A REVIEW AND AN INTERVIEW
With wickedly wonderful art, RVR doesn't pretend to be a comic book or even a book of prose, like those Jamie Delano has written before. I think the work is about the life that we have experienced since 2019. Brexit, pandemic, immigration strife, terrorism, weather emergencies that accompany the climate change that is ongoing, all inform the monologue or with art a kind of dialogue.
If I were to call the work poetry, it isn't exactly. But it isn't prose, nor is the art and monologue a sequential comic book. The art is stunning with every turn of the page you see mastery of the form. I don't promise that all reading this will perceive and adore this work, but they should.
Also, more than writing about the response to the the recent past, Delano speaks to the wages of existence, and the rewards. He tells the world how as life extends one begins to have perceptions about life, deeply informed by experience, and more. If it is a memoir, we get to look into the soul of the writer. He brings a POV that is unique, and specially aimed, as if a confession or witness. The witness style narration allows the reader to understand, without the normal suspension of disbelief in comic books and fiction. Order your copy or demand a general release so all can read this gem.
LEPUS BOOKS
AN INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE DELANO
I am deeply excited to have interviewed Jamie, and now let the world know his most recent release by through Lepus Books, and it is different kind of project than I've seen done before.
What inspired the creation of it? Did it have previous incarnations that went unpublished, or was it at all different than comics or prose, to write for another person's art, in a form of illustrated blank verse poetry, or direct prose...?
“RVR” was a long time in gestation. It arose as a result of casual conversations over a number of years between my brother Richard and me, idly wondering whether there was a medium through which we might combine our dubious talents in a way novel to both of us, which would allow us to present our different perspectives on similar experience. Some of the text originally appeared as prose pieces, hidden away in the gloomy recesses of the Lepus Books website. It occurred to me that editing the text as ‘poetic’ captions – comic book style – and combining them with Richard’s visual inspiration might elevate the work beyond mere illustrated prose, exploiting the synergy of word and picture that characterises a ‘comic’ without the need for sequential ‘story’ as such. Richard and I worked in parallel, rather than strictly collaboratively – both taking our inspiration from the same source (our local river), working in our own media, but with neither taking a lead. No script, other than the text, was provided; there was no ‘art direction’ from me as the writer; we just assembled what we had at the end and made it fit into a mutually pleasing form.
You are working with a collaborative artist who you can't help but be familiar with... Who is he, what has he done before, and what made you decide to work with him?
My younger brother – Richard James – has combined a long career in graphic design with his more obscure practise as a fine artist working in the field of assemblage art. Over the decades, he has established a strong following for his pieces and regularly mounts gallery exhibitions. His work is internationally collected. A taste of his work and ethos can be gleaned here: www.richardjames-art.co.uk. I have long been an admirer of Richard’s artistic sensibility and thought I would exploit our fraternity and let him make me look good without the need for upfront payment…
Will there ever be a softcover or hardcover general release, rather than the ultra limited version that I read and will have reviewed by the time this interview reaches print?
I think it would become an instant collector's item if no follow up general release happened. Is it to create an interest in others that you chose this route, or simply a way to release it for publishers to see it in physical form and inquire after its availability, as an expressed an interest to publish it?
I am – at 70 years of age and apparently retired from industrial writing – currently at a stage in my life where my only creative urge is to please myself… and, hopefully, a few discerning others. This is why I set up Lepus Books to publish my weird fictions in novel form without interference from the requirements of commercially oriented editing, or any need to make a profit. While it would be nice to find a wide audience prepared to shell out its hard-earned in big numbers, this is not important to me; I’m content to cover costs (and one day may even achieve that small goal). So, I guess it is unlikely that there will be any other edition than this one, limited to 100 signed, hard cover copies. Collectors take note.
Is it a memoir of sorts, of a writer having seen too many things, or making sense of all the last 4 or 5 crazy years the world has experienced? I think it will easily have deep connections for most people, as if this is how the future plays out, I can't imagine human progress on the path forward. Or is that too pessimistic?
“RVR” is subtitled: An Hallucinatory Navigation; it is just that. Yes, it is also a (highly unreliable) memoir – in that the writing is powered by my subjective recollection of incident and place (past, present and future). If it has any wider commentary to make on the global human condition, that is very much a subtext for individual readers to discern through their own relationship with the work. Pessimism (if not despair) is the natural state of the intelligent human enduring the reality of 21st century life… or is that too pessimistic?
Does speaking the dangerous truths of the present into the open air of discussion allow us to mentally identify the flaws of character and disasters ahead that we all see, and fear, and want nothing of?
There’s a question for us all to ponder, eh? Do dangerous truths reap dangerous consequences? Is the global cacophony of ‘discussion’, with all its cultural tribalism, competing realities, engineered conflict etc., a benefit or hindrance to the evolution of human consciousness? I have no idea. But, to corrupt Hasan-I Sabbah: Now everything is true; soon nothing will be permitted. Jamie Delano - 2023
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