Page 45 Review by Stephen
Maps - on the subject thereof. Maps help us plan a safe journey, discover where we went wrong and work out a way to get ourselves right back on track; they put us in context - geographical or historical like a family tree - and when you think about it, comics themselves are routes mapped out in panels, telling a story like an album of photographs.
The epitome of "lovingly hand-crafted", this is the finest British comics anthology I can ever recall with most luxurious production values which speak of a true love of comics. And what's more it's a fun artefact with several layers to be peeled away before you begin to approach the contents.
First there's a folder screen-printed in two tones of blue, a précis or prelude to a story within of a planet in danger of destruction. Its inside flaps explain the symbols employed, and it's vital you know that "Comicbook readers share ninety-seven percent of DNA with humans". These same flaps house three postcards (officially - we've added another of the cover and a rum badge to boot): one is an "I Spy" game of outdoors bingo which will come to no surprise to fans of Oliver East's TRAINS ARE… MINT and BERLIN AND THAT etc.; a second employs a secret layer of glow-in-the-dark ink which when suffused with lamplight reveals the full story; the third is printed on a pulpy paper packed with seeds. Soak it, plant it, and see what springs forth! Destination Inspiration, what will take root?
I'm ever so sorry but we're not done yet, for there's a fold-out dustjacket in the vein of Chris Ware's to MCSWEENEY'S 13 in which Kate Green provides a free-flowing collage of her life and craft which is evidently inspired by classical facades, candle-lit baths, old electric cookers and bees, trees and tiny teapots. As to the actual cover underneath, it's a Metro-style map re-routed by Stephen Collins so that casual thoughts and life experiences are now stationed at stops. When will you decide it is time to change platforms or get off completely? You may be in for a bumpy ride.
"If I Look In The Window
"I Can Check Her Out
"Without Looking Weird
"Shit
"Busted
"Probably Thinks I'm A Rapist Now"
No way am I getting off at Busted. They sucked.
So now we come to the contents themselves: some of our favourite creators like Lizz Lunney, Marc Ellerby and Philippa Rice, with new discoveries employing lime, olive and pistachio green. Stephen Collins is back in a quiet condensation of the life and times of one Phyllis Pearsall, invenstress of the London A-Z, while Joe Decie (ACCIDENTAL SALAD) explores the dual territories of Always and Never: early praise and prohibitions which prove that Never land is a much bigger and more cluttered country than its northern neighbour Always. Always share and never pull hair - quite right! Never leave a mate behind, either. But wander round the seemingly limitless sprawling suburbs and back alleys of Never land and amongst the scant sage advice are the doleful dead-ends of Never Say You're Sorry and Never, Ever Dance!
Prohibitions breed inhibitions and those would have been my favourite four pages were it not for John Cei Douglas' tour de force 'Footnotes'. Each silent page from the creator of BUFFALO ROOTS is a perfectly balanced composition of light, line and colour, the first three of which each find focus by dint of a borderless spotlight on a young couple together on a train station platform over a period of time. These are surrounded by train journeys to and fro, some shared, some solo, gazing out of the window with dreamy optimism or more melancholic doubt. Rarely have I seen these scenes through a carriage window so well conveyed; similarly the station and platforms themselves which, when empty, echo with a real sense of space. The expressions are as subtle as they are economical - we're talking Andi Watson at the top of his game - but alas I can say little more when I have a dozen more sentences in me which desperately want to explain why this tale is so super. SPOILERS etc.
Small World by Alison Sampson, by contrast, is startling for its precise line, meticulous detail and wide open space even in the most cluttered apartment. Arrestingly, it begins with the line, "We're letting you go". Jenny Robins is in memory mode, casting her mind back to old photographs and the excitement of opening the unknown quantity which was the packet you collected from the developers, while Isabel Greenberg is in a far more fanciful mood, regaling us with the tale of early cartographer Mancini Pannini and his Genius Monkeys who (may have) produced maps of elaborate beauty, each of which was functionally useless! There are some truly surreal journeys on offer including the aspirations of an egg, but Matthew Sheret and editor/curator Tom Humberstone bring things firmly back down to earth by taking sober stock of an evening's recent riots, mapping the events precisely across each street.
With a total of twenty-six stories inside the front covers, there is of course far, far more to explore yourselves. The only disappointment was the scant legibility of the otherwise exemplary pages by Luke Pearson (EVERYTHING WE MISS) who details his creative environment and mindset in a diagrammatical fashion reminiscent of Chris Ware, but we're most of us going to need a magnifying glass later in life so I went out and bought one now. Well worth it!
