AS ANYONE who reads my columns on a regular basis will know, I think and/or talk about certain topics quite a bit.

Usually it’s films or books, sometimes it’ll be music, usually it’ll be pop culture and often there’ll be a reference to comic book characters.

But it’s not just billionaire vigilantes and godlike aliens that get my attention - although that’s what people immediately assume when they hear ‘comics’, ‘graphic novels’ or ‘cartoons’.

One of my favourites is an amazing book called Maus by Art Spiegelman, which recounts the wartime experiences of his father - a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor - with anthropomorphised mice, cats, pigs and dogs standing in for Jews, Nazis, Poles and Americans.

I can’t recommend it enough. Part memoir, part biography, part autobiography and part history lesson, in 1992 it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize, and while it covers tragic and adult themes I firmly believe it’s a simple, powerful and accessible way to teach young people about the horrors of that period.

With the rise of the internet, there’s been a massive increase in the availability of the comic artform - anyone with online access who is willing to put their work out there can potentially have it seen by billions of people around the world.

Of course with that boom, artists - like all businesses and online groups - have had to figure out a way to get noticed in an increasingly busy marketplace, and one of the ways they’ve done that is with simple but effective panels, displayed all at once in a snapshot on social media.

One of my favourites is an eight-panel webcomic called Powers, by thirty-something Toronto-based artist Lunarbaboon, which he has kindly agreed to let us reprint here.

Lunarbaboon - or Chris Grady, as he’s otherwise known - started a daily comic as a way to combat his anxiety and depression, and regularly posts lovely, short strips which cover topics such as parenting, depression, death and Star Wars, among other things.

I first saw Powers shortly after it was published back in 2015, and it’s always stuck with me as a wonderful reminder that even if we can’t leap buildings in a single bound or run faster than a speeding bullet, we humans can change someone’s life for the better - even if only temporarily - with a kind word or gesture. It doesn’t take much, if only we remember to do it.

If I’m honest, I hadn’t thought about Powers for a long time until this week.

A couple of mornings ago, I woke up to the news that a former colleague had died. I knew her for about four years, probably hadn’t seen her in eight, but she was a wonderful, kind, funny and courageous human being and she will be missed by everyone who knew her.

What followed that morning, and throughout the day, were a series of events - tantrums, traffic, technical problems and sad news stories - which, on any other day, would have been par for the course, and which I’d have worked through, shrugged off and moved on from.

That day though, following that news, everything hit like a boot to the gut, and my mood dropped to the point where I felt like I was only just holding myself together.

Then, just as I was getting ready to leave the office, I got an email - a short, simple message from someone I’d interviewed about a tragic incident, thanking me for the way it was covered and for taking the time to share their story.

It wasn’t much, and they didn’t have to do it. But that simple gesture meant that ugly metaphorical hat I was wearing suddenly didn’t seem quite so repulsive. I was still feeling down, but there was a tiny glint of positivity that wasn’t there before, and that honestly meant the world.

It’s an obvious point (and one I suspect I’ll get ridiculed for in the comments section), but when we get so little time together on this planet, why would we not try to make it a nice journey? Even if it’s just a throwaway compliment, it takes seconds, and can make a massive difference in someone’s life.

We all have powers, why not use them for good?

  • Special thanks to Lunarbaboon for allowing us to reprint his artwork, more of which is available at lunarbaboon.com