Here

First appearing on page 18, a group of four people—two elderly men, an elderly woman, and a younger woman—sit on the couch beneath the window of the room in 1989. One of the two older men prompts the younger woman to tell a joke about a doctor. The woman does: “So, a guy calls his doctor for some test results...The doctor says, ‘Well Mr. Jones, I have some good news and some bad news’” (20-24). The good news is that Mr. Jones has 24 hours to live, and the bad news is that the doctor should have told him the day before. The group reacts to the joke with raucous laughter until one of the old men begins coughing and falls over. This coincidence makes it appear that the joke occurs in real time, crossing the boundary from imagination to reality. The man’s apparent sudden death reflects the mortality suggested in the joke, demonstrating The Interconnectedness of Human Experiences.

In 1959, two parents arrange their four children on the couch for a family photo. The mother struggles to position them correctly while the father readies the camera. Panels on the following pages show another set of children on the couch, ready for a picture. This family poses in 1962, only three years later, though there are five children this time and the décor and design of the room are different. The panels that follow show this family recreating the pose in successive years, from 1964 all the way to 1983, as the children grow up. In these panels, their appearances grow older, demonstrating how they age. Their expressions also change, as every child smiles in 1962 but only one truly smiles in 1983. Within these quick moments, the changing lives of the children are captured. The weight of adulthood is seen in their less expressive faces, creating the suggestion of a narrative specific to them that is not explored in the graphic novel. 

A trio from the Archeological Society visits the house in 1986 to speak with the woman who lives there. They are interested in whether the site of the house might offer any Indigenous artifacts. The leader of the trio is a man in a suit, very interested in speaking with the resident about the many possibilities her property may offer. The other two—a younger man and woman—do not speak until left alone. When they are, the woman tells the man that she likes his shirt, which reads, “Future Transitional Fossil” (110). The shirt itself foreshadows the tour given in 2213 by an artificial tour guide. In this scene, the tour guide speaks of everyday objects as artifacts, similar to how the Archeological Society members speak of Indigenous objects. The boy’s shirt hints that, eventually, he will be the history, not the one studying it.

The Indigenous man and woman appear twice in Here, both in 1609, in the forest. In their first appearance, the man is on top of the woman. He looks up, believing he has heard something. The second appearance begins on page 161, when the woman asks the man to tell her a story. The man describes a large, dangerous, immortal beast of the forest. The man says that before eating people, the beast always wants to have sex. The woman calls the man a liar, but the man traps her under him while she screams for him to stop and for someone to help (167). This is a graphic scene that, unlike many others in the novel, shows a very consequential and traumatic moment in a character’s life rather than an everyday moment. These characters demonstrate that bad occurrences take place in the area of the room, and that it is not merely a place for happy families and happy moments.

William Franklin is the son of Benjamin Franklin and a staunch loyalist to the British crown. In 1775, he and his wife prepare to host Benjamin Franklin and William’s son. William is nervous, not only because his son has been absent for a long time, making this a long-awaited reunion, but also because of the serious political differences between him and his father. He feels the pressure of the growing resistance to British rule; he is even heckled by children who call him “Bastard!” (120). Through his father’s letters, William sees a growing divide in their relationship. His wife begs him to be civil at dinner: “Promise me that you will avoid discussing politics with your father. I so dislike arguments” (119). However, being a political foil to his father, William does argue with Benjamin at dinner over the role of the British and the changing tide of politics in the American colonies.

Benjamin Franklin, the famed revolutionary and father of William Franklin, arrives at his son’s home with his grandson for dinner. Benjamin is a foil to William, holding diametrically opposed political views that he frequently shares publicly and strongly. As they ride to the house in the carriage, Benjamin and his grandson mirror the conversation between William and his wife earlier that day: “Grandpa? Will you promise not to argue politics with father?” (131). Benjamin promises his grandson he will not argue, but he breaks that promise, yelling at William over the role of England in the colonies. Benjamin, despite being the older man in the family, represents new ideas and the changing tide of colonial politics. He also contemplates his role as a father during this argument: “I think I may have been too indulgent as a parent” (133). In many ways, this comment reflects the situation occurring between the colonies and England, with the leniency of the British leading in many ways to the American Revolution. In one dinner, this father-and-son duo explore the tensions between the colonies and England both through political discussion and personal dynamics.

On page 172, a couple sets up a picnic on the large, green lawn of the colonial house. The man is there to paint, and the woman begs him to paint her. The man opts to paint a nearby ridge, evoking the imagery of a woman’s hip. He calls the woman his muse, but though she asks, he will not turn his brush to her. As she sits and watches him paint, she pours wine for both of them, and once again asks him to paint her. There is no panel that gives his response. There is a feeling of discordance between the two, but no conversation illuminates any possible rift. Here’s strategy is to capture mere moments in people’s lives, giving a glimpse into their personal narratives, but not capturing their whole being. In this case, the woman’s repeated request to be painted suggests a rift, but with no background or extra panels to explain it, the narrative possibilities are endless. Here layers these suggested and possible narratives over each other through panels.

The builder in blue overalls and a red shirt first appears on page 240, walking away from the frame of the house in 1907. Then, on pages 242 and 243, he appears in nine panels, all from 1907, showing him working on different aspects of the house. These two pages explore the process of the house’s construction, and this man’s direct role in making it happen. As the builder of the room, he is overwhelmingly present in the year of the room’s construction and invisible at all other times. Because all these panels are layered over each other during the same year, the borders between panels are less noticeable, as the details of the room line up perfectly. Here uses the relationships between panels to create a story. In this instance, it takes many similar moments close together in time to show rapid action and the many small tasks that go into the building of the house.

The tour guide in 2214 is a mirror character to the Archeological Society members from 1986. This guide, suggested to be artificial, uses a projector to give a tour of the house even though it is no longer standing. In doing so, she reviews the common items of the day, displaying and explaining the function of a watch, a wallet, and keys. The way in which she explains these three items suggests that to her audience, these objects are outdated and unusual. She excavates the past and analyzes objects through degrees of separation, as antiquated and historical artifacts, much like the Archeological Society members hope to do with Indigenous artifacts. The tour guide’s lecture reflects The Fluidity of Time and The Interconnectedness of Human Experiences. Her role in Here is to show how the present transforms into the past over time, and how as time goes on, everyday objects become artifacts. Her lecture also suggests the cyclical nature of this process and humanity’s role in it. Though separated by over two centuries, the people in both 1986 and 2214 share a common interest in understanding the past and the people that came before them.