In Review - Start Again issue 1

Start Again issue 1.

Written and created by Jamie Me.

Art by Toni Doya.

Colours by Sean Callahan.

Available through Vault29. £3.50. Full Colour.

The Story - ‘Start Again is a superhero boy meets girl comic set in the United Kingdom. It follows a chance encounter between Ajay Verna and Natalie Brown in a nightclub in Leeds city centre. You know how it goes. Boy meets girl, girl likes boy, but boy is a superhero and didn’t tell girl, so there is that...

It deals with themes such as anxiety, online abuse and the cost of fame. The story itself is inspired by some of the authors experiences!’

The Review - First off, I really liked this comic. I read it without a clue what it was about and found it to be a funny story about a superhero finding and possibly losing love. It has some great looking and realistic style art that flows exceedingly nicely and carries all the action and facial acting that the writer seemingly needed. It is a solid and well made superhero tale with a modern twist on the genre. It also has some exceptionally presented scenes of ‘adult entertainment’.

Start Again 1 is done in the tradition of all good first issues. It pulls you through a solid set up, moments of surprise and sets it up all nicely for a longer run with a little surprise at the end. The characters are likeable when required to be and talk in natural and familiar modern language. Toni Dora was a cracking choice for artist and gives the characters individuality and Leeds (yes, our own Thoughtbubble hosting Leeds) a sense of scale. I rarely double dip on small press issues but will be looking for a physical copy later this week.

I found it really refreshing that the aforementioned themes of anxiety and online abuse weren’t used too heavily. Every month at the moment we seem to get some heavy handed, too on the nose and woe is me comic about anxiety. This first issue makes use of a solid story footing and realistically rendered (albeit super-powered) people to talk about the subject. In a post modern twist it reminds me of what Stan and Co were doing with Spider-Man and The X-Men all those decades ago. Real and genuinely felt emotional depth and not greeting card slogans or depressing diary notations.

I really hope that the second issue is hot on the heels of the first as this sort of story needs that regular pacing through a monthly schedule. The cover to the second issue looks cracking and can be seen in the end credits. 

As an aside I would note that the first issue cover seems well formatted but fails a little to represent the interiors - but to be fair us comics fans are rather used to that?

Published by Vault29 and available at www.vault29.co.uk

Follow the writer Jamie Me at www.comicbookhour.com or on Twitter @JamieMeWrites

Toni Doya is a Spanish artist and who brilliantly cannot be found on Twitter.

Sean Callahan can be found at www.callahancolor.deviantart.com and on Twitter @CallahanColors

Many thanks for reading.

Some more from South London.....

This is another in the series of background essays for one of the characters in Cockney Kung Fu. Hope you enjoy it. This was previously posted on the Cockney Kung Fu mailer over at www.tinylette.com/CockneyKungFu - sign up for more...

I've had a few ideas to spread the story out and thought that this would be the perfect venue to test a few ideas. This one is based on a few experiences that I had as a teenager growing up. It also jumps out from a minor character who appears a few times in the first arc of the story.

The Life and Times of the Aylesbury Estate.

I got locked up, I was a wreck, I flew like a bird on drugs and I bit the world on it's arse. Breathe deep. For this is London, SE17 in the 1980s.

My Dad was in prison. there was no way of saying it the easy way. He was always a bully of a man. never obsessed with his family he threw himself in to fights down the pub, chasing skirts and class B drugs and following Millwall. It all went wrong one season when a fight broke out with another team and someone died. My Dad took the blame and is doing a life term of imprisonment. Mum sees him every week. Me? Yeah, I never go. Can't face it.

The only good thing that came from it is that I got a bit of credibility on the estate.

My estate of choice was the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth, South London. Crammed between the equally rabbit warren like Heygate Estate and Burgess Park we were something of a stain on anyone's map. Arguably the most densely populated area in the whole of Europe it consisted of around 2,700 flats and around 7,000 people. We were the forgotten people. Wedged between the white Londoners of Bermondsey, the toffee nosed bankers of London Bridge and the politically charged area of Brixton. We were a hybrid of many of these things and maybe, just maybe a load of families trying to survive and carve out something to come home to at the end of a hard day.

Inner city living is a challenge in even the most normalised of circumstances. This place made an art form of slamming diverse and disparate people next to each other in hot, dirty and sweaty shoe boxes. It was like putting all the hard cunts you knew in a saucepan on the stove and watching with glee as it boiled over again and again until it exploded. At least in an ant colony they work together, we actively worked against each other.

