Analysis Of Granted: War Brothers By Sharon E. Mckay

Survival is one of humanity’s greatest instincts. Sharon E. McKay shares the story of a young boys fight for survival in the graphic novel War Brothers. The story follows the memories of Kitino Jacob, a boy who was captured and forced to become a child soldier. This is a real story about the reign of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in Uganda. This story can not only be read, but also felt through the imagination of the graphic novel’s illustrator, Daniel Lafrance. In War Brothers, McKay tells the heartfelt story through the characters, events, and thematic elements, which all determine how Lafrance illustrates the graphic novel.

Granted, War Brothers is a character driven story, which makes the characters of the

story an important aspect of determining the illustrations.

The characters in this story are real and are portrayed in Jacob’s perspective. Consequently, Lafrance makes his style match the realism of the characters, such as Jacob, by drawing them realistically with real emotions. From the start of the graphic novel to the end, it is pretty obvious that Lafrance drew Jacob as a person that looks and feels real. One of the more intriguing moments in the novel where this aspect of realism is shown is when Jacob and his classmates were being abducted by LRA rebels from Jacob’s school. Jacob gets knocked unconscious after looking questionably at one of the child soldiers. While Jacob wakes up from his unconscious state, Lafrance draws a panel through Jacob’s eyes which is blurred around the edges (37). This panel gives the reader a sense of realism, that shows that this event is something that actually happened to Jacob. Another way Lafrance showed

realistic features of the characters is by drawing them with realistic emotions. Instead of the use of cartoonish emanata, Lafrance gave the characters real facial expressions. When Jacob first arrives to the LRA camp, he and the other captured boys are shown the consequence of trying to escape. They are shown the consequence by an example of a girl who had her ears cut off trying to run away. Lafrance depicts Jacob’s reaction with a panel where Jacob has his mouth open in a shocked expression (46). This is a real emotion that readers can sympathize with Jacob and see that this is something new and shocking that Jacob has never experienced living his normal life.
More subtly, Lafrance mirrors the order of events in War Brothers by adding unique changes in his style and structure.

The graphic novel contains a flashback event and information that is connected to later events. As a result of this, Lafrance uses borderless thought and speech bubbles to foreshadow the outcomes of these events. In the beginning of the novel, Jacob is already seen as a child soldier. After that, the novel flashes back to a past event and tells the story up to when he becomes a child soldier following with his escape. Right before the flashback, Jacob is faced with the order to kill an innocent mother. He prepares to swing his panga at the mother but is stopped by a voice in his head. Lafrance depicts this voice as a borderless thought bubble unlike Jacob’s normal thoughts which are used as boxed voice overs (11). The reader can use this borderless voice to predict that Jacob will in fact not kill the woman. Furthermore, Lafrance uses a borderless speech bubble to foreshadow another future event in the book. When Jacob is watching his father discuss the LRA kidnapping children with a group of friends, his father’s oldest friend, Torac, mentions that his grandson was captured by the LRA. Lafrance uses the borderless speech bubble when Torac states his grandson’s name, Micheal (18). The emphasis on this statement can help the reader predict that Jacob will meet Torac’s grandson later on in the novel. Otherwise, the use of the borderless speech bubble would

render useless. With the importance gained by foreshadowing these specific events, Lafrance expresses the true innocence of these boys.
Subsequently, War Brothers follows the theme of survival, which is another factor that influenced Lafrance’s style and structure when illustrating this graphic novel. Through the use of color and graphic sound, Lafrance expresses Jacob’s emotions of memories during his journey of survival. Lafrance changes the color of his illustrations during intense and key moments in Jacob’s story. The most obvious use of color is the black and white gutters to clearly lay out the plot of Jacob’s survival. When Jacob is in a safe and normal environment, such as Jacob’s home and school, Lafrance makes the color of the gutter white (13-35). When Jacob is captured and has to survive for his life, Lafrance makes the color of the gutter black (36-132). The light colored gutters give the reader a feeling of normalcy while the black gutters show Jacob’s fight for survival as dark and frightening. Additionally, depictions of sound are prevalent throughout the graphic novel especially during intense action packed events. When Jacob is escaping the camp, an old lion attacks a rebel child soldier, Michael, that caught Jacob and his fellow escapees trying to flee. Lafrance uses large onomatopoeia to show the roar of the lion and the scream of the child soldier (116-117). This portrayal of sound expresses Jacob’s fear during the event with the large text symbolizing a loud and daunting roar. The silence following the attack aids in showing Jacob’s realization that the child soldier killed was once just an innocent boy.
Given these points, Lafrance brings words and ideas to life. Lafrance illustrates a realistic environment so the reader can feel the reality of the situation. He makes the reader show sympathy to the frightening experiences of the innocent characters. Throughout the graphic novel, the intensity and darkness of Jacob’s path to survival can be felt. Together, McKay and Lafrance create an immersive world to communicate Jacob’s plea for help. The plea for external aid for the victims of Kony’s reign of terror, for assistance, is indeed, the answer to survival.