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21 Days To Go: Porcelain
Porcelain: A Gothic Fairy Tale is an original graphic novel from Benjamin Read (writer of True Grit, Super 8 and Warhorse) and Chris Wildgoose (artist on True Grit and Super 8) on their own Improper Books label.
As snow falls on a magical city, the urchin, Child, steals into the Porcelain Maker’s garden. Captured by his alchymical porcelain automata, she charms her way into his life and he becomes the father she never had. He has only one rule; she must never, ever, open the workshop door.
Opening on a snowy, Dickensian city setting in a world almost parallel to ours, Porcelain: A Gothic Fairy Tale revolves around the relationship between a feisty street urchin named only as ‘Child‘ and a large and kindly yet reclusive man called the ‘Artificer‘, who takes pity on the girl when she is forced by her unsavoury peers to climb over the high wall and into his garden.
As their relationship, which can be best described as an adoptive father and his daughter, grows, the Artificer offers Child anything she wants within his home with only one rule – she must not enter his workroom, a place where he creates the large number of artificial, alchemically-powered, automaton servants and animals from the bone-ash of deceased criminals supplied by the local ‘Bone Wagon’.
Beautifully coloured in a slightly under-stated fashion by Brazilian comic colourist André May, Chris Wildgoose’s pen and ink work shines throughout and is often enough to display the full range of emotions the characters (which are impeccably designed, by the way) are going through, before the addition of Bejamin Read’s words. Read imbues his characters with heart and a human quality, typified in his wonderful colloquial dialogue, which all serves to add tenderness and melancholia.
The gallery of artwork from P.J. Holden, Alison Sampson and Laura Trinder and the wealth of conceptual designs and sketches round off a fantastic package, which would be an ideal gift for fans of DC Vertigo and anyone who enjoys a good story presented in a beautiful manner.
Read the preview of Porcelain: A Gothic Fairy Tale at Improper Books and coming soon… Porcelain: Bone China!
@ace_comics @ImproperBooks That's such a lovely write-up! Thank you very much.
— Benjamin Read (@Bookpirate) December 5, 2014