We’ve been waiting for this for quite some time, but today, limited copies of Jim Henson’s Tale Of Sand are available in comic shops all around the country before the official widespread release in January hits. Needless to say, if your shop happens to have a copy, you’re going to want to pick this up, no questions asked (as you generally should when Henson has worked on something).
Following Mac, a regular “scruffy everyman,” Tale of Sand sees Mac coming to an unfamiliar town that greets him warmly, and a sheriff who gives him a backpack full of items, a map he shouldn’t trust and a giant key. With cheers, the town sends him back out into the desert for a “ten minute head start,” because as Mac will soon discover, one lone man with an eye-patch is chasing him through the desert trying to kill him. What follows is a humorous and bizarre chase as Mac is put up against trial after trial, having to figure out how one of the items he was given at the start of the story can he keep him alive for the rest until the explosive finale.
The book, more similar in style to Henson’s earlier experimental work such as Time Piece and The Cube, is created from an early Henson script created by him and long time collaborative partnery Jerry Juhl. Originally written before Henson had even begun major production on more famous works (like the Muppet Show or Sesame Street), the script combined Henson’s love for visual storytelling combined with astute audio counterparts. The purpose of Tale of Sand was not to tell a straight linear story featuring characters trying to make it big on Broadway or solve a crime in Europe, but rather to explore storytelling possibilities in the audio spectrum in the open landscape of the desert.
To that end, Ramon Perez beautifully captures both the humor and the surreal nature of the story within the graphic novel. The book absolutely exhudes the “it“-factor of early Henson work, and you can feel his hand in the work as well as Juhl’s signature sense of humor. Following our central character through an odyssey of sorts (particularly heavy on the odd), the book is a tour de force performance by Perez. Despite being a visual medium, Perez has brought the audio component of the story that features so heavily to life on the page, from the musical opening to the various chaos that ensues as our hero travels through the desert. Not to sound overly cynical or bash other works, but this is the only true visceral representation of Henson’s vision you’ll find in any medium this year.
If you need further convincing, check behind the cut for an eleven-page preview, including four shots of the book itself.
Solicit information:
JIM HENSON’S TALE OF SAND
Original Graphic Novel Hardcover
Retail Price: $29.95 U.S.
Page Count: 160 pages
Format: hardcover (paper over board), 8.25” x 11.5”, full color
ISBN-13: 978-1-936393-09-1
Written by Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl
Illustrated by Ramón Pérez
Cover by Ramón Pérez
Join us as we explore this missing piece of Jim Henson’s career in a celebration of his creative process. Discovered in the Archives of The Jim Henson Company, Tale of Sand is an original graphic novel adaptation of an unproduced, feature-length screenplay written by Jim Henson and his frequent writing partner, Jerry Juhl. Tale of Sand follows scruffy everyman, Mac, who wakes up in an unfamiliar town, and is chased across the desert of the American Southwest by all manners of man and beast of unimaginable proportions. Produced with the complete supervision of Jim’s daughter, Lisa Henson, Tale of Sand will allow Henson fans to recognize some of the inspirations and set pieces that appeared in later Henson Company productions.
T — TEEN (12 and up, may contain mild violence or mild profanity)
