The creative team behind the graphic novel adaptations of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series—authors Colfer and Andrew Donkin, and illustrator Giovanni Rigano—make a dramatic departure from fantasy in Illegal (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, Aug.), a graphic novel that explores the current plight of undocumented immigrants through the story of Ebo, a boy who embarks on a perilous journey from Ghana to Europe in search of his family and a new life.
What inspired you to tackle this gripping, real-life topic?
Andrew Donkin: Illegal was born from a newspaper report about the size of a postage stamp, from four years ago. It was a report of a boat sinking in the Mediterranean, saying that 215 people were believed to have been on board. Eoin and I talked about it and waited for the follow-up report with the names of the people lost, but no report ever came. No one knew who these lost people were. There was no paperwork. No passenger list. No list of lost souls. That was the starting point for us.
Eoin Colfer: We had always intended to carry on working together post–Artemis Fowl, and once Andrew put this topic on the table, I knew immediately and instinctively that this was the way forward.
Why does the graphic novel format best serve this story?
EC: Giovanni, the artist, is a virtuoso with landscape, and we have made good use of this talent to create various worlds. We were confident that he could enchant readers with his beautiful imagery and draw people who might not read the newspapers or watch CNN into the tragic yet uplifting story of our hero, Ebo.
AD: I think this was an ideal medium for Ebo’s story because, thanks to Gio’s fantastic artwork, we don’t have to tell you what Ebo is going through with pages of prose—we can show you.
Was telling this story a different challenge than writing fantasy?
EC: Telling a story is always a challenge, but usually for us, real-world factual accuracy doesn’t apply. In this case, we were careful to try extra hard not to distort Ebo’s story in any fantastical way, which is a real challenge for me. But I can confidently say that everything in this book is true to life.
AD: Illegal is a very different book to anything we’ve done before. Out of all the books I’ve written, this story took the most careful research. We read, we researched, we went to conferences, and we listened to and spoke to survivors of journeys like [the one] we were portraying.
How does your collaborative process work?
EC: Andrew and I have been friends for 20 years, so our process is very comfortable. We generally meet in Dublin or London half a dozen times to thrash out the story, and then communicate most days by email. After we’re happy with the pages, Gio gets them and sends back roughs for our comments, and then proceeds to the finished art.
AD: Meetings, emails, texts... in the last decade we’ve created over 1,000 pages of comics together, so we’ve evolved a pretty effective shorthand. It’s a very happy team who love working together.
