As I’ve said before when reviewing the Colossive Cartographies series there’s sometimes a dilemma as to whether the reader should bring their own interpretation to their fold-out zine narratives or look further as to authorial intent, whether that be via the Colossive Press website or the creator’s social media/own site.
Patrick Wray’s Colossive Cartographies #70, with the mammoth title ‘The Badly Drawn Girl Climbs Out of the Drawing and Runs Into the Entrance of Turnpike Lane Tube Station’, is an excellent example of this conundrum. Do we project our own meaning onto the page? Will further information elucidate or just be a distraction? What does this say about the artist-reader relationship?
With that in mind, perhaps discussing further what I found through Wray’s Instagram account could undermine the experience or the fun of looking further for other readers. But, suffice to say, that if one does it takes them down a rabbit hole of performance connections, song lyrics and musical discovery.
If you want to just take this zine at face value then we have an intriguingly meta piece of short comics storytelling. The Badly Drawn Girl of the title emerging from the gutters between freeform panels to become part of the photographic environment around the aforementioned Turnpike Lane station. Wray also makes ample use of the folds of this cartography to elaborate on that sense of place and cross-media interaction. It’s a fascinating comparison and contrast between the reality of the static caught moment and the fluidity of artistic representation of motion within it.
To over-analyse ‘The Badly Drawn Girl Climbs Out of the Drawing and Runs Into the Entrance of Turnpike Lane Tube Station’ is to perhaps miss the point, given that its immediacy feels very much a major part of its reason to exist. BF readers wanting to discover more of Wray’s work should also check out The Flood That Did Come (Avery Hill Publishing), mini kuš! #103: Grandad Reg (with Clara Heathcock, kuš! comics) and Ghost Stories I Remember (Colossive Press).
Patrick Wray (W/A) • Colossive Press, £2.00
Review by Andy Oliver
