I had never heard of Hope Larson
before stumbling upon the webcomic Salamander Dream (sadly no longer freely
available) online. I was instantly drawn to her artwork, and her extraordinary
talent as a storyteller (of very few words).
Salamander Dream is about Hailey a young girl with a rich
imagination fuelled by the woods she spends her summers in. She meets Salamander,
a strange masked figure, who joins her in her explorations and tells her
stories of his own adventures. But Hailey grows up, makes other friends and
plays in the woods less often. As a young woman, she returns to the woods and
finds her relationship with the woods -and
Salamander, a metaphor for the imaginary world she has conjured up as a child- has changed.
The story reads like a jazz tune – near-wordless, dreamlike, and with art that
flows free across the page, unbounded by the panels that conventionally
structure comics.
Grey Horses also segues between
the life and dreams of its protagonist, Noemie, a French student who comes to
America to study art. She makes friends, explores her new surroundings, puzzles
over a boy who seems to be stalking her.. and experiences strange dreams about
a strange girl on a horse. Slowly,
Noemie solves both mysteries and finds things to like about the city. Like Salamander Dream, this book also has
pared-down text, lacks panels and follows employs just three colours. The art
and text flow beautifully across the page in peach-coloured clouds. I enjoyed
the distinctive line art, the spare text and the way Larson depicts Noemie’s
thoughts and speech in both French and English .
Mercury is, by contrast, more
conventional in format and far more ambitious as a narrative. It has two
distinct storylines, separated by a hundred and fifty years but connected by a
mysterious locket. In 1859, in French Hill, Nova Scotia, teenaged Josey meets
and falls for Asa Curry, a charming speculator in search of gold. He owns a
strange locket that he seems strangely obsessive about, and which he claims
helps him find gold.
In 2009, Tara returns to French Hill after a
fire burns down her house. She is living with relatives, struggling to fit in
and focuses her energies in long-distance running. She finds a strange locket
that used to belong to her mother and begins wearing it. The locket seems to
have metal-seeking properties that get her into interesting situations.
Meanwhile, the growing attraction between Asa and Josey makes her parents
uneasy, as they doubt his intentions. Will Tara and Josey find happiness? Will
Asa find gold? And what is the mystery of the locket?
Hope Larson deftly weaves both
stories together. The book moves seamlessly from one to the other and back
again, which made for a very interesting narrative structure. The book is done
entirely in black and white, making for very striking and dramatic
spreads. Mercury is layered and complex –
I find something new either in the art or the narrative with each re-read.
2 comments:
Thanks for three interesting books, wordjunkie, I must check them out. I liked Hope Larson’s adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time.
Wordjunkie,
Going through some of the images of Salamander Dreams over here - http://www.hopelarson.com/portfolio-item/salamander-dream/ ; I can understand a vague kind of magic-realism that might be at play in her graphic novels. Will definitely check this out..
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