I got locked up, I was a wreck, I flew like a bird on drugs and I bit the world on it's arse. Breathe deep. For this is London, SE17 in the 1980s.

My Dad was in prison. there was no way of saying it the easy way. He was always a bully of a man. never obsessed with his family he threw himself in to fights down the pub, chasing skirts and class B drugs and following Millwall. It all went wrong one season when a fight broke out with another team and someone died. My Dad took the blame and is doing a life term of imprisonment. Mum sees him every week. Me? Yeah, I never go. Can't face it.

The only good thing that came from it is that I got a bit of credibility on the estate.

My estate of choice was the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth, South London. Crammed between the equally rabbit warren like Heygate Estate and Burgess Park we were something of a stain on anyone's map. Arguably the most densely populated area in the whole of Europe it consisted of around 2,700 flats and around 7,000 people. We were the forgotten people. Wedged between the white Londoners of Bermondsey, the toffee nosed bankers of London Bridge and the politically charged area of Brixton. We were a hybrid of many of these things and maybe, just maybe a load of families trying to survive and carve out something to come home to at the end of a hard day.

Inner city living is a challenge in even the most normalised of circumstances. This place made an art form of slamming diverse and disparate people next to each other in hot, dirty and sweaty shoe boxes. It was like putting all the hard cunts you knew in a saucepan on the stove and watching with glee as it boiled over again and again until it exploded. At least in an ant colony they work together, we actively worked against each other.

You'd see the odd cop during the day. The uniform wearers would occasionally wander the walkways. We knew not to speak to them as nobody needed the reputation of being a grass. Then you'd see early in the early morning a van pull up and a crowd of fat fuckers roll out and boot the door in of the nearest squat. Looking for what they could find and carting the scum bags away. My mum said that they did a good job but not to tell my Dad she had said so.

My pals and me were pushed into a combination of never caring and never fearing. It was almost a survival technique. There were some dangerous places in the eyes of people you passed on the balconies. Many of the skag heads had the look of a zombie movie, shambling and looking for the smallest opportunity to steal or beg to support their habits. Even the average Estate dweller had to have a side they could turn to when attempting a fight or flight moment. Alternatively nasty, aggressive, self serving and desperate.

As I got older I was tempted by the darker side of this South London urban living. I went to warehouse parties at the Elephant and Castle and took acid and danced my face off. They were always raided by the old bill and shut down but not before we sought that brief escape. I tried over and over to make reality only a daydream. I'll admit to trying heroin, but never thankfully injecting. I would chase the black treacle on foil in the noise of a punk filled record playing bedroom. My mum said that the block was smelling like kippers but I think she probably suspected. I walked about drained of vigour for a while on heroin. In different ways I found a sanctuary in chemical excess. Bought from ferret like chancers who were known far and wide as the scrotes and grasses of the estate - I suppose that is how they survived, hand to mouth.

For my teenage years I felt like my mates did. We were nobodies. We had no hope of moving on with our lives. What was there for us out there anyway?

And that is when Millwall came calling for me too....

To be continued.

Hope you enjoyed that. Please let me know if you have any thoughts. And, as always, may thanks for reading.

A Few Thoughts on The Human Beings issue 4 from SJ McCune

The Human Beings

Issue 4.

Written and drawn by SJ McCune.

Published by Millicent Barnes Comics.

‘I’m already in a different place. I left where. I let the tether out more and more. I am losing sense of where I left.....’

And so starts the labyrinthine fourth issue of what started as an anthology of sorts and now morphs beyond that. The strings are drawing tighter yet the world of The Human Beings is still a darkly mysterious universe. Dive in.

Hands up. Stuart is a friend of mine. He is also one of the few people that I trust the opinion of in areas of creativity. In my own opinion his comics expose his character. He is alternatively and concurrently dark, humorous, generous, intense and most importantly intelligent.

I have read this comic three times and come to a different conclusion as to it’s meaning, both hidden and overt, on every single page turn.

What I can say is that it is unlike the mainstream. It lives in the shadows. It is sharply insightful into the movements and emotions of the ‘Human’ condition. It also incites a mood and a feeling that will infest your thoughts. I have said it before and I will say it again, this comic reads you as you read it!

I have never come away less than incredibly inspired to write about what he says and then go away and create something for myself.

I have had conversations with Stuart about this series and I harbour notions that it is in some way autobiographical. A notion that he denies with what I read to be a wry grin. From our friendship I know a little portion of what drives him and where and what inspired him to create this comic. We see passages and movements that seem like escape and flight, both literally and figuratively. I can almost see Stuart shaping the panels in his mind as he boards a flight for a strange and beautiful land.

