Sacha Mardou is a natural born comics storyteller.  Her pen & ink characters live and breath on the page.  The situations they find themselves in, their reactions to them, and the way it all plays out in the pages of her comics works have a verisimilitude that few other comics creators can match. The Sky in Stereo is her first foray into long form comics (i.e., a graphic novel).  She's been at work on it for a number of years (she and her husband, fellow comics maker, Ted May are also raising a child, who was an infant at the start of Sky in Stereo) and has released two of it's chapters as successful stand-alone comics.  Here in this iteration, we have a graphic-novel length work that weighs in at 180 pages, yet we are still only half way there, as the story is "to be concluded in Book 2."  The two stand-alone comics appear here as chapters two and three of this work, comprising just over half its length. The new work that appears here for the first time are the introduction and first chapter, which follow the protagonist, Iris from the time her mother is "born again" (courtesy some Jehovah's Witnesses) to the time which Iris drops out of the church, and the fourth chapter in which the lingering effects of the microdot that Iris ingested at the start of the third chapter make themselves felt.  Along the way, the reader experiences the streets, businesses and homes of Manchester, England (Mardou's hometown) through Iris's eyes, and almost feels the pavement beneath her feet.  

For more perspective on this great work, check out the Copacetic reviews of the first and second issues.

Sky in Stereo started out life in a series of digest-size, pamphlet comic books which were then collected with additional material as Volume One.  Now, at last, we have the long awaited conclusion to (Sacha) Mardou's graphic novel of growing up in a nameless British location (that likely bears more than a passing resemblance to the Manchester of Mardou's own youth). 

While all children must cross the sea of adolescence to gain the continent of adulthood, each makes their own personal and unique crossing, and while some find this crossing relatively smooth, others may encounter stormy seas.  Here in the pages of the second and final volume of Sky in Stereo we have an up close and personal  – and highly engaging – look at one particularly challenging voyage from girl to woman in which these stormy seas are navigated and charted for the reader in page after page of great comics that were years in the making.

We've long been fans of the comics of Sacha Mardou (aka Mardou) here at Copacetic.  Over the last several years her comics work has taken a turn from roman à clef stories and thinly veiled autobio fiction towards crafting short pieces relating her experiences in therapy (many of which have been shared on her Instagram [you'll have to scroll down through her posts a bit, at present, to get to these pieces]).  Now, with Past Tense – a 336 page, full color, hardcover edition – she has adapted her new approach to create this long-form memoir of her therapeutic journey.  It starts off with a brief overview of her life leading up to therapy, revealing the sources of her trauma and anxiety, before plunging into her experiences with the therapeutic process.  Readers who decide to accompany her on this journey will soon discover that there's a lot to process in these pages.  Those who stick with it will share in the ups and downs, the emotional highs and lows, and so stand to gain new perspsectives and the insights that go with them, emerging at the other side with an understanding of what drives people to "do the work."

Here's the publisher description follwed by heaps of praise from the therapy and comics worlds:

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A brave and captivating graphic memoir about the power of therapy to heal anxiety and generational trauma

When Sacha Mardou turned forty-years-old, she was leading a life that looked perfect on the outside: happily married to the love of her life, enjoying motherhood and her six-year-old daughter, and her first book had just been published. But for reasons she couldn’t explain, the anxiety that had always plagued her only seemed to be getting worse and then, without warning, she began breaking out in terrible acne.

The product of a stoic, working-class British family, Sacha had a deeply seeded distrust of mental health treatment, but now, living the life she’d built in the US and desperate for relief, she finds herself in a therapist’s office for the first time. There she begins the real work of growing up: learning to understand her family of origin and the childhood trauma she thought she’d left hidden in the past but is still entangled in her present life.

Past Tense takes us inside Sacha’s therapy sessions, which over time become life-changing: She begins to come to terms with her turbulent and complicated upbringing, which centered around her now estranged father, who had a violent relationship with her mother and would later go to prison for sexually abusing her stepsister. With her therapist’s guidance, she sees how these wounds and other generational trauma has been passed through her family as far back as her grandmother’s experiences during The Blitz of World War Two. And she discovers modalities that powerfully shape her healing along the way, including the work of Bessel Van der Kolk and Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems).

As Sacha’s emotional life begins to unfreeze and she lets go of the shame she’s long held, she realizes that the work she’s doing and her love for her family can ripple outward too, changing her relationships now, and creating a new legacy for her daughter.

Bravely told, visceral, and profoundly moving, Past Tense is a story about our power to break free of the past–once and for all–and find hope.

“For years I’ve been a big fan of Sacha Mardou’s pithy cartoons, and honored that many have been centered around aspects of the model of therapy I developed called Internal Family Systems. Reading this amazing book, however, brought my appreciation of her and her work to a new level. This is the best—most honest and disclosive—book on psychotherapy and healing that I have ever read! I wept through much of it and felt so much love and respect for her as she shared, with wonderfully evocative illustrations, the details of her turbulent childhood and her journey of reconnection with her many wounded and protective parts and her mother. You will cry too as you identify with so many of her struggles and, as she finds and listens in a new way to her parts, you will do the same with comparable parts of you.”
—Richard Schwartz, founder of IFS therapy

“In bringing her skills as a graphic artist together with her journey of psychological exploration, Sacha Mardou has found a fresh and original way to write a memoir of healing. Not only is her story remarkable, her literal illustration of therapy and self-discovery will give many readers the inspiration and hope they need to change their own lives.”
—Martha Beck, New York Times bestselling author of The Way of Integrity

“Sacha Mardou’s graphic memoir Past Tense is a triumph. Gripping and courageous, she recounts her most painful childhood memories and her dogged quest to heal from her trauma. Her breakthroughs at therapy provide practical mental health insights that readers may find valuable in their own lives: how to forgive those who have hurt us—and how to forgive ourselves.”
—Malaka Gharib, author of I Was Their American Dream

“Raw, real, and relatable. Sacha Mardou’s graphic memoir reflects the complexities of family, relationships, and the ways that we navigate those events mentally and emotionally. Not only does she invite us to bear witness to the unraveling and healing of her past, but she gifts us with an invitation—this invitation is to courageously know ourselves. Like a love letter to your innermost self, Past Tense will bring you home to your heart.”
—Arielle Schwartz, PhD, author of The Complex PTSD Workbook

“Brutally honest and told with immense care, Past Tense is one of those stories that will sit with readers far beyond the last page. Using her therapy sessions as a framework, Sacha Mardou explores her family’s dark and complicated history while letting go of her shame and demonstrating the power of vulnerability. This book is a must-read for anyone working through the tangles of the past in hopes of healing and discovering a brighter tomorrow.”
—Haley Weaver, author of Give Me Space but Don’t Go Far

“Searing, vulnerable, and profoundly validating, Mardou’s own deeply personal reckoning process is forged into a healing sword—an accessible proof-of-concept for the therapeutic potential of comics. Past Tense will change many readers’ lives.”
—Nate Powell, author of Swallow Me Whole

“I’m a huge fan of Mardou’s work. She tells stories in a way that flows deceptively easily, and seem simple and personal but are really universal and kind of mind-blowing. The comics are both direct and abstract. My favorite mixture, and a balance it takes very good instincts to achieve.”
—Liana Finck, author of Passing for Human

“Past Tense is not only a beautifully rendered deep dive into the history of a complicated family; it is a demystification of therapy and self-exploration—something that is sorely needed in these anxious times. I absolutely love it.”
—MariNaomi, author and illustrator of I Thought You Loved Me