Review by Frank Plowright
As The Narnia Chronicles are perennially popular for generation after generation, it’s surprising that young adult graphic novel adventures centred on a family are a rarity. Well, Michael Walsh rectifies that in this gorgeously drawn fantasy adventure. Ben, Lynn and Beth Oates move with their parents to a remote area of Newfoundland, and discover they’re children innocent of corruption and therefore able to travel to Elphyne, the land of the Fae. As explained early, it exists between reality as we know it and the world that comes after.
In a compactly compressed single page Walsh passes on that imagination is a powerful tool in the Elphyne, and his cover also shows the Oates children along with a delightful surprise best kept as such, although it’s not long into the story before the revelation. Elphyne is becoming corrupted, and should any of the evil creatures escape into the world, it would be a disaster for humanity. However, the Oates children already have powerful tools to prevent that.
Walsh is providing a basic quest plot, but imbued with immense charm and beautifully drawn. The children come across as real from the first pages, true to their ages and therefore their stages in the family pecking order, and the threats, although a little scary, are age appropriate. More importantly Walsh is imaginative when it comes to beings and creatures known from fairy stories, smart enough to use the familiar, yet designed to look individual and in some cases with eccentric personalities.
Because much is familiar Walsh really pulls a couple of great surprises out of the hat for the final chapter. He’s been upfront about everything, yet it’s an admirable piece of plotting in a series that seems to be built to provide many more adventures.
Walsh has one further surprise to drop in his afterword. It’s information children will understand without processing fully, but recontextualises the story by revealing how personal it is. There are a lot of graphic novels aimed at younger readers on the bookshop and library shelves these days, but The Oates & the Elphyne is a cut above.
