Friday, December 07, 2018

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Graphic Classics, Volume 19: Christmas Classics (2010)



As I mentioned last year, Alex Burrows and Micah Farritor's version smash cuts from Scrooge taking the spirit's hand to their being outdoors in the country. This version is super abridged, so Scrooge has so far been fairly easy for the ghosts to convince. This scene continues that with Scrooge feeling exactly what Christmas Past wants him to. He's excited to see the village where he grew up and he's saddened by the sight of his boyhood self alone in the school. There's an especially nice panel where Scrooge is covering his mouth as if he's holding back sobs.

We see some boys leaving the school, but there's no talk of their "neglecting" Scrooge. Instead, the schoolmaster (or maybe its just a teacher) notices aloud to Scrooge that "you are the only one left again." Young Scrooge doesn't look particularly disturbed about it, though. He's reading at the time and appears fairly content. There's no mention of Scrooge's literary friends, but the book Scrooge is reading has a genie lamp on the cover in a nice homage to that part of Dickens' story.

The school isn't especially rundown. In fact, it's colored in warm browns and yellows so that it looks cozy and inviting. Scrooge's father is never mentioned, so there are no suggestions here about either his financial state or his relationship with Scrooge.

Fan is younger than Scrooge and appears to be about eight or so. All she says is that Scrooge is to come home and that they are to be together for the holiday. It's up to the reader to infer why Scrooge hasn't been able to go home before now, but I suppose it's fairly easy to make some guesses about his home life from that information.

Other than possibly that earlier panel when we first saw Young Scrooge, the schoolmaster doesn't appear in the story. Fan says that she's come to get Scrooge and right away they're in the carriage (really more of a flatbed wagon) with a driver. Scrooge is pointing towards something off panel, presumably home.

During these final panels, the Ghost mentions Fan's child, which puts a pensive look on Scrooge's face as he watches the wagon drive off across the snowy landscape.

2 comments:

Caffeinated Joe said...

Definitely seems to be a quick version, but the art here is nice. The town we do see seems quaint, at least.

Michael May said...

Yeah. I'm a big fan of Farritor's art.

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