Avery Hill takes pride in being a London-based publishing company “that helps aspiring creators reach their potential and is a home to the geniuses that the mainstream has yet to recognise.” This fall, they welcome several new titles to their roster, including Lizzy Stewart’s Walking Distance, as well as the third installment of B. Mure’s Ismyre series, The Tower in the Sea. Both books are set to debut this month and are getting the launch party treatment this Friday at Gosh Comics in London.
The two books share a similar artistic style, but are vastly different in focus and audience. Both books, however, are prime examples of the many ways in which graphic storytelling shapes us, both in the telling and the reading.
In Walking Distance, Lizzy Stewart begins by telling us of her fascination with scenes of women walking in movies. Meryl Streep in Kramer vs Kramer, Kristen Stewart in Personal Shopper, Michelle Pfieffer in Frankie & Johnny. “I love shots of women walking through cities in films,” she writes in brief interludes between the monochromatic ink and watercolour images. “I like that they are alone and alive and, usually, wearing a nice coat. I like that even though they are a part of a bigger story, something grand or trivial, for those seconds they are removed from their storyline…”
The movies might be dated, but the sentiment is timeless. This feeling of purpose in those scenes Stewart translates into her own life—but only when she is walking, her feet firm on the pavement, knowing exactly where she needs to go. When not in this moment, her thoughts, like the black, white, and gray images that represent them in Walking Distance, become nebulous, unfocused, but also heavy; weighed down by the pressures of life, social media, social expectations. The knowledge that the way she lives her life today is so different from others or even from herself just a decade earlier.
Walking Distance is a quiet exploration of Stewart’s mind that makes me realize how much I take a simple thing as going for a walk for granted. It’s one of my favourite past times, both for exercise, and also to clear my head, yet I never really considered what those walks mean within the greater story of my life. Does it matter? Does going for a walk, whether to get to a specific destination or just for the sake of going for a walk, need to have greater meaning? Not necessarily? But I appreciate the way Walking Distance has made me perceive this simple act in a refreshing light.
In The Tower in the Sea, we meet Miriam, a young person who is taken from Ismyre and brought to an island to hone her skills as a diviner. The art of divination has been outlawed in Ismyre after a past king demanded to know the future of his reign, only to find himself displeased with the answer. But that hasn’t stopped a group of teachers from helping students learn their art. This becomes even more important when Miriam’s dreams of a pending fiery doom for Ismyre keep her awake at night. Are they visions of the future? If they are, what can a young child like Miriam do?
This is the third book in the Ismyre series from B. Mure and there is obviously a rich world beyond the shores of the tower. Reading the other two books isn’t necessary to understand Miriam’s plight here, but the mystery beyond the waves invites curiosity.
Mure’s artistic talent is a gift. Each page bursts with colourful watercolour pastels, sometimes warm, sometimes cold. Inked lines help bring seemingly chaotic waves of colour into focus and detail, while also giving a sense that there is so much more to discover about Ismyre and the magic of this world, if you could just fold back the layers. Staying within the lines, or even the notion of straight-lined panels is subtly discarded, adding to the whimsy, without losing the seriousness of Miriam’s plight. Word balloons and sound effects pop in and out and around the images—but only when absolutely needed. Mure has mastered the simplicity of less is more when it comes to dialogue, allowing the images to carry the story as much as the words. A knowing glance or a baleful expression conveys so much as Miriam eventually opens up and shares her fears with those around her. And this is the heart of the story. The relationships—teacher to student, friends, rivals—are as important as Miriam’s potentially prophetic dreams. Mure has a gift for expressing these relationships on each page.
If you’re in the London area on October 4 between 7pm and 9pm, don’t miss the opportunity to check out both of these books and meet the authors at Gosh Comics.
