tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85018768788397944142024-03-08T21:19:57.646+00:00small scrutiniesReviews of Irish and British small pressUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-78991731124182085122009-10-05T17:01:00.009+00:002010-11-17T18:09:09.193+00:00Slow Science Fictions #23: Now Here's A Tale With A Happy Ending<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on October 5, 2009</em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><p align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></p><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The final issue – relatively uncomplicated but with trademark oddball-ness – goes something like this: When the number 409 Zone 4 bus from West Croydon breaks down, two tourist passengers – Afro-American businessman Samuel L Poitier and New York script-doctor Mick Weller – take off on a woodland footpath and inadvertently cross into 3World in 4Time through a Zone 4 gap on a Surrey flyover. Addingcombe Hill leads them to the hometown of English superheroes, the Cosmic Crusaders, where, to the disruptive objections of Nasim Elmaz, the wedding of two past members – his brother Hussain Elmaz and Rebecca Schwaffer – is taking place. Addingcombe gives Weller <i>the Robert Johnsons</i>, and with good reason: Poitier is falling for local girl Michelle Jolly in spite of an enchantment on the village which dictates that Addingcombe can live and breathe only for twenty-three Thursdays one year in ten, and none of the villagers will ever be allowed leave. The pair of tourists have got themselves <i>stuck in a weird comic book tale they can't get out of</i>; or in a <i>Brigadoon without the music</i>. (Yes, <i>the Key to the Universe and its nine-notched entry to the Heavenly Spheres of Reality has got mashed up with fucking Brigadoon</i>.)</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">As author-in-residence in his own fiction – and at a side angle to it, also – Michael J Weller often pitched his Slow Science Fictions as both a celebration of- and lament for- admirable failure as a consequence of a refusal of the artistic compromises necessary for commercial success. Similarly, this artistic disconnect managed to find voice via a lineage of ideas partly inherited from popular culture: superheroes, parallel realities, angels, secret agents, and the battle between Good and Evil. With a <i>magnetic Duke Of Hell sending moral compasses haywire</i>, further tensions were evidenced in <i>mental files wiped clean by corporate medication</i>, or altered <i>to believe in a benign privatisation</i>; and characters <i>scripted to be idiots </i>who <i>break the text that bound them to stupidity</i>. Free will in the context of societal/religious duties, personal power as opposed to resignation, the writer and the written, <i>a peace of Heaven with Hell </i>and other elusive harmonies – Slow Science Fictions articulated a spirit of yearning for ennobling resistance and for <i>the choices that set us apart even as we are compelled to draw connections in an attempt to link ourselves to one another</i>. Mad to think that this series was also an entertaining, funny, funny-peculiar read.</span></div><p align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></p><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £3 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-5186638768785789612009-09-28T16:43:00.003+00:002009-09-28T16:51:17.510+00:00Slow Science Fictions #22: Kid Cartoons Parts I & II<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on September 28, 2009<br /></em><br />This, the penultimate issue of the <em>Slow Science Fictions</em> prose series, comprises Michael J Weller's customary re-refractions of self-mythologising deprecations, of socio-political reality and popular culture, and of the ordered disorder that is his measured tangle of fictions within a fiction.<br /><br />Within: the ninth <em>Guardian of Life And Civilisation</em> is chosen, he is the cartoon character Hanthala with the spirit of young Iranian student Neda Agha-Soltan (the correction of Hanthala Neda's stunted growth can be achieved only with a <em>final solution</em> of peace, security and prosperity for both mideast Jew and Arab). Else-where/time: in the Billy Crombie Chiselwood College Of Dreaming Theme Park <em>children should be thrilled by commodified health and safety regulated fear, but not scared shitless</em>. Built in Florida by EarthCo, this theme park utilises technologies engineered by computer gaming and platform inventor Alpha Zee; most notably the iMager, a device which plugs into the frontal lobe of the player/visitor to make the Wellerverse real for them. With said device attached, retired policeman Jim Pannifer of Social Reality Earthtime 2018 returns to the Nibs writing group of 1997 to be introduced to himself as a character in Mike Weller's reading of his sci-fi serial. Offers Pannifer (in 1997 for real and in 2018, theme-parked virtuality): 'I would have left me out.'<br /><br />Defiant to the near-end, Michael J Weller's writing continues to evince an oddly personal richness and piquancy that must contend with an ingrained against-the-grain narrative structure that's not exactly <em>hoi polloi</em>-friendly, but which offers a playful elusiveness that is both mysterious and singular.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">40 A5 pages, £3 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-751647661468661122009-01-27T18:22:00.001+00:002009-01-27T18:25:10.157+00:00Slow Science Fictions #21: The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on January 27, 2009<br /></em><br />The edgy immediacy of the Slow Science Fictions series continues as a melancholy chagrin further bulldozes into plot complications and sees both author and story unravel compellingly amid, amongst other heady happenings, a deconstruction of the plot of <em>Brigadoon</em>. This one might more appropriately have been titled <em>Four Weddings And A Funeral</em>: SSF #21 provides news of four marriages – included is that of American President Sam Poitier and celebrated author Michelle Jolly – and, in keeping with the central theme of recent issues (which revolves around the search for artistic identity and acceptance) offers a quasi-post-mortem of Michael J Weller's small press vocation.