Metaphrog
Here’s a lovely little piece from Metaphrog, a couple of graphic short tales with a distinctive fairy tale feel about them (indeed the second story, The Little Match Girl, is inspired by the story by the immortal Hans Christian Andersen). The Glass Case takes place only a few moments from where I am sitting as I write, in Edinburgh’s Old Town, where we see a school outing to the Museum of Childhood on the Royal Mile (well worth a visit). Each of the kids is instructed by their teacher to pick something from one of the displays and draw a sketch of it.
For some reason young Sam feels compelled to sketch an old toy doll called Molly; predictably enough some of the other boys make fun of him for being a ‘sissy’ and picking a ‘girl’s doll’ as his subject. Sam doesn’t seem to care though, he clearly feels drawn to this small toy figure in her museum case. Home life is far from happy and Sam soon finds he is drawn back to the museum to see Molly again, and a strange sort of relationship begins to form.
Given the brevity of the story I won’t ruin it by revealing anything more, save to say it is rather lovely – if also tinged with sadness – and, quite rightly I think, Metaphrog never make it clear what is real, what is fantasy here. Are some of the events actually happening or just the imagination of a lonely young boy’s mind desperately seeking escape to somewhere better? It’s up to the reader to decide when they finish the tale, and that’s how it should be. There are also some lovely scenes – a view of the ancient city from the rooftops captures that magical feel of this old place wonderfully, so much so I will forgive them for getting the geography of the city slightly wrong!
In the Little Match Girl the eponymous lassie is on a bitterly cold winter street, shivering in the snow; dusk is falling, she is cold and hungry but frightened to go home as she’s not made a single sale all day and she knows her father will be angry. She desperately wishes for light and warmth, not just the physical attributes of those qualities but the emotional light and warmth which none of us can really do without, least of all a child. It’s one of those stories that is beautifully sad, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms, and the art cleverly manages to convey that 19th century Victorian cruel street and the hapless waif upon it while also inferring that actually this isn’t the Bad Old Days when children were left to suffer cold and alone on the uncaring city streets, it may well be today. And given how many children do go hungry or sleep with a pavement for a pillow around the world (an abomination in this century for which the adult world should forever be ashamed) I suspect this is a deliberate device.
Winter’s Tales is a lovely little item – a small, landscape format limited edition Metaphrog are selling this month. At only £3.50 it would make for a lovely and unique little Yuletide gift for someone, but there are only a couple of hundred, so you better be quick!
Metaphrog
Richard has already blogged a bit about this – it’s an interesting project Metaphrog have done in conjunction with Creative Scotland, as part of a government scheme to encourage younger Scots in the creative arts. I know how busy a schedule Metaphrog’s duo maintains when it comes to library and school visits and workshops where they never fail to get the kids excited about creating their own stories, so I think they were a perfect choice for this subject.
The story follows kids at Greenvale high school, an everyday secondary school where the kids have the usual problems any teen deals with, about discovering who you are, where you fit in (especially when sometimes it feels like you don’t), what you want to do and how to articulate what you feel as all these changes and pressures on your young life build up (and we do put some much weight on young shoulder – hey, you, 13 year old kid, get those grades, pick the correct courses to follow so you can get the correct college course later and then the right career, decide now how the whole rest of your life is meant to be! What a thing we do to kids, sometimes…).
It’s a fairly compact tale but we’re still introduced to the school and a range of characters, teachers and students alike, recognisable types to anyone, the quiet, shy one, the loud annoying older sibling, the ‘bad boys’ who act big and menacing to hide their own worries and insecurities. This isn’t stereotyping though, more, I think, making sure in a short work that these are characters the target audience – secondary school age students – can recognise and empathise with (and that’s no easy task, given secondary covers from around 11 or 12 through to 17 or 18 years of age).
When an idealistic new teacher proposes a school talent show (to the usual sighs from older, more cynical teachers) the kids find themselves being inspired, suddenly realising that they all have talents they can nurture and express, be it on the stage performing or using other skills behind the scenes to make it all happen. Even the ‘bad boys’ get drawn into it eventually when the teacher shows them that their spraycan wizardry can be put to more artistic uses than defacing school buildings.
The artwork has a very manga feel to it, appropriate enough given that’s a style many younger readers are more familiar with in their comics reading. I took part in a lot of various school shows (some by choice, more than a few I was ‘volunteered’ into doing) and I thought the story caught that atmosphere of excitement mixed with nerves that goes along with doing anything like that, but also that feeling of triumph when it all works and the way that builds confidence in young hearts and minds that they will need as they go on. And that’s really what Metaphrog and this arts project from Creative Scotland are trying to do, to encourage kids to explore their artistic side, to be creative.
I’m sure some old cynics will make the usual chorus of “waste of money” at this project, but they can go and eat their family sized bag of Bah Humbug because not only does engaging younger people’s imaginations and creative sides make them happier and more productive students (a bonus in education) it also, if we want to be pragmatic about it, contributes considerably to our economy – think on the writers, singers, game creators, artists and more we produce who go on to bestride a global stage (and you never know when one kid who is inspired by this may grow up to be a new JK Rowling-like success, do you?). And we know from first hand experience how comics can engage with young minds so successfully, so I am delighted at Creative Scotland asking Metaphrog to use the medium to help inspire a new generation – perhaps in a few years we may even be reviewing some comics from some youngster who picked this up. I do hope so.
The graphic novel is being distributed to school students and is also available through various government agencies, or you can read the online version for free right here.
This was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet Blog