Shaun Tan book becomes ABC TV series
The beautiful and whimsical work of renowned Australian children’s author and illustrator Shaun Tan is never finished. At least that’s how he feels about the fantasy worlds he creates on the page, where readers young and old explore their imaginations.
From his first award-winning comic book, Arrival, until 2006 The Lost Thing And Red TreeTan surprises and enriches with his untold surreal tales of adventure. But as it is Stories from the Outer SuburbsHe could always add a (complementary) touch to this novel, inspired by his childhood in Perth and the last of his books to be adapted for the big screen.
“There is a saying that a work of art is never finished, it is only abandoned,” says Tan. “It always feels like a work in progress… But there are so many possible universes in which something can exist. And eventually you find one, and you learn to live in that world and understand it. And after a while, the creative work starts talking to you. And that’s always a nice feeling.”
The animated series, directed by Noel Cleary, attributes 10 of the book’s 15 illustrations (such as a water buffalo grazing in a vacant lot and a deep-sea diver hitting the pavement) to a new family on the block. Geraldine Hakewill voices the single mother, Dawn French voices the grandmother, and Tony Nikolakopoulos voices the grandfather. Brooklyn Davies and Felix Oliver Verges are 12-year-old Klara and her six-year-old brother Pim.
As the younger of two siblings (Tan’s older brother, Paul, is a geologist to whom the book is dedicated and one of Tan’s most valued critics), the author best reflects Pim, the fearless young adventurer driven by curiosity. “I was kind of semi-adequate and kind of annoying.”
Tan, who is now the father of a girl and a boy the same age as the characters, observes the dynamics of this complex bond.
“It’s frustrating, but it’s also very funny because the topics of their fights are often so meaningless,” Tan says. “But this is driven by the unstable emotions of the developing brain. Anger and rage can be very hot. When we become adults, I think we can forget how intense childhood emotions can be.”
As the story progresses, other characters come into play. There’s a punk rocker, Lorenzo (Michael Theo, austin) and two other siblings; Mysterious cat-like girls named Cat (Andrea Solonge) and Esme (Shabana Azeez). Modeled after the genre of “parasitic, dangerous children” that Tan felt had “a deep sense of insecurity that fueled both coolness and danger” as a child, Cat evolved dramatically throughout the script-writing process.
“I had this crazy idea that there was a stray kid wandering around the neighborhood,” he says. “At some point in their lives, maybe they had a serious accident with a lawnmower and had to have emergency surgery where a cat’s head was sewn back on. But often that’s how good stories start. So instead of saying, ‘This is so stupid and ridiculous,’ we say, ‘Okay, let’s see if we can get it back into reality.'”
Tan, who is aware of the social media “therian” trend in which fans identify with animals, says: “I don’t think it’s a contemporary fad. I think it’s a much older impulse. It’s something people have been thinking about since we entered caves – what it would be like to be another animal.”
Regarding the book, Tan wrote on his website: “My doodles are often short and limited in narrative…many cannot bear being transformed into longer forms. In my opinion, they would lose their charm and mystery.”
Did his first experience working with narrative structure ease this fear?
“I learned a lot about how to tell a story,” he says. “That’s what our lives are like; short narratives put together into a long form, creating a texture that somehow makes sense.”
Shaun Tan’s Stories from the Outer Suburbs It will premiere on Thursday, January 1st on ABC iview and on Sunday, January 4th at 7.30pm on ABC Family.
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Bridget McManus is the television writer and reviewer for Green Guide. He was deputy editor of Green Guide from 2006 to 2010 and currently writes features and interviews for Life & Style in The Saturday Age and M magazine in The Sunday Age.