<br /><br />A disillusioned, demoralised, <em>rewritten</em> Weller wrestles with a lack of validation, an abundance of self-doubt, and a sense that his writing is madness gone unchecked; but, conversely, still manages to vaingloriously recognise his salvation in a body of work produced well off the pandering path of artistic subservience. However, Weller is not immune from social expectations, still requires permission to be himself; and his bemused indignation of this self-satire is hilarious. Even <em>Comics International</em> reviewer Mike Kidson is to blame: Kidson had written that <em>Weller is perhaps the most exciting British creator of comics at any level</em>, but then insensitively disappeared from the comics scene. Ha! The cheek!</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">36 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-62515280386053944012009-01-16T18:15:00.003+00:002009-01-16T18:30:16.171+00:00Outcastes #1 & #2<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on January 16, 2009<br /></em><br />In issue #1 of this supernatural series from <em>True Stories Comics</em>: Found mysteriously fleeing a cave on the moors, amnesiac siblings Winter and Summer are soon struggling to endure a sinister orphanage bent on purging their wickedness. With nothing to aid their escape but a strong familial bond, an urchin pal and an apparition, it seems unlikely that the pair can survive a paranormal presence with malevolent intentions. In issue #2: The orphanage behind them, Winter, Summer and urchin pal Geo find themselves the travelling companions of Elias, an amiable street magician whose family have been lost to the plague. But while Summer's success with a tarot pack hints at innate talent for magic, it also reveals impending danger; and, too late, a hidden agenda is uncovered.<br /><br />Thus far this is polished, decent fare of the <em>Misty</em> variety, and perfect for the early-teen or the inner-child. Though the rattling pace amplifies the cryptic storytelling and results in a dissatisfying lack of causality – which may irk readers impatient to be drip-fed answers to narrative questions of the mystery ilk – compensation exists in the form of neat conclusions to the adroitly realised suspense of each issue. Creator Tony McGee's storytelling fluidity is singular yet unselfconscious: with eerily stark black and white artwork, understated borders and no captions, panels inexorably spill past to lyrical effect. And even though the obvious quest of the main story arc is as yet unacknowledged by our aimless protagonists, already there is reason-enough to recommend this promising new series.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">US format, 28 pages per issue, £1.75 each – from http://truestories.awardspace.com/</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-9334641592515786492008-11-25T20:52:00.002+00:002008-11-26T18:07:21.738+00:00Matter #7: Weird Face<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on November 25, 2008<br /></em><br />Another <em>ooh</em> in creator Philip Barrett's impressive <em>oeuvre</em>, this <em>tale of the unexpected</em> revisits the theme of obsessive struggle previously explored in <em>The Record</em> and <em>Blackshapes</em> as it chronicles a successful artist's hapless search for relief from a mysterious face that relentlessly haunts him and his work. When catharsis fails and this malicious muse encroaches deeper into the artist's life, his locked-in despair edges him toward the ultimate release, but instead delivers something peculiar and disturbingly twisty: a close encounter of the <em>face</em> kind.<br /><br />With brisk pace, deft characterisation and curious plot, <em>Weird Face</em> proves an engaging read, and is simultaneously funny and disquieting. Barrett's Tomine-like cartooning exudes warmth and sophistication, and his adroit portrayal of elapsing time and a thoroughly lucid world add considerably to one's enjoyment of this classy comic. Not perhaps possessed of the subtly understated complexities associated with Barrett's more intimate work (<em>Typical</em>, <em>See You Later Then</em> etc.), <em>Weird Face</em> is a crowd-pleaser – a satisfying story, satisfyingly told.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">16 A5 pages for 2 euros/£1.50 /$3.00 (postage included) from <a href="http://www.blackshapes.com/comics.htm">http://www.blackshapes.com/comics.htm</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-87454548059198992342008-11-21T18:28:00.001+00:002008-11-21T18:30:53.110+00:00Slow Science Fictions #20: War In Heaven<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on November 21, 2008<br /></em><br />Author Michael J Weller pumps enough whimsy into his odd-shaped fiction to gently bump the knobbly high ceiling of concept. Again, though, that sense of a perpetually inchoate central plot – fuelled no doubt by a prose writing informed by <em>comic strip vocabularies and visual codes</em>, which offers the presence of super-beings – albeit off-duty – but the absence of action-packed battle. In this one, menaced by the revenge fiction of Nibs writer Mike Weller, Michelle Jolly's impatient wait for her <em>new dream of inspiration</em> finally nears an end; a dewy-eyed Jim Pannifer must don tights if he is to maintain contact with local-writing-group-turned-amateur-dramatic-society; and the Council of God have been asked by the Archangels to forward nominations for the ninth Guardian to the Divine Assembly: Sappho makes the case for the Prophet Mahomet, Pythagoras for Charles Darwin, and Dante for William Blake, but who really could follow the eighth Guardian, Diando? (Diando: the composite Holy Spirit of ancient goddesses Ppamms, Dido and Diana, and of the lovely Jill Dando.)