For my graphic novel, I chose Here by Richard McGuire. I found out about this novel on the internet when browsing for ideas what to read. Here caught my eye because the central narrative of the comic is showing a scene, then showing mini frames within the scene that play as little time machine windows to the same spot in the past or future. It often uses scenery of the interior of a house to show little juxtaposed time lapses from the beginning of time to when it was written. This is something that hit home because it’s something I often wonder about. Places all around us such as houses, classrooms, etc, have such rich amounts of history and yet a lot of it goes without recognition.

This scene uses aspect to aspect as well as non sequitur transitions. This is pretty unique in that almost all of the imagery in this graphic novel falls under these categories. While the different time periods in the shots aren’t really related to one another, they are the same place just at a different place in history. It makes for an interesting juxtaposition of the elements. It’s one scene as a whole, but the base layer / canvas is used as the 2014 set while the inner frame represents the same shot in 1503 and shows the nature that was there before the house. I found this particularly interesting because I grew up on 6 acres in a house that was built by my great-grandpa Jones. I often wonder what the scenery was like back when he was building it. Since we’ve lived there, we’ve cut quite a few hazardous trees down as well as built a greenhouse, shop, barn, fence, etc. Reading this novel makes me wish I had old pictures of my house so I could do modern comparisons like this.

I found this scene particularly interesting as it shows past, present(ish) and future. It shows a somewhat dark looking scene of the early 1600s that appears to be some sort of trade between the Native Americans and pilgrims presumably during the early colonial american time period. The base scene itself is a 2005 still of the room with two elderly men talking to each other. One of them is in bed in what appears to be a hospice care situation where he’s starting to diminish in health quickly. This is conveyed in the fact that he can’t hear the other guy in the room. The last image shown within this frame is a picture of a whale swimming in the ocean or some large body of water. This is interesting foreshadowing from McGuire as he seems to think there will be some sort of flood or chaotic event that leads to the world flooding.