In 1989 a black-and-white comic by Richard McGuire, modestly titled Here, appeared in RAW magazine. It was quickly recognized as a game-changing achievement in graphic narrative. To mark the publication of Here as an all-new, full-color hardcover and e-book, an exhibition [opening September 25] at the Morgan Library & Museum explores the (re)invention of a contemporary classic.

Here is one of the most studied works in the comics genre. And one of the most studied articles about it was written by Chris Ware for Comic Art V. 8 (2006). An excerpt follows:

“Every once in a while an artist comes along who takes the accrued potential of his or her discipline and recasts it into a brand-new way of seeing or feeling. Cezanne famously accomplished it with painting. Stravinsky did it with music, Joyce with writing—and Richard McGuie, I think, did it with ocmics. It may sound a bit hyperbolic, but I believe that with his deceptively modest strip Here, which first appeared in RAW magazine, vol. 2, no.1, in 1989, Richard McGuire revolutionized the narrative possibilities of comic strips.

“Without digressing too much into description, the strip is a history of one corner of a room, spanning the years 500, 957, 406, 073 B.C. and 2033 A.D., told in six pages of six panels each, totaling thirty-six reader-friendly panels. Or, more properly, eighty-five panels, bcause although the intitial panels are clearly labeled '1957,' by the fifth panel '1957'[left, bottom left] is only a smaller part of the original image, having been reduced and reframed by a picture of the same room, but labeled, and clearly refurnished, as '1922.' This simple, maddeningly obvious and magically electrical metaphor for the very longing that is life passing into oblivion carries the strip forward through a parade of multi-generational oppositions that are at once trivial and poignant.” [More—scroll to end for link to PDF].

From Here to Here: Richard McGuire Makes a Book opens September 25^th at the Morgan Library & Museum [Information]. Curator Joel Smith will give a gallery talk on October 10 [Information]. 225 Madison Avenue at 36^th Street, NY, NY. A 320-page full color edition of Here will be released by Random House in December.