Review: The 77
First up, full disclosure, I know a lot of the creators of The 77 as I'm part of the 1977-2000AD Facebook group admin and moderators team, as are they. However, I will aim to be impartial and give my honest opinion of the comic here.
Straight out of the gate, on opening the envelope containing my copy of The 77, I was impressed with its quality and size (that's what she said) a beautiful glossy cover featuring Bull a character from the story V gracing the front and beautiful artwork from Ian Gibson on the rear. Here's an admission, when I was a kid I used to sniff a new comic or annual, weird I know but, there is just something about that new comic or book smell that still exudes excitement for the new thrills to be found inside. Guess what, The 77 smells good.
There is so much in this 68 page anthology comic that I'm not going to mention every story, mostly because time is short as I'm writing while my baby is sleeping, but I'll give a spoiler free taste of a selection of the stories inside. I'm not going to put pictures from the comics interior here as I don't want to ruin that new comic experience for anyone.
The opening story is Temporal Anarchy, a future shock type story from Alan Holloway set in Punk era Britain. The story is introduced by Philthy Luca, our narrator of the tale of a punk who gets more than he imagined when he uses a found safety pin as a new ear ring. Special mention here for Neil Sims art and character creation, absolutely superb stuff.
I enjoy a bit of fantasy fiction, cross that with a hint of sci-fi and you have Mal Earls Prodigal. It really is his as he wrote, drew, coloured and lettered everything here. I loved the look and the feel of the story and read it twice to take it in again. I'm intrigued to see where we go next with this one, I would guess there will be no shortage of blood and gore as it's dripping off half the pages.
V, written by Steve Bull, art by Ade Huges and lettering by none other than 2000ADs Annie Parkhouse, has the feel of a Running Man and Gladiator mashup. There is a lot of intrigue and twists along the way that I don't want to spoil here. Enjoyed the retro black and white art from Ade here, nice to see it.
Dave Heeley has followed a 2000AD trait of predicting the future in Division 77. The year is 2025 and the world is hit by a virus that causes the collapse of society and requires the 'help' of outside forces. An intriguing beginning to a future war story, I'm looking forward to seeing Division 77 in the thick of the action.
I have to give a special mention to Lew Stringers, Sgt Shouty of the Moon Force. It was one page of warm and fuzzy memories of comics, from my childhood, like the Beano. In this time of lockdown I can totally feel the Sarges frustration at a lack of Hob-Nobs (when you read it you'll get it).
Throughout the rest of the comic we are treated to stories from 2000AD alumni John Charles, Kek W and also artist Steven Austin drawing a Baden James Mellonie story.
Not everything hit a sweet spot, for me Penny Pentagram and Butch Yeehaw left me cold. Key Runners, written and drawn by a young creator, took me out of the reading experience as it felt out of place here. I didn't enjoy 'The Tinkling Triangles' as much as I'd hoped as it was penned by the greatest and mightiest of Mighty Ones, Steve Macmanus. But I think that is because I haven't read his book, The Sheerglam Conspiracy, where the Tinkling Triangles are introduced.
The baby is rousing so time to wrap this up, I am so impressed with The 77, this is no scratchy fanzine this is a professional superbly put together anthology that reflects the comics of our youth. With its diversity of stories, The 77 is sure to please you on many levels, get on board now and you can say you were there from number one!
Here's where you can get hold of The 77:
PS: The baby approves
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