I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together: A Memoir

Maurice Vellekoop has made his living as an artist and illustrator, but this is his first bookshelf-sized sequential comic. A memoir, it tells the story of how he becomes an artist, his move out of the church and community that guided his early life, his coming out, and his relationship with his parents. It covers a good deal of ground, and my only complaint is that, especially through the middle section, it can feel as if Vellekoop is simply covering ground, as if there are parts of his life that the reader has to get through to discover the more important passages. Of course, that’s also what life is, as much of it is ordinary; the beginning and ending of the book, along with the art throughout, make up for that shortcoming.

​Vellekoop grows up outside of Toronto in a family of six. His family comes from Holland, and thus they attend the Christian Reformed Church, which traces its history back to the Reformation in the Dutch Netherlands. He attends a small Christian school connected to the church until he switches to a public high school as he gets older. His relationship with the church will lay the groundwork for some of the conflict that ensues when he comes out to his mother, but Vellekoop also receives abuse for his feminine portrayal in the public high school. It’s clear from an early age that he doesn’t align with the masculine stereotypes of his community. He spends most of his time playing with girls, even wishing for a Barbie for Christmas - though he’s unclear if he ever voiced this desire, for obvious reasons.

​While Vellekoop sets up his story to make it seem as if his mother is one of the main influences in his exploration of his feminine side, as he begins his story with a trip into Toronto, his father actually helps him discover a part of himself he didn’t yet know was there. The two of them see the movie Fantasia, a moment that changes Vellekoop’s life. “Fantasia was new,” Vellekoop writes, “yet strangely familiar, as if some divinity had foreseen all the things I loved, would love, and assembled them into a single, potent experience. With uncanny intuition, my Dad provided this watershed event, shared only between us two.” He becomes obsessed with Disney, wanting to see any animated work it produces, even believing that he will one day work for them.

​The beginning of I'm So Glad is almost in Technicolor, as Vellekoop portrays the 1970s the way he seems to remember them: shaped by television (the title comes from The Carol Burnett Show, a significant influence on his childhood) and the fashion of the time. The colors are bright, and characters seem to leap off the page. Whenever he portrays scenes from Disney movies, though, especially in sequences where he enters them, as he does with Fantasia, he not only mimics the Disney style but renders it as almost psychedelic. The book therefore blends Vellekoop’s lively illustration style (almost cartoonish at times) with classic Disney, opera sets and art movie scenery; Vellekoop has also said, in a January interview with Philadelphia Gay News, that Seth’s book It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken inspired the page design and layouts. His life, like his book, contains a number of influences that all help him.

​Even though his father helps him find his love of Disney, the man also has a violent temper, and Vellekoop is never certain which side will show up at which time. This shapes the way he thinks about religion when he is young, as he compares his father to God. He is also worried about how his father will react when he comes out as a young man; however, his father surprisingly seems fine with who Vellekoop is. But Vellekoop also depicts himself speaking with his therapist about calling his father after two men have attacked Vellekoop for how he looks and acts - his father hadn't come to check on him. Through much of his time in therapy, it emerges that his complicated relationship with his father may be preventing him from developing healthy relationships.

In these portions of the book concerning therapy, the color seeps from Vellekoop's life. He is unable to find interest in anything he typically loves—old movies, opera, or art—and he isolates himself from others. Two creatures who hover around him, representing his internal monologue, much like the stereotypical angel and devil. The one that encourages him to pursue art and be an out gay man looks quite similar to him as a child, representing his true self, while the other often looks hungover and criticizes that same art and his pursuit of men.

​A significant portion of the final third or so of the book are concerned with therapy, which draws two of the artist's main ideas together: his sexuality, and his relationship with his mother. She seems to accept who he is, even admitting that she has always believed he might be gay, but also gives him a religious tract that talks about how one should love the sinner but hate the sin, and that he should remain celibate to stay in God’s good graces. It’s this relationship which has been undergirding his story the entire time, even during the parts of the book where he’s not seeing or talking to his mother. The final quarter of the book pulls her back into his life, as his father has dementia, and he has to deal with that relationship before he can deal with any others. Though 'out' as a gay man years ago, he has never been able to have a satisfying sexual or emotional connection; he doesn’t know why. He goes to therapy to deal with his depression, but, once he finds a therapist who is helpful—a more challenging feat than he expected—she guides him into talking about what’s truly important to him.

​Vellekoop’s memoir covers a number of ideas: how one becomes an artist; his faith and community; the complicated relationship with his parents, especially his mother; his attempts to understand his sexuality, and then act on it. Only the final section of the book ties these disparate strands together. It seems a bit tidy, but Vellekoop has structured the book around his favorite Disney movie, 1959's Sleeping Beauty. He believes that he has been living a fairy tale—his artistic success works well to mirror that—but that he has been asleep for much of his life. His therapist, rather than a romantic relationship, serves to break him out of the curse he feels he has been under, allowing him to live a full life. Though he shows the suffering that he has endured because of his sexuality, he reminds readers that there can still be happy endings.

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