The third comic from the original Astorial Stories series of 1986, now with added colours. The Building Trade features the character of Tom the Builder, at work on the exterior of the Hotel, apparently carrying out repairs and works all by himself, apart from the interventions of a well-meaning but ineffectual foreman. And of course the mysterious Stonecutter, an outside worker brought onto the site at the express request of Tom, who seems to be causing more damage than good, but may in fact be wreaking a welcome change. The story is intercut with episodes from an interior conference room, where the Astorial Hotel Council are debating the problems of weather and erosion on the hotel exterior, all to no avail.
I personally like this story for the sullen and stubborn character of Tom, an energised creator figure who doesn’t feel he has to explain himself to anyone. Also the suggestion that he’s in league with the Stonecutter, who is probably a Freemason, to carry out some hidden plot with occultist undertones. The punchline to the story is that the members of the Council all get turned into statues and spend the rest of their lives crouching in the hotel lobby, which seemed important to me at the time. It’s something to do with their intractable positions; each one is so blinded by their own narrow ideologies and specialist preoccupations that they never get anything done.
Adding some bonus pics where you can really see the grain of the halftones, about which I continue to obsess. The back cover is a collage made inside the computer.
