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Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong — Faith Erin Hicks on the collaborative effort

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We have a really fun guest post today about Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks’s graphic novel Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong (reviewed yesterday). I was curious what the collaborative process was like — how do you take a story idea in words and make it into a graphic novel and do so without sacrificing the art or story? Lucky for me, Faith was happy to answer, and I find this totally fascinating. I hope you do, too.


As a bonus, we have a copy of Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong up for grabs, too, to one reader in the US. Just fill out the painless form and I’ll pick a winner in a couple of weeks.


Hi, I’m Faith Erin Hicks, and I write and draw comics for a living. I took a very funny, very sweet prose novel called Voted Most Likely by Prudence Shen, and turned it into a graphic novel now called Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, which is being published by First Second Books this week.

Let me set the stage for you: it is 2010, and it is the hottest week I’ve ever experienced in the five years I’ve lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Temperatures reached at least 30 degrees Celsius. I had recently finished work on my graphic novel Friends With Boys (also published by First Second Books), and was casting around for my next project. Cartoonists are a lot like sharks: we are constantly hungry and consume everything in our path, and if we don’t keep moving (that is to say, working), we die.

My editor at First Second books emailed me with a proposal: she had a prose novel, one she assured me was very funny and very cool, that she wanted turned into a comic. Was I interested? I printed out a copy of Prudence’s novel, and headed to a nearby air-conditioned coffee-shop to read and beat the heat. I spent most of the next four days there, reading Prudence’s novel and nursing a lemonade.

I liked Voted Most Likely. It had comedy, it had heart, and most importantly, I thought it would be a lot of fun to draw, and would translate well to the medium of comic books.

The trickiest thing about turning something that’s one artistic thing (a prose novel) into another thing (a graphic novel) is you have to be sure to honour the original of the story, but the final product must still be something wholly different from it. I couldn’t just take Prudence’s original novel, strip out the dialogue and slap some pictures down on the page. I had to transform her story, taking the subtlety of the characters’ interactions, their inner thoughts and development, and make it visual art. It’s tough!

I started with an outline. I read through Voted Most Likely several times, picked out the parts I thought were the most important, and wrote an outline. That outline I passed to my editor and Prudence, and once they approved it, I went forward with writing a script. I did a lot of cutting of Prudence’s story. Nate’s long suffering family, including his sister? Cut. Charlie’s school basketball team making a run at serious competition? Cut. The details of the election sabotage? Cut cut cut. Some of the cuts I felt bad about, but I knew unless I wanted to spend the next ten yeas drawing a 1,000 page graphic novel, they were necessary.

When I script, I thumbnail at the same time. I get a thick lined notebook and fill it full of tiny stick people drawings and lay out the entire graphic novel, inserting dialogue in where it needs to be. This allows me to pay attention to the pacing of the comic while I’m writing the script. This is my personal choice to work this way (other cartoonists work differently), but I like it. Comics are a symbiosis of art and writing; in the best comics, I think, one does not take precedence over the other. Doing thumbnails and the script for a comic at the same time allows me to develop them both in tandem.

After I finished my rough handwritten script (and thumbnails), I typed the script up and sent it to my editor and Prudence. I stuck close to Prudence’s original story, except for a few things at the end: I felt for a satisfying arc, the Science Club needed to face down a nemesis at the Robot Rumble, something that was lacking in the original story, and the ending would need to be a little different, as much of Charlie’s basketball-related story had been cut. Prudence agreed, and we worked on the revamped scenes together.

For the most part, we worked separately, me slaving away at my drawing desk for a year and a half, Prudence … I believe she was in the UK for at least some of the time I was working on Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. Maybe she is secretly James Bond. Finally I emerged from my cartooning hole in the ground with the finished comic, flush with the success of completion, and craving breakfast food. And soon you will be able to read it! I hope you enjoy Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. It is especially nice when read in an air conditioned coffee-shop during a heat wave.

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks

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I have two descriptions that sum up what Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks’s graphic novel Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is about: robots and high school politics.

Charlie is captain of the basketball team and the boyfriend of superhot popular cheerleader Holly. Nate is Charlie’s unlikely best friend, president of the robotics team. The story begins when Charlie’s been dumped by his girlfriend and Nate drops the news that the student activities funding, which will decide whether to spend their money on a national robotics event for the robotics team or on new uniforms for the cheerleaders, is being left to the student council. 

Nate decides he’s running for student council president so he can delegate the money to the cause he thinks deserves it more: his own.

The hitch in the plan is that Holly now wants to use Charlie to further her own cause for the cheerleaders. Yeah, they’re broken up now, but Holly could bring Charlie’s popularity down faster than anything if he doesn’t listen to her. And her plan is simple, too: Charlie’s going to run against Nate for student council president.

