Winter's Tales

With most 'graphic novels,' despite the term, barely boasting the page-count of a short story or novella, it’s welcoming to immerse yourself in these two beautifully realised 'graphic shorts' from the acclaimed Metaphrog duo. Self-consciously brief, these are beautifully produced, heart-touching fairytales that linger in the mind and deserve contemplative re-reading.

The shorter of the two (at just six pages) is The Glass Case, the story of a lonely, imaginative young boy and an old doll in Edinburgh’s iconic Museum of Childhood, and it comes with a sucker punch worthy of the best horror story; the longer (albeit only by four pages) work is a straightforward transposition of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl into what could also be the present-day Scottish capital.

Both are narratives lacking affectation or undue sentiment; visually, they are lucid, uncomplicated and (it has to be said) distinctively unlikely to be accused of straying towards the blue end of the rainbow. (With good reason, of course; our sodium-illuminated city nights seldom look chilled from the safety of indoors.) If the thought of anyone selling matches seems somewhat anachronistic, it’s a suspension of disbelief worth retaining on this occasion. Bold, tender and heartfelt. [Paul F Cockburn]