The End Of Summer back

Album-sized re-issue of Tillie Walden's first work following the two Ignatz Awards and the spectacular success of I LOVE THIS PART (a Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month) and A CITY INSIDE.

IMPORTANT: All three are now collected in ALONE IN SPACE with a host of other short stories and early sketches.

Well, would you just look at this architecture!

Vast arches, vaulted ceilings and windows several storeys high; classical statues set inside concave bays; halls which conclude with the opulence of a Roman cathedral's chapel. Could you get more Baroque than this?

Then there's the ethereal air, nightgowns and all that time spent in bed; an indoor lake on which the children go sailing; and a giant cat called Nemo. Winsor McCay, anyone...?

This is a family home! Also a haven from a three-year winter during which the doors must remain firmly closed. But for a sanctuary it doesn't seem very safe. It's cold and it's hard and there will be conflicts and confinements. I don't think this family is very healthy at all, quite apart from the fact that young Lars is dying. I'm not sure of what, but he seems sickly, consumptive. He appears to be fading away. His closest relationship is with his sister, Maja, but that's also going to run into trouble. As I say, not the healthiest of families.

He's comforted by that giant cat which – when it's not carrying Lars on its back – is constantly curled up like a gigantic, fluffy white pillow, which is what Lars uses it as.

To be honest I wasn't sure what was happening towards the end. It's all very rarefied and the family far from distinctive. But it's very beautiful with the crispest of architecture which boasts the most enormous sense of space and attendant frigidity. You can almost hear the echoes.

This is the earliest of Walden’s works, wherein you’ll discern so much promise which we now know heralded the arrival of one of this medium’s true titans.