Briony Hatch is a brilliantly honest graphic novel that will reach out to the fan in you. Written and illustrated by sisters Ginny and Penelope Skinner and published by Limehouse Books, Briony Hatch is a perfect excuse to dive back into your imagination.
15-year-old Briony Hatch hates reality: her mother wants her to grow up, her parents are getting divorced and her best-friend Julia only cares about partying and sleeping around. Briony would rather bury herself in The Starling Black Adventures, where the main character is a powerful psychic exorcist who leads a dangerous and exciting life.
Unfortunately for Briony, The Starling Black Adventures has come to its final instalment: her fantasy world, her perfect alternative to reality is about to be gone forever. “Is it normal to feel this sad because I finished reading a book?” Briony asks herself. “Look around you! This is it! Magic doesn’t exist!” Briony’s trouble in coming to terms with reality is a painful and funny reminder of our generation’s failure to receive an acceptance letter to Hogwarts.
Through Briony’s eyes, the outside world is both extremely simple and extremely complicated: with an hilarious early-teenage honesty, she explains how her parents never listen to each other and how meaningless her friend Julia’s behaviour is through naïve irony. However, Briony is still hopeless in everyday life behaviour: she can’t focus at school, she can’t talk to boys, let alone understand them. She will learn that everything will turn out to be ok just by finding enough confidence to accept who you are and what you like.
Sisters Ginny and Penelope Skinner work together both on graphic novels and television. They are developing the original series Golden Hill for Channel 4. Penelope is an award-winning playwright, whose plays have been produced by (among others) The Royal Court and The National Theatre, as well as writing for the Channel 4 comedy Fresh Meat. Ginny is writing her own graphic novel White Stag.
On the possibility to write a sequel to Briony Hatch, Penelope Skinner said: “We don’t have anything set up. We are planning on writing another graphic novel together though. There will be another one, whether it’s Briony Hatch or not!” Ginny Skinner told Forbidden Planet: “Briony’s personality is very much based on us; especially her obsession with fantasy novels and her unwillingness to accept the mundane reality of ‘normal life.”
Whether or not you’re a comics’ fan, Briony Hatch will touch the escapist in you with its honesty, its teenage awkwardness and its mix of naïve and clever humour. There is a bit of Briony Hatch in all of us: it’s a guilty pleasure telling us that escaping reality – even if just for a while – is all right. The only problem with the story is that it finishes too early: you won’t be able to put Briony Hatch down.
Pictures by: Forbidden Planet and skinnersisters.co.uk