I have this thing in my head. It's kind of my own personal version of a computer installation wizard. You know, the one with the annoying little messages that say things like, "Do you want to proceed?" "Are you sure you want to proceed?" "Well, if you're really, really sure..."  "Okay, last chance, are you really, really, really sure?"

Sometimes the bastard gets stuck and years slip by while the article, story, or review I originally wanted to write sits on my mental backburner, smouldering and burning around the edges. Lately, I've developed some mental pot holders so I can now grab this baby off the backburner, scrape the crusty stuff off the edges, stir it up a bit, and serve it up with some sort of frilly garnish. Yes, tonight I'm giving you all something out of my very own mental crock pot.

Try not to think of it as leftovers, and I'll make it as tasty as I can.

Reviewing Tom Beland's work is a daunting task. He's got marvelous reviewers like Johanna Draper Carlson who does the Comics Worth Reading blog, Randy Lander and Don MacPherson from the late and much lamented The Fourth Rail webzine, and Andrew Arnold who writes the Comics Love column for Time frikkin Magazine Online, planted squarely in his corner. The guy tends to be a perennial critical darling. He's been nominated for the Eisner Award. He's got his magazine coming out from Image Comics now, and a high-profile writing gig for Marvel Comics coming up. He doesn't need my little ol' opinion of his work floating around out there. Then again, it never hurts to have one more person in your corner pitching for you.

My composition and rhetoric professor, the man who taught me the Montaigne style essay, and quite a lot about the critical review, once told me, "While you're writing, you must remember this one truism. Just because it happened to you, doesn't make it interesting. If you can consistently break this rule you will never fail to entertain."

Tom Beland breaks this rule with marvelous style, grace, and precision. The core story of True Story, Swear To God is elegant in its simplicity. Tom meets this girl Lily while waiting at a bus stop at Disneyland. The two hit it off and this chance meeting quickly turns into a long-distance relationship. Lily is a popular morning show radio host in Puerto Rico, Tom is a newspaper columnist and cartoonist in Napa Valley, California. After several abbreviated visits and a category five hurricane, Tom decides to move to Puerto Rico. That pretty much catches you up on the story so far.