So..... what is this issue about? 

It deals with the exposing of a terrorist conspiracy. One that will change the face of this totalitarian world and the comic that possesses its soul. The players who range from being dead-eyed poster children to flamboyant hostesses to sinisterly masked figures seemingly birthed from a sci-fi BDSM monster movie. And they are now out in plain sight. Buttons are being pressed that will change things. 

Change. Hmmmm. An arising theme in my mind as I read. Change through travel, change through memory and change through rebellion. 

I paraphrase but...

‘The revolution is just a panel away...’

As always Stuart pushes at the boundaries of art in experimentally exquisite colours and bold lines and characters. He shows a thought and a feeling and a sinister creeping eventuality like nobody else can manage when writing a comics page. At moments his art seems completely abstract before he jolts you back with the wide eyes of a face you feel that is familiar. I go backwards and forwards through the comic and hold at certain images. You feel a conjoining of fine art, abstract emotions, deeply uttered words and all in an item which is without doubt a comic.

It’s hard to describe certain events without spoiling this ball of wool that is unravelling at speed as it rolls down a heat bitten pavement. 

But I hope that you will give it a try.

My words never do it justice.

Find out more about this comic at www.millicentbarnescomics.bigcartel.com or follow this creator on Twitter @StuartMcCune

Many thanks for reading.

Preview - Awesome Comics and a ‘Streetwalker’.

With the first issue of the Awesome Comics Anthology round the corner I thought it was time to start focusing a little on the background players in the story. This is a piece that originally featured in the Cockney Kung Fu mailer over at www.tinyletter.com/CockneyKungFu Myself and CKF artist extraordinaire Mr Nick Prolix have been putting this mailer together for around six months and it allows us to experiment with format and style. We are having a blast so make sure you sign up.

Cockney Kung Fu is only a third of this anthology. It also features Murder Road from Vince Hunt and Daniel Marc Chant and Vyper by Dan Butcher. Both are fucking ace. How good is that cover with art by Vince and colours by Dan.

We are very excited.

Awesome Comics is getting released at the True Believers Comic Festival at Cheltenham Race Course on the 3rd of February 2018. Pop along and have a chat if you are able. Tickets are available at www.oktruebelievers.com

The Cockney Kung Fu world is slowly growing and whilst we waited for our big release day I would focus in on some people who only maybe get one line here and there.

Peggy makes an appearance in part one. Can you spot her?

‘Peggy was a rubbish whore.’

Peggy was rather terrible at being a prostitute. She never really tried very much when she was working. She used to poshly refer to herself as a ‘streetwalker’ as she heard it called that on a tv show from America once.

‘Yeah, they got style those Americans’ she’d think. She wished at moments that she could be far away from all this. 

Truth be told she didn’t actually do much walking at all. She did quite a lot of standing, not enough laying down to earn a wage and the occasional bit of running when her and her boyfriend Marty went shoplifting.

Whilst Peggy was a rubbish whore she was a reasonably good thief. She would be in and out of Boots in a couple of seconds and then down the Blackstock Arms in Seven Sisters Road to sell the proceeds. Her technique was simple. Run in, knock a pile of something over that looked noisy, apologise in what she thought was a middle class style voice and while the staff ran over to clear up the mess she’d grab what she wanted and escaped. She might even on occasion take orders.

Want some batteries? ‘No problem darling.’

Need a pack of razors. ‘You want some posh ones sweetheart or just bic?’

She should really have just concentrated on stealing rather than the whoring. The only fly in that ointment was that she was so well known by the shops that she kept getting arrested. The Old Bill would turn up to the disturbance, recognise the description the staff gave and head off to find Peggy. After a few instances of shoplifting that shit will get you a six months here and a year there banged up. 

Being in prison was a real problem for Peggy. Mostly because she was on the gear. She had to spend at least fifty quid a day on brown just to keep herself on the level. Nothing really touches the sides anymore and she is now waking up and in need of a fix. Forget chasing the dragon, she left that long ago. She injects as soon as she gets the gear. Recently she’s been injecting into a sore on the back of her knee. She can get away with the punters not seeing that patch and she’s begun to have trouble finding a vein on her arms.