Enter a funny political battle. Except as funny as it is, it’s also painful for Charlie and Nate, as their long-standing friendship is tested. 

But when the principal gets wind of the backstabbing and the shenanigans going on in the election (because of course there is plenty of that — we’re talking social politics here of geeks vs. cool kids, of cheerleaders vs. robotics team members), he decides that the funding won’t be left to the student council. Now both Charlie and Nate scramble to figure out what to do next.

That’s where this story turns to robots! When there’s a robotics competition with a grand prize of $10,000 — enough money to cover both the new cheerleading outfits and the robotics event — the two sides pitch in to build the strongest, baddest robot in order to win. But do they even have a chance on such a national level?

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong was a fast-paced, fun story and both Nate and Charlie are well-developed. Charlie has a nice backstory going on with his family that didn’t feel tacked on. Even though he’s posited as the “popular” boy, there’s a lot more to him than that; his parents aren’t talking, and they haven’t in a long time. His mom hasn’t been in his life in a long time, and now she’s sprung a new marriage on him. He’s struggling with that and being the “nice guy” who has been strung along with Holly’s plans and quest for popularity and superiority on the cheerleading squad. Nate, who on the surface looks like a quintessential geek, is more than that, too. It makes sense why these two are friends, and there are little moments in the illustrations that highlight it so well — like when both boys are under Charlie’s bed during a party-gone-wild at Charlie’s parentless home. Even though this could tread the easy territory of also being a story about how cheerleaders are bad, Shen and Hicks avoid that stereotype, too, as is seen when they join in for the robotics competition and maybe even enjoy themselves while they’re at it. 

Shen’s story is relatable for teen readers, and it’s fun. The robot competition is a blast to watch unfold, and I love the subtle gender threads sprinkled through the story — girls can kick ass in the science and robotics world, even if it’s stereotypically boy-land. Hick’s illustrations are appealing and enhance the story, rather than detract from it. The balance of story and paneling is done well: there’s enough to pick up in both when they stand alone or when they’re paired. The attention to details such as offering a diverse cast of characters was great, too. It’s clear that Shen and Hicks worked well together.

Readers who enjoyed Raina Telgemeier’s books and who are ready to read something at a little bit of a higher level will love this. It’s a contemporary story with male friendship at the core. Also, did I mention there are robots? Because there are robots. 

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is available now.

Review copy received from the publisher. Stop back tomorrow for a guest post about the collaborative process from Shen and Hicks themselves.

Three Cybils Reviews: The Clunkers

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I really enjoyed being on Round 2 of the graphic novels category for the Cybils this past year, and part of what made it so nice is that I had nearly double the number of books to read (not a hardship for graphic novels). With ten books, you get a nice variety of topics, targeted age groups, and artistic styles. With ten books, there are also bound to be a few clunkers. These three titles didn’t impress me for various reasons – sometimes it boiled down to my own personal reading tastes, sometimes not.

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad! by Nathan Hale

Big Bad Ironclad is about the ironclad steam warships that both the North and South used in the Civil War, and the pioneering men who designed, used, and fought in them. I like history and historical fiction a lot – when it’s about certain
topics. The Civil War? Fascinating! The naval history of the Civil War?
Not so much. The story is told in a jocular style, with some people represented as animals and a few (obvious) liberties taken with the facts for laughs. It’s clearly meant to be funny, but the humor fell mostly flat for me. 
I also quickly tired of the Nathan Hale gimmick (Nathan Hale is both the name of the author/illustrator and the name of an American spy who was hanged during the Revolutionary War. Spy Nathan Hale tells this story to his would-be executioners – though it hasn’t happened yet in his timeline – as a way to put off his execution, much like Scheherazade). For kids interested in naval history (and I know there are many), this should fit the bill, and I know the humor will be a good fit for other readers, but this just isn’t for me.

Marathon by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari

This story of Eucles, the Athenian man who ran the first “marathon” from Sparta to Athens in 490 BC, has such high appeal, but the art prevents it from really succeeding. The book’s main focus is Eucles’ run, but it also relates a lot of his childhood as well as necessary context for the fighting between the Greeks and the Persians. It skips around in time and place a lot and multiple characters are introduced. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but the art is so sketchy that it’s impossible to understand what is going on. Characters cannot be distinguished from one another and there’s no real sense of place or time. The art may be stylistically very good, but it doesn’t work as a vehicle for storytelling. The only reason I was able to understand some of what went on is because I knew some of the story already.

