In 'Essex County' author Jeff Lemire sees his most personal graphic novel brought to life

Acclaimed Canadian comics writer and illustrator Jeff Lemire returns to his roots with the television adaptation of his acclaimed breakout work Essex County. The literary graphic novel, now a modern Canadian classic, remains the touchstone of Lemire's meteoric rise in comics. The story is also his most personal.

In 2008, Top Shelf's publication of the three linked graphic short stories that form Essex County — "Tales from the Farm," "Ghost Stories," and "The Country Nurse" — were his career breakthrough. Like the melancholy rural isolation found in W.O. Mitchell and John Steinbeck, the trilogy explores stoic perseverance between generations. Paired with Lemire's distinctive expressive realist drawing style, the themes of connection and regret (and hockey) struck a chord just as a new genre of literary graphic novels was emerging. Essex County made its mark, earning accolades and a slew of North American awards. (It also went on to be the first graphic novel finalist on Canada Reads).

Bridging indie and mainstream

Since then, Lemire has balanced original personal projects with high-profile mainstream comics work. If you're consuming pop culture entertainment in any way, chances are you've come across the Toronto-based creator's work without even knowing it. Superhero franchises like Batman, Superman, Hawkeye, Hulk, X-Men, Green Arrow and Moon Knight are just some of the creative avenues he pursues (many of which crack the New York Times bestseller list), and his works are in various stages of film and television development; his popular post-apocalyptic survivalist fantasy Sweet Tooth is now an ongoing Netflix series.

Prolific is perhaps an understatement: whether writing or drawing (or both), the output and variety are dizzying — for Marvel, D.C. Comics, or the horror-tinged superheroes of his Black Hammer series (a synthesis of his indie and mainstream work that has grown into its own sprawling universe). There's also Descender, a galaxy-spanning space opera; Roughneck, about a washed-up Northern Ontario hockey player; and Royal City, a small-town drama laced with magic realism.

The lines between the mainstream and indie comics industry have blurred now that comics don't have to fight to be taken seriously as an art form. The previous generation of Canadian comics creators (like Seth, Julie Doucet, Todd McFarlane, and Chester Brown) had to choose between making mainstream superhero fare or forging careers in alternative comics in order to tell their own stories. Creators like Lemire, who grew up reading and love both, can comfortably have one foot in each world.

And what unites his work all across styles and genres underneath their trapping is character-driven and emotion-based storytelling, distilled to its purest form in Essex County.

When Essex County was optioned in 2015, the author initially planned to be a consultant but as development progressed, he got increasingly involved. "I became so protective of the characters," Lemire, who is both co-writer and showrunner, said in an interview earlier this month. "It's such a personal story."

Celebrating rural Canadian imagery and stories

The series is set in the same small Essex County farming community (Woodslee, near Windsor, Ontario) where Lemire grew up and follows the overlapping stories of an extended family: Ken (Brian J. Smith), out of his depth raising 11-year-old, superhero-mad nephew Lester on the family farm; nurse Anne (Molly Parker), whose marriage is failing; uncle Lou (Stephen McHattie) who is dealing with encroaching dementia; and local mechanic Jimmy (Kevin Durand), once a promising young hockey player before suffering a career-ending injury. It's an intimate, emotionally perceptive exploration of family disconnected from one another, occasionally living in the past, but also alive and hopeful to the possibilities of the future.

"What resonated for me in the book and in the script material was the ensemble," series co-writer Eilis Kirwan says of the essence of Essex County. "A group of people in this one particular place, all of them at a very significant crossroads in their lives, where they're being compelled to revisit what they thought the story of their lives was — the inner conflict between the dreams and fantasies of your imagination." 

I lived with those panels and that story for so long, and it's such a part of me," he says. "There were days I was brought to tears seeing it literally come to life.- Jeff Lemire

In flashbacks, and as a metaphor for community and unfulfilled promise, hockey plays a thematic role. "Anything with Jimmy and Lester felt so strangely like the comic coming to life," Lemire adds, especially with the pitch-perfect casting of Durand as the hulking but vulnerable former player. "It was so surreal to see this comic book character I had been drawing for years in real life." 

Kirwan and Lemire's touchstones were Paris, Texas, Six Feet Under, and Manchester by the Sea, and preserving a similarly strong sense of place is also what makes the story feel quintessentially Canadian.

Essex County is directed by Emmy Award-winning Schitt's Creek director Andrew Cividino, whose own acclaimed coming-of-age film Sleeping Giant captured the wide-open vistas around Thunder Bay. Working with frequent collaborator and director of photography James Klopko, they were, "very invested in taking what I had done in the book and translating it," Lemire says, noting that pages from the original comic lined the production office walls. "I lived with those panels and that story for so long, and it's such a part of me," he says. "There were days I was brought to tears seeing it literally come to life." 

Together, their cinematic language expands on the tone of Lemire's original artwork while also honouring it. Many of the illustrations stand as iconic moments in Canadian graphic literature and it's frankly thrilling to see them so faithfully rendered. There's a shot of Lester in his homemade superhero costume at magic hour, for instance, a poignant silhouette surrounded by vast wheat fields. That landscape is as much a character as the actors: In contemplative pauses, the rural roads unfurl like ribbons on a quilt of farmland and convey the humble grandeur of the scenery. Kirwan admits that sometimes on location it was, "quite emotional, actually" to see the framing scenes that not only directly reference the graphic novel, but celebrate rural Canadian imagery (something not often seen on screen).

One of the book's quintessential spreads depicts a boisterous 1950s Toronto minor league team in the locker room before a game. On screen, it's become an evocative setpiece that brings the cacophony and camaraderie alive — right down to their retro uniforms — in all its nostalgic glory. Watch closely for Lemire himself among the players — in a full circle moment, the lifelong hockey fan got to be an extra in the iconic scene that originally existed only in his imagination.

Five-part original series Essex County debuts on CBC Television and CBC Gem Sunday, March 19 9 p.m./9:30 NT