Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2016 August 17 • Wednesday

Another great Coin-Op (#6)!


Peter and Maria Hoey's comics always demonstrate how great the powers and possibilities of the medium are and their new book is no exception. I suspect that they're unusual if not unique in how they exploit comics' ability to draw strength from other media and forms, such as music, film, graphic design and literature.

The first piece in their new book, a second chapter of a story called Inter-Office Memo, is audacious in its use of what I think of as the paradox of comics' potential, that its magic comes from being at once simultaneous and sequential.

Recurring characters Saltz and Pepz return for what could be called, I guess, a Beckettian meditation on pop culture, technology, philosophy and psychology.

The focus then shifts from videotape to film, for a rich and poetic blend of Rear Window and Un chien andalou.

After that come a few pages of stand alone artworks with a common theme, more or less cinema vocabulary. This is a perfect lead-in to their biographical comic about filmmaker Nicholas Ray.

Finally there's a one-page consideration of author Cornell Woolrich, author of the short story that was adapted as Rear Window, as well as many other works that found themselves made into movies. And another few pages of beautiful art at the end.