Writer / Penciller: Zoe Thorogood / TP / Avery Hill
22nd February 2023 (Released: 16th March 2021)
Review by Paul Dunne
The Pitch: Billie Scott is an artist. Her debut gallery exhibition opens in a few months. Within a fortnight she'll be completely blind. As Billie struggles to deal with her impending blindness, she sets off on a journey from Middlesbrough to London; into a world of post-austerity Britain and the problems facing those left behind. Her quest is to find ten people to paint for her exhibition, as well as the inspiration to continue with her art, and the strength to move on with her life.
Time for a confession: Billie Scott is a book that I missed out on reviewing not once, but twice. When it was first released, I had a full plate, getting the site up and running. When Avery Hill reissued it in a larger format, showcasing Thorogood’s excellent artwork, I missed it again. The plate had grown fuller or I just hadn’t learned to control the workflow of the site yet… Well, the book sat there for a long time. This happens a lot. So when the chance came for me to start a new strand, highlighting recent, modern works, I had to include it. Better yet, I had the chance to launch the strand with it. I hope in some small way, this makes up for missing those earlier opportunities to discuss its merits.
The Hero’s journey.
Billie starts off as an outsider, even in her own book. We spend more time in the company of the young people who share her student housing during the opening pages than we do her. And when she does finally come out of her shell (and her room), her reclusive lifestyle is given weight as she's the victim of violence, which kicks off her quest. Just how much of a comic book this is should not be overlooked. It IS a quest that Billie goes on, ostensibly in search of inspiration for her paintings, but actually on a journey to find herself. If that sounds a little cheesy, well... take heart. It's the hero's journey, seen a million times. Also, there's a built-in-clock. Billie will be blind in a fortnight. Skewed a little differently, this could be a thriller. And it's to Thorogood's credit that she resists the urge to make it any more of a comic book than that. Instead, we get a journey both inward and outward without theatrics. Yet there are elements that anyone who has watched, say, The Wizard of Oz will recognise. They journey back home, back to one's self and of course, like the old poem says, to know that place – one's self-for the first time.
Knowing that place - and one’s self - for the first time.
Another way to look at this might be as a piece of self-actualisation by Thorogood. Although this isn't as autobiographical as many independent OGNs, and certainly not as her later work, Thorogood did indeed see black spots begin to appear in her eyesight a few years back. This was revealed to be the result of a slowly detaching retina which would have eventually blinded her had it not been treated. Thankfully for her and us, her sight remains, so we get more fascinating comics. Billie is a great character, one who is aware of her fate and powerless to stop it. And so she embraces it and motivates herself, gets out of her room and out of her comfort zone. In doing so she learns that it's the life behind the art that counts. If you've ever created something, you'll know that there is a hunger that lies behind it, but that you have to allow room for air to get in, for accidents to happen, for life to wedge its way in through the door of your room. Because otherwise, the creation itself is empty and lifeless behind the eyes. One has to ponder if Thorogood has been on that same journey, and come to that same realisation?
Finding life in every person she meets.
Billie finds that life in each of the people she meets, and as her journey progresses, she has to stop observing and begin interacting with her subjects, therefore viewing them as people, not muses. She changes them. And they change her. It seems simplistic but that's not the case. What it is... is honest. Thorogood gives her characters a genuine emotional grounding. They're a little dirty, a little flawed, a little messy. Impending blindness or not, everyone's life hits points like this... where you have to go forward and make your life out of what you have, or relent and give in. The people Billie meets are being driven down by the new, post-Brexit Britain, where austerity has crept into every street and every life. They’re people whom the country and the government want to give in, or just go away. In Billie Scott, we have a character who simply cannot give. Stopping is death. On her journey, Billie meets people who could represent possible fates for her and she decides to become none of them, instead forging her own destiny, her own identity, stripped of the one sense that we all need to self-actualise. Visually, there are places where the book teeters on the surreal. But Thorogood keeps it grounded in the dirt of big cities and alleyways. The characters are spindly, always looking like they're going to break. Fragile and real. We all know by now that she is a creator to watch, you don't need me to tell you that. But in this, her first comic, Zoe Thorogood teaches us to head into life with both eyes open and remember that creation is a two-way street.
The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott is available now, along with It's Lonely At The The Center of The World, at your local comic shop.
