Richard McGuire - Misplaced Pages

American illustrator, comic book artist, children's book author, and musician

Not to be confused with Richard Maguire.

Richard McGuire
McGuire in 2015
Born	1957 (age 66–67) New Jersey, US
Alma mater	Rutgers University
Known for	Graphic novel
Notable work	"Here"

Richard McGuire (born 1957 in New Jersey) is an American graphic novelist, artist, and musician. His illustrations have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Le Monde, and his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library & Museum. His comic "Here" (first published in 1989) is among the most lauded comics from recent decades, with an updated graphic novel version published by Pantheon Books in December 2014. A film adaptation of Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, was released in 2024.

Biography

McGuire was born and raised in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers University.

Soon after graduating college, McGuire and a group of friends formed the band Liquid Idiot before relocating to Manhattan in 1979, where the group reformed as the dance-punk band Liquid Liquid, with McGuire serving as the band's bassist. Liquid Liquid is best known for the song "Cavern", whose bass line has been frequently sampled. The group disbanded in 1983 but reformed in 2008 and have played in multiple countries.

McGuire's early art career was as a street artist in the vibrant 1980s East Village scene. He participated in the landmark 1981 "New York/New Wave" group exhibition at PS1 in Long Island City, alongside notable figures such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and David Byrne.

McGuire was a key contributor to the 1995 chain story / comic jam The Narrative Corpse, shepherded by Art Spiegelman and Robert Sikoryak. McGuire was brought in to link Strand 2 of the story back to Strand 1 (bridging the contributions of Carol Swain and Drew Friedman).

McGuire's first cover for The New Yorker was published in 1996; from 2006 to 2011 his work appeared regularly on the magazine's covers.

In 2001, McGuire made two limited-edition, screenprinted artist's books for the French publisher Cornelius. The first one, Popeye and Olive, was an "abstract love story". In the second book, P + O, McGuire "rearranged the silhouetted shapes of the two characters into new combinations which became a 'vocabulary of the relationship'." In 2023 an offset edition of Popeye and Olive was published by Fotokino.

In 2009, McGuire was awarded The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers fellowship at the New York Public Library.

Bibliography

Comics

Short stories

"The Dot Man," 1 pg. from Bad News #3 (Fantagraphics, 1988)
"Here", 6 pgs. from RAW vol. 2 #1 (1989) (ISBN 9780140122657). Reprinted in An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories vol. 1 (Yale University Press, 2006) (ISBN 9780300111705) and Comic Art #8 (Buenaventura Press, 2006) (ISBN 9781584232575)
"The Thinkers," 1 pg. from RAW vol. 2 #2 (1990) (ISBN 9780140122657)
"Bon appétit," fold-out comic booklet from 2wBOX Set I (Switzerland: Bülb Comix, 2002)
"ctrl," 6 pgs. from Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern#13 (2003) (ISBN 9781932416084)

Graphic novels

Here (Pantheon: 2014) (ISBN 9780375406508)

Children's literature

The Orange Book (New York: Children's Universe, 1992) (ISBN 9780847814657)
Night Becomes Day (New York: Viking, 1994) (ISBN 9780670855476)
What Goes Around Comes Around (New York: Viking, 1995) (ISBN 9780670863969)
What's Wrong With This Book? (New York: Viking, 1997) (ISBN 9780670868520)

Artist's books

Popeye and Olive (Paris: Cornelius, 2001) (ISBN 9782909990620)
P+O (Paris: Cornelius, 2002) (ISBN 2909990605)

Filmography

"Micro Loup" (7-minute short from Loulou et autres loups, 2003)
Peur(s) du noir (16-minute untitled segment, 2007)

Awards

2009 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers fellowship at the New York Public Library
2016 Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Album for the French edition of Here, titled Ici and published by Éditions Gallimard
2017 Gaiman Award 2nd place for Here
2018 Prêmio Grampo Silver for the Portuguese-language edition of Here, titled Aqui and published by Cia. das Letras

Public exhibitions

1981 "New York/New Wave" (PS1, Long Island City) — group show curated by Diego Cortez
2014 "From Here to Here: Richard McGuire Makes a Book" (Morgan Library & Museum, New York City)
2018–2019 "Richard McGuire: The Way There and Back" (The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut) — exhibition of 60 tabletop sculptures
2024 "Richard McGuire: Then and There, Here and Now" (Cartoonmuseum Basel – Centre for Narrative Art, Basel, Switzerland)

References

Heller, Steven (September 25, 2014). "The One-Room Time Machine". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
"Chris Ware on Here by Richard McGuire – a game-changing graphic novel". the Guardian. December 17, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
^ Sokol, Brett (September 19, 2018). "From '80s Street Art to Graphic Novels. And Back". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
Garner, Dwight (December 23, 2014). "While Stuck in a Corner, an Artist Bends Time". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
Gabel, J. C. (December 4, 2014). "Q&A: Richard McGuire's 'Here' takes on a larger life as graphic novel". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
"The Profound Mundanity of Richard McGuire's "My Things"". The New Yorker. May 18, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
Schuessler, Jennifer (September 25, 2014). "Sharing a Sofa With Dinosaurs". The New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
"Here by Richard McGuire". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
Lohier, Patrick (December 11, 2014). "Here is Richard McGuire's epic of time". Boing Boing. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
Giardina, Carolyn (January 31, 2023). "Tom Hanks, Robin Wright to Be De-aged in Robert Zemeckis' New Movie Using Metaphysic AI Tool". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
Heller, Steven (September 25, 2014). "The One-Room Time Machine". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on November 12, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
^ Hyman, Vicki (December 15, 2014). "'Here' and forever: See how one graphic novelist imagines New Jersey over trillions of years". ENTERTAINMENT.
"From Here to Here: Richard McGuire Makes a Book". The Morgan Library & Museum. July 11, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
"Liquid Liquid: The Most Important NY Band You've Never Heard Of". Observer. July 16, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
"Introduction". The Narrative Corpse. (Raw Books/Gates of Heck. 1995.
McGuire, Richard. "Popeye + Olive". Richard-McGuire.com. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
"Popeye and Olive, de Richard McGuire". Fotokino. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
"Hear HERE: An Evening with Richard McGuire". New York Public Library. October 16, 2014.
"結果発表｜ガイマン賞". gaiman.jp. Archived from the original on May 13, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
"Prêmio Grampo 2018: Angola Janga, de Marcelo D'Salete, é o grande vencedor" (in Portuguese). Revista O Grito. February 4, 2018.
Heller, Steven (September 25, 2014). "The One-Room Time Machine". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
"Richard McGuire: The Way There and Back". Artsy.net. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
Cartoonmuseum Basel, Vincent Tuset-Anrès, Anette Gehrig, Richard McGuire (ed.): Richard McGuire – Then and There, Here and Now. Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2024, ISBN 978-3-03969-024-4.

External links

Interviews

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