Cam’s Journey
Comic, John James, 28 pgs, funwithjohnjames.com, $8
Cam needs some more adventure in their life. Getting up at 8am, driving, working, and watching things are all well and good, but things can get a little dry. Thankfully, a three-headed interdimensional being needs help, and Cam’s the girl to do it (after some urging), and so begins Cam’s Journey, a fun self-contained adventure from Portland’s John James.
James’s art is cute, and Cam’s almost non-existent torso and hyper-long limbs give her a great expressiveness. Things move briskly in the comic, with Cam almost always in some form of motion from one panel to the next. They hike through the woods, listen to a tape, and encounter an anthropomorphized meteor who only ever wanted a friend. They set up camp and then proceed to transcend time and space.
It’s this interplay between the mundane — Cam listens to a tape deck — and the cosmic, and how each is given equal weight, that I found particularly enjoyable. Sure, meeting an all-knowing entity is exciting, but it’s really just another step along Cam’s first outing in a while. “Is this all a metaphor to help understand our drifting human connections and our desire to find friendship?” asks Cam. “Well, yes,” replies the three-headed alien. But hey! What isn’t these days? We all need to get out more, and Cam’s example is a good one to follow.