Dark Horse to Publish New Cecil Castellucci Graphic Novel
YA novelist and comics writer Cecil Castellcci is teaming with artist Jose Pimienta to publish Soupy Leaves Home, an original graphic novel set during Depression-era America. The book will be published by Dark Horse in April 2017.
Soupy Leaves Home is the story of Pearl “Soupy” Plankette, a young Depression-era girl who sees herself trapped between an abusive father and the social restrictions on women of her time. Soupy disguises herself as a boy and runs away to California, riding the freight trains with Remy “Ramshackle” Renault, a hobo and kindly spirit who helps her navigate and survive the hobo life.
Castellucci will be appearing at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International and will be signing on Saturday, July 23.
A veteran YA author (Tin Star) and graphic novel writer (The P.L.A.I.N. Janes), Castellucci said Soupy’s story was inspired by a troubling time in her own life when “I just wanted to run away.” But Soupy, she said, is reacting to the social restrictions on women of the 1930s. “She wants to go to a women’s college; she wants to be a different kind of woman than her time will accept. That’s why she’s in trouble.” But Castellucci said, “ladies couldn’t do certain things in those days,” and Soupy realizes she’ll be safer “if she’s disguised as a boy.”
“I wanted to write about a girl who feels as though her whole world is shut down,” Castellucci said. “Shut down by the time she lives in, the family she has, the gender that she is, until she abandons her old self and finds a new secret world that opens up to her and shows her the way through her own depression.”
