After a spell away from reading The77, in fact away from any new comics - turns out feeding and clothing a toddler trumps buying comics. Who knew! Well I finally got hold of the most recent issue, number 7, and I thought I'd give a whirlwind, spoiler free, review here.
Straight off the bat (pun intended) the cover is a homage to the 1977 Meatloaf, Bat Out of Hell, album cover. With the hero of the new story Black Dog Lane, soaring out of Hell on a Raleigh Chopper, drawn by Mac. Happily the story and Macs art, inside the comic, live up to the promise of the brilliant cover.
The opener Disposal is a cracking story, set in the near future, about a bomb disposal team with art by the awesome Charlie Gillespie. The final page is a doozy!
Silver Jubilee from Dave Heeley and Andrew Sawyers jumps off the page and smashes into action right away. Dave has written a strong female character here and Andrew has complimented the writing with great character design. Badass and she's fully clothed.
V, the cover star story of issue one is still it's crazy violent self. I really enjoy Ade Hughes' art and his page layout, on lettering duty is 2000ADs legendary Annie Parkhouse
I always feel stupid, when I read Extinction 2040 as I just cant get my head round what is going on (sleep deprived brain I guess) but Ian Stopforths art is always gorgeous to look at.
I love a good viking film or story so, with R-Daves story and Bruno Stahls excellent cinematic art on Jormun, I'm a happy man.
Other notables are Jo Heeleys Birmingham set fantasy Red by Night Black by Day with stunning art by Rupert Lewis Jones and Galactic Geographic scripted by Noel K Hannan art by body horror maestro Warick Fraser-Coombe.
Sargeant Shouty, Marty's Believe it or Not and Mister Meeker Monster Maker- sadly leave me cold, just not for me. But that's the beauty of an anthology for every story that's not to your personal taste there's three others that you enjoy.
Having not read The77 for a while I can really see how it has developed and matured, for me at the forefront of that is Dave Heeley. Dave's writing has become multifaceted and mature, giving us some characters and stories, particularly Division 77, that wouldn't be out of place in another British anthology comic we all know.
So if like me you've fallen away from The77, issue 7 is a great point to jump back in, get reacquainted with old stories and meet some new characters.
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