A comics obsessive since the age of five, Tim Pilcher landed a dream job in the early 1990s – becoming the first British member of editorial staff at DC Comics in 56 years.
This show, which accompanied his new memoir, detailed not only his rise to editorial assistant at Vertigo’s infamous Soho offices, but also his rapid fall as drugs and partying began to take over.
It worked as a great companion to the book, with projected images and video from the time that he couldn’t feature on the printed page.
But it also suffered from the same failings as his book. The rise section was a fantastic record of social and comic history as the graphic novel left the teenage bedroom to enter the wider public consciousness, while at the same time rave culture took over the UK. But the inevitable fall was rapid and almost rushed, all over in about five minutes.
As Pilcher left the party at the Soho offices for the last time it felt like only half the story. The audience was left with an urge to know what happened next – how he pulled himself back up after such a nasty fall, and why he still has that wide-eyed enthusiasm for the genre.
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