Graphic Novel Review: Far Arden

Far Arden,
by Kevin Cannon

There’s a different Arctic Canada in the pages of Far Arden than the one you might imagine. It’s a place of intrigue and piracy, where old salts drink in places called the Somber Moose and swap tales of the mythical tropical paradise hidden somewhere in the ice and glaciers, an island known as Far Arden. Army Shanks, cryptic loner and sometime great adventurer, is one of these men, and the hero of Minneapolis native Kevin Cannon’s graphic novel.



When our story opens, Army Shanks is a bitter recluse, a survivor with a past he’d rather forget. But now, his once lost ship the Aeropagitica has mysteriously pulled into harbor, and it looks like he may be able to find Far Arden after all. But first, he has to face his old love Fortuna, help a mysterious orphan who insists on wearing an arctic-fox fur on his head, accept the company of a Boothia College  student journalist and her boyfriend (who is really a duplicitous spy!), fight off a rogue polar bear driven inland by global warming, dodge a mad neuro-scientist, and countless other distractions and impediments to finding the island – if it exists at all.

This is an adventure story of a kind not told any more, or perhaps never was. It’s a shaggy dog amalgam of romance, vengeance, red herrings, and B-movie melodrama from Indiana Jones to the voyages of Sinbad, with a dash of Harry Potter school-chum derring-do. With references to Melville, Milton, and Shakespeare, there's an intellect behind this madness. But there’s also an overriding loopiness and carefree attitude, and if certain facts don’t square twenty pages later, if characters disappear, well, it’s all part of the fun. And all, I'm sure, a result of the process.

Now, I’m not usually one to talk much about the link between writing process to the resulting form - I think stories should more or less stand on their own - but it begs to be done in this case. Reading the early pages I was struck by the loose, almost careless lines and broad characterization, as if the drawing had been done in a hurry, or by someone not quite talented enough to know time was the secret key to composition. But in truth, Cannon is a fantastic artist, and what he was doing was taking part in a 24 hour challenge.


Similar to the NaNoWriMo, the marathon write-a-novel-in-a-month club, the annual, nationwide 24 Hour Comics day has inspired cartoonists to create an entire 24 page comic in 24 hours. No doubt this brings out a lot of dreck, doodles, and nervous breakdowns (chronicled here by Cannon himself for Powell's blog), but for Cannon it was the inspiration to bring to life Army Shanks, a character that had been kicking around in his head for a few years. One 24-hour spurt later, and chapter one of Far Arden was on paper.

When a friend challenged him to take 24 hour comic day to the next level and compose an entire graphic novel in 12 24-hour sessions over the span of 1 year, Cannon took it on. While the pace forced him to drop the 24-hour part of the challenge after four sessions, Cannon managed to keep up the page-an-hour pace and the "make it up as you go" ethos, and cranked out Far Arden in a year.

All of this works to the advantage of the comic, as the urgency of Cannon's deadline imparts a fluid shorthand to the drawings, an impulsive rush that draws the viewer into a world that is half suggestion and half representation (check out his waves, for instance), as well as to the delirious, free-association, anything-goes plot. Things are distilled in Far Arden to a story-telling essence: dramatic moments have no time for subtelty, and every complication is tossed headlong into the tumble of story, which flows churning in the realtime pace it was conceived and inked.

It's quite a read, a long lingering look at a uniquely original world. Part of you will continue to imagine Army Shanks traveling the ice-flows of the Canadian Arctic long after you've finished the book. But, you're wondering, does he find his Far Arden? Let’s just say that like all great adventurers, Shanks finds more than he bargained for, and the conclusion is both surprising, satisfying, and more haunting than you would ever have thought from a comic that was put together on the run.

Excerpts from Far Arden copyright Kevin Cannon.