The Progress of Friendship: Simultaneous Succession in Beekle

The Adventures of Beekle, the Unimaginary Friend is a sweeping adventure story by Dan Santat wherein an imaginary friend sets off for the real world to find the child that can give him his name. The story is told in vivid, emotive full bleed illustrations and sweeping two page spreads, for the most part.

One series of illustrations, however, breaks Beekle’s image compositional style. The moment Beekle and Alice, his best friend, meet for the first time is followed by a doublespread of vignettes that form a simultaneous succession. Encapsulated in spheres of yellow with dark green grass beneath their feet, Beekle and Alice shyly introduce themselves, and Beekle gets what he’s been looking for: a name, and a best friend. Simultaneous succession is defined by Lambert as a “sequence of multiple pictures of the same figure(s) within a single page opening so that the changes from one image to the next convey the passage of time” (132). These twelve illustrations certainly fulfill that purpose, and allow the reader to witness the step-by-step progression from shy strangers to wobbly-lipped, emotional, hugging best friends in a way that feels unhurried and deeply relatable.

Of simultaneous succession, or “the code of diminishing returns”(140) as he calls them, Moebius says “The more frequently the same character is depicted on the same page, the less likely that character is to be in control of a situation, even if in the centre” (140). The image this statement evokes is one of frantic energy, and simultaneous successionisoften found in picturebooks featuring characters with big feelings and big energy that are not always in control of themselves. The contrast between that expectation and this mostly still succession of Beekle and Alice suggests at a glance that this statement may not apply to them. However, the progression of their body language, while largely static, shows subtle ways in which both of these characters are silently freaking out, and trying to justbe cool. The choice to show this awkward succession makes the final illustration’s warm hug all the more impactful, because the reader has journeyed with the characters through the full moment. The use of simultaneous succession on this spread marries both reasons for its use into a spread with an emotional impact that would be difficult, if not impossible, without it. Santat breaking his compositional rhythm for this moment was a wise choice.

Works Cited

Moebius, William. “Introduction to Picturebook Codes’, Word & Image. vol. 2, no. 2. 1986.

Santat, Dan. The Adventures of Beekle the Unimaginary Friend. Little Brown, 2014.

Stats: CIP Fall 2022, Laramie Hearn. Installment #2: Design. 398 words