What would it be like to have a world populated with dolls, puppets and stuffed animals? The fantasy concept is explored in an Image Comics graphic novel created by Meredith McClaren called Hinges.
In the city of Cobble, Orio must depend on help wherever she can find it; however, her assigned familiar, Bauble, has his own agenda. As the two explore the walls of the city, they find they are not the only new arrivals.
“The idea of working with dolls meant I could explore a person’s development into an individual [from a completely blank slate to a fully realized person] on a much more expedient track then watching a character physically grow up,” explains McClaren. “I also wanted to play with a world that had a lot of ambiguity. When I look back at the stories I love—the ones that tend to have a more enduring presence—I always come back to the type of stories where the audience isn’t given the full explanation but rather a great big sandbox of a world that they can also play with. It’s been my observation that the stories people enjoy most are the ones in which they feel they can also participate. I wanted to give my audience that kind of experience. I love it when my audience starts to develop their own theories for why the world of Hinges is the way it is. I would be ridiculously pleased should some of them find their own stories to tell there.”
Hinges Book One: Clockwork City arrives on February 25, 2014.
Originally published November 25, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
