Tim Coghlan’s Hell’s Gates II: Retribution is the second complete volume of the Hell’s Gates series, following the 2018 original, and its supplement editions Hell’s Gates: Notre Damned, An Act of God and Hell’s Gates Redux. Like its previous iterations, this pulp novel of images – a sequel in cinematic terms – sees the Melbourne-based designer and publisher delve into the realms of iconography, typology, and the implications and democracy of images. But where earlier editions used strategic Google Images searches to scour the internet for lo-res, amateur, and public domain photographs of burning houses of worship the world over, in Retribution, Coghlan focuses his gaze on a particular medium and place. Here, he utilises the moving image, creating a syntax of video stills and vignettes, picturing churches burning to the ground exclusively within the borders of the United States post-2018, the year the original Hell’s Gates was published. 224 pages, 19.2 x 12cm, perfect bound softcover, Knowledge Editions x Perimeter Editions (Melbourne).
