Page 45 Review by Jonathan
"I think he's overdone that slightly."
On the face of it, a comic about snooker doesn't seem like the most fascinating topic. Yet for fans of stroking their balls across the green baize, or just larger than life sporting characters such as one Ronnie "The Rocket" O'Sullivan, this will be just like the moment they first heard Captain Sensible sing the Snooker Song. But better. Much better. Though with that said, here's John Hurt reciting from the Hunting Of The Snark mashed up with the not-so-Sensible one doing the Snooker Song all accompanied by a full orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. Copy and paste the following link and you'll see...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemlZq5Knx4
It certainly makes you miss John Hurt...
Anyway, back in 1997 the youthful O'Sullivan achieved an outlandish feat, which to me and many other amateur cue-men, seemed verging on the impossible: hitting a maximum 147 break in a mere 5 minutes 20 seconds. 36 shots of potting perfection at an average of a mere 8.8 seconds per shot.
Casting my mind further back to watching the moustachioed Cliff Thornburn's epic 147 at the Sheffield Crucible in 1983, which seemed to take an eon - I can still clearly see the look of fearsome 'tasche-twitching tension on his face as he took on a long-distance pressure pot on the final yellow - the idea that someone could clear the table whilst making it look like they were simultaneously going for a walk in the park seems utterly preposterous. It still does, frankly.
Here, Tim Bird provides us with his unique take on this slice of snooker history. I've often commented that Tim's exquisite combination of words and images has a majesty akin to poetry. Here he manages to achieve that feeling with only the barest amount of text, this being mostly silent, aside from the referee racking up the Rocket's scorching scoring and the odd nod to Ted Lowe's apposite sublimely understated commentary.
"Four minutes for the century.
"Amazing."
Instead Tim conjures up various camera angles and close-ups, makes full use of the classic trajectory-line-on-table BBC special effect, plus throws in one very neat time lapse trick on a full-page spread where we get multiple Rockets (nine!) at the same time, slamming balls in from every conceivable direction that even the master trickster John Virgo would simply have to stop and marvel at.
It's a visual feast of intricate page and panel composition throughout that neatly captures the insanely brilliant lunacy of five minutes and twenty seconds of non-stop action from a man in a dinner suit nailing snooker shots with a precision of an expert sniper caressing a chattering, smoking AK47. Or was that just chalk dust? Not even Bond could do it better.
I genuinely think Tim Bird is as amazing as Whispering Ted Lowe thought Ronnie O'Sullivan was. A neatly framed piece of comics perfection.
