Awesome Comics Anthology, Issue 2. Review

Imagine, dear reader, if you can, my unbounded delight when Tony Esmond slipped a little something into my inbox last night and I certainly had a warm fuzzy feeling (more of relief than anything) when it turned out to be a review copy of the Awesome Comics Anthology, Issue 2.

Let’s not waste any more time and crack on. As always, the review is spoiler free.

First off we have a very tasty piece of cover art by Andy Bloor (@andybloor) which focuses on Murder Road, the first story in the book, and gives us more than a subtle hint as to the darkness of issue 2 of that particular little tale…

 

Murder road

Story: Vincent Hunt (@jesterdiablo) and Daniel Marc Chant (@danielmarcchant)

Art / Letters: Vincent Hunt

Well, I’m happy to say that my prediction for issue two of Murder Road was cock-on: the proverbial is hitting the fan with gusto in an intense and fast moving sequence of people’s evenings ending even worse than that time Vince got mugged by his cat.

It was pretty clear that things were going to go south for a decent chunk of the cast in the last episode and I was slack jawed throughout as many met their demise in a variety of claret-soaked ways, but my particular favourite has to be desiccation inducing tyre smoke; what a cool idea!

Most of the people we see here are classic horror expendables and, as such, we don’t learn much about them. But there are a couple who we start to understand more clearly and that brings a certain level of intrigue around where they’re going to end up. We don’t get to see two of the main characters from the first episode, and it seems clear that they’ll turn up next time and say: “Well, it certainly looks like the young folks have been having one of their cockamamie parties all right!” (or something along those lines…), and I’m really looking forward to seeing who makes it as far as issue 3.

Not having read any horror comics before, I was slightly surprised at how much I enjoyed this piece of in-your-face violent story-telling. Notwithstanding the worry of being turned by the chaps, it’s clear that they’re having fun coming up with the ideas in this episode and, although the story isn’t significantly advanced, it does a great job of leaving you wide eyed and wondering what the hell just happened!

Great work boys; keep it up!

 

 

Cockney Kung Fu – The Big Old Kent Road Kick-off, Parts 3 (Bellbottoms) and 4 (She wears it well)

Story: Tony Esmond (@ezohyez)

Art / Letters: Nick Prolix (@nickprolix)

In Part 3 we pick up right where we left off with Red about to get up to her neck in a caper that hardly seems quite cricket – she might be the ‘bit of posh’ on the job, but she’s taking no crap from anyone and I have a feeling that’s going to be a theme of this story.

We meet a few new faces who make up the transit van full of low life that are going to pull off the job – I particularly like Custard; brilliant name and his dialogue is perfect! Talking of dialogue, Tony handles that really well with the mix of tone and 70’s slang hitting just the right note to sound natural.

As an aside, when writing dialogue, I often think people don’t realise how much we contract words when we speak and, for me, mishandling that always make it sound like characters are giving a speech rather than having a conversation. Seeing lots of contractions written down can look a bit odd, and I think authors sometimes remove them unnecessarily for that reason. I haven’t written much comic dialogue, but I have written a decent amount of prose and the old read-it-out-loud test can often make it clear where contractions ought to appear. Anyhow, none of that has anything to do with Cockney Kung Fu by the way, I just wanted to get it off my chest!

Part 4 focuses on the job which is definitely more akin to something out of The Sweeney than Ocean’s Eleven, but again, that’s just how it should be; gritty, rough, and a bit ugly.

There are some great references in panel backgrounds thanks to Mr Prolix (anyone remember Rumbelows?) and once again his art works a treat with the period story. Having just finished listening to the ACP talking lettering, I have to put on record how much I admire the effort Nick puts into that here (and his other work incidentally) – not only are the words in the balloons wonderfully laid out and lettering consistent, but the titles, sound effects and other text are all spot on.

At the end of Part 4 we leave the story with what I’m sure is going to be some quality action about to hit with the sting of a rushed back, sack and crack job in cheap beauty parlour – can’t wait!

