Art For Art’s Sake Mini Special – Happy New Year With Pippa And Liz From ‘Wired World’
by Richard Bruton
It’s the turning of the year again, meaning time for celebrations/reflections* [delete as appropriate] and seeing in the new year whilst looking back on the old one. And there’s no better comic strip that’s ever done that than Philip Bond‘s Wired World…
I’ve already shown you the Wired World for Christmas – Day 21 of the Advent Calendar this year – but with it being the New Year I wanted to share with you the New Year strip from Deadline issue 15, cover dated February 1990.
Again, it’s Pippa and Liz having a New Year adventure and it all begins, as these things do, with a party…
Much drinking ensues, even if their pal Montana isn’t quite in the girls’ league when it comes to chucking the booze down her neck.
But after a while Pip has an idea about getting a bit more spiritual…
And with that, they’re off out into the night… with Pip planning a mystical experience for them, something as close to getting back to nature as they can. Trouble is, this is the middle of the city and there’s no nearby hillside to watch the sun come up from behind.
No, so instead they opt for the next best thing…
Oh yes, it’s off to the top of the biggest multi-storey car park they can find!
And that’s where Bond does a beautiful thing and turns a typical Wired World tale of boozing kids having fun into something way more magical altogether. And you get to feel the moment of the sun coming up, the dawning of a new day and a new year, with the girls, up there on the top level of the car park – and you just know it’s never going to get better than this… just a beautiful moment to end the strip with…
God, I just love that last page, the way Bond changes his style so perfectly, so beautifully, always have, ever since I first saw it in Deadline. And I’m right with Pippa and Liz and Philip there…
‘Out with the old and in with the new’
‘I’ll drink to that.’
‘Knowing where and when you are is really where (and when) it’s at.’
So Happy New Year from all of us here at Comicon. We shall raise a glass with you and wish you all a better year ahead!
