LITTLE WHITE MOUSE OMNIBUS by Paul Sizer

I feel like I’ve been living in the dark. How could the work of Paul Sizer have escaped me for so long? B.P.M. and Moped Army were lucky library accidents that introduced me to, first and foremost, a talented story teller. Sizer’s stories are full of heart, and he pays close attention to his characters’ emotional cores, which just isn’t found in other graphic novels.

Take, for example, “Filthy Jake” Armani, a tattooed air-biker who is as big as an ox and as mean as any back-alley thug. Armani, through a bizarre in counter with Loo (the main character) becomes a loyal friend, who shows tender side as he struggles to return a panda bear key chain.

Loo is Little White Mouse (a father’s nickname for her), a sixteen year-old girl on her way to the Galactic Science Academy along with her sister. However, the ship that she is on does not make it to Academy. Loo ends up stranded, alone, on a deep space asteroid mine. Heart broken at the loss of her sister, Loo endeavors to resurrect her by downloading her sister’s brainwaves into a homemade android.

Sizer’s graphic novel explores what it means to be alone, truly alone. How would you cope if you were stranded alone? Being stranded alone is typically a story line championed as a motif in male coming of age stories, Call of the Wild or Hatchet, but Loo’s cold deep space adventure proves that surviving on your own, alone leaves no one unchanged.

For me, the brilliant part of Loo’s adventure begins when she leaves the asteroid and must confront the emotional changes she’s undergone. To foil her changes, she meets a young man trapped by his need for perfection and a talented young woman trapped in a degrading profession. Through these interactions Loo comes to terms with how blessed her life has been, and she tries to reach out to these people though a new found sense of morality and personal justice.

If ever there was a graphic novel that approached literature status, Sizer’s Little White Mouse is one of them. You should not miss your opportunity to indulge in his work.

Sizer, Paul. “Little White Mouse: Omnibus: The Complete Little White Mouse.” Café Digital Comics, 2006