Page 45 Review by Stephen
'Last-Minute Changes To The Politician's Speech'
"How's your speech coming along, sir?"
"Almost done. I'm just trying to decide whether to end on the misleading statistics, the gross oversimplification, the glib soundbite or the blatant lie."
The Art of Tom Gauld part one: innocently expressing an almost ubiquitously held derision from the horse's unusually candid mouth.
Then there are those little home truths we all secretly share, are already vaguely aware of, but recognise instantly upon their exposure. Most of us love to laugh at ourselves!
Take 'My Library'. Is it yours too? Shop-floor guffaws would suggest so!
Why even read a book before writing your critical essay, Tom suggests elsewhere, when you can studiously avoid studying and absorb all you need to know through Wiki-notes or its film adaptation? I've seen film critics do the same: writing their dismissive reviews of COLDEST CITY's 'Atomic Blonde' adaptation without having seen the cinematic experience or read the graphic novel but blatantly plagiarised someone else who hadn't read the graphic novel, either.
Application is overrated.
So why make the effort to revolt or even pop out to protest when you can sit at your keyboard and sign an on-line petition, neatly cleaning your conscience while soothing any potential urge to actually do anything about anything?
Gauld is also a dab-hand at skewering our polarised and ever so slightly hypocritical biases, as in 'Our Blessed Homeland And Their Barbarous Wastes' deftly arranged in a symmetrical, confrontational tableau descending from the lofty, towered, feudal hilltop heights on either side to the seas of separation.
Human behaviour is what's being satirised, essentially.
As the title suggests, most of these cartoons and comic strips - and even without visible panel borders I would contend that the above was a comic with one hell of a gutter in the middle but also between each "exchange" - are indeed of a literary bent with far more to come from the 'Guardian Review' as well as, presumably, an entirely science-based book collected from Tom's 'New Scientist' strips.
'The Life Of A Memoirist', for example succinctly shows that they really can't win.
Many are the result of beholding something customary, traditional, perhaps ancient and so semi-sacrosanct and looking at it anew and askew, often injecting a modern, over-emotional irreverence and need for speed as seen in social media into the formal, long-winded parlance of the past like letters of introduction. Social conventions of etiquette, both past and present, are thus mercilessly mocked in a single sitting as 'Arabella' ably demonstrates.
BAKING WITH KAFKA is one extended masterclass in pithy iconoclasm.
"The secret of humour is surprise," said Aristotle (see CORPSE TALK: GROUND-BREAKING SCIENTISTS) and Gauld achieves this over and over again through juxtaposing the old with the new, the serious with the outlandish, the learned with the clueless, decorum with irreverence, and aspiration with reality.
He topples or reverses expectations.
"I thought that being a sci-fi character would be all flying cars, sexy robots and holidays on Alpha Centauri" bemoans a lone man in an oxygen helmet, despondently walking his dog though a flat, desolate, post-apocalyptic, tectonically challenged wilderness.
That's the entire premise of Gauld's graphic novel MOONCOP: a future which we presume will be increasingly fast, furious, spectacular, hyper-real and overcrowded in actuality ending up being solitary, slow, mundane and minimalist.
GOLIATH did much the same thing for the legendarily gigantic, combative, ferociously threatening Philistine from Gath. Turns out he'd rather do admin.
Both of those are long-form works, but if you're in the mood for something similarly hit-and-run as this, don't forget YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK which featured my favourite short story of all time, told in three panels.
I leave you with something much more drawn out, having a playful stab not only at prevarication but also reliance on hand-holding instruction rather than pen-held inspiration. We're presented with eight consecutive book release covers and their titles which begin by milking their subject matter as well as their audience before becoming exasperated by both.
'How To Write A Novel'
'The Advanced Guide To Writing A Novel'
'Further Thoughts On Writing A Novel'
'A Few Last Pointers Before You Start Writing Your Novel'
'Surely That's Enough About Writing A Novel'
'I Have Nothing Else To Say About Writing Your Novel'
'Seriously, Stop Reading These Books And Just Get On With Writing Your Stupid Novel!"
"How To Write A Novel: Revised And Expanded Edition'
It wouldn't work half so well without the final down beat. The key to comedy may well be surprise but timing is everything too.
