(courtesy Larrikin Press)
It’s a recurring theme in all kinds of creative expression – just who are the monsters really and might they be lurking where you least suspect?
The answer, to the second question at least, is an emphatic “YES!!”, owing to the fact that humanity, despite millennia of history to draw upon, continues to see good and evil in purely binary terms.
Sure, there is demonstratively and unequivocally good and evil in the world, no matter the post-modern, post-truth denizens and wonky AI algorithms like to say, but once you depart those clear and certain shores, the wild ocean of human experience shows again and again that what we perceive as good may not be and that the evil straight from central casting may not be horrible and nasty after all.
That idea emerges beautifully and with so much creative wit and empathy in Stitch Head: the Graphic Novel by Guy Bass (writer) and Pete Williamson (artwork) who turn any sense of binary certainty on its head in a story that sees one young “monster” – he’s not, of course, but the world, rather conveniently for their rather limited narrative insight, definitely sees him that way – the eponymous Stitch Head encounters a travelling circus operator who sees Stitch Head and his monstrously charming family of mad scientist creations as his ticket to entertainment fortune and glory.
Being a human being, and arriving in a village of human beings, he is assumed to be one of the good ones, someone who is not like the mad scientist, Professor Erasmus, high in the imposingly scary Castle Grotteskew high on the hill, who keep churning out all kinds of The Island of Doctor Moreau (H. G. Wells) creations who, thanks to Stitch Head’s timely intervention, wouldn’t hurt a fly.
(courtesy Larrikin Press)
While that is the truth of the matter, and Stitch Head and his oddball family as every bit as good as anyone comes, the sort of good people of Grubbers Nubbin choose to believe the inhabitants of the castle, who don’t fit the villagers’, and indeed that of humanity generally, idea of what normal is, are a dire threat that means them only ill.
Fulbert, the travelling carnival ringleader, trades on this in a bid to kidnap Erasmus and change his frankly underwhelming circus freak show into something far more terrifyingly ticket-worthy.
This sets up a titanic battle between calculating Fulbert and an initially panicked Stitch Head, who quickly rises to the occasion because he is innately good and his family, weird though it is to others, matters more than anything, which fuels an enchantingly meaningful story in Stitch Head: the Graphic Novel which cannot help but delight the eyes and impact the emotions.
The artwork by Williamson is sublime, and even when there are real monsters afoot, and sometimes there needs to be, his gloriously lovely illustrations carry just the right amount of visual heft to give even more force to Bass’s rich characterisation, pithily funny and yet moving dialogue and a storyline that treads a well-worn thematic path but in a wholly original way.
If you have ever felt like an “Other”, as someone of whom people have made errant snap judgements, so entrenched and well-formed that you can’t counter them, then you will find a lot to love in Stitch Head: the Graphic Novel which celebrates the purity of being yourself and being seen for that, but also how much power there is rallying to the defence of people who may not necessarily fit the norm.
Reading this beautiful tale, and getting ready to watch the animated adaptation which drops on Netflix on 29 October just in time for Halloween, is a clarion call to all of us to reject assumptions, to work hard to see people for exactly who they are and not who we think they should be, and to stay true to who you and your tribe are and to fight for them, if necessary, because after all, family matters and something that precious is always worth fighting for.
(courtesy Larrikin Press)