If it wasn’t obvious from the thirty-one horror reviews I did last October, I love Halloween. So whenever I see anything even remotely associated with Halloween it’s mine. So the second I saw a graphic novel called Pumpkinheads and it takes place on Halloween IN A PUMPKIN PATCH I had to get read it. It was not what I was expecting.
Written by Rainbow Rowell with artist Faith Erin Hicks, Pumkinheads is about Josie (Josiah) and Deja, two pumpkin patch employees and friends who are working their last night at the patch before they leave for college. Josie confesses to Deja that he’d been crushing on the Fudge Shop Girl for three years and never had the courage to even talk with her. So now Josie and Deja decide to go AWOL and find the girl (sho’s been reassigned all over the place) and enjoy the patch while they still can.
Yes, the entire story is about a guy trying to speak with a girl he knows nothing about except he fell head over hills for the second he saw her and was too nervous to talk to her. Yes, it sounds lame but once you think back on how you and your friends were as a teenager this is normal which is why this comic will connect to a ton of teenagers.
The problem with this story is that it is predictable. After a few chapters, you start to get the idea of where this is going and you end up being right. That doesn’t mean what happens before that’s terrible. They do get into “an adventure” which is, well, teenagers acting like teenagers. Running around eating everything the patch has, running after a little twerp thief and getting lost in a corn maze.
There’s also this running gag about an escaped goat that doesn’t go anywhere but what he does is pretty hilarious.
Hicks’s artwork is the best thing in this graphic novel. Specifically, the design of the patch looks just like a huge patch you’d see in real life. If you love pumpkin patches, you’ll want to go to the one shown in this graphic novel. The character designs are nice and fit with the lighthearted tone of the story. Not to mention the scenes that have absolutely no dialogue don’t need any because Hicks is able to tell a story without any.
While Pumpkinheads may be a little lame for older readers, but it’s something teens will be able to greatly enjoy despite the obvious, predictable ending. Jicks’s art also helps out a lot in raising the quality of the graphic novel.
Categories: Comics
Tags: Faith Erin Hicks, Pumpkinheads, Rainbow Rowell, YA graphic novels
Sanrock Reviews 