Either I’m not as savvy at trawling the comic websites for news of new publications as I thought or it turns out that they really are inadequate at what I expect from them but the first I knew of Woodrow Phoenix’s new graphic novel Rubble Strip is when I saw it for sale at Caption last weekend.Rubble Strip reads visually like a long drive at some mystical point during the night when absolutely everybody is asleep and all vehicles have been hidden away in their garages. Phoenix takes us on a journey that involves drifting across vast motorways, negotiating narrow streets and nervously conforming to freshly painted markings in empty car parks. Visually, it’s one of the bravest long comic strips I have encountered. Occasionally, surreal elements creep in, such as grand pianos hanging from ropes, as if our driver is fighting falling asleep at the wheel.
The narration, however, is unapologetically anti car. It reminds me of Alan Carr’s How To Stop Smoking The Easy Way (a rubbish comparison if you’ve never smoked or you quit by other means) but more considered; it’s not telling us anything we don’t know already in our hearts but the genius is in the saying of it. Unlike smoking, because we all consider driving to be a necessity, we don’t think seriously enough about the dangers that come with it (along with the impact it has had on our landscape). With Phoenix’s surprisingly humane Rubble Strip, he reminds us that we should.
Rubble Strip is the antidote to Top Gear. I think Jeremy Clarkson should be made to read it and then take a drive across town, as I did. I want to know if, like me, he was slightly afraid, driving with extra consideration, trying to stop his brain from translating the road signs into Phoenix’s stark visuals.
I give Rubble Strip ninety-eight horn beeps.
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