Richard McGuire

Richard McGuire (born 1957 in New Jersey) is an American comic book writer. His work 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) (). Reprinted in An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories vol. 1 (Yale University Press, 2006) () and Comic Art #8 (Buenaventura Press, 2006) ()
• "The Thinkers," 1 pg. from RAW vol. 2 #2 (1990) ()
• "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) ()

Graphic novels

• Here (Pantheon: 2014) ()

Children's literature

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

Artist's books

• Popeye and Olive (Paris: Cornelius, 2001) ()
• P+O (Paris: Cornelius, 2002) ()

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

Further reading

• Template:Cite news

External links

• Template:Official website
• A sample of his New Yorker covers
• Notes from a UK comics event
• Follow the oranges in The Orange Book

Interviews

• An interview on his music and comics careers
• An interview concerning his animated works
• Spoiler Alert Radio interview
• Who's Afraid of Noir- an interview
• Strapazin interviewTemplate:In lang