Lois Lowry ’s The Giver is a visual novel . It ’s not filled with colorful illustrations , but reading is certainly a optic experience , one that everybody imagines in their own mode . Comic Koran creator P. Craig Russell has revealed his own vision for The Giver — and , in this interview and exclusive preview , he portion out how his use of sparse color and stark contrast show this world of nothing that ’s on the brink of something .
I ’ve had a chance to translate the forthcoming graphical novel adjustment of Lowry ’s The Giver , which is set for release on February 5 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt . It ’s been adapted by Russell with most of Lowry ’s original Word , and illustrated by Russell , Galen Showman , and Scott Hampton . It ’s the first clip the 1993 children ’s novel has been rendered in comic al-Qur’an figure , a sensitive that feel long delinquent . The story is about a young male child named Jonas who ’s grown up in an idyllic residential district where emotion are suppress to keep everyone content . However , upon learning he has a gift to get at memories of the aloof past — bringing literal coloring into his life sentence for the first clock time — he clear everything the world has miss . How infliction , loss , and even death are a suitable price for love .
The graphic novel is a magnificent translation of the source material , because of how it uses colour and dividing line to represent Jonas and his world . While the 2014 movie starring Jeff Bridges , Brenton Thwaites , and Meryl Streep simply went from black and blanched to full color to show Jonas ’ growth as the raw Receiver of Memory , the graphic novel takes a different approach , which you could take a look at in these images debut only on io9 .
speak to io9 , Russell explain how , for represent Jonas ’ frame of psyche , he removed colour almost solely in his designs . But unlike what you might be consider , most of the graphical novel is n’t in traditional black and white-hot , it ’s done in outlines of inglorious and low-spirited ; using the negative space inside the scenes and characters to turn Jonas ’ populace into an actual nihility .
Russell said this was a way to convey the out-and-out sameness of Jonas ’ domain , as well as how hollow it in reality is .
You still ask the common sense that the semblance is missing , as opposed to just a black - and - snowy comic Holy Scripture or a fateful - and - white movie . If you ’re looking at a really beautifully shoot movie in black and white , like Citizen Kane or whatever , you do n’t have the feeling the colour is miss , because the grays are so fat .
I could have done that work with pitch-dark ink and ink airstream . But it would still palpate like you were n’t missing the color . I wanted with this very hint of a colour , and the silvery greyness with the blue , to make it take care like a tonal public in which color was drain . Whether that works or not is up to the viewer .
It does work , especially when you total Jonas ’ memories into the impression . In the original novel , the retention Jonas experience are drop a line in a fashion that encourage the audience to experience them alongside him . After all , the story is fundamentally about the power of store , and this is where the original novel shines . It ’s easy to close one ’s eyes and imagine the vivid feelings of riding a sled , sitting on the beach in the sunshine , or being with kinfolk during the holidays .
However , this is a heavy concept to portray visually . Because , even though proofreader understand these things , Jonas does not . He is n’t just waking up over the rainbow like in The Wizard of Oz , he ’s learning what a rainbow is . It ’d be like if we discovered a new color . It ’s that new . How do you visually represent something that complex ?
Well , Russell did it by keep the retentivity dewy-eyed . For most of the graphic novel , they ’re for the most part illustrate in the same black and blue outline — with one noticeable difference of opinion , a undivided pop of color . Russell say he designed it to not only represent Jonas ’ changing worldview , but also the mood of the computer memory he was witnessing . For model , the war memory is engulfed in a smart , yet ugly orangish , conjuring the look of flack , heat , and decay .
Russell also did n’t need to undercut the concluding view after the escape , which he wanted present in full color to defend the real , in full realized world .
The Giver ’s ending is illustrious for its equivocalness . Jonas has get off from the residential area , stealing his vernal charge Gabriel aside before he can be mercy killed . Jonas and Gabriel struggle to survive in the wilderness , and Jonas fears they may not subsist . When it seems like they ’re on the brink of demise , Jonas finds a sled ( just like the one from his first memory ) and use it to find his way home . Should it be take literally — with the two untried boys racing downhill toward a new life — or did the two of them really die , lost in a memory board of what could have been ?
Everyone has their own answer , and that popular opinion may even change over time . Lowry established in later Word that Jonas and Gabriel did subsist , something Russell knew nothing of when he was compose the adaptation of The Giver . When I asked him how he chose to interpret the ending , he say he kept it evenhandedly ambiguous to oppose the original volume , but that his last panel speaks to how he feels it end :
I thought the relation point [ in the novel ] was that , at this moment of near - death from hypothermia , he find a sled . And it ’s a red sled . Well , that ’s one of the first pleasant memory he had . What are the chances at this level of discover a red sleigh that will take him to freedom ? It was too much of a concurrence . I always call back that was his imagination , or he was playing with that retention — as he had used other memory as a mode to get by .
He goes down the mountain , and those little gunpoint of spark , those little fond fiddling window , get and rise until they ’re like he ’s steep in wiz . The coke turns into these big lovesome mavin … [then ] you call on the Thomas Nelson Page , and see that desert bicycle lying in the nose candy . That , to me , think that they did not endure . But that even so , it was deserving it . Just for that short period of ecstatic exemption from this atrocious , horrifying place he was hightail it .
The vivid novel may not be how all of us imagine Jonas ’ world to be — whether it ’s Russell ’s role of color or how he interpreted the end — but it ’s still a powerful and symbolic representation of an every bit powerful and symbolic story . It may have taken decades to bring The Giver to this medium , but based on the result , it was well deserving the wait .
The Giver graphic novel come out on February 5 . I also peach with Lowry about this a la mode adaption , so keep an eye out next week for more .
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