As I was creating my graphic novel, Salt Green Death (Conundrum Press 2025), I made a list of sounds corresponding to events that were happening (sounds I imagined happening internally and sounds I knew may be happening externally) on November 21, 1948 when Joseph O’Dwyer walked in a psychotic state across Burrard Bridge to Kitsilano Pool in Vancouver, Canada. I gave the list to my youngest, Julian Bowers, and they created this extraordinary sound collage that helped me structure the events as I worked on the first phase of Salt Green Death:  Joseph, The Prologue. This changed everything. I would listen to the sound collage extremely loudly as I sat on the bus, or walked along the same route Joseph took, or when I was drawing. It was an essential tool to connecting with the true events of the past. And deeply connecting with Joseph’s soul on that very fateful day, November 21, 1948.

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SALT GREEN DEATH

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY TOP 50 BEST NEW COMICS FOR ADULTS, 2025

THE DOCUMENTED EXPERIENCES OF JOSEPH O’DWYER, A YOUNG MAN WHO WAS INSTITUTIONALIZED AT ONE OF CANADA’S MOST NOTORIOUS HISTORIC PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTIONS