By Patrick Wray (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-53-0 (PB)
We have a proud and hard-won and passionately defended tradition in this country of using fiction and fantasy – especially those presented in the form of kids’ books – to hold up a light to cultural iniquities, political malfeasance and social dystopias. It works for Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm and dozens more plus a wealth of comics and graphic novels from Judge Dredd to Flook. This is one more and it’s supremely, chillingly good at what it does.
Artist, writer and musician Patrick Wray studied at the Dartington College of Art and took a long time living before crafting this telling and subtle exploration of property laws and the role of the people in how they’re governed…
Mimicking the look and narrative tone of children’s reading primers (and kids’ comics) The Flood That Did Come is set in the hilltop village of Pennyworth in the year 2036. It’s all the home little Jenny and her brother Tom know, but their happy, innocent days end when it starts to rain heavily… and never stops.
Soon, all of Kingsby County and the entire country are under water, with only a few high-lying hamlets remaining above water. The kids and their friends make the best of the new normal and enjoy the changes to the wildlife around them, leaving the adults to worry about the details such as being resupplied by airdrops…
One day, however, the holiday ends when a sailing boat arrives from nearby industrialised town Brooks Falls. The youngsters aboard have come to warn Pennyworth residents that the adults of their drowned conurbation are coming, armed with the latest technologies and The Law. It transpires that long ago – back in 1851 – Pennyworth was merely an outlying district of the sprawling metropolis and still remains part of the greater whole. Now that it’s the only part above water, the Mayor and council of Brook Falls intend to move their entire operation here and carry on their business as usual…
Sadly, as always when politicians and big business want something, the rights and feelings of ordinary people don’t count for much…
Simple, breezy and chilling to the core, this tale of resistance and capitulation is made all the more effective by Wray’s cunning choice of art style and faux children’s story feel. The result is reminiscent of school workshops and protest marches supplied with stencil screens, or of street-rebel print slogans and tagging-inspired found imagery and marches of solidarity and protest.
The industrial-flavoured visuals magnificently disguise the potency of the political allegory making this a tale no tuned-in, socially aware grown up looking to make changes can afford to miss.
© 2020 Patrick Wray. All rights reserved.