Readers of The Lost Art

Writer: Mike Carey.
Artists: Sonny Liew (penciller), Marc Hempel (inker).
Reviewer: Pauline

While looking through the bookshelves the cover of ‘My Faith In Frankie’ stood out as one of the girliest cover I’ve ever seen. I picked it up with some curiosity. While you are not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, I can’t resist bright orange, and this was definitely not of the usual super hero ilk. It does have cutesy sort of look too, and I decided to have a look at it partly for the afore mentioned curiosity, and partly because it was small enough (at the size of a medium text paperback) to fit in my bag.

The cover is the end of colour, and the whole book is monochrome. The story doesn’t suffer because of this, the drawing and the arrangements of the frames are varied and there is plenty to keep the eye occupied. We are introduced to Frankie as a pretty teenager, (big eyed, high cheek boned, snub nosed) trying to get frisky in a car with her date, and has some very odd and amusing diversions that prevent the young couple from getting anything further than a kiss. It turns out that this is not an isolated incident and that Frankie has had bizarre events happen every time she tries to get involved with boys.

My original misgivings about the cutesy impression I had were soon forgotten, as a couple of pages in, I realised I was absorbed and happily in page turning mode. This is mostly because the one defining quality of this book is it’s playfulness. You find out that the reason for the strange interruptions she has with boys are down to a jealous god- or more specifically her very own jealous godling Jeriven. There are also tales of childhood from her friend Kay, which let the circumstances gradually unfold as to how Frankie has had the gifted life she has. From Kay’s point of view there has always been consternation and unwilling admiration of Frankie’s life.

The culmination of the drama happens because of a big clash between godling and a heart throb who is someone Frankie and Kay knew from being in a very traumatic event when they were children. This turns into a struggle between good and evil with a splendid love triangle twist.

The only real fault I would pick, is that once or twice it is difficult to see all the detail of the drawing as you can’t flatten the book and sometimes you want to see are where the pages join together.

At the end, after Frankie’s story, there are some further sketches by Sonny Liew and a preview of the Dead Boys Detective Agency. Neither of these look great in themselves, but I reckon it is always interesting to have a glimpse at things before they reach the refined finished state.

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s (2 Jun 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 1596430931

(First published 06/09/2006.)