moving to outside.ofa.dog reviewed Here by MCGUIRE RICHARD
Review of 'Here' on 'LibraryThing'
5 stars
The most interesting, mind-bending comic I've read. The basic conceit is that every image on every page is of the same spot, a room in the house the author grew up in, in New Jersey. The time frame shifts from before there was a recognisable earth (possibly before the history of the universe?) to some way into the future, and as the book goes on it jumps around more and overlays progressively more stories on top of each other. Some are told in a fairly linear way over a few pages, while others are dropped and picked up later, and others just left to be inferred.
I loved the sense of the hugeness of history and smallness of today that this book conveyed better than I've ever seen done with writing. And I loved the sections where different stories progressed at different speeds.
I read this in one evening, but …
The most interesting, mind-bending comic I've read. The basic conceit is that every image on every page is of the same spot, a room in the house the author grew up in, in New Jersey. The time frame shifts from before there was a recognisable earth (possibly before the history of the universe?) to some way into the future, and as the book goes on it jumps around more and overlays progressively more stories on top of each other. Some are told in a fairly linear way over a few pages, while others are dropped and picked up later, and others just left to be inferred.
I loved the sense of the hugeness of history and smallness of today that this book conveyed better than I've ever seen done with writing. And I loved the sections where different stories progressed at different speeds.
I read this in one evening, but I know I'll be back, probably jumping in and out in a less linear way. One thing to remind myself as much as anyone else: the book was published in December 2014, which is relevant because some of its storylines are in the recent past or near future.