The Night Riders is the first book by Matt Furie ever published, in 2012. As the friends make their way from forest to bat cave to ghost town to ocean to shore and beyond, new friends are discovered, a huge crab is narrowly avoided, and a world is revealed.
Synopsys
In Matt Furie’s glorious debut, a nocturnal frog and rat awake at midnight, share a salad of lettuce and bugs, and strike out on an epic dirtbike adventure toward the sunrise. As the friends make their way from forest to bat cave to ghost town to ocean to shore and beyond, new friends are discovered, a huge crab is narrowly avoided, and a world is revealed. Packed with colorful characters and surprising details on every hand-drawn page, The Night Riders is the ideal book for anyone who has ever wanted to surf to the mountains on the back of a dolphin.
The Books Magic
This is the pattern for the endpages of the book. It represents the interior walls of the frog and rat’s house. As a kid I can remember staring at the walls and ceiling as I tried to fall asleep and things would start to get wavy.[1]
There is something magical about being able to open a large door with the push of a button. It almost looks like the house is slowly and loudly opening its mouth.[2]
Featured Characters
The last page of the book mirrors the order in which the characters appear in the book: “Wat, Mystery, Toki, and Hoodrat.” This sequence directly aligns with the four main characters, suggesting the following associations[3]:
The page also mentions Aiyana, Matt Furie's partner[4], as a symbol of appreciation and Fox, Matt Furie's second white pet rat[5].
Production
| “ | The publisher asked me if I was interested and we took it from there—there are no words in the book so I came up with the basic structure and laid it out in thumbnail storyboard notecards. I have pet rats and I love riding my bike so it’s just a little adventure that is strung together with a series of events and environments that I thought would be fun to draw. The forest, a ghost town, an underground cavern, the ocean, and so on. It takes place at night, which lends itself to mystery and adventure. The night is a time when the ghosts and aliens show up. | ” |
– Matt Furie[6] | ||
References
- ↑ https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/behind-the-scenes-of-the-night-riders-with-matt-furie
- ↑ https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/behind-the-scenes-of-the-night-riders-with-matt-furie
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/nightriders0000furi/mode/2up
- ↑ https://www.lambiek.net/artists/f/furie_matt.htm
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tRdsK50Pc
- ↑ https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/matt-furie-interview