 

Vyper

Everything: Dan Butcher (@vanguardcomic)

The opening of this episode of Vyper is so 80’s it hurts – I recall with fondness the time I got a 14” colour portable and a VCR for my room and was able to squirrel myself away for hours watching movies with characters that look exactly like these. Dan’s done a lush job of building on the great start from issue 1 in this respect.

Viperini confirms that he’s about as inappropriate as any 80’s hero you care to mention (and more so than most) pretty much as soon as he opens his mouth and Lopez, his partner, is confirmed as his moral compass which he’s temporarily lost down the sofa – although I can’t help thinking he’ll find it again before this story’s finished; at least I hope he does.

There’s a great flashback in this episode, brought on by our tight-trousered hero spotting a symbol he knows only too well from his past. We start to see something of his history which begins to explain why he’s so full of it and I hope Dan explores some more of his main character’s psyche in the rest of the story.

The one (very minor) problem I had with issue 1 was a tendency for the characters to be a little verbose but the dialogue has been nicely tightened up in this episode as Dan gets to know the characters and that really helps with the flow and pacing of the story.

We leave the story loaded with jeopardy and every chance that one of the main characters is likely to fid themselves in the deep and claggy in pretty short order. Perfect.

Once again, the artwork is Butcher through and through with some nice graphic touches which are always a pleasing addition to the look of his comics. I’m really liking this story and it feels like it has the scope to delve a little deeper into character as well as being full of kick-arse action – here’s hoping!

 

Extras

We’re treated to not one, but two pages of readers letters at the back of the book – each suitably irreverent and exactly what you’d expect from the listeners of the ACP (that’s the Awesome Comics Podcast in case you’ve been living in a space suit with the awesome filter turned up to max for the last 150 weeks you dickfer! That’s an 80s film reference for those of you too young to remember the glorious age of fluorescent socks the first time around…)

We also get a dose of fan art on the Board of Awesome which really shows off that at least four people read issue 1. Good work chaps!

Out of Time – review

Story: Luke James Halsall https://lukejameshalsall.wordpress.com/ @LJHalsall

Art / colours / letters: Cuttlefish http://cuttlefishcomics.blogspot.co.uk/ @cuttlefishcomic

Publisher: Markosia @Markosia 

When Luke sent me the link and I downloaded Out of Time, I immediately realised that I’d seen this comic before – I still can’t remember when exactly but I thought at the time I really liked the cover, so getting to dip inside is real treat. 

Before we get into detail, let’s sum up: I’m reviewing the whole book here which is a collection of three issues, numbered 1, 2, and 4. This may seem odd, but as I only write spoiler-free reviews, you’ll have to read it to find out why this doesn’t make sense in a good way! You’re getting over 60 pages of story for your money here, so great value for a book you can download for under $4 (check out DriveThru Comics for the download). The guys were on the con-circuit hawking the book before it being picked up by Markosia after a meeting at Thought Bubble – just goes to show, it’s always worth making those connections at cons! 

So, let’s start with the artwork – it’s the first thing you notice about a book of course, and in this case it’s a good thing. The artwork isn’t entirely conventional but is nonetheless fantastic and that’s coming from someone who really got into, and then out of, comics in the ‘90s – and we all know what that means as far as artwork’s concerned: ’90s style art this ain’t, and the book is all the better for it. The characters only occasionally have mouths, sometimes don’t have arms (but still have hands) and frequently miss out on the joys of noses but that only adds to the wonderfully stylised appearance of the book. 

Backgrounds aren’t heavily detailed, colouring uses a really limited and largely unrealistic palette, and word balloons are funky hand drawn affairs. None of this, however unusual, is bad – every bit of it appears a consummate stylistic choice topped off by some really neat inks which are most successful when they are kept nice and simple. A slight criticism, and I’m working hard here to pull something out, is that I think both the inking and the colouring are slightly less convincing in panels where the palette gets too varied (in that you lose that really strong graphic element of shades of a single colour) or inks are too detailed (where inked shading goes further than solid blacks) – the middle section of issue one is an example, but this is pretty minor in what is otherwise really solid work from Cuttlefish. Does anyone know who this person is by the way or am I looking for a guy who squirts ink in my face if I approach too quickly from a jaunty angle at a con…?

Onto the story. As I say, no spoilers (although the book’s been out for some time and I’m not sure that the script is really built around surprises, so I think I’m pretty safe), so I’ll keep things relatively general. 

The story is about a small team of employees at a company who offer holidays to different periods in time to rich clients – when I say different periods of time, I don’t mean dressing up in green tights, sticking a feather in your cap and pretending you’re robbing from the rich. No, we’re talking actual time travel – which, as everyone knows, is a mind bender of a concept and something one would be well advised to steer clear of as a plot device. Given that, you have to hand it to the nutcase that is Luke James Halsall for taking it on! 

Halsall sails above the old time-travel pitfall of getting bogged down in the “major boring shit” of the mechanics of it all – his main tool for this nimble little authoring trick? The classic time-travelling-sofa; naturally. I know, but it just is, ok? 

While the story gads along at a rare old pace, it isn’t full of any great suspense which is fine because what we have here is a tale that relies on the characters and comedy to entertain the reader. Just before we get to those features though, it’s great that the story “gets about a bit” with scenes both in antiquity and in the future, all well visualised by Cuttlefish. Different realities are also mentioned but not explored in this book: I’m hoping that’ll be the subject of a future publication! 

In terms of characters, some are more successful than others, with Redmond, NC-1000 and Dave being the ones that stand out. The dialogue of these three really works to give you a sense of character and quickly established itself as the distinctive voice of each. The other characters are good supporting players but perhaps lack the more clearly drawn appeal of these three. 

One issue that jarred slightly was that the characters often use language that feels a little less natural than is comfortable, with fewer contractions than you might expect (e.g. “…what we are saying…” instead of “…what we’re saying…”). For many people this probably isn’t an issue, but writing natural dialogue is a really tricky business and it’s something that I find takes me out of a story if it doesn’t quite flow which happens here occasionally. 

As for comedy, I found the funniest moments of the book were those delivered by characterisation rather than dialogue written purely for laughs – both Redmond and NC-1000 have some great lines which are funny because it’s an insight to their heads rather than being funny per se. I’d definitely say that this is something to focus on in the future as it works really well here.  

To sum up, Out of time, is a good book full of fantastic artwork, some neat story and cool characters. I’d certainly recommend taking this little beauty for a spin! I’m really looking forward to what these guys are cooking up next. 

J.AKE – Page 6

Welcome to the final page of J.AKE.

After spending years doing the wetwork of the Department of Justice, our hero has a dream in which he sees the death of innocence. The awakening makes him realise the horror of the work he has carried out with impunity, and he’s pissed. Heading straight for the Director, he visits terrible revenge on the staff of the Department of Justice. The Director decides J.AKE is expendable and, after failing to terminate him, he cuts her down and she is revealed as a cyborg, more sophisticated, but just like J.AKE. Later, she (or maybe a copy) turns up in Sam’s bar and he understands that the Department can’t be stopped so easily. The Director explains that the organic part of his brain has developed what amounts to a conscience as a consequence of being secretly fed stem cells. Let’s see how this mess ends…


Awesome Comics Anthology – Issue 1, Review

Awesome Comics Issue 1Ever since Lizzie Boyle (@lizzieboylesays) told me, much to my amazement, that there was such a thing as a small press scene and I dragged my good lady to Frome and the delights of my first ever comic event, I’ve been listening to the rantings of the Awesome Comics Podcast crew. Vince (who appears to do all the work), Dan (who literally will read anything out on air) and Tony (who has a mouth like the potty of a toddler with norovirus) who entertain us with their comic-based shenanigans each week. Oh, those guys…

 

We all know that they’ve been making comics of their own or collaborating with others for years, but now they’ve really gone and done it; they’ve come together in the heady whirlwind of monochrome pages and alcohol fuelled (I’m guessing) madness that is their first anthology. Three stories told over four issues. Let’s check out issue one.

 

First up: Murder road

 

Story: Vincent Hunt (@jesterdiablo) and Daniel Marc Chant (@danielmarcchant)

Art / Letters: Vincent Hunt

From the first page, and even without reading the text, you know this story is going to be dark. Once the story kicks in, it immediately has the feel of an 80s action movie (for some reason it put me in mind of The Wraith although I’ve not seen that since it went straight to video about the time I left school) which gives it a great nostalgic feel boosted with some awesome cheese in the script.

The characters here stand out as classic tropes – the testosterone-high jerk, his under-appreciated girlfriend, a concerned mother, and the local cop, all of which are hitting just the right notes as a perfect cast of characters for the story. Assuming they survive!

There’s obvious jeopardy building up here as things hot up on the road, and other characters are racing against time to intervene in what I suspect will end up being a pretty messy situation come issue 2!

I enjoyed the scripting in this comic and you can certainly hear Vince in the dialogue but I did feel like the conversation between the cop and the mum could have been a little tighter – I can see exactly what the guys were trying to do, but a judicious edit would, I think, have carried what needed to be said with fewer words and helped to keep the pace up across these panels.

Overall the feel of the story is great, and the deceptively simple rendering belies the quality of the work and, in particular, the facial expression art which, take it from me, is really tricky to pull off.

So, a solid start to Murder Road and I’m looking forward to getting some properly dark action in issue 2 – I’ll definitely be back for it!

Next: “Back off boogaloo”, The Big Old Kent Road Kick-off, Parts 1 and 2

Story: Tony Esmond (@ezohyez)

Art / Letters: Nick Prolix (@nickprolix)

Right. Give me a minute to work out what my eyes have just had done to them…ah yes, I see…

I’ll be totally honest; I wasn’t sure about the art to start with – my real comic education was in the 90s and, for better or worse, that creates expectations. I’m glad of the week I gave the book before I wrote this though as it gave me time to realise just how wrong I was.

The thing I realised that I had missed originally was how Nick’s wonderfully classic style of art has been used to create a harsh, but not jarring, contrast to the subject it’s portraying which gives the whole story a quirky feel that really suits – an inspired choice of artist by Tony; I wonder if that was a conscious decision…

A week of reflection and then coming back to the comic and I can see how good that is: the artwork is in Nick’s signature style and is work (if it weren’t for the content) that would fit right in to the pages of a comic I was reading when I was still in short trousers, but the content is unapologetically violent; even the Bash Street Kids would wonder if they’d crossed the line.

A little like Murder Road, the artwork is deceptively simple and sits perfectly in the context of a gritty 70s London that doesn’t treat anyone very well who can’t give as good as they get.

Part 1 and 2 are each five pages, Tony’s preferred approach to scripting, which works really well here. The dialogue is sparse which lets the artwork tell the story and is suggestive of the trust that Tony obviously has in Nick to deliver.

Part 1 set’s us up with the main protagonist; Red, the Soho Sista, and leaves in no doubt that a) you really shouldn’t whistle at ladies in the street and b) you probably wouldn’t take her home to meet your nan. Part 2 confirms her badass status but also helps us understand something of the environment she’s surviving in with fickle ‘friends’ who would likely turn you over for the price of a pint and everyone doing what they need to to survive.

The atmosphere throughout is sort of jaunty but with a raw edge that gets darker and seedier as we move through the 10-page story. There’s every indication that Red is going to be fighting for more than money in issue 2. Bring it on.

And finally: Vyper

Everything: Dan Butcher (@vanguardcomic)

The opening page of Vyper sets the story up so that we know this is an action movie – and it couldn’t fit the mould any better if it tried.

Dan’s worked hard here to cover plenty of ground in the first issue – giving us a taste of the sort of action I hope we can expect from the whole story and an introduction to all the key players (with the exception of the big bad, who I can just feel lurking in the wings): our hero, his sidekick, their brow-beaten boss and the woman I’m assuming will become the love interest. Classic.

The dialogue is sharp, witty and on point, and there are also some really funny touches in here – not only in the script but in nonsense like the police captain’s sphincter issues and the huge junk on display when Sloan Vyperini makes his first appearance. And there’s another classic trope: the guy is called Viperini, he’s also Vyper, the titular character, but you can bet no-one will pick up on that little gem of a coincidence.

