But when I heard about Matt Phelan’s Snow White: A Graphic Novel I was willing to give it a chance simply because I trusted its creator and not its material. And not that the world is fed up with fairytales now (it isn’t). Not that every graphic novel out there has to be based on an original idea. The Snow White fairytale has been told and retold and overdone to death until there’s not much left to do but forget about it entirely. For my first book as both writer and illustrator (coming in 2009 by Candlewick Press), I naturally gravitated to this complex decade, specifically the strange world of the Dust Bowl.” On the other hand, consider what the American public was flocking to see in the movie theaters: the glamour and grace of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in a series of perfect musicals.
On one hand, you see a level of suffering documented in the dramatic and gritty photography of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. The movies were learning to talk (and in the case of King Kong, growl), the music was beginning to swing, and the nation was thrown into tremendous turmoil. Matt writes: “I have a fascination with the decade of the 1930s. Being an illustrator is in many ways like being an actor, director, cinematographer, costumer, and set designer rolled into one. But his first love was always drawing, and the more he saw the wonderful world of children’s books, the more he realized that this was the place for him. Matt studied film and theater in college with the goal of one day writing and directing movies. Since then he has illustrated many picture books and novels for young readers, including Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli (Dial), Very Hairy Bear by Alice Schertle (Harcourt), and The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron (Simon & Schuster) winner of the 2007 Newbery Medal. Birney’s The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster). Matt Phelan made his illustrating debut with Betty G. KILL." In a moody, cinematic new telling of a beloved fairy tale, extraordinary graphic novelist Matt Phelan captures the essence of classic film noir on the page-and draws a striking distinction between good and evil.
Enter a cast of familiar characters: a young girl, Samantha White, returning after being sent away by her cruel stepmother, the Queen of the Follies, years earlier her father, the King of Wall Street, who survives the stock market crash only to suffer a strange and sudden death seven street urchins, brave protectors for a girl as pure as snow and a mysterious stock ticker that holds the stepmother in its thrall, churning out ticker tape imprinted with the wicked words "Another. The dazzling lights cast shadows that grow ever darker as the glitzy prosperity of the Roaring Twenties screeches to a halt. Award-winning graphic novelist Matt Phelan delivers a darkly stylized noir Snow White set against the backdrop of Depression-era Manhattan.
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