Page 45 Review by Stephen
"You know those old signs and adverts you sometimes see painted on walls? I like 'em. Windows into the past and all that. It's not really the history that's important to me. It's just those hand-painted letters were so much better than the generic die-cut stuff you see today.
"Guess I'm an imperfectionist."
A triumph of autobiographical observation and absurdity much loved by Jeffrey Brown with a warmth, wit and gentle self-mockery that puts me in mind of Eddie Campbell's ALEC - or at least the more family-orientated episodes.
Never more than two pages long, impossibly not one of them fails to elicit a smile of recognition or plain admiration for a man of many strange rituals, some of them to be taken with no more than a pinch of the posh salt which Joe steals from restaurants, wrapped like cocaine in £20 notes. All of us surely have found ourselves lost in the aisles of a supermarket without a clue what we came for; but not even Joe would pick up someone else's shopping list, discarded on the floor, and take home a stranger's ingredients instead. His girlfriend: "Oh Joe. Not again." Funny, though.
His son is a sweetheart ("I love you, Granny!" "I love you, Mummy!" "I love you, broom!") and so is Joe. I particularly liked the scene in which he's walking down the road with a young man whom I take to be one of his students with learning difficulties, instructing Toby to stop before crossing the road, not to talk to strangers and emphatically not to push to button at the crossing. They're not even going that way. "Yes, Joe. Yes, Joe. … Sorry, Joe."
"Maybe Toby just likes pushing buttons or maybe it's about asserting power in a world where he has little. Get it where you can."
The production values on this lavish, over-sized package are impeccable with French flaps and quality paper stock perfect for the loose ink washes. Think Fantagraphics' Ignatz line. Decie has a great eye for architecture as well as his son's subtle expressions, and as for the compositions, they're a constant surprise for there's an epilogue after the broom-loving incident above.
Personal favourites apart from those quoted include 'Small Print' as Joe and his girlfriend curl up in bed, 'Tokyo Onions' wherein enthusiasm takes Joe a step too far, 'Parenting Tips No. 19: T-Shirt Monsters' and 'It's More Than OK, It's Compulsory':
"Goodnight then boyo!"
"Daddy!"
"Yes?"
Seconds pass as Joe pauses on the stairs.
"Is it OK if I dream about space missions?"
"That's fine."
