Because they're lovely, Improper Books have sent us a sneak peek at their new title Knight & Dragon, a fairy tale adventure with a difference written by Matt Gibbs and illustrated by Bevis Musson, with colours by Nathan Ashworth.A story for all ages that cleverly subverts traditional tropes, Knight & Dragon offers various paths and multiple outcomes - a medieval choose your own adventure-style graphic novel, if you will.
Each narrative begins the same. We meet our beleaguered knight as he rides his horse into a seemingly deserted village, where the majority of the villagers mistake him for a heroic warrior.
Distracted by the beauty of of a fair maiden, he stupidly agrees to fight a fearsome dragon in return for her hand in marriage. Learning too late that the dragon is both huge and ferocious, the despondent knight heads out to meet his fate...
And from here, the knight, dragon and maiden, along with the horse, farmhand and village chief, provide different paths through the unfolding narratives before reaching different endings.
"It began as an idea to create a comic that allowed changes in the sequence and resolution of its scenes, enabling different stories to be told," says Gibbs. "This lends itself seamlessly to digital comics, but in a similar fashion to gamebooks, a print version is just as possible with a bit of additional heavy lifting, or page turning, on the part of the reader.
"It has also allowed Bevis and I to explore our mutual love of fairy tales, and I’m delighted that the branching script didn’t put him off. I’m a big fan of his work, especially the excellent Dead Queen Detectives, and it has been brilliant seeing each page come to life in his style, which is being perfectly complimented by Nathan’s colours."
"It's always a pleasure to take things you love and approach them in a new way, so with Knight & Dragon I get to combine my love of fairy tales and comics and do something that is both familiar and surprising," added Musson. "How could I not jump at the chance to draw a story with romance, drama, action, adventure and a whacking great dragon? In the end I even enjoyed drawing the horse, once I worked out he could wear a tablecloth."
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