{"id":22997,"date":"2020-11-13T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T08:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=22997"},"modified":"2020-11-12T17:39:45","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T17:39:45","slug":"the-impending-blindness-of-billie-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2020\/11\/13\/the-impending-blindness-of-billie-scott\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Zoe Thorogood<\/strong> (Avery Hill)
\nISBN: 978-1-910395-56-1 (PB)<\/p>\n

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Topical Tale of Tragedy and Triumph Over Adversity\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

I almost included this stunning debut in our Halloween horror program, but decided that no matter how disturbing the concept, this is essentially a very upbeat and joyous tale and one in need of being read on its own terms\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/p>\n

Zoe Thorogood is a young freelance artist and concept designer from Middlesbrough, who pays attention and thinks through what she conceives. That sounds overly obvious, but – speaking as an extremely aged freelance artist and concept designer from the halcyon days of social equality, equal opportunities and a sense of responsibility – it’s a rare level of consciousness that usually takes decades of mistakes to attain.<\/p>\n

Having branched out into graphic novel storytelling, Thorogood has sagely stuck to what she knows for irony-drenched The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott<\/strong>. Here a struggling artist doubting and second-guessing her life in a poverty-afflicted northern town suddenly realises her greatest dream at the beginning of her career. After – incredibly – winning the \u00e2\u20ac\u01532020 New Artist of the Year Competition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, Billie<\/em> is awarded her own gallery show of new works in London, and a guaranteed entr\u00c3\u00a9e to the shimmering world of the Art Business glitterati. <\/p>\n

After an understandable moment of confusion and prevarication, she gets to work on the ten new paintings only to learn that she is going to abruptly, rapidly and incurably lose her sight in mere months\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Confronting her past and future, Billie packs up the bare essentials and heads on a pilgrimage to London, encountering and embracing the lowest tawdry dregs and survivors of modern society as she races to complete the last and most meaningful images she will ever see herself create\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Will she make it? Is it even worth the effort?<\/p>\n

The concept isn’t new, but this delightful and evocative take on the Trials of Job is at its heart a delicious celebration of simple humanity and the fact that people are complex and must not be reduced to talking points for the worthy or used as PR fodder for governments who seek to equate being poor or nonconformist with criminality, deviancy, otherness or antisocial \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unworthiness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6And, as every sanctimonious plutocrat, pious reformer or obsequious political self-server always seems to forget, if you push us too far for too long, eventually we rise\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

In equal parts an examination of the creative impulse, indictment of Post-Austerity Britain and affirmation of the human spirit, this book is also a captivating tale beautifully rendered in smart line, restricted palettes and – when most impactful – glorious full colour. Positively Dickensian in tone, sublimely modernistic in delivery and splendidly displaying the community we all need to be, The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott <\/strong>is a damn fine read we all need to share.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 Zoe Thorogood 2020. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Zoe Thorogood (Avery Hill) ISBN: 978-1-910395-56-1 (PB) Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Topical Tale of Tragedy and Triumph Over Adversity\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10 I almost included this stunning debut in our Halloween horror program, but decided that no matter how disturbing the concept, this is essentially a very upbeat and joyous tale and one in need … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,239,216,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-british","category-drama","category-lifestyle","category-mature-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-5YV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}