She wasn’t proud of it but on occasion she’d resort to grassing. She knew a couple of the local CID at Vine Street and would pop in and see them or call them and meet them down by Green Park tube in the park opposite. They were ok to her and she actually quite enjoyed talking to them. They never looked to fuck her or knock her about and when she gave them something juicing they would always slip her a few quid. They told her that if she got nicked they could be called on for a bit of bail and they’d always flatter her a little.

‘You’re looking better Peggy, got a bit of meat on you for a change.’ Or ‘You could save up a few quid and get in a decent rehab, that’d sort you out properly darling.’

The cops made Peggy feel a little bit more human and actually listened to what she had to say for a change. Of course she had to keep this ‘business relationship’ very secret from her boyfriend Marty. He’d go more mental than usual if he found out she was a grass. She was always really careful not to be seen with the cops.

Her boyfriend Marty is even by her standards a total scumbag. He depends on her to get money from being a working girl. He sits about at home sleeping or drinking and waiting for her to bring home some cash so they can ring Black Tony or Paddy for some brown. If Peggy ever stops to think about it she realises that Marty doesn’t really care about her. He allows, no hang on, forces her to head out and work the streets. When she’s got some fat pervert’s cock in her mouth she knows she’s doing it for two things, the ever constant need for heroin and Marty her layabout boyfriend.

When Peggy and Marty get a bit flush from a bit of thieving they’ll head down the pub and drink cider. On occasion Marty will get purposely chatting to a punter at the bar and start pimping Peggy out. She’ll hear him saying things like..

‘She’ll suck you good mate.’

Or..

‘Head in the bogs and I’ll send her in after you.’

Often the geezer at the bar will look back and see the ragged, dirty, toothless, skinny, lipstick smeared face of Peggy trying to smile back at him and run a mile. This usually resulted in Peggy telling Marty that he’s ‘a cunt’ and that she should leave him and get off the gear and find someone who will actually care about her. Peggy knew that she has a mouth on her and sometimes just likes to let rip on Marty, even though she knows what she’ll get in return.

‘Go on then, I dare you. Who’d want you and your saggy arse and clout. Get back in the real world’.

This would almost always be accompanied by a hard slap across the face and Marty shouting and smashing up what little they had in their mattress on the floor, single lightbulb, newspaper strewn flat. The pair would make up later when the stomach cramps began to attack them and the need for gear returned. No amount of cider or whiskey would stop that need.

So here she stood. In porn alley in Soho. She didn’t have a flat or a hotel room that the punters could head to so she would let them fuck her against a wall in one of the alleyways near to Rupert Street. In fact she would let them do anything to her. Bend her over and fuck her in the saggy, spotty shapeless item she called an arse or she’d more often than not blow them and let them finish on her grey and blue bruised tits. She’d walk away hopefully with a tenner for her time (at most). 

But a tenner will get her and Marty some gear.

And that’s all she cared about.

Many thanks for reading.

In Preview - PETRICHOR by Gareth A. Hopkins.

Petrichor.

By Gareth A. Hopkins.

An unusual review for an unusual book.

‘The war rages. People are slain. Vince Hunt decides he doesn’t like pork pies. Dan Butcher this week doesn’t imagine painfully murdering someone on the commute and the world will never be the same again.’ 

As quotes go that is one that is completely made up. Outrage huh? I’m actually referring to the sub-tweeting snarky debate about what is ‘allowed’ to be a comic. I see this often popping up on the social media of the fat and pompous and snarky and cool. Various formats and delivery systems are argued over until we end up ‘reverse flippin’.

Let me start by saying that I have always considered the work of Mr Hopkins to be comics. 

This creator often steps outside of the comfy world of superheroes and autobiographical and horror and sci-fi and cats to create something monumentally different yet nonetheless intriguing and original.

With Petrichor he takes a step forwards to something new and different. Something altogether more intimate and idiosyncratic.

In the life we lead the seeing of the hidden and honest face of even the person that you think you know well can occur through the art that they produce. In this book the creator combines his own true voice with the abstract art he has of recent time become known for.

The black and white art reminds me alternately of a detailed rock face or a crystalline structure or even the wind blowing over a beach in winter. But what Gareth does here is that hovering above these visuals are some personal thoughts and words of the moment to moment of his day. Gareth is also a very thoughtful creator and I enjoy talking about his work with him, but this comes over as incredibly moving. Like we are hearing his thoughts float over art that we are interpreting beyond their meaning.

I know.... I’m not making much sense. This book is more of an experience you have to observe for yourself.

And in saying that I realise that I have written far too much for something that just needs to be read.

I can only do justice to this comic by saying that you should read it and think about it....

