True Stories #2: Island
Posted on October 26, 2006
A grand folly, this, from Tony McGee, which throws all the shapes of a metaphysical examination of a couple of anguished lives, but just lacks sufficient exposition or dialogue or inherent analysis to achieve the kind of complexity that makes a story this brooding really involving.
The teenaged Gemma holidays on the remote island of her father – a broken man, detached and struggling for emotional sustenance. Conversation is brief, silences protracted; there is something not right with this relationship. Gemma retreats into fantasy, her father into reliable depression, but there is no escape: a sinister fog gathers on the horizon; it's moving their way.
Ambitious and downbeat, the narrative of Island lacks impetus due to the relative absence of a physical conflict, but with a beautifully conceived grimness, hypnotic rhythm, unearthly atmosphere and striking visual clarity, there is much to admire about this tentative yet devoted meditation on guilt.
Flip-side strip Isle is flimsy and conventional in comparison to its elusive neighbour, but boasts a polished story-telling which is technically faultless. Here, McGee's Sisyphus-like tale is superbly realised by the fine-tuned artistry of Chris Askham, to diverting, enjoyable-enough consequence.
A grand folly, this, from Tony McGee, which throws all the shapes of a metaphysical examination of a couple of anguished lives, but just lacks sufficient exposition or dialogue or inherent analysis to achieve the kind of complexity that makes a story this brooding really involving.
The teenaged Gemma holidays on the remote island of her father – a broken man, detached and struggling for emotional sustenance. Conversation is brief, silences protracted; there is something not right with this relationship. Gemma retreats into fantasy, her father into reliable depression, but there is no escape: a sinister fog gathers on the horizon; it's moving their way.
Ambitious and downbeat, the narrative of Island lacks impetus due to the relative absence of a physical conflict, but with a beautifully conceived grimness, hypnotic rhythm, unearthly atmosphere and striking visual clarity, there is much to admire about this tentative yet devoted meditation on guilt.
Flip-side strip Isle is flimsy and conventional in comparison to its elusive neighbour, but boasts a polished story-telling which is technically faultless. Here, McGee's Sisyphus-like tale is superbly realised by the fine-tuned artistry of Chris Askham, to diverting, enjoyable-enough consequence.
56 A5 pages, £2. Available from http://truestories.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk