The “teenagers fighting the establishment” genre has been enjoying a moment of late, as evidenced in young adult novels such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Mazerunner and so forth. The metaphors in those sci-fi tales of navigating childhood, growing up, facing the adult world, and finding intellectual independence are also present in Rob Davis's upcoming graphic novel, The Motherless Oven, but the execution and tapestry are rather more singular.
In Scarper Lee's world, it is the children who make their parents—quite literally: mechanical contraptions which they imbue with certain personalities and characteristics, built in factories at a young age. Scarper's mother is a Bakelite hairdryer, his father a huge, wind-powered brass construction with a billowing sail. All household appliances, or “gods,” have souls and are held in high esteem. It's a strange ominous world, in which it rains knives, there are no birthdays, but everyone knows their deathday.
Everyone seems happy enough with their situation, and Scarper is no different; as his deathday gets closer and closer, he unquestioningly continues to attend school and sit at home with his mother. That is, until the mundanity is interrupted by a series of odd events: his father mysteriously disappears, and the new, immensely weird girl at school, Vera Pike, pushes him into irreversible action.
The Motherless Oven will be published in October by SelfMadeHero.