Petrichor will be out soon.

Get yourself a copy.

I generally don’t know what I am talking about but I do know that this is very, very good!

Many thanks for reading.

You can find more about Gareth at www.grthink.com or follow him on Twitter @grthink

In Review - ‘A Night With Friends For Nosferatu’ by Grisso.

A Night With Friends For Nosferatu’

By Grisso.

Published by Enigmatic Labs - $3.00 - Black and White mini comic.

The Story - ‘We get to meet some of Nosferatu’s friends. Lead by Nosferatu they have an intervention with the elusive Bigfoot.’

You don’t need to have much knowledge to jump right into any of these mini comics. They are just plain fun.

The Review - As comics come and go the sizes change I have observed recently. Especially in the small press and indie world. A Night With Friends For Nosferatu is about the size of a large beer mat. It has forty-eight pages of art and story all of which are done in a panel a page style. The art is crisp and sharp but with a foot in the realistic and the cartoony. 

It is a comic that made me chuckle quite a lot.

Nosferatu can’t be an easy guy to be friends with. He is a bit of a moaner and is prone to looking up what people think about him on the internet. He yearns for the days when people were actually frightened of vampires.

‘They said I looked like a buck tooth nerd who finally decided to come out of his Mom’s basement to ask for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.’

So Nosferatu and his pals, a witch and a werewolf, sit in a bar having a drink. As they leave they bump into another of their group Bigfoot. What has he been up to? He’s been buying porn again. They accuse him and he flees. Turns out he’s been working the little Wookiee in the woods. Falling asleep and then leaving his porn laying about for teenagers and hikers to find.

Yup! I told Mark Norfolk it was a Bigfoot!!!!

This was a present that a good friend brought back to me from America. I just read it and will be searching out more by this creator. I recommend that if you are fond of this sort of fanny humour you do the same.

Although $3.00 does seem a tiny bit on the high side.

Head over to www.enigmaticlabs.com to find out more.

Many thanks for reading.

In Preview - ‘Gamayun Tales: The King of Birds’ by Alexander Utkin

In Preview - ‘Gamayun Tales: The King of Birds’

Written and Drawn by Alexander Utkin.

Translated by Lada Morozova.

Published by Nobrow.

67 pages - Full Colour Hardback - £12.00/$19.95.

The Story - ‘This is the story of how a small golden apple started a great battle. It all began with a mouse and a sparrow, but soon all the animals and birds were waging a mighty war. After all, the King of Birds forgives no one....But what will happen when he finds himself at the mercy of a plucky merchant?’

The Review - This is a comic based on traditional Russian folklore and translated onto the drawn page by the super talented Alexander Utkin. Like all good stories of yore it is not story for the meek. Utkin brilliantly transfers to the comics page the feelings that we all had as kids when we heard these frightening stories. In the same way that the Brothers Grimm filled their stories with murderers and thieves this book has that sharply unsettling feel to its story and art.

In the narrative we follow an argument between friends that escalates to a world war of too proud nations. From that we see transformative Machiavellian shenanigans that result in nefarious twists and turns in a fairy tale that you never really get to second guess. The wisdom of our forefathers is self evident in the selfish emotions of many on the page and they echo through our current news cycles. And so should all great stories be that are told from fireside to computer side.

Utkin excels in the colourful weirdness on the page. He has adopted a style that draws out iconic images in fully realised figures of grandeur. A favourite page has the King Eagle atop a gnarled branch, wounded yet proud the backgrounds show the browns and yellows of an autumn evening. The light on the page has to be seen to be believed. Each panel seems to have been swept off an easel and into this book.

My favourite player in this book is a merchant who is the saviour and then plaything of the King of Birds. He is a thick set and ruddy faced individual. He watches and obeys as the giant Eagle King morphs in front of him from bird to statuesque god in Utkin’s marvellous brushy and bright pastel drawings. He is a cracking character who bravely follows the seemingly brash and unwise orders of his friend for good or bad.

This is a book that was previously published in Lithuania and is presented here in a glorious hardback for a great price by the mighty Nobrow. Alexander Utkin himself is a comic creator, illustrator and musician from Russia.

Highly recommended.

Released on the 15th of January and well worth a few quid.

Find out more about Nobrow and the rest of their titles at www.nobrow.net or follow them on Twitter @NobrowPress

With the Hilda on the Netflix horizon this should really be the year for Nobrow and they are well worth having a look at and buying at least a couple of their library.

Many thanks for reading.