The conversation drifted to what I did when I wasn’t in Wemindji, so I talked a bit about translating and, naturally, moved on to the fact that I write comics. I described Man-Man a bit, but didn’t really get into details on Dead Eyes Open — again, conservative Anglican minister, and I didn’t want to freak him out too much.

“Chris’ cousin does some sort of comic strip,” his wife said.

“Oh really?” said I. Figuring that maybe this was an Internet comic strip or something, or maybe he did a comic for his local paper, or whatever. Because, y’know, I’m sitting next to an Anglican minister in Wemindji. “What’s his name?”

“You probably haven’t heard of him,” Chris said.

“Try me,” I said. “I read a lot of comics.”

“David Sim,” Chris said.

I came 90% of the way to doing a spit-take, but caught the apple juice in my mouth. Swallowed hard. “Dave Sim? Your cousin is Dave Sim?!?”

“You’ve heard of him?”