</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-71022361629026356932008-10-09T18:29:00.002+00:002008-10-11T17:03:56.241+00:00Trains Are... Mint<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on October 9, 2008<br /></em><br />Despite the plushy format and intellectualising-foreword provided by new publisher Blank Slate, this collection of Oliver East's self-published <em>Trains Are…Mint</em> comics vitally remains the work of a bemused underdog: the drawings are crude, colour-washed insinuations of urban localities, and East writes just like regular folks, too. The subject matter is congruent with this <em>common man</em> crafting: shops, pylons, factories, terraced housing etc. all come into view as East's good-humoured record of loner treks between Manchester and Blackpool maps well-worn haunts and the things we live a little distance from. It's uneventful stuff, which speaks of <em>mortal tedium</em>, but which seductively offers a creator at peace with his crafting ability and with his environment.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Hardback, £12.99 / $24.99 for 124 A5-ish pages, available from www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-50519745248824136502008-10-08T17:21:00.002+00:002008-10-08T17:25:29.448+00:00Slow Science Fictions #19: It's The Power, Man<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on October 8, 2008<br /></em><br />In Social Reality Earthtime 2008 it is personalities not policies that celebrity culture demands in electoral voting markets. What voters don't know is that Sir Michaeal Spearate, the Duke of Hell, now operates in all ten Realities with his bent key to the universe, and that Samuel L Poitier – new Commander of the Cosmic Squad, Democratic candidate for the American presidential election and possessor of feminine upper figure – had been built and animated at Spearate's laboratories in the depths of Dis and is the intellectual property of global corporation Earthco; senator Poitier is a world leader born to be cloned for all continents and all nations in multiple simulations. Meanwhile in Britain, Conservative leader David Eton-Trifle stirs, and Prime Minister Gordon Scott's Presbyterian leadership style proves unpopular. (Come back Tony Blandford, all is forgiven!)<br /><br />Just as the curtain closes on jostling for a Way Out West Wing, it opens again to reveal author Michael J Weller furiously tugging at the levers of his Wellerverse selves and at characters that are <em>simply aspects of a fragmented personality</em>: dead novelist MJ Weller confronts Mick Weller as he sells his <em>home-baked, cock-eyed booklets</em> at Camden's London Underground Comics; Michelle Jolly refuses to be written into <em>the nasty, horrid, paranoid drivel of a nutcase</em> – she is <em>doing something else</em>. Here the exploration of the author's troubled interior universe veers toward self-indulgence – his career dyspepsia and resultant creative-deprecation overtly communicated through dialogue too <em>on the nose</em> – but the narrative counters with some existential comment on the substance of what we do to confer meaning on our lives. (Hang in there, Mikes!)</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-56556501641372357982008-09-30T17:14:00.003+00:002008-10-11T17:04:51.500+00:00Sorry I Can't Take Your Call Right Now But I'm Off Saving The World<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on September 30, 2008<br /></em><br />Even with eyes set firmly in the shadow of one's critical cap it's impossible not to mine redeeming elements in every work of an anthology produced with charitable intent, and so it is with this uneven-but-worthy comics collection – all proceeds from the sale of <em>Sorry I Can't Take Your Call Right Now But I'm Off Saving The World</em> are destined for GOAL. Delivering work inspired by this title-trigger – the answering machine message of editor Cliodhna Lyons' late father when working abroad with aid organisations – the anthology offers a diversity of styles and subject matters.<br /><br />Featuring the 1- to 8-page works of 30 creators, this attractive, polished volume delivers a veritable mix-bag of penny chews, with some chews inevitably tastier than others. <em>Cricket In A Bag</em>, by Catherine and Tomm More, briefly explores the impact volunteers in Kenya have on rescued street children, to uplifting consequence. In sedate parable <em>Planting,</em> Christopher and Ellen Ruggia touch on personal responsibility via a horticulturist who understands the conditions of the world and who has found her own tranquillity and order. Malte Knaack's <em>The Visit</em> moodily evokes the absence of closure in a broken relationship as exes spend a listless weekend together. <em>1963</em> pastiche <em>The Living Proton</em>, by Gar Shanley and Cathal Duggan, is an adroitly realised sci-fi superhero parody wherein our hero does battle in a quantum world's haberdashery realm. And in Jenny Linn-Cole's cosmic allegory <em>Dog Man Saves The World</em> three lolloping mutts have their delightful way with a familiar globe.<br /><br />Also in the creator-mix are the chewy Joe Decie, Sarah McIntyre, Lee Thacker, John Maybury, Philip Barrett and others (including me; as masticatory as they come). And though much of the material is superfluous to the spirit of a title poignantly personalised by Cliodhna Lyons – and not intended to stretch the limits of creative endeavour – there is conscientiously crafted work on offer, diverting-enough to satisfy the undemanding reader, and gathered and bound into an uncommon publication with intent substantial-enough to eschew the dampening appraisal of criticism. Recommended.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">96 A5 pages, £5.50 / €7, available from http://www.goalanthology.com/</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-21866411027013501442008-09-06T10:38:00.001+00:002008-09-06T10:41:41.802+00:00Slow Science Fictions #18: 2001: After Space Opera<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on September 6, 2008<br /></em><br />Given to mood swings of elation and depression, young Dylan Wilson displays no ambition to establish a foot-hold in society despite his mother's encouragement. But Margaret has seen the difference in her son since the arrival of third year cultural studies student Hannah. Unfortunately, this beautiful lodger is not interested, and Dylan's obsession with his recently discovered copy of Seventh World War Comics deepens. The giant globe has been blown off the Earth Corporation's headquarters; the Eight Guardians of Life and Civilisation need to choose a new band of Cosmic Crusaders to fight in the eternal war between good and evil; an Angel is sent to earth to call the new team. There comes a sharp knock on Dylan Wilson's front door, but why bother to do anything? The working classes are being mentally prepared to accept a war that has been made up by a Prime Minister full of zap words and a catchy turn of phrase. Surely this was how Capitalism worked: packaging things to make you want to buy them. Isn't the world in a terrible enough state?<br /><br />Malleable courtesy of its non-linear time structure, the <em>Slow Science Fictions</em> series firmly positions 2001 story <em>Fanzine Fiction</em> into its loose continuity. No isolated vignette – indeed, the original publication proved of seminal significance – it is reproduced here with a contextualised introduction (which resonates with the series' dream-logic illeism) that nudges the story onto the tracks of author Michael J Weller's personal pilgrimage into the analogous Wellerverse, adding further to its emotional truth. Written with <em>comic strip vocabularies and visual codes</em> an ingrained characteristic, <em>Slow Science Fictions #18</em> in part examines the metaphysical bubble, subjective existence and universal foibles of the power-fantasy fan, of the escapist and the fantasist; and to borrow from Oscar Wilde, uncovers <em>the mask behind the man</em>. But whether dreams feed our courage to carry off ordinary, everyday challenges, or convince us to sidestep them, SSF #18 is a thoroughly fun read that will have comics-readers, particularly, smiling from start to finish.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">40 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-88162265701922200192008-08-06T17:11:00.002+00:002008-08-06T17:14:59.318+00:00Slow Science Fictions #17: From Eduard Mogilowski's Old Typewriter<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on August 6, 2008</em><br /><br />Social Reality Earthtime 1938: top-level demons and monsters of superhuman power are using Hitler and the axis powers to destroy Christian civilisation with a planned thousand-year Third Reich of militarised paganism. Satan's Spiritual Director on Earth – Sir Michaeal Spearate – sculpts with living flesh (using the blood of dead Jews) and emits a sick and unspeakable goat-fish smell of sixteenth-century Billingsgate as he recruits crop-haired youths with the promise of immortality – jobs for life; and beyond! But Sir Michaeal's enemy, the Nobodaddy (aka God Almighty), sends a beautiful Angel to earth to contact the Cosmic Crusaders – Heaven is at war with Satan, and they are to plan the logistics of defence in the known world.<br /><br />"You will have no memory of this," says Professor Fergus McQuigley to the Cosmic Crusaders, "but it will be written in your unconscious mind for you to recall in years to come." Similar could be said of Michael J Weller's <em>Slow Science Fictions</em> series as its non-linear saga often lodges shapeless-as-memory in the brain. However, here in #17 the story <em>From Eduard Mogilowski's Old Typewriter</em> (Mogilowski: the series' pulp magazine writer, character and creator of The Cosmic Crusaders) provides a focus more in keeping with conventional narrative-models, and offers immediate satisfaction. With echoes of <em>Raiders Of The Lost Ark</em> and <em>Hellboy</em>, it's an entertaining read; one possessed of a worldly and otherworldly eruditeness.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">40 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-76217458924886046382008-07-21T18:51:00.003+00:002008-07-22T17:16:46.400+00:00Him And Her's Smuggling Vacation<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on July 21, 2008<br /></em><br />A facetious mosaic of lives entangled in the environment of drugs smuggling, Jason Wilson's <em>Him And Her's Smuggling Vacation</em> chronicles the seemingly ill-fated attempts of a bickering couple of opportunistic Brits to transport a tonne of found-cannabis from Spain to England and dodge both gangsters and customs in the process. With a title that combines an Americanism with the idiosyncratic grammar of a British colloquialism, and with a storyline that echoes English sit-com double-length specials (when, more often than not, characters are sent abroad for exotic intrigue) but told in the European style of humour cartooning, this attractive volume inevitably struggles to find a fitting tone, though is possessed of a gleeful energy.<br /><br />The writing, at times, lacks guile – clunkily omniscient captions prove particularly off-putting – but the story is structurally sound-enough to withstand frequent interruptions to suspense by inane dialogue, and relief from a script that struggles to be funny is offered by pockets of sober insights and facts on the smuggling business – fuelled by crime consultant to the book, Tony Spencer. Ironically, this absence of laughs is accentuated by quality humour cartooning that outperforms the script and raises expectations. <em>Smuggling Vacation</em>, then, offers a decent story impressively illustrated but encumbered with a gag-deficient humour. Best light-up for this one. (Demotivational Syndrome, anyway, otherwise requires years of dispiriting toil to develop!)</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">80 full-colour A4 pages for £7.98. Check availability at </span><a href="http://www.smugglingvacation.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.smugglingvacation.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-11330291226461715962008-07-03T17:46:00.002+00:002008-07-10T17:20:46.348+00:00Manhole #3<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on July 3, 2008</em><br /><br />Contemporary relationships are explored in <em>Pet Rock</em> – the featured issue-long strip of <em>Manhole #3</em> – as an assortment of males orbit the lives of two backstage rock-chicks: the placid Bea and the freewheeling Carrie. At first kindred spirits, the intimacy between the pair soon disintegrates when Carrie's boyfriend mysteriously disappears and she refuses to own up to her frustration and unhappiness. There exists here a sense of an emotional and authorial gap being filled by the daydreams and aspirations of cartoonist Mardou. Though she creates not so much a romanticised reality as an idealised one, there remains an absence of the kind of sustained conflict that fuels the dramatic conviction of a writer. Furthermore, what Mardou writes seems so defined by her reading choices that this work smacks of simulation. As a result, things like the bittersweet ending feel hollow and unearned, and the story has shape as it goes through the motions but possesses no satisfying thesis. The telling, however, is fine-tuned, the cartooning fluent and assured, and the scripting fluid and engaging. The issue is perfectly enjoyable.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">40 A4-ish pages for $3/£2, available from http://usscatastrophe.com/itlives/comics/</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-50137422599464213432008-07-03T17:44:00.001+00:002008-07-03T17:46:07.742+00:00Gazebo #1<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on July 3, 2008</em><br /><br />In a session with his therapist a young man struggling for emotional sustenance tentatively examines his psychological survival. Writer Liam Geraghty, in collaboration with <em>Matter </em>cartoonist Phil Barrett, employs a warm, good-humoured touch that sidesteps complexity and analysis in favour of throwaway pathos and a bland, more universal appeal. Comprising a series of mostly-symbiotic, mostly-slight one- and two-page strips that revisit resonant episodes in the protagonist's life (and, in the strips <em>Wank</em> and <em>Slight Retort</em>, that inadvertently revisit works by Dan Clowes and Adrain Tomine) this light brushing of the surface of poignant subject matter is delivered via the Clowes-inspired structure of fractured narrative, and proves a disciplined debut for Geraghty. Barrett's cartooning, as ever, is exquisite; his style possessed of a quiet humanity. Highlight of the issue is the visceral <em>Nightmare</em>, and <em>Boy Campers</em> – wherein our protagonist accidentally asks a pal's sister if he can sleep in her.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">20 A5-ish pages for €3, available from www.blackshapes.com/</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-20460905219385708662008-06-14T19:28:00.001+00:002008-06-14T19:30:58.264+00:00Contraband<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on June 14, 2008<br /></em><br />The antithesis of po-faced comics with inferred depth – which sidestep the writing process courtesy of the tolerance and inherent appeal of this seductive medium – <em>Contraband</em> insistently exhibits meaning and aspires to provide a substantial reading experience. However, stubbornly over-scripted missteps hijack this intent as author Thomas Behe uses characters illustratively and makes few concessions to authentic-sounding dialogue: all speak with the flat voice of a writer working strobe-like through his fine-tuned gripes and bite-size philosophies. Taken in isolation, these ill-humoured asides and acerbic convictions prove interesting, but in the context of Contraband's non-linear narrative, they add a desultory, disorienting clutter that obstructs the flow and momentum of the story.<br /><br />The conceit which forms the fulcrum of this sci-fi speculation on a dystopian near-future requires little suspension of disbelief: violent mobile video abuse is the new contraband as the boundaries of privacy are blurred in a tech-savvy society that utilises portable digital media to capture and distribute reality torture-porn. When self-styled <em>citizen journalist</em> Toby is forced to hunt down a female activist sabotaging the globe's most controversial cellphone channel – Contraband – his search leads him <em>8mm</em>-like into the ugly reality of a voyeur underground populated by profit-hungry youths disconnected from any sense of repression or conscience, and with insatiable thirst for celebrity; the progeny of the liberalisation of social taboos, and of our You-Tube culture of instant gratification.<br /><br />Though the execution is flawed and the economical cartooning style of Phil Elliott and Jim Sharman delivers a homogenising processed-sheen (amplified by overindulgent line-spacing on the computer lettering), <em>Contraband</em> succeeds in imparting with eloquent vitriol the author's moral outrage and frustrations, which inevitably topple into misanthropy; Behe's despair at the decay of civilised society and at the culpability of human nature is palpable. But as the work unwieldily articulates his justifiable anger, one can't help but be soured to the all-pervasive cynicism of the superfluity of opinions and to the relative absence of redemption in the story. Conversely, a glass half-empty is no bad thing when said glass contains vile-tasting medicine that, ultimately, is of benefit. <em>Contraband</em>, then, is prescribed reading.