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.
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