Steph Cherrywell

Nathan Hale – Middle Grade Graphic Novel

Nathan Hale has an odd body of work. Most of what he does are carefully researched comics about real people doing real things that actually happened. There’s jokes added in, and something the people are drawn as cats or there are talking babies, but it’s mostly a lot of humans in period attire and realistically drawn ships and planes and things. And then every so often he just snaps and he’s got to do one of these as a release valve for all the absolutely bonkers stuff that’s been building up in his brain.

Previous Hale “snap” books have included the post-apocalyptic One-Trick Pony and the gonzo body-horror Apocalypse Taco, but in 2020 he snapped even harder than usual (it being 2020 and all) and challenged himself to draw an entire graphic novel, one page a day, with no pre-planning at all. The result is The Mighty Bite, which starts with a trilobite who wants to get rich and famous and just kind of unspools from there in every direction. The loose, improv nature of the project shows through, giving it a shaggy feeling of “whatever Nathan Hale felt like drawing today: the comic,” but fortunately he’s really, really good at drawing and there’s a joy in seeing someone this skilled just go for it at full intensity on every page. It’s like putting your ear right up to a saxophone full of imagination.

Picture all the character in a Hieronymus Bosch painting getting together and holding a competition to see who would make the best Youtuber. It’s a little like that. The Mighty Bite won’t be for everyone, but there’s a lot here to relish.

You can get The Mighty Bite at the library or at Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon!