Review: The 77 Issue #2 The Summer Special

When it comes to my reading habits, my wife will often say that I have a monkey mind as I'll often have half a dozen different books or comics on the go at any one time.  In fairness,  she's right I do crave lots of new and different stimulation when it comes to my reading. 

With a healthy dose of faux psychoanalysis, I put it down to my comic reading as a kid in the 70s and 80s. One day I'd be reading Warlord, the next The Beano, then 2000AD would hit the doormat. A mixed bag of genres and each an anthology, variety and a different thrill every few pages.  Thankfully, in 2020, we are being treated to the rise of the anthology comic once again.

Earlier this year saw the release of the excellent The 77 issue one and last week Uncle Pat Mills Spacewarp anthology also had it's highly anticipated digital release (see my last review). My monkey mind was in heaven! 

Needless to say I committed to the Kickstarter for The 77 Issue #2: The Summer Special with the added bonus of a T-shirt too.  The good folks at The 77 Towers were kind enough to give me a sneak preview of the summer special for me to review here.  Those who pledged to the Kickstarter will, hopefully, start to receive their copies from next week, so I'll aim for this review to be spoiler free.  

The summer special has a striking cover from rising star Neil Sims, we are treated to his electric vision of Benksy the mysterious editor of The 77.  Unfettered by clutter on the cover, Neils portrait is given room to breathe and entice us in.  Turning the page, any 2000AD reader will feel right at home with a welcome from Benksy and praise laden readers letters.  After a jukebox style contents page we are off and running.  With 68 pages packed with 16 different strips I'll just pick out a selection of stories that stood out for me.  

The superb black and white art of Ade Hughes who just had a starring role in Spacewarp, drawing SF1, brings violent life to Steve Bulls "V" which builds nicely from issue 1. More black and white art from 2000AD alum PJ Holden illustrates Jerico 5, a new addition to The 77s lineup, by Dan Whitehead.  Set in 1977 New York, this story is intriguing and certainly has a lot of potential. 

Brendon Wrights Martian Law is anything but black and white, his colourful take on a Mars terraformed in 1950s style matches his very alliterative script. Not necessarily to my taste but it stands out from the crowd. The legend that is Steve Macmanus gives us a great four page tale called The Collector, it has a definite Future Shock feel about it with lovely work by Charlie Gillespie on art.

Fan favourite from issue one, Division 77, goes from strength to strength.  It starts with an all action Starship Troopers vibe and takes an interesting turn. Dave Heeley on the words Sinclair Elliott on pictures.  Another 2000AD artist, Paul Williams makes his 77 debut with his clean lined and detailed black and white style for Gut Crawlers a tale about the search for the fuel of the future and….space whales.

Andrew Sawyers, a name you may know from 2000AD Facebook groups has his debut strip in Bambos Georgios The Cell.  You can see the Jock influence in his work, but equally he brings his own style to the storytelling.  Rounding off the special is Ghastly United, a story evocative of those balmy summer holidays playing football every spare moment but, with a horrific twist.  Neil Sims on art duties here, for Barry Tomlinsons story, using his skills to bring favourite horror characters to life. Some great black and white art with sparing splashes of red that serve to bring the characters and their dark intentions to life. 

As with any anthology not every story hit the mark for me, Undertow left me underwhelmed, Penny Pentagram still doesn't do it for me.  Dave Bedford and Andrew Richmonds Trompe la Mort was a lovely, atmospheric piece but I found the speech bubbles and lettering jarring.  However those are minor blemishes on this gem of a comic and only the humble opinion of this reviewer.  

If you have backed the Kickstarter you are in for a treat very soon but,  if you missed out, there is plenty of opportunity to buy a copy before summer ends.  In my opinion issue #2 has come out stronger than ever and trumped issue # 1.  Again the love and passion for the comic from its creators and editorial team shines out from every page.  Get a copy of this summer special and relive those long hot comic reading summer days of your youth.

If you want a copy: https://getmycomics.com/the77

Review: Spacewarp

Sometime ago I read a rumour that Pat Mills - hallowed be his name - was thinking of putting together a new SF anthology comic. Needless to say when the man behind the creation of the galaxys greatest comic, 2000AD, and a large portion of it's most memorable characters talks about creating a new independent comic I, and many others got excited. Slowly but surely the rumour became a reality and Pat spoke in interviews about his vision for the new comic and the search for artists and other collaborators.  Spacewarp was going to happen!

