It’s not really all that surprising that someone with Matt Phelan’s background would end up making a graphic novel. Phelan’s a rather prolific illustrator, probably best known for picture book Always with writer Ann Stott and 2007 Newbery winnerThe Higher Power of Lucky with Susan Patron.
While illustrated books and comics are, of course, different media, it’s certainly possible to think of them on the same imaginary spectrum, with a comic being a little like an illustrated prose book with the dial that controls the picture-to-word ratio turned way up.
That seems as good an explanation as any as to why Phelan’s first graphic novelThe Storm In The Barn (Candlewick Press), is such an accomplished one—it’s basically just a very long picture book, with very few words, and more than one picture per page, you know?
It’s set in Kansas in 1937, during the Dust Bowl period that generated all of those sad Dorothea Lange photos in your junior high history class.
Our protagonist is Jack, an eleven-year-old boy whose family is suffering like all the other farming families. It hasn’t rained in years, and no rain means no farming, and no farming means nothing but poverty and dust as far as the eye can see.
Additionally, one of Jack’s sisters is slowly dying from a terrible cough, he’s picked on by the other boys, he’s suspected of having “dust dementia” when he starts seeing things and he’s feeling somewhat emasculated by the weather. Well, not emasculated so much as eboyulated—just as the men in town are made to feel worthless by their inability to farm, Jack feels worthless because he’s unable to help farm, as boys his age should be doing.
The things Jack sees—mysterious flashes of light emanating from a neighbor’s locked barn, a strange figure that looks like it has rain for a face—may actually be clues to the source of the drought. If Jack can just be brave and clever enough, he might end up being an unlikely hero, like all the Jacks in the fairy tales a grown-up friend of his is always telling him.
Phelan’s artwork has a soft-focused, almost ethereal quality about it. Using a muted, limited palette of watercolors over somewhat sketchy pencils and inks, his panels all seem at least partially obscured by dust or darkness.
The images all look appropriately old and insubstantial, and it’s nice to see the form of a comic work like this so strongly serving the content of the story it’s telling.
Phelan allows long stretches of the story to pass without words, confidently relying on the pictures to do their job, and when words appear, they do so in type over the pictures; Phelan eschews the traditional white dialogue bubbles, so that dialogue never covers up the artwork.
In a work like this, where the colors in the background of each panel are so important to establishing the mood of the scene, that’s certainly a good thing.
There are certainly elements of fantasy to The Storm in the Barn, but they are extremely few—few enough that one could probably read the story one of two ways. Perhaps the embodiment of the rain has maliciously hidden itself away in a barn, or perhaps Jacks just thinks it has.
Either way, The Storm in the Barn remains an engaging coming of age story with a fairy tale accent, set in one of more dramatic moments in twentieth century America.
Related: Zack Smith spoke with Phelan about the book for the main site back in July. You can read their interview here.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I’m going to be rude. I say this because I read this site a lot and I’ve read a lot of bad articles and now I feel the need to complain about what is honestly incredibly lazy and poor writing. In the course of this review which you were no doubt paid to write, you managed to not address or mention most of the major thematic elements of the book from the Wizard of Oz, to the sister named Dorothy, to the main character being named Jack and how that relates to the Appalahian “Jack tales” which are repeated in the story by one of the characters. In fact the whole book which you claim might not be fantasy is in fact set up to be a “Jack tale” which are American tall tales.
Also Phelan’s use of color was never really touched on. Did the publisher send you an early black and white photocopy? I don’t know why else you wouldn’t mention it?
Then there’s the rabbit drive which doesn’t rate a mention either as part of the story, as an illustration of a true life event that took place during that period which Phelan wove into the story or as a way to illustrate how Phelan did such a masterful job of adapting to the comics form and used color.
“It’s not really all that surprising that someone with Matt Phelan’s background would end up making a graphic novel.”
So every picture book artist is destined to create a graphic novel? The two art forms are related but is there anything in his body of work or statements that would suggest that he’s more likely to create a graphic novel than any random picture book artist? Considering the fact that the books you’ve cited are titles he illustrated but did not write, it seems that he’s actually less likely to make a graphic novel than someone who writes and illustrates picture books.
“it’s basically just a very long picture book, with very few words, and more than one picture per page, you know?”
Uh…okay…I will say that this is possibly the WORST description of a comic EVER. I’m not looking for some Scott McCloud level explanation of the definition of comics, but it would be nice if a professional critic didn’t sound quite so retarded when describing the form he’s paid to write about.
Am I over-reacting? Do film critics describe an animated film as “it was like a flipbook with actors saying dialogue when the characters are supposed to be talking” No. Because they feel like treating their audiences like they’re not idiots.
“It’s set in Kansas in 1937, during the Dust Bowl period that generated all of those sad Dorothea Lange photos in your junior high history class”
Why was it impossible to describe the setting as simply the Dust Bowl? Do you think mentioning Dorothea Lange makes you sound smart? It doesn’t.
“Additionally, one of Jack’s sisters is slowly dying from a terrible cough”
You don’t die from a cough. You die from an illness that causes you to cough.
I realize you don’t get paid a fortune to write and rewrite these pieces but show a little respect for your audience and yourself and do some editing. Please. You’re a better writer than this.