Page 45 Review by Stephen
This will pop back onto your radar shortly if it hasn’t already. We’ve plenty At The Time Of Timing, even though distributors appear to consider it out of print. When it first arrived a decade or so ago I had never seen anything like it in my life.
For those who love this medium being stretched into new territory, then, some of my review from way back when:
1932: "I lost my wallet."
1923: "I must have left the umbrella somewhere."
2008: "I think I'm losing my mind."
500,000 BC: You are currently on the coast. Tectonic plates will need to shift substantially before anyone even considers building that damn house!
Every single full-page spread is drawn from exactly the same vantage point, the corner of one particular room. The camera angle moves not once. However, there are two things to please bear in mind:
1) The house has not always stood there, hence the exterior expanses.
2) Different events or exchanges shown happening in different parts of that room upon the SAME double-page spread may have occurred during DIFFERENT time periods. How interesting would it be to marry those up? What might we infer?
I think this is one of those "Seeing is believing" books which I may have to show you on the shop floor. It's like Ray Fawkes' equally inventive ONE SOUL and THE PEOPLE INSIDE in that respect.
The story weaves backwards and forwards in time as the various inhabitants move in, move out, take family photographs, grow up, grow old or break down. Exterior shots are startling (remember, that house has not always blocked the view) and rendered in rough-hewn pencil, wash or colour flats. Same goes for the inhabitants whether inside or out. But the interior shots of the room are matt, colour flats with only the ever-changing wallpaper boasting any patterned line. It's beautiful - absolutely exquisite.
'Life' and 'Time' magazines lie side by side on one tableau's coffee table which seems - in this context - a very funny joke to me. Exchanges or reflections may sound familiar:
"You find yourself singing a song… Then you realise the lyrics are the perfect commentary on your thoughts. Your subconscious has selected them like a jukebox."
A lit fireplace at night in 1955 stood out as surprising, snug and warm; especially since in the inset 1986 panel a couple look coldly away from each other.
One page is given over to the multitude of insults thrown over the years.
I cannot be sure what is happening in 1777 but I have some very nasty suspicions.
