That is WILD that they made a movie inspired by this comic. Really interesting to hear your take on both of them. I thought the book was fascinating to think about but can’t imagine it working as a movie with a story. It was more like a think piece or a sculpture to consider as opposed to something asking for stories…
I'm a big fan of Richard McGuire's Here. By moving the focus of attention to a space, rather than the characters, it forces you to rethink how we read and perceive the/a 'story'. I remember how to me, Here started of as an incoherent succession of impressions, but as soon as the inset images were introduced, connections were implied, thus inviting me to create my own narrative. And where I first pondered over two images set in the same year, trying to figure out which of those came first and what this suggested about a possible sequence of events, McGuire soon started hopping through time in huge leaps that made me sniff at millions of years as if they meant nothing. As he then returned to his old spiel of inset images, and I returned to interpreting them, I noticed the suggested relationships were flimsier than before. And then it hit me that there no longer was a narrative, and that McGuire had inconspicuously managed to make me the narrator of this story.
Reading Here slowly and attentively, reveals a narrative about narration, and about how our neverending search for meaning creates narrative by default. He does so by showing us a place without any fixed characters to populate it, thus promoting the place and its observation of the passage of time to become the main characters. I haven't seen the movie, I didn't dare to, because as soon as I saw Tom Hanks and Robin Wright were the main actors, I kew the movie would not be about a place, nor about narrative, but about their characters, thus making a meaningful ode to this book impossible.
Ah yes - “reveals a narrative about narration!” We do default to story, I agree. Your comment makes me think of the connective/story work we readers do between the “gutters” of paneled comics - I wonder if McGuire was playing with this idea on a huger/different scale? Thanks for your thoughtful words !
Fascinating article! I wrote a couple of blogs about Here back in 2024. I visited Richard McGuire’s retrospective at the Basel Cartoon Museum, and while Here is definitely an unusual graphic novel—so simple in concept, yet I’m not sure anyone else has done anything like it—it was actually better experiencing the drawings in the exhibition than reading the book. It makes you think about the place you live and the concept of time. It’s a short reading experience and isn’t really a novel, yet it’s a book worth owning.
Regarding the movie, I have my own views about graphic novels being adapted for the screen. They’re often disappointing, but for this niche market, adaptations bring greater investment and often lead people to return to the original work—so ultimately, it’s a good thing!
Finally, it’s funny that you mention Gaston Bachelard—when I visited Basel again this summer for the Alison Bechdel exhibition (another blog), they quote Bachelard: after learning to draw people, children often draw houses, symbols of the inner self. Bechdel’s childhood home, a funeral parlour, adds symbolic weight to every page of Fun Home.
Thanks for your comments; your blogs sound like great pieces to explore some of these ideas further! Good point that all graphic novel film adaptations widen the audience - a positive outcome !
That is WILD that they made a movie inspired by this comic. Really interesting to hear your take on both of them. I thought the book was fascinating to think about but can’t imagine it working as a movie with a story. It was more like a think piece or a sculpture to consider as opposed to something asking for stories…
I am a bit shocked it got made at all! I love your idea of Here as a sculpture!
"we are all moments about to collapsed into the million other moments behind and ahead of us." Wow! Well put!
That reminds me of John Locke's concept of psychological continuity with memory defining one's identity.
I'm a big fan of Richard McGuire's Here. By moving the focus of attention to a space, rather than the characters, it forces you to rethink how we read and perceive the/a 'story'. I remember how to me, Here started of as an incoherent succession of impressions, but as soon as the inset images were introduced, connections were implied, thus inviting me to create my own narrative. And where I first pondered over two images set in the same year, trying to figure out which of those came first and what this suggested about a possible sequence of events, McGuire soon started hopping through time in huge leaps that made me sniff at millions of years as if they meant nothing. As he then returned to his old spiel of inset images, and I returned to interpreting them, I noticed the suggested relationships were flimsier than before. And then it hit me that there no longer was a narrative, and that McGuire had inconspicuously managed to make me the narrator of this story.
Reading Here slowly and attentively, reveals a narrative about narration, and about how our neverending search for meaning creates narrative by default. He does so by showing us a place without any fixed characters to populate it, thus promoting the place and its observation of the passage of time to become the main characters. I haven't seen the movie, I didn't dare to, because as soon as I saw Tom Hanks and Robin Wright were the main actors, I kew the movie would not be about a place, nor about narrative, but about their characters, thus making a meaningful ode to this book impossible.
Ah yes - “reveals a narrative about narration!” We do default to story, I agree. Your comment makes me think of the connective/story work we readers do between the “gutters” of paneled comics - I wonder if McGuire was playing with this idea on a huger/different scale? Thanks for your thoughtful words !
Fascinating article! I wrote a couple of blogs about Here back in 2024. I visited Richard McGuire’s retrospective at the Basel Cartoon Museum, and while Here is definitely an unusual graphic novel—so simple in concept, yet I’m not sure anyone else has done anything like it—it was actually better experiencing the drawings in the exhibition than reading the book. It makes you think about the place you live and the concept of time. It’s a short reading experience and isn’t really a novel, yet it’s a book worth owning.
Regarding the movie, I have my own views about graphic novels being adapted for the screen. They’re often disappointing, but for this niche market, adaptations bring greater investment and often lead people to return to the original work—so ultimately, it’s a good thing!
Finally, it’s funny that you mention Gaston Bachelard—when I visited Basel again this summer for the Alison Bechdel exhibition (another blog), they quote Bachelard: after learning to draw people, children often draw houses, symbols of the inner self. Bechdel’s childhood home, a funeral parlour, adds symbolic weight to every page of Fun Home.
Thanks for your comments; your blogs sound like great pieces to explore some of these ideas further! Good point that all graphic novel film adaptations widen the audience - a positive outcome !
I love this book!
It’s very striking, I find!