The Annotated Northwest Passage Oni Press Review by Chuck Moore |
I'll admit to being a little late to the game on this series which makes this a bit of a retro-review. If you, like me, were misfortunate enough to have missed reading Scott Chantler's Northwest Passage when it was originally published in three parts by Oni Press in 2005 and 2006, you are missing out on an honestly fun treat and need to track down a copy of The Annotated Northwest Passage right away.
Nominated for a Joe Schuster Award (Best Cover) as well as an Eisner Award (Best Publication for Teens), the collected edition of Northwest Passage is one of those tales that, for this reader, proved hard to put down. As you read, you can feel that the author's heart has been placed squarely within the final product to the benefit of the art, the story and overall enjoyability (and readability) of the finished product.
Released in 2007, this edition presents all three parts of this well paced 235 page story in a beautiful hardbound edition. The book, which sells for a very reasonable $19.95, also contains 38 pages of annotations from the author walking you through the story behind the story. You also get a nice 2 page cover gallery sharing the cover art from the original trades of the series.
Set in the year 1755, this is a historical story based in Rupert's Land, a section of Canada that would one day become (along with a mix of other regions within Canada) northern Quebec. The tale, a Canadian western, has a decidedly frontiersman feel to it and is loaded with pioneering spirit and high adventure right from the start. It proves interesting, exciting and full of small twists and turns that pace out well within the story.
Very quickly we are introduced to Charles Lord, the retiring Governor of Fort Newcastle, a frontier trading post. Lord is a seasoned adventurer who is stepping away from company life in the fur trade to quietly (and a bit secretively) return to his former life of adventure. A coming conflict with a long standing French arch-nemesis Guerin Montglave and deeper interpersonal issues with his own son prevent this from taking place and set the stage for the conflicts and story that follows.
Lord certainly isn't the only interesting character in a tale that is littered with personality. Here, we are introduced to the elder versions of a band of adventurers whose tales of exploration, only hinted at in story, speak well toward the feeling of deep character history present within the story. In Northwest Passage, you feel as if you are joining many of the characters in their sunset years and enjoy that thrill as they shake off the dust and fall back into the skills they had depended on in that earlier time as explorers.
The internal art of the series is black and white with a nicely applied shading highlighting the look. Scott Chantler's art reminds me a bit of Jeff Smith's work in Bone (which I consider a real compliment to his style) and it's one of those reads that looks simple at first glance, but as you sit and take in the imagery you discover it's rife with detail and creativity.
As for storytelling in the art, his transition from panel to panel has an almost cinematic feel to it. His characters are visually expressive and he has a natural ability to relay a lot of the story through the look and background of each scene. His take on nature and the expanse of the wilderness conveys much of the wonder you would hope to find in such scenes. Start to finish, this story is just visually well done.
In Northwest Passage, Chantler has taken a basis of historical fact and leapfrogged it into historical fiction providing a highly engaging story. I will now be watching Chantler's blog (www.scottchantler.com) and his work as this is a writer and artist whose work I want to read.
Page last updated on June 7, 2008