There’s a lot of talking in this issue and I wondered a couple of times if there was more than it really needed. It’s not that there’s much in the way of exposition so it’s not like a couple of extra pages would have allowed Dan to thin out the dialogue per panel, it’s just that he looks to have wanted to get as much cheese in as possible. And on balance, I think it just about works out.

The artwork is classic Butcher and anyone familiar with Vanguard will recognise it immediately. The almost airbrushed finish and plenty of edge lighting alongside some great graphic elements make it a good-looking comic.

A fitting finale to a superb anthology. Can’t wait for issue 2.

Disconnected Press – new book review. I sort of wish I knew what it was called!

Story: Lizzie Boyle @lizzieboylesays

Art: Connor Boyle @pencil_monkey

Letters: Jim Campbell @CampbellLetters

Publisher: Disconnected Press www.disconnectedpress.co.uk

Disconnected PRess

Saturday 3rd Feb found me at the first comic con of the year: True Believers, in Cheltenham. As ever a great event, but that’s not up for discussion right now. Right now, what we need to talk about is the new(ish) book from Disconnected Press which was released at Thought Bubble 2017.

The first thing to say about it is that I have no idea what it’s called. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. The front cover has a whole heap of words on it, any of which could be the title and, as it happens, also used to describe the protagonist: Hero, Feak, Miracle – any of these, or the other ten words on the cover, could fit the bill to describe the central character, depending on the cut of your jib.

The fella we’re talking about here looks to be in his sixties, not exactly in the prime of life or what you expect as the focus of a comic. Don’t let that fool you though; he can do extraordinary things. The central theme the book explores is how an individual displaying what look a lot like ‘super powers’ might be treated; by friends, neighbours, governments. No spoilers, so I won’t say exactly what happens, but this is an awesome piece of work from Disconnected Press.

Lizzie’s writing is sharp – although there’s very little in the way of shouting or the usual confrontational language of a superhero book (and we could certainly slot it into that genre), she manages to create a tension that urges the story on. At the same time, you can imagine the central character’s voice being soft and tinged with loneliness as he makes choices for the sake of others at his own expense. She also manages to help us understand how, despite the maturity of his years, this guy is lost – he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him or have any real control over his situation; creating a fascinating contrast between a man entering old age and a sense of vulnerability more akin to that of a bewildered child. Really great work.

Of course, a comic can live or die by the quality of the artwork, and for me that’s what comics have always been about; if the artwork’s off, I can really struggle to get into the story. I haven’t read as many comics as some, but it’s probably into three figures and I’m hard pushed to remember one where the artwork so brilliantly supports the story. Connor has nailed it with work that fit’s the emotionally raw tone of this book perfectly. Largely monochrome with elements of colour, he told me he used a variety of traditional media to arrive at what is right up there as one of the best-looking books I’ve read. His linework, which sits over the textured paint and crayon, seems to pull the characters out of the obscured fog of a background to become wonderfully rendered, almost ghost like figures. There’s an economy to the art which lets the panels breath throughout the book and plenty of panels with no dialogue – it would be great to hear from Lizzie and Connor how much of that was scripted and how much artistic interpretation. Whatever the answer, this is a fantastic looking book.

Finally, a word for Jim Campbell on letters – the book certainly isn’t dialogue heavy but Jim manages to set out the balloons so that they’re never detrimental to the artwork. Add to that the fact that every panel is wonderfully generous; the white space around the text helping to give the dialogue space which really supports the pacing of the story – another great piece of the jigsaw.

Overall then, this is an outstanding book and if you want something that is thought provoking, emotional and beautiful to look at you could do far worse than this.

Marvel Classics – Psylocke

I mostly draw original characters. Not really sure why. I guess there’s a sense of freedom in that – no-one but me knows what those characters are meant to look like so I can’t be wrong, right? Well, maybe. But to continue the theme of trying (and mostly failing) not to worry what people might think of my work, I figured I’d start drawing some well known characters so that everyone can judge the hell out of my art…why not, eh?

Pencil drawing of Marvel's Psylocke