Growing up is tough. The pressures of life at home, school and amongst peers, are a lot to juggle. Having a roof over our heads and three square meals still means being free of certain responsibilities, but what if, on top of everything, you had to care for your schizophrenic mother?

The road to god knows... is Von Allen's graphic novel debut. It follows Marie, an awkward teen whose mother, Betty, has just returned from a two-week hospitalization after an apparent breakdown. They don't have a lot of money and Marie's father lives elsewhere — too busy to put in more than a few phone calls and a weekly meet-up. He’ll show up if something goes wrong, but the rest of the time Marie is left alone with her unpredictable mother. And Marie’s unable to help her in any real way.

Curiously enough, the only escape for Marie is professional wrestling. She is enthralled by the culture, devouring the broadcasts on television and buying wrestling magazines. To cope with her reality at home and school, she hatches a plan with her best friend Kelly to do odd jobs around the neighbourhood in order to save up enough to attend an upcoming show.

The comic is a short snapshot in time, following Marie’s day-to-day experiences — going to school, doing chores and helping her mom. It offers little background or context, no narration, nor explanation for the situation that Marie finds herself in. The reader never finds out why Marie is belittled so much at school, nor why her father is so absent, because in a strange, sad way, it wouldn't change her circumstances. We have no choice but to run with what we're provided. It's exactly what Marie is doing.

There is a slow boiling tension and a tinge of autobiography in the book. Betty isn't exactly violent or aggressive, but she is always slightly... off. She sleeps a lot. She confuses small things. Gradually, it gets worse. Whenever things start to go well for Marie, there's always a sense that the other shoe will drop.

This debut is not only written and drawn by Allen, but also self-published. It takes guts to independently release a comic that is, and lacks spandex or superheroes. It’s just real people with real problems.

Allen's panel design is a wonder. Never relying on a basic six-panel grid, his borders bend and grow, overlapping and folding in on one another. His style captures the messiness and utter chaos of what Marie's life has become, yet it’s never incoherent. The dynamic angles framed in the shifting panels are equally eye-pleasing, though Allen’s rendering of the characters and their complex emotions sometimes fall short of being fully realized.

The road to god knows... is about growing up, the hard way, of figuring your own way the best you can in the absence of real parental guidance. There’s a lot of Marie in Allen, with the staunch independence and courageous effort in doing things yourself, the best you can. Besides, after caring for a mentally unstable parent, is there a riskier gamble than self-publishing?