Book review: Here - a comic-book concertina of American history
In 1989, Richard McGuire, an aspiring New York artist, drew a 36-panel comic that leapt back and forth through thousands of years of history without ever stepping outside a living room - achieved by floating frames within frames (his inspiration was Microsoft Windows, then just four years old).
by Richard McGuire
Pantheon
In 1989, Richard McGuire, an aspiring New York artist, drew a 36-panel comic that leapt back and forth through thousands of years of history without ever stepping outside a living room - achieved by floating frames within frames (his inspiration was Microsoft Windows, then just four years old).
The comic, called Here, was published in Raw, the anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, and caused a stir among younger cartoonists. Chris Ware, who would create the award-winning Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, said McGuire came closer to capturing "real memory and experience than anything that had come before".
Yet McGuire left it to others to explore and capitalise on this new sense of possibility; in the years that followed, he designed toys and children's books, made animated films and drew covers for The New Yorker magazine. But now he's back, with a full-length version of Here - and once again, the strip is making waves. "All comics are somehow sheet music of time," Spiegelman told The New York Times recently. "But Richard's book is a symphony."
The New York Public Library devoted an entire season to celebrating its arrival.
It's easy to see what the fuss is about. Here is an exquisitely drawn book, its restrained palette and pop style calling to mind the work of such artists as Vermeer, Vilhelm Hammershoi and Richard Hamilton. To hold it is to covet it.