HERE by Richard McGuire

Richard McGuire’s book, aptly titled HERE, is classed as a comic, but it isn’t. No, it’s far more than a comic, this is a piece of artwork we’re talking about. It’s the kind of artwork that should be displayed in a museum, because it’s a great work of modern art. The first few pages are small panels of a family in a living room, floating on the backdrop of the ancient forest that was once their neighborhood. As the book progresses, the living room remembers every family that lived there, from the beginning of our nation to 2040.

The entire book takes place in the living room. Every 25 years a new family moves in, and the drawings show the good times, bad times, disappointments, hopes, and shattered dreams. In a way it reminds me of the Loretta Lynn song “If This Old House Could Talk.” Perhaps it’s a testament to the way Americans change addresses so often? Every time a new family moves into a home, they redecorate according to their needs and liking, and it will clearly reflect their personalities. As a construction worker I could always tell what kind of people lived in the home by the period décor, the elephants painted on the wall (a child’s bedroom, obviously) and the lines marked on the wall, month by month, every time the child grows another inch. In one apartment the last mark was at 2 feet, one year before they moved out. I later learned that the child had died.

I call Richard McGuire’s work modern art because I’m sensing a concept here. The same way Paul Delvaux’s work was all about Jules Verne, and DiChrico’s work was about a stagnant Italy, McGuire’s work follows a conceptual dynamic. The artwork always takes pace around a central theme, and every ten pictures should be grouped together because they follow non-linear time. While the family is showing home movies on a projector, another family is watching them on a flat screen TV 40 years later.

I’ve known McGuire’s work for years, and some of his work (included in this book) was included in the Graphic Fiction anthology. His work appeared 30 years ago in RAW magazine, and I expect to see more of his work in the New Yorker, and other magazines hopefully. Maybe he’ll be asked to direct the third installment of If These Walls Could Talk?