Ichiro by Ryan Inzana

Ichiro’s American father was a soldier who died overseas many years ago in the Iraq war, and his father’s father has cultivated in Ichiro a love of war and a distrust and even hate for anything non-American. (Ichiro has a shirt he is rather fond of that reads “Kill ’em all and let God sort them out.”) Then Ichiro’s Japanese mother takes him to live with her father in Japan, and it is there that Ichiro first starts to explore his Japanese heritage and reject some of the ideas his American grandfather has inculcated in him. His adventure truly begins, however, when he falls through a hole in the ground into a fantasy realm of warring gods…and this is where the story lost me.

Inzana uses these mythological elements to explore the complex ways that race, war, and heritage impact our lives, but it doesn’t quite work for me. I found these sections a bit jumbled, though the message is earnest and important. (Some may say the book is a little too message-heavy.) I did enjoy the art, with its bold colors and clean lines (always the kind of art I like best). I think there’s a lot to unpack here, which may be better appreciated with multiple readings. Still, it was not a favorite.

A Pair of Cybils Reviews

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 Drama by Raina Telgemeier
I love Telgemeier’s style – her art is so bright and colorful, it’s immediately attention-grabbing. Each of her characters is distinct, with easily understood (and frequently funny) facial expressions. 
Drama explores the lives of a group of middle school kids putting on a production of Moon Over Mississippi, focusing on Callie, the set designer. The book touches on a lot of topics aside from the issues that come with putting on a show, which I think broadens its accessibility beyond drama geeks: crushes, sexuality, friendship. And of course, it’s nice to see the focus placed on the behind-the-scenes crew (who are refreshingly diverse) rather than the actors. 
What makes the book really shine is its treatment of homosexuality. While Callie herself is sure she likes boys, at least one of her friends is proudly interested in members of the same sex – and one other is struggling more quietly. The situation is complicated by Callie’s own crush on one of these boys.
I’ve read many reviews by people who believe this topic is too mature for its audience, but I couldn’t disagree more. Middle school is just the time when many kids are learning what it is they like (and some learn years earlier). Telgemeier presents Callie’s and her friends’ situations with sensitivity and understanding. I think kids will see themselves in the characters.
Hilda and her mother are being plagued by elves. These elves live in tiny, invisible houses in the same area where Hilda does, and they claim they were there first. Moreover, they say that Hilda and her mother are always stepping on their houses, which is a great annoyance. The elves demand that Hilda and her mother leave, or they will take action.
Hilda thinks this is ridiculous and sets out to talk to the elf in charge in hopes of convincing him they can live together peacefully. On her journey, she meets a giant with his own story to tell, and she decides to help him out as best she can.
This is a weird one (the word “quirky” could have been coined to describe it), but I liked it. It’s a larger book, allowing for some nice full-page landscapes highlighting the contrasts between the tiny elves, medium-sized Hilda, and the giant. The colors are mostly muted, nothing at all like the bright and cheery ones you find in Drama. It sets a nice mood, enhancing the feel that maybe this story is not taking place in our world at all.
The story is more than a little strange, and the ending – which is abrupt and arrives with no foreshadowing – may turn some readers off. But it’s certainly in keeping with the book’s whimsical feel, and I appreciated reading something a little different.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

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I think I have a thing for graphic novels about food because as I read Lucy Knisley’s Relish, I couldn’t help but remember how much I loved reading Sara Varon’s delightful Bake Sale (which Kimberly and I joint reviewed — with taste testing — here). But where Varon’s book is a fictional tale with a strong narrative arc, Knisley’s is a memoir of foodie told through vignettes.

Lucy was born to two parents who appreciated the finest of foods. They established a fine palate for Lucy at a young age, and throughout Relish, we’re reminded not only of this familial influence, but we’re forced to think about the role that food has for us on a very personal and on a very social level. When Lucy’s parents divorce, and her mother takes her from their apartment in New York City to a home in upstate New York — Rhinebeck, specifically — it impacts Lucy not only because of the shift in her life, but it changes the way she thinks about and eats food.

It’s a little bit challenging to explain what this book is really about, since it’s a series of short moments within Lucy’s life that illustrate a greater point: food is important. And where this is a story of a die hard foodie who grew up around the finest, the freshest, and the best sorts of food possible, it’s not at all the sort of book which reads with an upturned nose at the reader. In fact, this is the sort of book anyone who has an appreciation of food and the art of eating and enjoying it.

After learning about how Lucy’s upbringing in upstate New York and about how much she learned about the way food is grown and produced, it would be easy for this to be the sort of book that judges the types of foods we eat. But, Lucy chooses instead to offer us up a vignette about how much she loves fast food, despite the feelings her parents have toward it. Rather than judge it or judge people who eat it, Lucy instead notes that the reason people eat fast food is because it tastes good and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s this vignette, in fact, that made me laugh out loud and made me realize how down to earth this graphic novel is, as well as how accessible it is to not only adult readers, but teen readers, too.

