Written by contributor Arina N
TWs: Gore, body horror, death, physical assault, murder
After the Rain is a graphic novel adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story On the Road, coming to life by the combined artistic magic of John Jennings’s writing, David Brame’s illustrations, and Damian Duffy’s lettering.
While staying with family in her rural town in Nigeria, a Nigerian-American woman named Chioma begins to feel a haunting presence stalking and changing her, after a sinister encounter with a strange undead boy. This story deeply ingrained in cultural intersectionality, identity, acceptance, and transformation, remains unchanged even when adapted.
After the Rain cares to the roots of the original source material while building a dimensionality only possible through combining written and visual art, and taking some liberties in adding a couple additional scenes that might not have made sense in the short story but here just work perfectly!
One would suppose having a basis to stand on at the beginning of adapting a story to another medium would make such a transformation easier. After all, all you have to do is tell the same tale by different means, right? I personally think that’s an easy, but untruthful assumption. To me, having a basis to stand on can make telling a story even harder than if it was completely at the mercy of your own imagination. Instead, your imagination must adapt to someone else’s even while it remains your own. In order to honour not only the author and their work, but also to satisfy readers looking for faithfulness to the original source material.
For me, this graphic novel achieved both, bringing newness to Nnedi’s already fascinating short story, and amping up the horrific atmosphere by several decibels.
I read On The Road as a symbolic deep transformation of the self, where cultural aspects of one’s heritage infuse themselves in the very blood and bring forth an acceptance and innate recognition that remakes a person, allowing them to make peace with themselves. After the Rain keeps much of that vividness, from the authentic way it expresses Nigerian culture through the markets, the food, the familial aspects, and the journey itself, to how the artwork combines atmosphere and cultural symbolism in beautiful ways.
David does an amazing job translating words into visual print! His artwork is splendid, a fantastic work of penscratch and colour. The hues express the somber, sinister mood of the story, and both illustration and writing capture every outstanding detail of Nnedi’s original short perfectly. The art in this graphic novel is honestly brilliant. It inspires awe, raw emotion (mostly terror!), and a cathartic chaos that really brings out the fear in each scene.
Each page reminded me of a darker blend of impressionism and stuckism, scratch art mixed with brutal pen strokes. The detailing imagery reveals delicious foreshadowing from early on in the story, and I found it incredible how the colour palettes often changed from one page to the next, displaying the changes in Chioma’s mood and the way she perceives her environment. Every panel is energetic, layered in bluntness; it’s bold, exactly like the story it illustrates.
Chioma remains the focus at every point, even in the art of this book; when the presence she senses gets closer, the page explodes in colour and symbols. At the end of her journey, the art style gets more precise, steadying its strokes and lines. That was such a perfect match of story-illustration, and a creative way to use visual art, that I couldn’t help but love this (not that I wanted to!).
One of my favourite things about illustrations is how they can bring essence and emotion forward without even using words. Words ignite us, but they’re not our only way to set a fire or communicate. I loved that you could feel that in this graphic novel.
I personally could have done without some of the captions perpetrating movement. Sometimes these took much of the space in a panel and distracted from the very action, which was illustrated pretty straightforwardly, though I understand the intent in maintaining Nnedi’s writing.
That simple detail could have kept me from loving this story. I loved its expression of culture taking life by the return to a motherland. Jennings raised its effervescence with the message left at the end, one of loving your intersectionality and all the blocks that build you, no matter how much that journey might terrify. That, at the end of this transformation and unearthing of self, will come unhesitant power.
After The Rain is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of January 5th 2021.
Will you be picking up After The Rain? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
During a furious storm a young woman’s destiny is revealed . . . and her life is changed forever
After the Rain is a graphic novel adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “On the Road.” The drama takes place in a small Nigerian town during a violent and unexpected storm. A Nigerian-American woman named Chioma answers a knock at her door and is horrified to see a boy with a severe head wound standing at her doorstep. He reaches for her, and his touch burns like fire. Something is very wrong. Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive. John Jennings and David Brame’s graphic novel collaboration uses bold art and colors to powerfully tell this tale of identity and destiny.
