The Penny Farthing Project

   The Penny Farthing Project is not a sequel to any other work in the matter of the Prisoner, nor is it the 18th episode, which some saw my film Village Day as being, which of course it isn't. It is a story in its own right. In fact, the creative duo set out to evoke a moment in the Prisoner's life which could be interpreted as a new Arrival. Our hero awakens in the village. He has lost his memory. A very cunning No.2 is manipulating this special amnesia case to find out the reasons behind his resignation. Will No.6 stand up to his opponents? What game is No.7, there's never been a No.7 in the village before, I suppose that's why those who write such material based upon the Prisoner enjoy using the No.7, because it was left out of the original series of episodes. But I digress, will we finally learn why No.6 resigned? I am not giving anything away about this graphic novel, as those reading this may not have come across The Penny Farthing Project for themselves. But we know why the Prisoner resigned don't we. And some of the graphics, images, used in the plot are taken from the original episodes of the Prisoner. And No.7 seems to me to be the image of actor George Sewell as pictured below in the righhand picture.

    Another such image is of Leo McKern-No.2 in The Chimes of Big Ben and Once Upon A Time, plus being a 'late' No.2 during his trial of Fall Out. And this is not the first of such graphic novels to use the image of Leo McKern as the No.2. The DC comic the Prisoner in four books A B C and D later reprinted in one volume Shattered Visage by Dean Motter - with Mark Ask, David Hornung and Richmond Lewis, which have used the image of Leo McKern, yet at a little more mature age, with a long beard after having spent many years living in the overgrown ruins of the village.

    The Penny Farthing Project  can be approached from several angles. First and perhaps foremost, the reader will be captured by the beguiling village atmosphere created by Philippe Cottarel's fine artwork. Then you'll find yourself coming back to certain pages in order to better appreciate the layout. This along with subtleties engineered by Jean-Michel Philibert, whose plot is well-crafted and particularly full of references to the cinema.

    Despite the use of Leo McKern as No.2, an obvious favourite, and some of the images taken from the Prisoner series, I have enjoyed the graphic novels which have helped me back to the village, at least in my imagination. But isn't that where at least part of the Prisoner lies, in the imagination of the mind?

BCNU