Von Allan's art, comics and graphic novels

Joe Pugh, the new host of the ever-awesome People First Radio program out of British Columbia, was nice enough to have me on to talk about Dave. The interview is really a follow-up to my op-ed that ran in early July in the Ottawa Citizen about Dave's death. While it was hard to do, Joe did a terrific job as an interviewer and his questions were empathic and honest. I couldn't ask for anything more than that. It's funny; it has been just over three months since the police came and told my wife and I about Dave's death and I'm still finding it pretty hard. I think part of that is still the uncertainty over exactly what happened (we're all still waiting for toxicology reports from the coroner). Closure, in other words, is still hard to come by. Being able to write about Dave helped as did being able to talk about him on Joe's program. A step at a time, right?

The interview can be found at https://www.vancouverislandmentalhealthsociety.org/podcast/remembering-dave/. There's a handy audio player so you can listen at your convenience, plus links to other sites that are also hosting the interview (i.e.: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.).

Alternatively, you can directly download the MP3 file right here. On a desktop or laptop, you can just "right-click" and download it to your computer from there.

Joe is also a writer at the CBC, so you can find more of his writing by visiting https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/author/joseph-pugh-1.6226261 - and please do so! There are some excellent pieces there!

Lastly, here's one of the few photos I have of Dave and I. It didn't make into my main post about Dave for a few reasons, but I thought I'd share it here. This is from 1995 in my old bachelor apartment in downtown Ottawa.