Page 45 Review by Stephen
Oh my god it's gorgeous.
All three contemplative landscape explorations collected under a single, hand-sized hardcover. I've included photos of all three.
Of the first, INTERNAL WILDERNESS, I wrote almost exactly 10 years ago:
One of the most beautiful artefacts I've beheld this year.
It's a silent, 4 x 6 inch comic printed on sturdy, finely grained, crisp white paper with an even thicker cardstock cover.
We travel under moonlight which bounces off snow-capped mountains and shimmers on the surface of the lakes or lochs and the fresh, fast-flowing rivers which meander into their midst.
There's barely another soul in sight, but there's evidence of human habitation, albeit asleep save for single chimney stack's plume of white smoke swirling into the sky and a light-house's giant lantern, a comforting, reassuring beacon in the night.
All else is bathed in the softest of blue-tinged greys under a rich midnight blue. The shapes and the textures of the trees, the leaves, the tall blades of grass and the fern-fronds are exquisite.
By contrast there's a sheer sheet of ice below us, breaking up; above or at eye-level depending on how high we've climbed, there are equally pristine layers of mist suspended in the sky.
If you are need of serenity or simply crave its experience, you'll find it waiting within.
"INTERNAL WILDERNESS is part of an ongoing project looking at 'landscape and memory' - our relationship with the environment, effects we have on the world and space around us and in turn its profound effect on our own memory and emotions."
Returning to 2026, and twice this weekend I've had two very different individuals bring this to the counter with memories of its original incarnation as mini-comics, and how quietly but profoundly affected they were by their first read. So much so, that they bought this too.