Our appetites were well and truly whetted when, as a reward for signing up to an email newsletter, we were treated to a 'Future Schlock' (nothing like a Future Shock of course) written by Pat and black and white artwork by the awesome Cliff Cumber. This was a perfect demonstration of how a Future shock should be done, tightly written with a great twist, complimented by perfect artwork from Mr Cumber who is fast becoming a favourite artist of mine.

Thanks to Covid-19, the physical edition of Spacewarp won't be available until the Autumn but, happily, I'm not adverse to reading my comics digitally and my copy was virtually delivered to me on 28th July. I will admit to a few weird habits when it comes to my comics, one of them is that anything new or special I will save until a weekend morning and I'll get up early to read with a coffee or two. That's what I did with Spacewarp and I think it was worth the wait and a quick review.  I'm not going to go into great detail here, or touch on every story as I don't want to unwittingly ruin the experience especially for those waiting for the physical copy. 

Straight out of the gate we get a great cover from Mike Donaldson, colours by Gareth Sleightholme that pictured all of the main characters from Spacewarp on a plain white background underneath the very nicely designed Spacewarp title banner. The first interior page is an excerpt from The Necronomicon of Malek which introduces us to the concept of the Warp Lords, who control the warp and the infinite Earths they have created to enjoy the suffering and pain that they reap. 

Then we are up and running into the first story, Sfeer and Loathing, where we meet the Warp Lords and our first main character, Slayer.  The first thing that hit me was the black and white artwork, I'm a sucker for black and white so I was very happy to see this, especially as I realised the whole comic was in B&W.  Gareth Sleightholme was on art duties for this one, a first time seeing his work for me and I enjoyed it, great character design. The lettering for Slayer was initially a little jarring as it uses back to front letters with a quite cyrillic feel, but the more you read the easier it gets.

The format and theme of the comic gives Pat, the author of each story, free rein to vent his imagination and take the reader on a fantastic journey. Jurassic Punx, takes us back to Liverpool in 1977 except it's a Liverpool filled with dinosaurs.  Hellbreaker gives us a horror element, Xecutioners are future cops, Futant starts with a Harry Potter vibe and becomes super spy, SF1 gives us future war and finally Slayer returns and gets his own strip.

Many of the stories are allowed to get right into the action thanks to some nice pre-story set up. For example, prior to Hellbreaker, we read transcripts of an interview with one of the protagonists by a secret service branch, typed on coffee cup stained paper. This allows for speedy immersion into the world of each story.  I also enjoyed some of the little extras between stories like a spin on the old nuclear war Protect and Survive leaflets of the late 70s/80s but this time relating to dinosaurs and how to utilise mattresses to avoid death by dino.  

I wish I could sit here and find some faults with Spacewarp but, for this reviewer, it hit all the right notes.  Pat Mills gives us a masterclass in how to write good comic book stories that contain action, humour, satire and characters that excite us and that we care for. Pat is well known for his astute choice of artists and Spacewarp is no exception. The artists chosen to bring the stories to life have taken the opportunity given and excelled themselves. For me the work of Gareth Slightholme and Ade Hughes really stood out. Let's not forget the oft forgotten unsung heroes, the letterers too, such as Nikki Foxrobot and Ken Reynolds. As for the stories themselves, Xecutioners and SF1 were favourites of mine, but there wasn't a weak tale amongst them.

Spacewarp harkens back to the glory days of 2000AD, but equally it feels fresh and forward thinking, particularly in the choice of artists and design of the comic, in no small part down to Vince Hunt and Lisa Mills. More importantly the content remains creator owned, Pat certainly stands by the principles he has been so vocal about in the past.

If you've not gone digital before try it for Spacewarp, the guided view and ability to go close up on the art is worth it alone.  I think I'll probably end up double dipping and getting a physical copy too.  I for one am happy to say that I have not been disappointed by Spacewarp, believe the hype!

From the Beano and 2000AD to The Walking Dead...

Imagine me as Rod Serling with a Black Country accent for a minute, and….Picture if you will a young boy in the 1970s.  He is sat in front of a Calor gas fire, wearing obnoxious 70s PJs, eating breakfast and reading that days comic. Around him, his mother prepares for another day and his father shouts goodbye as he heads out to work.  For the time it takes to read a comic the boy is transported to other worlds, fights the Japanese in WW2, menaces Walter with Dennis.  The monotony of school life is forgotten and a day of adventure beckons.

Those warm, rose tinted memories are, I believe, a big reason for my return to and increased enjoyment of reading comics.  Even now, before I head out to work each day, I allow time to sit eat breakfast and drink a coffee, while reading my latest comic. Obviously some things have changed, it's more likely to be read on a tablet now and not the old bog roll paper of the 70s with the family name scrawled on the top of the front page.  But what hasn't changed is the ability for the comic to transport me away from, and set me up for, the day ahead.

I enjoy a bit of reminiscent reading and going through the collections from 2000AD, or a Warlord annual.  But my favourite thing is discovering something new and being blown away by it.  As I had a 30 year hiatus from comic reading, something new to me can be, for instance, Watchmen or Garth Ennis' Punisher run. Both of which I absolutely loved and was actually blown away by.

My most recent discovery, made during lockdown, was The Walking Dead.  I have watched every episode of the TV series, even the shonky seasons, and kept the faith.  However I'd never so much as looked at a TWD comic.  Then I saw a Humble Bundle offer of the entire series of digital trades with even the FCBD issue and the 'Here's Negan' one shot all for a minimum donation/cost of just £15.

That was easily some of the best money I've spent on comics!  I am a massive Stephen King fan and one of the things I really enjoy about his work is the characters he breathes life into with his writing.  For me Robert Kirkman did the same with The Walking Dead comics, from page one I felt that I was at home and sharing that zombie infested world with Rick, Shane, Lori and the rest of his cast.

I was amazed by the amount of dialogue that Kirkman would get into a page or even a panel and it never felt too much.  I feel for Charlie Adlard trying to set out panels to fit the action and the dialogue but he did and in beautiful black and white style too. His portrayal of everything from grotesque violence to grief stricken characters was spot on throughout with some beautiful splash pages for good measure.

So, I made TWD my breakfast reading and every morning I woke up looking forward to finding out what happened next. I was really strict with myself and didn't read it at other time of the day as I wanted to drip feed the enjoyment and stretch out the pleasure. A few days ago it all came to an end though, much like lockdown.

I felt genuinely bereft, it was an emotional ending and, I felt, beautifully tied up too. Now I have that empty feeling like when I've finished a King epic, such as The Stand.  I know how this goes though, I'll peck at a few titles raiding Comihaus and some digital content from Comixology and then a new infatuation will come along.  

I maybe won't be jumping on my Grifter and pretending to be Judge Dredd patrolling the big Meg, but happily comics and great storytelling can still add some adventure and distraction to my daily life.

Review: Tony Osmond is a Movie Star!

Yesterday I brought a digital copy of the new comic from Tony Esmond called Tony Osmond is a Movie Star!  It's the latest release from Tribute comics who have previously released The Whore Chronicles and the brilliantly funny, Atomic Hercules.  Tony's collaborators on this one are Cliff Cumber on art and Ken Reynolds lettering.

First up this is definitely one for a mature reader, this ain't no all ages special to pass to little Billy to read.  Page one opens with the sight of the titular leads cock and balls swinging in the breeze and a very naked satiated woman, or two on the bed surrounded by discarded bottles of booze.  Tony Osmand, who I'm sure bears no resemblance whatsoever to the author, is a hard drinking, womanising and violent actor.  Imagine Ollie Reed, Richard Burton, and Richard Harris had a love child with Charlie Bronson and that's Mr O. 

We see the type of 80s action films he makes reflect his character like "Always Bet on Automatic" where he uses two pistols to dispatch a gambling rival, leaving more than a little claret on the walls, table, floor….you get the idea. As was typical of a film star of that generation Tony makes an appearance on Wogan with Bananarama performing but this is no ordinary performance.  Much like when a drunken Oliver Reed appeared on Michael Aspels 80s chat show, Tony leaves his mark on the audience. All this and we're only halfway in.

My old man was a bit of a lad, in his day, with a penchant for a Saturday night drink and even a punch up.  The blokes would knock seven bells out of each other, then go back in the pub for a pint together. For me this comic just gave me the feel of that era and the hellraiser actors that my dad loved to watch.  The days when films were just balls out action and no fucks given for political correctness.  Tony Osmond wants to bring some of his reality to the boring lives of his audiences, just in a very visceral way.

The story is brought to life by Cliff Cumbers black and white artwork, I love a bit of black and white and this is just great work.  His eye for the small details, facial expressions and violence reminded me of Geof Darrows work on Hard Boiled. Great shading and sound effects too, I'll definitely be searching out more of his work. The angular speech bubbles and letters used by Ken Reynolds add to the hard edged feel and really lets you hear the characters voices.

Tony Osmand is the ideal antidote to the sterile picture perfect movie stars of today, no Hugo Boss ads for him, more likely to be splashing the Brut all over.  For me Tonys Osmands first outing hit all the right beats and, like the best films, gave us a cliffhanger.  I can't wait for the sequel.

You can get your digital or physical copies of Tony Osmond is a Movie Star from: 

https://neverironanything.bigcartel.com/products

Grant Morrison: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

Finally I get an opportunity to revisit something by Grant Morrison, in an early blog I recommended a Horror book by him called Nameless.  I was going to look at All Star Superman but after listening to Tony Esmond chatting with Helena Edwardson on his, Never Iron Anything podcast, about Arkham Asylum I just had to read it.  Helena explained that she wasn't a massive comic book fan but the art in this book really spoke to her. 

A bit of History first, the actual title of the book is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth with the subtitle being taken from a poem called Church Going by Phillip Larkin. Written in 1989 this was Morrisons first time writing for The Batman and what a debut.  It's now considered by many to be Grant Morrisons finest work and one of the best ever Batman stories.  

The story begins by giving a background as to how Arkham Asylum came into existence and it's creator Amadeus Arkham.  Of course we know that Arkham goes on to be the venue of choice for the incarceration of so many of Batmans arch enemies  such as Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Harvey Two Face and the daddy of them all Joker.  It's those inmates that have rioted, taken over the Asylum and called upon Batman to join them in Arkham before they release hostages.

Joker wants Batman to suffer and undergo analysis, to plumb the depths of his dark psyche, as he puts it "I want him to know what it's like to have sticky fingers pick through the dirty corners of his mind". Batman does indeed suffer along the way, both mentally as he faces his own demons and darkest truths and physically as he fights some of the inmates he put into Arkham. Most notably a battle with an incredible looking Killer Croc.

Much like Frank Millers Hard Boiled, that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, the story as good as it is, plays second fiddle to the amazing artwork from Dave Mckean.   Interestingly, Morrison said that his first choice for the art duties was Brian Bolland, following his success rendering Alan Moores Killing Joke.  Following Arkham Asylums publication Morrison stated that he felt the art distracted from his story.  

In my very humble opinion I believe that Dave Mckeans art is the thing that makes Arkham Asylum so special.  I think that Bollands clean sharp images would have been too perfect for this story.  The sometimes scratchy artwork combined with painted images and his use of mixed media gives the whole book a very surreal and nightmarish feel throughout. I particularly enjoyed his images of Batman and Gordon using (I'm guessing) pencil to give a smokey ghostly image.  His Joker is one of nightmares, with his crazed bulging eyes that seem to have no eyelids.  Amid all this one of my favourite images comes from Batmans meeting with Killer Croc where we see the reflected image of Batman that grows with each of three frames. 

But amid all this story full of symbolism and incredible artwork we cannot forget the work of the letterer Gaspar Saldino.  Saldino earns his money by giving each character their own lettering and speech bubble style.  The lettering is also one of the things I enjoy less about this story, in particular that of Joker. His speech is done without speech bubbles in a red scrawling font, I found this really difficult to read and at one point even resorted to using my phone camera to look at and enlarge the font.   But that is a minor quibble and perhaps is more of a reflection of my now poor eyesight.

I will definitely revisit the book again soon, there is so much going on, in art and story, it demands multiple readings.  If you've not had the chance to read Arkham Asylum before I'd definitely recommend it to you. 

Hard Boiled by Frank Millar and Geof Darrow

Hard Boiled by Frank Millar and Geoff Darrow

Do you have any films that you saw once and you were so blown away that you had to go back and see it again and again, just to take everything in?  For me it was Terminator 2, The Matrix and Inception. I actually saw T2 ten times at the cinema alone, needless to say I later went on to marry the girlfriend who came with me to each showing too.  You might be thinking, this is meant to be a comics blog not movie chat. You'd be right, but recently I had the same sort of glorious experience with a comic and that was Frank Miller and Geof Darrows, Hard Boiled.

