The Lagoon

A haunting, lyrical graphic novel debut. A family is seduced by the song of the Creature from the Black Lagoon in talented young cartoonist Lilli Carre's first long-form work, and how each member reacts to the Creature's siren call in The Lagoon is the crux of the story. Carre experimented with nib pens and brushes while drawing this black-and-white graphic novel, giving the art a different feel from her previous, Eisner-and-Harvey-Award-nominated story, The Tale of Woodsman Pete. Lagoon was influenced by the films Creature from the Black Lagoon and Night of the Hunter, but reads more like the gothic family narratives of Flannery O'Connor. Rhythms - taps, the ticking of a metronome - are punctuated by silences that pace this "sound"-driven story. Older teen and adult readers are invited to imagine the enigmatic Creature's haunting, ever-shifting tune as it reverberates through weedy waters, eventually escaping the lagoon to creep into windows at night.