What if your daughter wrote books when she was just a child and they were published? And what if your daughter was a child more than 100 years ago?

That’s kind of the idea behind Mathew Klickstein’s charming new book, Daisy Goes to Moon. It’s a romp that seems like it falls somewhere between Dorothy’s adventures in OZ and Little Nemo parading through Dreamland, but as if it was all written by child.

I had never heard of Daisy Ashford, the gifted young author who wrote books, and had them published, for about fifteen years before the turn of century. But evidently, Mathew Klickstein did! I really enjoyed his oral history of the San Diego Comic-Con, See You in San Diego that was published in 2022. Just to be clear: this new book is something completely different.

In this one, Klickstein partners with Rick Geary. Geary’s all-too precise storytelling and precise inking is exactly what a story like this demands. The result is gorgeous whimsy mixed with a polite suspension of disbelief, late 1800s style. In this new story, young Daisy enjoys fantastic (I mean that in the more elegantly original way) escapades with all sorts of peculiar, yet charming, characters she meets along the way.

This version of Daisy Goes to the Moon is the graphic adaptation of Klickstien’s novella by the same name, originally published in 2009, and is scheduled for release by Fantagraphics books in January 2025.

Here’s the official write-up from Fantagraphics:

In 1919, Victorian author Daisy Ashford (1881–1972) published a book she wrote at 9 years old to great success. Inspired by her imaginative adventure, writer Mathew Klickstein and cartoonist Rick Geary have created a delightful graphic novel, in which little Daisy goes to outer space, visits the cosmic automat, watches TV with a time traveler, and more!

Rick Geary turns his pen from vintage true crime to whimsy in Daisy Goes to the Moon, an adaptation of a novella written by Mathew Klickstein inspired by the real-life Victorian author Daisy Ashford’s successfully published juvenilia, co-written with her parents. Geary’s version stars little Daisy herself and pastiches everything in his unique visual stylization from Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz to late-19th-century and early-20th-century comics: Daisy is lured to adventure by a “rokitship” as she decides to go to the moon with a man named Mr. Z. They encounter many-eyed monsters, time travelers with TVs, her duplicate, a “troobador,” and more delights and vexations. Geary places his expressive, clean-line black-and-white figures, each with distinct body language, in ornate frames to denote settings and narrative layers. There’s rollicking verbal and physical comedy as characters (sometimes literally) bounce off each other.

Geary’s rare artistic gift of being able to depict ornate period detail without sacrificing storytelling clarity or fun pairs perfectly with Klickstein’s imaginative writing. Showcasing elements of Philip K. Dick, Douglas Adams, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the book will delight readers as they discover Daisy’s playful, madcap space adventures.

The hardcover edition feels like some treasure you found in your great-great Aunt’s attic. And I think it’s mandatory that you drink tea from a fancy teacup when you read it.

This story is filled with simple non-sequiturs that grab the reader by the hand and take you along for the ride. Make that rides, in fact. And just when you feel as if you’ve got a handle on how to read/who should read it, you will stumble across Klickstein’s’ Afterward, which confused me, in a charming way.

(I also have no idea if the “Daisy Goes Punk: illustration in the back of the book is a real future solicitation. I hope it is!)

As an older reader, I truly enjoyed Klickstein’s latest, but I’m also eager to read this with a granddaughter or two this holiday season.