally, this contradiction messes him up.

Later in life, Vellekoop goes into therapy. After a number of tries, he finds a therapist who helps him make sense of his feelings about his mother and father. Vellekoop is more than up to the challenge of making the process of therapy – therapist and client sitting and talking – visually interesting for the reader. In the hands of a lesser artist, those sections of the book might not have been as compelling.

One of the devices he uses is what I would call “the devil and angel on his shoulders.” Vellekoop gives the two conflicting voices in his head a physical form as clouds of emotion, and finally – at the moment of his biggest breakthrough in therapy – they dive back into his head.

Another element group members mentioned liking is the memoir’s depiction of Toronto over the years. In one party scene in the 1980s, for instance, I spotted one of my former Ryerson journalism profs – Vellekoop did not skimp on any details. He got the look and feel of different eras in Toronto history right.

Further reading: Check out Seth’s It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, Michel Rabagliati’s Paul Moves Out, and Jeff Lemire’s next book, which will be released on July 15, is called 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir.

L.A. Mood’s Graphic-Novel Group meets the second Saturday of every month. Next month’s selection is Dean Motter’s Mister X: The Modern Age. We are on a roll with Canadian books in recent months!

We’ll reconvene June 14 at the gaming tables in the store at 11 a.m. 

All are welcome to join the discussion!

Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.