The Boy Who Made Silence #1

38 pg. Magazine Format (8x10.5in), Full color cover and interior, First Printing, April 2007, 1000 copies. By Joshua Hagler

San Francisco painter and illustrator Joshua Hagler releases debut issue (of twelve) of his serialized graphic novel The Boy Who Made Silence, recipient of a 2006 Xeric Grant.

Small town boy Nestor Gudfred’s life changes when he inexplicably loses his hearing after falling into a river. When twelve-year-old Esme saves him from drowning, a course is set that will bring them together in a town inalterably affected by Nestor’s accident, which gives him ability to create a temporary silence in the world around him that causes the townspeople to “switch places.” As Nestor and Esme come of age, readers are introduced to a cast of characters such as Peter’n’Charlie, the upside-down visitor who wears the strange cat mask of the school mascot; Reverend Clearwater, a town pastor in search of a prophet; and Nestor’s long-lost father, a spitting image of Jesus Christ, who starves himself for weeks at a time as a circus sideshow act.