By Polyp (New Internationalist/Friends of the Earth International)
ISBN: 978-1-906523-19-0 (Multilingual edition!)
No one can contest or dispute the sheer naked power and immediacy of pictures. A sequential narrative can muster all the force of a Perfect Storm and target hearts and minds the way no manner of high-tech, satellite-enhanced laser-directed ordnance or poorly worded plebiscite ever could…
Hopefully this startlingly bold pictorial treatise from the enigmatic and exceedingly talented Polyp (www.polyp.org.uk) can still shake a few entrenched bastions and rattle some cages as it offers an alternative view of our progress as a species, using the monstrous tragedy of 9/11 as its starting point before scrolling back to the very beginning to show how it all went so wrong for us talking apes…
In vivid primary colours, a jaundiced look at our 6 billion-year relationship with the planet -and the mistakes we keep on making – unfolds with wry, surreal wit, patient exasperation and not a little frantic desperation as our guides and companions. The delivery system is a boldly accessible cartoon style that blends a thousand childhood influences from Vaughn Bode to The Clangers, all the while whispering a warning and offering some few potentially last-minute suggestions via unforgettable imagery.
As it says on the cover, this book eschews words in favour of a broad humorous parade of “dumb-show†and mime: a brave and marvellously effective technique that really pays off. And besides, as a species we’ve been talking a good fight for ages and we’re now at a stage where words simply aren’t enough anymore…
The old adage has it that history is written by the winners, but in this graphic exploration on how the world got into its current state, we have a sharp, incisive and universal tome produced for those of us that have always demanded a recount – and almost probably not, no, never, a new referendum. Buy this book. Give copies to your friends. But most of all read, inwardly digest and just do something. It’s a dead cert those we’ve let make the rules for us so far won’t……
© Paul Fitzgerald 2009. All rights reserved.