My favorite vignette, though, takes place in Mexico, when Lucy is twelve years old. Her mother and her mother’s best friend decided to take a trip there, bringing Lucy and her mother’s friend’s son, Drew, along with them. Lucy’s mom and mom’s friend became quite ill early on in the trip, and as a result, the kids were left to their own devices to explore the small interior arts community they were vacationing in. Both kids were given cash, and that cash was then used by them to buy all kinds of sweets at the local market. It wasn’t long, though, before Drew discovered how much easier it was to purchase pornographic magazines in Mexico than in the states, and as a result, his petty cash was being spent accumulating plenty of dirty magazines. In the midst of this, Lucy gets her first period, and now she has to figure out how to purchase feminine products in Mexico without speaking the language. This entire series was laugh out loud funny, and at the same time, it was an incredibly authentic and sweet exploration of the tricky things that come with emerging adolescence. More, the way that this foreign experience of growing up tangled with the experience of trying foreign foods in a foreign place just worked well without ever coming off as trying too hard.

Interspersed with the stories are actual recipes. There’s one for sushi, one for huevos rancheros, one for sangria, pasta carbonara, and many more. But rather than lay out the recipes in a manner that’s step-by-step, what Knisley chooses to do instead is illustrate the ingredients and then give a very loose set of instructions for assembly. As someone who cooks regularly, I loved this approach not only because that’s precisely how I cook, but I think it tied into the greater message of the book which is that food is an experience, that it’s individual, and it’s something that you mold to make your own. The image below is from the publisher’s website, and it’s her recipe for the perfect chocolate chip cookie (which I have to take some issue with since it includes coconut, but you get the idea of how the recipes look from this one):

Relish is a sensory experience. Aside from the food itself, the way that Knisley describes and illustrates the book grabs every aspect of the reader’s senses. There’s a scene in the book where Lucy is riding her bike in Chicago, and she passes the Blommer Chocolate Company. I could smell the semi-sweet chocolate through the pages. When Lucy describes the way that her grandmother made the perfect mushrooms — a food that I have always found repulsive (despite how much I really want to try them) — I could not only smell them, but I could taste them. I could hear the way they whistled on the pan, too. In addition to the sensory experience and the recipes are the small insights on food straight from someone who has clearly dedicated much of her life to learning about it on a very intimate level. There’s an entire section, for example, on different types of cheeses that I absolutely loved. It’s not presented in a pretentious way, either: Knisley offers it up with plenty of humor, making it accessible even for people who simply like to eat cheese.

One of the pages from “Europe/Croissants.”

There’s a real love and passion for food of all types pouring from the pages of this book. I was invested in this from the first page, and even long after closing the book, I’m thinking about it. This is much more than simply a memoir of Lucy’s life in food. It’s a story about the way food impacts us on every level and how much we forget to step back and think about and appreciate the role it plays to us in both a social and personal level. Food nourishes us for a reason, and it’s not simply because of nutrients. It connects us to other people, to other cultures, and to ourselves. Food and life are about experimentation, about being imperfect, about savoring, about exploring and returning to things that are comforting when it’s most needed. Over on Knisley’s blog, you can read a perfect example of how these ideas intertwine in the vignette titled “The Craver.” And after reading that, if you aren’t craving spinach with garlic and olive oil, I’m sorry!

The art in Relish never outshines the prose, as the prose never drowns out the illustrations. In fact, I think that they work together in a way that the tangling story lines of adolescence and food do: they work together to give a whole and complete story. Without one, there wouldn’t be the other. I loved the full-color illustrations. This is the kind of graphic novel that will appeal to those who regularly read the format, but I think, too, it’s the kind of graphic novel that’s extremely accessible for those who may be reluctant to give the format a try. Hand this book off to readers who are diehard food lovers, as well as those who love graphic novel memoirs. It’s got easy appeal to both teenagers who will get everything Lucy is going through, and it has mega appeal to adults who can reflect upon the foods and meals that, too, remind them of both the significant and less significant moments of their lives. This reminded me a bit of a cross between Julia Wertz in terms of humor and Sara Varon in terms of style (and Varon, too, has a bit of that humor to her writing, too, even when her characters aren’t human). Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home, blurbs this book, and I think that readers who have read and appreciated Bechdel will find plenty to like in this book, too.


Relish is a real winner. Just don’t read it on an empty stomach.

Relish is available from :01/First Second. Review copy received from the publisher. If you want to sample the book, make sure you check out the galleries over on Knisley’s website.