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">148 A5-ish pages, $12 from www.slgcomic.com</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-11087342872942714462008-06-08T19:00:00.001+00:002008-06-08T19:01:58.146+00:00Last Bus<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on June 8, 2008</em><br /><br />The dull routine of a pedantic bus-driver is the focus of this week-in-the-life vignette published by <em>Cardboard Press</em>. The route of the No. 230 double-decker through an unnamed urban cityscape allows promising creator Patrick Lynch adeptly demonstrate a fluid storytelling craft, while the familiar dialect and antics of passengers offer clues toward identifying its Irish location. The glimpse of drama offered by a denouement on-the-periphery isn't quite enough to counter the lulled doze prompted by the subdued rhythms of the work, but compositional know-how and grey washes add substance to the breezy cartooning style, and the creator's firm grasp of sequentialism make this unremarkable comic a diverting-enough ride/read. Ultimately then, <em>Last Bus</em> is a technically sound comic with more city-centre than emotional centre. Do stick your hand out, though.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">24 squared A4-ish pages for €3, available from www.patrickl.net or </span><a href="http://www.cardboardpress.com/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.cardboardpress.com</span></a> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-82899676575662863802008-06-04T17:15:00.001+00:002008-06-04T17:17:59.907+00:00Slow Science Fictions #16: (His) Story Of English Superheroes<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on June 4, 2008</em><br /><br />In part the writing of Michael J Weller is characterised by the seductive refrain of worn-out superhero mythologies, which accrue into passages of mystical, mantra-like transcendence. In this spirit, <em>Slow Science Fictions #16</em> is as much incantation as it is the retelling of the origin of The Cosmic Crusaders/The Invincibles and of the history attached to their creation and development. Here, in a break with the typed-prose presentation of the series, Weller provides hand-lettered texts and illustrations that reintroduce the visual dialect of <em>Space Opera</em>, and which dip into the key moments and milieu in the evolution of his English superhero team. The fluid, organic cartooning style manages an affecting luminescence due to its serenely innocent quality, and as the book's focus deviates from delving into the continuity associated with overlapping reality tunnels and elevating tensions between the temporal and the divine – towards superhero trope-laden pleasures – this beguiling issue should prove the most accessible to date for a comics audience curious to sample Michael J Weller's particular utilisation of escapist fantasy.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-8449414195713694682008-05-27T17:13:00.001+00:002008-05-27T17:16:55.197+00:00Slow Science Fictions #15: Tomorrow People Mixdown<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on May 27, 2008<br /></em><br />A cyberspace data-encoded cipher, which mixes a Hebrew tetragrammaton and Kabalistic numerology, is solved by the Man-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes; his reward: a Bent Key to the Universe and access to the minds of the Guardians Of Life And Civilisation. The Wellerverse turns, and the Weller of this verse drinks himself silly and couldn't give a flying fart if nobody enjoys his slow fictions. Who exactly then is planting themselves into the hearts and minds of the Cosmic Squad, exploiting their doubts and confusions? The Duke and Duchess of Hell, or Weller himself?<br /><br />Comics, television shows, websites and computer games featuring four Islamist superheroes – the Pioneers of Tomorrow – have been launched, and their packaging dazzles the youth of Syria, Iran and Swabiastan. Seduced by the glamorous depictions of the supermartyr team, conditioned youths are eager to play their part, gain celebrity, and see battle lines of cosmic war drawn between Jihadist new dreamers and the Cosmic Crusaders. <em>The magical ancients call upon the martyrs to sacrifice life on earth for eternity in paradise</em>.<br /><br />Michael J Weller is up against it, and here, as he flashes the world <em>a gimp of displeasure</em> and continues to convert to creative matter the alarming stuff constantly streaming in from the environment, I'm reminded that <em>the inability to properly "filter" incoming or internal stimuli and information sources has been linked to psychosis</em>, and that <em>the same processes that lead to madness in some, may result in extraordinary creativity and inventiveness in others</em>. Weller possesses clarity of cognisance but writes like a madman. The result is a story of uncommon shape and oblique pertinence.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from </span><a href="http://www.homebakedbooks.co.uk/"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-68459506574675240692008-04-28T18:22:00.002+00:002008-04-28T18:29:24.271+00:00Albedo One #34<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on April 28, 2008<br /></em><br />Another cluster of speculative fiction courtesy of Ireland's answer to <em>Interzone</em>. Via the short fictions of global authors, though, <em>Albedo One</em> asks its own questions, and here confidently musters entertaining response.<br /><br />The <em>2007 Aeon Award</em>-winning <em>Angelus</em>, by Nina Allan, is a sophisticated, masterfully executed piece of writing with unobtrusive conceit and literary aspirations, which allows a character-driven narrative uncover the relationship between two men once caught in the orbit of the same woman. Absent love and longing also fuel <em>Alice & Bob</em> by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles: through a series of self-mythologizing correspondences, two lovers-with-a-twist describe civilisations <em>in extremis</em> as a cosmic kink continues to randomly transport people about the planet, upending forever the longevity of interpersonal relationships and imposing on already-transient lives a philosophy of futility.