Writers: Matt Anderson and Eric Hutchins
Artist: Micah Farritor
Publisher: Ape Entertainment
White Picket Fences is a nice package: 36 pages of goodness, only interrupted by some in-house ads, which aren’t really a distraction. The back up story, "Captain Odyssey," is a good bonus to this warm story.
If you read this book and not feel like you're 11 years old again, you have a heart of stone. The issue invokes all those endless summers of no school where every day you and your friends cooked up a different adventure. Those were the days of tree houses, wooden guns and sleeping in your Spider-man pyjamas.
You didn’t know about the evil in the world. The worst thing that could happen was being bitten by the neighbour's dog or losing your baseball in Mr. Ihatechildren's backyard.
*Sigh*
Those were good times. Damn good times.
White Picket Fences brought me right back, like a time machine turning back time two decades ago. I could feel the dirt on my army trunks again and the excitement of playing army. When I was eleven, I’d run around wearing a WWII gasmask with my friends. We were the neighbourhood watch.
Enough about me, this book is about Charlie, an eleven year old living in the quiet town of Greenview, a name which says it all. Writers Matt Anderson and Eric Hutchins make a very convincing character out of Charlie. This kid is me at that age.
When Charlie is brave enough to enter an abandoned farmhouse all alone, he is rewarded with a real treasure, the dream of every kid who walks the earth. What he finds seems to be a sophisticated remote control, and without caring about any consequences, he just takes it home.
And then he pushes the red button…
Never, ever push a red button. It's sure trouble coming your way.
White Picket Fences can easily compete with classics like The Goonies or The Iron Giant.
It’s an exciting story that any kid, whatever his/her age, will love. The creative team write a strong plot with lovely dialogue. I really love Charlie’s father who has a bomb shelter in his backyard. The interaction with the neighbour is damn funny.
But the star of White Picket Fences has to be artist Micah Farritor. His pencils and watercolours drag you right into Charlie’s world. The softness of the drawings is heart warming. The details are well chosen to create this peaceful world but leaving enough for your own imagination. The composition of the panels is a good example of fine sequential art, but I was even more impressed with the facial expressions, which are dead on.
There is nothing in this book that couldn’t make this a classic. I felt the same adrenaline rush when I read the first issue of Abadazad from Crossgen some years ago.
I can’t wait for the next two issues. Can you?
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