New Year - New Recommendations

Happy new comic reading year! Following the excitement of the first Christmas for our baby, I found a quiet moment to finally read my copy of issue #4 of The77.  I went for the Kickstarter of the excellent Lew Stringer variant cover, I'm sure there are some very happy creators seeing their characters Immortalised by Lew.

Inside, the usual quality we have come to know and love, each story coming in like a heavyweight boxer in a title fight.  Bounty on the Mutie, Penny Pentagram and Prodigal finding distance, warming us up.  Trackless Depths, The Cell and V bringing the fight to us, unleashing a salvo of hard hitting writing and art punches.

Undertow itself was a lesson in fighting techniques, some superb fight scenes brilliantly drawn.  Division 77 and Sgt Shouty put us on the ropes and then left it to Andrew Sawyers Valkyr13 pin up (pictured above) to deliver the knockout punch.  It's no secret that I'm a fan of The77 and my own story Project Revenant will be coming up later this year, but this is an awesome issue!  If you've not already got yours, what are you waiting for?

Buy issue #4 and back issues here: https://the77comic.bigcartel.com/

I was kindly given an advanced copy of Sentinel issue six "Bad Kitty" by writer Alan Holloway a couple of days ago, he told me that it was a fun issue and it certainly is.  The hero of the story Carlos Harrison, a criminal in the style of The Stainless Steel Rat who we meet while in the middle of a heist in a luxury hotel.  I don't want to give too much away here because part of the fun I had with the book was not having a clue what was ahead of me.  Art and lettering is by Morgan Gleave who some may know from his work in The77.  What a great job he does too, his art style was a perfect fit for this story. Check out this exclusive video!

Bad Kitty is a really fun romp with lots of nods to 2000AD and cartoon animals that you'll recognise but they don't pull you out of the story.  If you are looking for some silly escapism, that puts a smile on your face during these difficult times, then I can highly recommend Bad Kitty.  The Kickstarter begins on February 1st - look out for a cracking variant cover by Mal Earl there too.

Finally I also got around to reading my copy of Atomic Hercules goes Commando, which had been sitting in my inbox for a while.  What I love about the Atomic Herc series isn't just the sheer filth and depravity or the ultra violent characters, that's just one layer of the stories.  For me the stories also depict so many of my frustrations at the world and Hercules is the avatar that takes them on.  For instance a preening self obsessed social media addicted, all mouth warrior gets what he deserves when he crosses Herc.  

Tony Esmond and Adam Falp have created such a brilliant character and world that he inhabits here.  It's also obvious they are enjoying what they are doing too, playing about with formats, like this being in the style of a Commando comic keeps it fresh.  I'm looking forward to more.

Buy your copy here: https://neverironanything.bigcartel.com/products?page=1

Recommendations: America Lost and Found, Outer Darkness amd Dracula

It's been a while since my last blog, I've really missed writing it but that's what having a baby in a pandemic while working frontline for, an under siege NHS gets you.  I thought that I'd return to it with some recommendations of comics I've read recently, some of them Christmas gifts, some new, some old.

First up an indie comic I heard about on The Awesome Comics Podcast (ACP).  I'm a lover of anything Dracula or vampire related so when I heard of this comic I had to get it.  It's called "Matt Simmons presents: Farran Jones’ Bram Stoker’s DRACULA". The premise is that Matt has transcribed a conversation with his mate while sat in the pub, his friend Farran is describing Bram Stokers original Dracula.  He's then gone away and turned it into a comic and what a comic it is.  It's printed on three sheets of A3 glued together by hand, folded and put inside a handwritten ripped envelope. You read it from top to bottom like a scroll.

The presentation is just brilliant and so original, thankfully the content is just as awesome.  Matts friends description of Dracula teamed up with Matts, deceptively simple artwork and clever layout is genius.  It takes a lot for a comic to make me laugh out loud but this did many times.  Happily it looks like there's more to come too, I really can't wait.

Secondly "Outer Darkness book one", which was gifted to me at Christmas.  I love it when I pick up a comic, novel or watch a TV series and feel part of that world right away and Outer Darkness did that for me.  The writing of John Layman Is just superb and it is equally well complimented by the art of Afu Chan.  Right away I felt at home with the characters and premise of the story, there are obvious parallels with Star Trek here but this crew is the most dysfunctional you'll ever meet. Most of the crew hate the new Captain particularly his First Officer who definitely has homicidal thoughts about him.  

There is so much going on in the universe that these characters live in but the excellent writing means the reader isn't bombarded with exposition, it just unfolds effortlessly. I hope my April birthday brings me book two to get stuck into.

Finally, a modern classic that no 2000AD or, for that matter, any comic fan can be without America by John Wagner and Colin Macneil. In this case it's "America Lost and Found", a release containing the rediscovered scripts from John Wagner.  There is a nice foreword from Garth Ennis who reveals what an influential force John Wagner was on his development as a writer. This is followed by another foreword from the man himself talking a little about how America came about and how some of the scripts were lost. 

The first half of the book contains the scripts and the second half the finished article, showcasing Colin Macneils beautiful artwork.  This allows you to compare the script with the actual strips and see how Macneil interpreted JWs words, but it can be a bit of a pain flicking back and forth.  However, this is easily remedied by reading along with one of the other multitude of America releases that you probably have in your collection.