<br /><br />In Nassau Hedron's <em>Siren</em> an unspoken complicity exists between the many incarnations of a female seductress and the malevolent male General; automatically fulfilling their roles – her love directs his homicides through ages of social unrest – an unexpected arrival offers readers the prospect of upheaval and conflict, but frustratingly delivers it off-page. Incarnation has further use, this time in <em>The Supplanter</em> by James Steimle, wherein a modest <em>Skeleton Key</em>-like tale presents a struggling family in need of shelter – cue the remote shack and spooky occupant. Equally slight is Rebecca S Pyne's tongue-in-cheek <em>Boneless</em>, in which a faithless wife gets her comeuppance via <em>a mobile lump of hellish phlegm</em>.<br /><br />More tongue-in-cheekery is provided by William R Eakin in <em>LOOB: Love Only Oily Bodies</em>. Here, a fluctuating, flitting intent exuberantly skips through a satire that entertains with a self-discovery prompted by the arrival to Hicksville of the substance-fuelled hedonism of Ibiza. Music as hedonism and, ultimately, solace, is in part explored in Larry Taylor's <em>Isle Of Beauty</em>, wherein earth finds itself at a loose end when faced with apocalypse. And <em>The White Knight</em> by Devon Code agreeably displays a touch of <em>The Book Of Illusions</em> as, in a bid to confer meaning on his life, a twenty-second century scholar nurtures an obsession with the role of chess as a motif in the film <em>Casablanca</em>.<br /><br />There are captivating reviews too, a striking cover by Jane Chen, and Bob Neilson interviews Raymond E Feist, author of <em>Magician</em> and <em>The Riftwar Saga</em>. All in all then, a rewarding-enough issue, with a depth fit for a delving.</span></span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">60 A4 pages for £3.95 / €5.95, available from <a href="http://www.albedo1.com/">www.albedo1.com/</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-38786513090861909112008-04-23T17:41:00.001+00:002008-04-23T17:44:44.880+00:00Fugger<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on April 23, 2008</em><br /><br />For the anonymous creator/s of Fugger <em>the bath of promise grows tepid</em>, but the surface scum this publication filters through comics, prose and parody-pieces provides a good-humoured misanthropy and the kind of philosophy of bemusement familiar to the non-conformist and the cynically depressed. Peopled with disillusioned characters out-of-step with society, struggling either to fit-in or to drop-out, the strips of <em>Fugger</em> are underdeveloped and offer little crafting know-how; however, afflicted flashes of potential are in evidence, the cartooning is functional-enough and a voice that engages the adult ear bolsters one's reading stamina. The ragged prose of <em>The League Of Super Bitter Scientists</em> is equally at odds: a high concept – <em>get God back for all the suffering in the world</em> – is awkwardly delivered and devoid of guile; but in funny satire <em>The Fugger Book Club</em> a lyrical prose style is aided by an un-structure which presents four random pages of a book written in Dublinese – to persuasive effect. Ultimately then, <em>Fugger's</em> glaring flaw is a lack of storytelling polish, but with a satisfying focus and disarming, off-beat appeal, it provides agreeably diverting entertainment.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">24 A4 pages, free. Email: </span><a href="mailto:fugtheworld@gmail.com"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">fugtheworld@gmail.com</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"> and/or download the PDF at </span><a href="http://osheamedia.com/comics.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">http://osheamedia.com/comics.html</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-48080904461973336032008-04-23T17:24:00.002+00:002008-04-23T17:28:51.855+00:00Slow Science Fictions #14: Hope Not Hape<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on April 23, 2008</em><br /><br />Revisited here is the 70s' Social and Political Reality of the DisUnited Kingdom, as authoritatively touched by the meticulously researched contra-history of Mike J Weller. Wog workers fight wog bosses; tactics learned in Northern Ireland are employed by police to subdue protesting shop stewards; a dark cloud of racial tension is ever-present. With no work, no shops, no cheap housing, and with energy-banks exhausted by an oil crisis, the UK has been reduced from an imperialist empire to a rat-infested Euro slum. Albion resembles Dis, and the Duke of Hell, Sir Michaeal Spearate, recognises an opportunity to breed a class of people who know little and care about even less.<br /><br />There's no hazy nostalgic glow to this 70s, its legacy the epoch of an apathetic and gullible society. But then, expectations are resentments under construction, and after a grand start as regular <em>Oz</em> magazine graphix artist and rep as England's answer to R Crumb, obscurity followed for Captain Stelling, one of the Weller characters in <em>Slow Science Fictions</em>. "Did I simply reach my creative peak at the age of twenty-five and finish?" asks Stelling. Weller continues to pick at his personal odyssey – and at the publishing world that abandoned him – trying to make order from the disorder that is his careering through creative life. It's a fascinating surrealist self-portrait embedded in fantastical elaborations.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-89573395970878242072008-04-08T17:52:00.004+00:002008-04-08T18:00:16.327+00:00Slow Science Fictions #13: Lucky For Some<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on April 8, 2008</em></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Like an equation consisting of complex narrative elements, the potted evolution presented in Slow Science Fictions #13 clarifies the intricate workings of the Wellerverse and thematically focuses the author's eccentric struggle for creative identity. Found here are fictions within a fiction, storytellers within a story, where writer and written sit face to face and the written becomes the writer, and where ambition and desire are irreconcilable for a writer thwarted by his own universe. <em>Get writing or get written</em> was the Shawshanked phrase introduced in Mike Weller's seminal work, <em>Space Opera</em>, but here again this sentiment is agreeably undercut with a sense of the author's stubborn fatalism as the first-person narrative voice wrestles with a personal odyssey driven by irrational forces and odd, obsessive desires, but with a niggling perception of success that is conditioned by yearned-for approval; or not, as the case most likely is – as ever, any attempt to fix Michael J Weller's prose series to convenient definitions is no more than a <em>reductio ad absurdum</em> of the work. What's certain is that it remains a joy for me to watch this mad series accrue.