Hollow

Hollow
Written by Shannon Watters and Branden Boyer-White,
Illustrated by Berenice Nelle (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This past fall, I started looking for more standalone graphic novels at the library, both to read and to find examples of artwork that I could show in my Graphic Novel class. This was a hardcover that wasn't part of a series. Three teens on the cover in the dark in the woods, with the word "Hollow" as the title. I'm not sure when I notice the bright orange pumpkin or the dark figure holding it. (To be fair, the lighting in that section of the library isn't great.

Anyway, it's obviously a take on Sleepy Hollow, and from the clothes you can see that it's a modern take. Thankfully, it's not a modern retelling where the original tale never took place (but everything else in the world is the same). Aside from that ...

The story was okay, but the artwork was problematic. I spent too much time noticing it and looking at it for the wrong reasons.

This book has sat in a TBR pile for months because I hadn't gotten to read the book on top of it. (Straight on Till Morning) I read this is a day. (Free read Friday helped, as did two subway rides.) Had I not been so quick to read it, I might've taken another look at the cover, where you'll notice the central character has full lips that are a little glossy and what appears to be an earring or stud on her lobe.

This might've helped because for the first portion of the book, despite being told that Izzy Crane is Isabel Crane, she looked like a boy. No one else (character-wise) seemed to think she was a boy. The only confusion was mine. It was a good chunk of the book before her jacket became a longer coat.

Basically, it seemed to me, and I could be way off-base especially now that I know the writer also wrote Lumberjanes, but it seemed like the story was originally written for Izzy to be male, and then switched a queer romance. Aside from how she's drawn, there are other little bits that seem odd. For example, when Izzy's mother asks if Izzy has met anyone at her new school, Izzy replies that there's one good who's kind of cool.

Mom gets excited and says, "A GIRL?" and automatically assumes that there's a spark of a romance to be had. Why would mom assume that when her daughter makes friends with a girl that there might be some romantic spark going on? (I never had my mother ask "A BOY?" when I made a friend in school.) And Izzy said the girl was cool, not possibly gay, particularly since she hasn't gotten to know her yet.

Isabel's image aside (and it did change subtly throughout the book so that at times she appeared more feminine), my bigger concern was how the artwork changed styles. In one panel, we're close-up and can see the whites of their eyes and even the shapes of their eyes, and in the next, everyone has two dots for eyes and maybe a nose but not necessarily. The abrupt shift back and forth was confusing. It felt like there were two different artists at work some times. It was a major distraction.

There were times when I wasn't sure that the third character, who had to be Croc, was actually him or someone new.

The story is that Sleepy Hollow loves celebrating its legend. One person who doesn't in Vicky Van Tassel, who is a descendant of the original woman from Irving's story (which is fictional but based on real events). She hates being used because she's a Van Tassel. When Izzy first shows up, she wants nothing to do with her because her last name is Crane. Too much.

Meanwhile the horseman has been appearing again. When it chases Izzy (who doesn't believe in this nonsense until then), she learns that it's appearing to protect Vicky from all threats, and this Hallloween is a "dark Halloween" when the threat is likely to appear.

Also there's a new substitute teacher named Mr. Tenebrous, which is defined as dark, shadowy, or obscure. I mean, it's obvious he's evil but does it have to be that obvious? Well, it's a Buffy/Scooby Doo type story, so I guess it does. In any case, Tenebrous is an evil spirit who has cursed the Van Tassel family from the time of the original story.

One final quibble which they acknowledge in the story: Katrina Van Tassel married Brom Bones, aka Brom Van Brunt. So their children would've had the family name Van Brunt, unless they divorced and she had a bastard son to carry on the Van Tassel name. Of course, the Van Tassel name could've survived, but Vicky shouldn't be descended from Katrina. A quick explanation is that the family the name now for public events. As it is, the town of Sleepy Hollow is really just North Tarrytown, NY, which changed its name in 1996.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.