Owly: The Way Home & The Bittersweet Summer
By Andy Runton
160 pages
$10.00
Top Shelf Productions
Reviewed by Bruno Batista
Selling an all-ages comic in this day and age is not an easy task. “All-ages” is one of those labels that can at time be more harmful than good. Kids won’t read them because they think they’re all grown-up, and grown-ups won’t read them because they think it’s for kids.
So how come a kids-friendly comic about the (mis)adventures of an owl turned into a small success?
This graphic novel (the first in the Owly series) is a collection of Andy Runton’s first two mini-comics about a little owl called Owly (I reckon his folks weren’t all that imaginative when it came to naming).
“The Way Home” is our first glimpse of the main character. Owly is a cute owl with a heart of gold, always trying to help his fellow animals, bringing food to birds, releasing trapped fireflies, well, you get the picture.
Sadly, being an owl is not that popular, and most animals fear him. That makes our Owly feel very sad and lonely most of the time, the poor bird. But what kind of all-ages book would this be if it was about nothing more than a depressed bird, I ask you?
Owly saves a worm (known as Wormy, another wonder of nomenclature) from drowning in a puddle of water, and decides to get him back home. This is because a torrential rain caused an accident and took the worm away from his house and his folks. In the course of their travels they become friends, with Owly saving Wormy a number of times, and characters come back to the story in a way that shows kindness pays in the long run.
In the end, Wormy decides to stay with Owly cementing the friendship that is at the core of the book.
In “The Bittersweet Summer”, our heroes meet hummingbirds, saving one from a birdcage, and becoming good friends. But as we all know, hummingbirds fly south in the winter… How will Owly and Wormy handle the idea of losing their new best friends?
This might sound all bit simple and childish, but it’s hard not to fall in love with the book and the characters. Although sometimes Owly and Wormy can be downright depressed when things don’t go their way, they quickly bounce back and become as happy as can be when someone flashes them a smile.
As for the art, it’s wonderful, very clean and expressive, drawn with enough nuances to easily ascertain with a mere glance what the characters are feeling and thinking. And thank god for that, because this is a silent story, barring some labels on seeds’ bags and some text in a book. The “dialogue” is understood through the characters’ actions and some sparse speech balloons with exclamation and interrogation points in them mostly. This is a book anyone can understand, even a little kid, and that is a real compliment to Runton’s abilities as a good storyteller.
Owly is an extremely cute book, well told, with an endearing story about friendship and all that surrounds it. It’s something you can enjoy or give as a gift to anyone, since it will be loved by everyone from little kids to grandmas.
I recommend this book without any hesitation.
Bottom line is, if you don’t absolutely love Owly, then you have no heart.
Owly previews and short stories:
Splashin’ Around (Free Comic Book Day full edition)
Aw Nuts!
Gone Swimmin’
Let’s Go Fly A Kite
Bruno Batista, 25 years old, lives near Lisbon, in Portugal, on the sunny west coast of Europe. He works in a manga shop and gives a hand on the comics one, so sometimes he knows what he’s talking about