A review by thisisstephenbetts
A Thousand Coloured Castles by Gareth Brookes

5.0

Another wonderful book by Brookes (who is a friend of mine — full disclosure fans). He is an avant-garde Raymond Briggs, which may actually be the highest praise I am capable of conceiving of. The main characters of this comic are Myriam and Fred, a couple getting into their senior years, living in suburbia much as they always have. But Myriam has started vivid hallucinations, so that that when she does see something truly strange she cannot be sure what is real and not, much less convince anyone else. The plot is solid, but where Brookes really excels is in his mordent, well-observed dialogue — the characters this conjures — and, naturally, his art. As can now be expected, he has used a novel technique here, creating coloured pages conventionally, then entirely covering it in black crayon only to scrape the crayon off. This gives texture and interest to his pages, and also, of course, alludes to Myriam's own occluded vision, placing the reader in a position akin to hers. In this way, Brookes continually disconcerts the reader, making the cosy suburban setting uncomfortable and slightly off, much as it must be for poor old Myriam.