Gone Too Soon

I was cleaning my house today, and at one point I cleaned one of my bookshelves with graphic novels on it. One of the books on the shelf was Reality Check by Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons, a delightful comic about a virtual reality game world and the people that play in it. Mostly, though, it is about a cat that plays in that game world.

The two folks that created the series could have taken the book down a bad path with the boy who owns the cat (Collin) and the cat (Catreece)--who naturally turns out to be a cute cat-girl in the virtual reality world--with the two of them hooking up romantically. But they don't. The book takes the high road and it deals with Collin having to deal with keeping it a secret that his friend Catreece in the VR world is his cat in the real world.

It is a comedic delight, with wonderful social awkward moments designed to amuse. And what's more, it also has some great characters. All in all, a great read.

The two Simons who created the series work as Studio Tavicat, and they have other books that are equally entertaining, but to be honest, I miss Reality Check. I miss the characters they created there.

And it made me think that there are too many comics that went before their time, or worse, were forgotten before they ever had a time. So, this is the start of what will be a semi-recurring series of posts about comics that I wish were still around.

And I have a cat in a VR helmet to thank for the idea.