Here (comics)

"Here" is a 6-page comic story by Richard McGuire published in 1989¹, and expanded into a 304-page graphic novel in 2014. The concept of "Here" (in both versions) is to show the same location in space at different points in time, ranging from the primordial past to thousands of years in the future. "Here" has been recognized as a groundbreaking experiment with the formal properties of comics. The graphic novel was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Robert Zemeckis, released in 2024¹.

"Here" is a 6-page comic story by Richard McGuire published in 1989, and expanded into a 304-page graphic novel in 2014. The concept of "Here" (in both versions) is to show the same location in space at different points in time, ranging from the primordial past to thousands of years in the future. "Here" has been recognized as a groundbreaking experiment with the formal properties of comics. The graphic novel was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Robert Zemeckis, released in 2024.

Overview

Graphic novel

The graphic novel version expanded the concept to 304 pages in color, featuring 152 spreads, with "the corner of the eponymous room in the bound gutter of the open book." Using the same techniques — pages not ordered chronologically, with most pages subdivided into multiple inset panels to show different points in time within the same panel — it shows views of the same place from 3,000,500,000 BC to AD 22,175, "encompassing the lives of Native Americans and colonialists and moving from pre-human epochs to projected futures and species." The graphic novel establishes that the setting of the story eventually becomes part of the grounds of the Proprietary House, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, primarily in a family home built on one of the land lots sold in 1904. A sequence of the book taking place in 1775 briefly depicts the political conflict between Benjamin Franklin and his son William, who occupied the Proprietary House. Most of the action of the book is set in the 20th and 21st centuries, when the fixed viewpoint encompasses the living room of a house built in 1907 (and destroyed by a cataclysmic flood in 2111).

Film adaptations

In 1991, a six-minute short film adaptation of the original six-page 1989 comic was produced at RIT's Department of Film and Video by students Timothy Masick and Bill Trainor for their senior thesis project. An immersive VR film based on the 2014 graphic novel version was conceived and created by British design and production company 59 Productions under the direction of Lysander Ashton with original music by Anna Meredith, which opened at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. The performances were filmed at Intel Studios in Los Angeles using volumetric capture technology. A film adaptation began development in 2022 with Robert Zemeckis directing and co-writing with Eric Roth, and Tom Hanks starring; Robin Wright joined the cast reuniting the four for the first time in thirty years after Forrest Gump in 1994. Zemeckis and Hanks' studios ImageMovers and Playtone produced the film. Miramax came on board as financier and international sales agent, and Sony Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film before the Cannes Film Market. The film was released on November 1, 2024.

Citations

Further reading

— abstract and additional PDF files for the Chris Ware article and the "Here" comic

External links

Here page at Penguin Random House "Here" at Entrecomics (larger GIFs) "Here" at Rutgers University (smaller JPEGs, via Archive.org) McGuire New Yorker cover exploring similar concepts as "Here"/Here Here six-minute student film (1991) Here trailer for immersive virtual reality film (2020) "Here" (interactive edition) Here 1989 a reissue of the original strip

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1339434458 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.