‘But A Dream!’ by David Robertson.

‘But A Dream’

Created by David Robertson.

44 pages. Black & white / colour

This a a black and white anthology of short stories that were mostly created by David Robertson in the nineties. 

The story list is as follows and even the titles give you a vibe of what you’ll be reading. Nothing is in any way ‘normal’.

1. December 31st, 1994 

2. Neck Hurts. 

3. Life is But a Dream! / P in the Park. 

4. Bad Show Then.

5. Cosmic Checkpoint.

6. ST: TMP mini. 

7. Dave’s Dre AM Diary! 

8. OKAY Radio.

9. Outside.

This is a book of idiosyncratically told stories of possibly real and probably fictional tales that don’t exactly follow the more average styles of structure or everyday behaviour. They weave and duck around what you expect or think is going on in their momentarily unusual and very personal realities. They have the quality of what I’m going to call Celtic Underground. Undoubtedly adding the ‘x’ to Comix.

I’ve been reading similar stories from David whilst following his account on Twitter for a while now and find them a welcome antidote to some of the more po-faced indie and small press comics on the scene at the moment. This volume is mostly a series of comics that David had from the 1990s when he started on them as a much younger man. He decided to add to them and in so doing rejuvenate and collect them as ‘But A Dream’. He was kind enough to send me a copy.

The art is a little scant of detail and is undoubtedly roughly edged but I think that there is not only room for this style and attitude but also a need for this type of instinctually produced regularly posted output. I would be lying if I’d say that I wouldn’t rather have something more detailed or polished but you can also see both the passion and naivety in the strips created by a younger man in a somewhat different era. Comics about dreams and flying and space all with an immediate melodrama in the faces and words of his characters. This melodramatic delivery shows a humorous undertone.

‘1994? But you’re a big purple naked person.’

Things don’t come to an ordinary and/or natural end in these comics for example. A bottle of ink leaks in one tale and so builds a weirdly constructed anxiety dream. Or a man drunk and needing to pee heads into a park he’d normally avoid sober. What happens next? It’s never really explained and why would it be. Or a forgotten Star Wars tv series and an incident where you learn it’s impossible or just not practical to break a window with a light sabre. See what I mean about just plain strange?

This may not be for everyone but I get a sense that David may be positioning himself as the Scottish version of James Kochalka or Jeffrey Brown. A comics creator who has a strange and sharp edged often humorous comics approach and isn’t afraid of cataloguing his peculiar thoughts, dreams and experiences.

The lettering and figure drawing has moments that could do with a touch up in all honesty but it’s a pretty nicely put together prestige format style collection albeit at an A5 size. I’ll continue to follow David’s work with interest.

Buy your copy here https://fredeggcomics.bigcartel.com/product/but-a-dream or follow these irregular incidents on Twitter @FredEggComics

Many thanks for reading.