‘Haphaven’ puts the Super in Superstitious

Creators: Norm Harper, Louie Joyce / Letterer: Ocean Ransford / Lion Forge Comics Step on a crack / Break your mother’s back How superstitious are you? Super superstitious? Maybe just stitious? But have you thought about all the familial traditions, the stories we share generation from generation, the odd habits we pick up because it has become engrained in your being, your very core? Have you thought what it would be like to confront both history and fantasy? Well thankfully Harper and Joyce have you covered with their latest graphic novel, Haphaven.

Haphaven tells the story of Alex Mills, who (among other things) is the exceedingly superstitious daughter of a baseball player and descendent of a famed gambler Zane who never lost a card game as long he had fishhooks (a colloquial for holding two jacks). All the exposition is told brilliant in the opening prologue of the book before we pivot to the story. Alex lost her father due to a terrible accident due to a terrible storm, and she and her mother are still adjusting to the new status quo years after the fact. Before long though, a childhood rhyme proves a little more dangerous than anyone could believe and Alex’s mother breaks her back. When a little leprechaun shows up and offers a chance to save her mother Alex all but leaps at the call to go to a fantastical world of Haphaven armed with nothing but a baseball bat and her wits.

And thus sets the stage for the graphic novel. Told in five chapters, Haphaven follows your c…