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-7207321569349710342008-03-15T18:50:00.002+00:002008-03-15T18:54:04.159+00:00Slow Science Fictions #12: G'wboe, Or The Woman-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on March 15, 2008</em></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><br /></div></span><br><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">A piece of esoteric tongue-in-cheekery provides this twelfth instalment of Michael J Weller's <em>Slow Science Fictions</em> series with a good humoured opening, but the resultant giggles are soon smothered in a sombre fug of nightmarish oddness as the unnatural success of author MY Jolly – the series' JK Rowling-like figure – is darkly investigated. The bizarre-o-meter reading goes off the scale when Jolly is seduced by the cunt-tinglingly mysterious Duke Valentine and exposed to the salacious Love Museum, where a deviant technology chillingly screens other people's dreams: cocks are taken in the mouth; a black girl rubs herself off with both hands as boys spurt semen in her hair; an old gash is moistened. The unearthly edginess and sinister quality further intensify as Weller pointedly puts Jolly through hell to realise her writing aspirations, and though there is some convolution-overload toward the end as story fabric flips and folds a la David Lynch, SSF #12 ultimately proves a captivating if insubstantial reading experience.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-38185198033427720962008-02-16T11:06:00.005+00:002008-02-18T18:19:52.238+00:00Mister Amperduke<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on Feb 16, 2008</em></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">An <i>epic story of revenge, redemption and Lego</i>, Mister Amperduke is the graphic novel from The Shiznit's Bob Byrne, which reintroduces the world first glimpsed in the pages of MBLEH!, and continues the cartoonist's penchant for crafting the kind of wordless narratives familiar to readers of his 2000AD work. However, with its 150 pages of story-without-words, which predominantly consists of a bludgeoning 16-panel grid per page, this tome at times offers a reading experience not dissimilar to holding one's tongue, and rather than further develop the adult themes and subtext briefly explored in MBLEH!'s original Amperduke six-pager, Byrne targets the AVP generation with standard-issue schlock-horror, albeit dressed curiously and crafted with unerring grasp of sequentialism.<br /><br />With Mr Amperduke hospitalised, a cruel grandchild bent on genocide surreptitiously introduces a monster to the miniature city of Amperduke's basement, a place inhabited by sentient creatures with Lego-men attire. The hardcore carnage of familiar genre territory follows, Amperville's Trumptonshire-like serenity replaced by much hi-octane action and violence as its citizens struggle for survival. For Byrne it's a return to the gratuitously unpleasant abuse of cute, bug-eyed cartoons with vulnerable, child-like characteristics, and despite delusional claims for greater substance in the book's foreword, the <em>human interest</em> aspect of the story is relegated to book-ends and fails to elevate a narrative hued with defective personality and caught in the gush of opened arteries. Yep, the kids'll love this to bits!</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">160 A5 pages for £11.95 / €14.95, available from clamnuts.com.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8501876878839794414.post-12718918057002499352008-02-10T19:39:00.000+00:002008-02-10T19:47:39.394+00:00Slow Science Fictions #11: Convenient Truth<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>Posted on February 10, 2008</em></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Addingcombe solicitor Sally Harper makes the case for the defence of Sadar Saddubin's killer, Frederick Burrell: it's an epistemological mystery, with intellectual derangement a consequence. Equally baffling to the authorities and, in particular, to Detective Inspector Jim Pannifer, is the whereabouts of Glenford Gates – eye-witness to the murder of Mayor Scourge, and chief suspect – despite the fact that Gates features regularly on EarthCo tv, securing his place via televised adventures as one of four Cosmic Crusaders!<br /><br />Meanwhile, death-dealer in Futures markets, Sir Michaeal Spearate, plans to use his lab to make a black candidate for the Democrats, and President Jack Flash is advised to face <em>an inconvenient truth</em> head on: EarthCo are the Fossil Fuel Lobby, but by claiming to reduce production of essential fuels to scarcity levels, commodity values for EarthCo shareholders will rise (private gain, public loss). Spearate will not be satisfied until the last tree has been logged down and the planet has melted into a fossilized, empty desert.<br /><br />Mike Weller continues to serve the reader well with his capacity to take the facts and manufacture from them an inventive narrative that corresponds with his world-view, and wherein the familiarity of the dystopia presented prompts a sense of urgency. Whether or not a particular economic system contributes to the destruction of the planet more significantly than another, one can't help but approve of Weller's demonising of capitalism and, in general, his portrayal of politics and religion as conduits of evil. Funny, disturbing stuff.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com