As ever this was a title I missed the first time around as it was during my wilderness years from comics.  It was listening to the lads on The Awesome Comics Podcast that put me on to this one. Tony in particular raved about it so, as ever, I duly added it to my Comixology wish list.  A couple of weeks later I noticed that there was a cracking Dark Horse Comixology sale, they were virtually giving it away. It came down to that, or buying Smash, the Special from Rebellion bringing some characters of yesteryear back to life.  Hard Boiled won my internal argument, and I'm really glad it did.

Hard Boiled was first published in 1990, two years into my absence from comics, and was published, by Dark Horse, originally in three volumes between 1990 and 1992.  Millar and Darrow both won Eisner awards as writer and artist for their work and you can see why.

To avoid spoilers, if you like me haven't read Hard Boiled before, I'm not going to go into too much detail about the story.  There are definite elements of Blade Runner here, a cyberpunk world full of madness and depravity. Frank Millers story, cannot be overlooked but, for me, it is definitely overshadowed by Darrows artwork.  In Hard Boiled he gives us Heironymus Bosch does sci-fi.

The story is set in a Los Angeles of a dystopian near-future which is pretty filthy and depraved.  The first time we see the hero, Nixon a tax collector, he is standing with his back to a graffiti covered wall, drenched in blood, covered in shards of glass, carrying a huge gun and calling out an unseen enemy to come and get some more.  Right away it's the detail in Darrows art that strikes you, the tiny shards of broken glass on the floor, the perfectly replicated beer bottle labels.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, every successive page has an image that you can pour over and revel in.

Buy this book, or grab it off the shelf and re read it, I promise that you wont be dissapointed!

Skreemer by Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon

Skreemer by Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon

Before I listened to Eamonn Clarke's Mega City Book Club episode on Skreemer, I have to admit I'd never even heard of it.  Skreemer was released in 1989, during my wilderness years from buying and reading comics.

But being a fan of 2000AD creatives Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon I was intrigued to read it for myself.  Sadly I couldn't get a hold of any copies, or a trade, but to the rescue came Eamonn who very kindly sent me his perfect 1989 copies to read.

So what is Skreemer all about?  Well here's a synopsis from the publishers DC: The dark and violent SKREEMER tells the post-apocalyptic tale of a young boy's ascension from brutal assassin to the most powerful gangster in the world. 

That is a very simple description of the story, I'll be perfectly honest and say that when I first started reading I didn't have a clue what was going on.  I'd been thrown into this new world, in the middle of the action, with a narrator telling me what was going on but none of it made sense.  At first I thought it was just my sleep deprived brain (we have a newborn) and I'd picked up issue 3 by mistake.  But I think that is the plan with this series, you gain just a little more enlightenment as you read each issue. 

Interestingly one of the characters sings a song from the book Finnegans Wake which, as Wikipedia tells us, is "one of the most difficult works in the Western canon.  Blending standard English lexical items and neologistic multilingual puns and portmanteau words to unique effect." I guess Milligan could have been writing his own Finnegans Wake here.

Much of the story is told in flashback, America has been decimated by a plague (topical) and gang bosses, known as Presidents rule the land due to their control of a serum for the plague.  Our anti hero, Veto Skreemer, has a vicious streak from a young age and is recruited as a hit man for one of the gang bosses.  From there he goes on a bloody rise to become the most powerful mob President. Of course, as history so often tells us, every empire that rises must one day fall.  Or does it?

As you might guess the art by both Ewins and Dillon is brilliant throughout.  2000AD fans will no doubt see elements of Ewins creation Kano, from Bad Company, in Veto Skreemer.  All in all a great dark tale of friendship, family, mobsters, violence and retribution. Some very clever writing by Milligan certainly allows for reading multiple times to open every layer of the story.

Again thank you to Eamonn of the Mega City Book Club for sending me his copies of Skreemer.  They are the original 1989 copies in perfect condition, bagged and boarded (photos above).  I'd like to pay Eamonns kindness forwards and send these to another comics fan to enjoy.  So, if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning these books answer one question: What 2000AD writer wrote the graphic novel that inspired the film A History of Violence? Clue: the answer is in a previous blog.  Post the answer in my blog post on the 1977-2000AD Facebook page and I'll draw a winner in a weeks time.