Category: Best of British

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The Phoenix Presents… Corpse Talk Season 2


By Adam Murphy (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-49-0

The educational power of comic strips has been long understood and acknowledged: if you can make the material memorably enjoyable, there is nothing that can’t be better taught with pictures. The obverse is also true: comics can make any topic or subject come alive… or at least – as here – outrageously undead…

The conceit in Adam Murphy’s wonderful Corpse Talk is that famous personages from the past are exhumed for a chatty, cheeky This Was Your Life talk-show interview that, in Reithian terms, simultaneously “elucidates, educates and entertains”. It also often grosses one out, which is no bad thing for either a kids’ comic or a learning experience…

Another splendid album release culled from the annals of The Phoenix (courtesy of those fine saviours of weekly comics at David Fickling Books) opens with some ‘Introductory Remarks’ from your scribbling, cartooning host macabre Adam Murphy before the creepy contents section ‘In the Guest Graveyard This Season’ runs down the disinterred interviewees on show this time…

Before the inspirational post-mortem autobiographies commence there’s also a splendidly informative archaeological burial-map entitled ‘Digging up the Bodies’ providing an effectively contextual visual timeline for the likes of saucy ‘Queen Victoria’ and foolish ‘Guy Fawkes’ to discuss their successes and failures before we learn the gory truth about ‘William the Conqueror’, which last is supplemented by a grotesque, ghastly glimpse of what happened at his shocking state funeral in double-page spread ‘William the Honk-eror’…

Heading further back in time – and perhaps into fiction rather than fact – comes an intimate investigation into the truth behind Greek poet ‘Homer’ and far more confirmable confabs with engineering phenomenon ‘Isambard Kingdom Brunel’ and infamous Russian ruler ‘Catherine the Great’ which comes with a fact feature on the plague of impostors who tried to unseat her in ‘Tsars in their Eyes!’

Game-changing artistic iconoclast ‘Henri Matisse’ shares the spotlight with true life inspiration for Robinson Crusoe ‘Alexander Selkirk’, after which a thorough expose of ‘Elizabeth I’ is rounded off with a ‘A Killer Look!’ at the vast array of clothing gimmicks, fashion accessories and make-up marvels she employed to stay at the height of her power, whilst at the other end of the spectrum fun-crushing ‘Oliver Cromwell’ stands proudly on his reputation for dour and dismal progress…

I for one will be forever grateful for learning for the first time ever (!) about ‘Maria Sibylla Merian’, a grossly misused scientific pioneer who founded the principles of entomology before being written out of history by male historians and scientists. Let this light-hearted examination be just the first of her many mentions please…

No suspicious suppression for the next star spectre as ‘William Shakespeare’ tells it like it was, accompanied by a short summary of his acting career in ‘Ghost Writer!’ after which the page-count temporarily doubles to encompass the American exploits of ‘Leif Erikson (and Family)’ – papa Erik the Red, mother Thjodhild, and siblings Thorvald, Thorsten & Freydis – before dropping back to normal for party favourite ‘Charles II’ who cockily details his fall, exile, return and rise to adored majesty.

The truth about ‘Pocahontas’ is followed by more telling Native American facts in ‘Sad Ending, Continued…’ whilst the glorious career of ‘Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’ serves to cheer us all up and the personalised revelations of ‘Sir Francis Drake’ clarify the very, very slim difference between privateer and pirate.

The astounding achievements of polymath and scientific everyman ‘Sir Christopher Wren’ is followed by a bold and brilliant depiction of ‘The Great Fire of London’ which allowed him to cement his place in history whilst the stellar career and cruelly embarrassing end of female aviator ‘Amy Johnson’ precedes a chilling conclusion when ‘Vlad the Impaler’ recounts his favourite things and how much pain they caused everyone else…

This second star-stuffed catalogue of comedy cadaver chronicles then concludes with a little game-segment as ‘The End of the Season’ sees all the guests going walkabout, requiring a ‘Rotting Remains Roll-Call’ for the reader to locate and return them to their places of rest

Smart, irreverent, funny and splendidly factual throughout, The Phoenix Presents… Corpse Talk Season 2 cleverly but unflinchingly deals with history’s more tendentious moments whilst personalising the great and the good for coming generations.

It is also a fabulously fun read no parent or kid could possibly resist. Don’t take my word for it though, just check with the spirits in question…
Text and illustrations © Adam Murphy 2015. All rights reserved.

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The Best of Roy of the Rovers: The 1970s


By Tom Tully & David Sque (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-024-6

There was a time when comics in Britain reflected the interests of a much larger proportion of the youthful population, and when adults kept their less-acceptable reading habits a closely guarded secret. Since it became practically cool to read graphic narrative, however, many of the nation’s greatest comic-strip heroes – sporting, as well as action-based or freaky and fantastical – have been making their way back in various collections and revivals.

Roy of the Rovers began on the front cover of Tiger, a brand new weekly anthology periodical published by Amalgamated Press (later IPC and Fleetway Publications). Launched on September 11th 1954, “The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly” was a cannily crafted companion to Lion, the company’s successful response to The Eagle (home of Dan Dare, but precious few sporting heroes).

From the first Tiger concentrated heavily on sports stars and themes, with issue #1 also offering The Speedster from Bleakmoor, Mascot of Bad Luck and Tales of Whitestoke School amongst others. In later years racing driver Skid Solo and wrestler Johnny Cougar joined the pantheon of traditional strips such as Billy’s Boots, Nipper, Hotshot Hamish and Martin’s Marvellous Mini, but for most of its 1,555-issue run Tiger was “the comic with Roy of the Rovers”.

Roy started as a humble apprentice at mighty Melchester Rovers, and after many years of winning all the glories the beautiful game could offer, settled down to live the dream: wife, kids, wealth, comfort and triumphant adulation every Saturday…

Created by Frank S. Pepper, who used the pseudonym Stewart Colwyn, and drawn by Joe Colquhoun (who kept the nom-de-plume when he eventually began scripting the series as well), the evergreen adventures of Roy Race were generally written for much of his early career by the comic’s Editor Derek Birnage (although credited to “Bobby Charlton” for a couple of years).

In 1975 time finally caught up with Roy and he became player-manager of the only club-team he ever played for, and the following year the footballing phenomenon got his own weekly comic, just in time for the 1976-77 season, premiering on September 25th and running for 855 consecutive issues, only ending with the 20th March 1993 edition.

This glossy oversized paperback excerpts the covers and lead strips from the eponymous Roy of the Rovers weekly spanning the first issue to 2nd June 1979, when the comic was regularly selling a million copies a week. The stories were always much more than simply “He shoots! He’s scores!!!” formulaic episodes: they’re closer to the sports-based TV dramas of later decades like Dream Team or Friday Night Lights (although of course that’s not about proper football…)

Weekly comics have a tremendous advantage when it comes to staying topical. From draught script to issue-on-sale can be as little as six weeks. This meant that with a judicious eye to the upcoming events diary, a strip can comfortably lock into big public occasions and even short-lived crazes.

This stellar selection re-presents material from a period when the game was changing radically and writer Tom Tully made full use of contemporary headlines and concerns to spice up the action. With reliable David Sque handling the full-colour artwork the serials here encompass burning issues of the era such as too much money, too little money, the burgeoning transfer market (“£60,000 for a striker!”) and even the Rovers’ first international purchase…

One word of warning: although the artist has endeavoured to keep most of the era’s fashion atrocities to a minimum, this is a book overflowing with the tonsorial travesties that typified the “Age of Mullets” so if you’re of a nervous disposition…

The soccer shenanigans start with all the teams in the League increasingly disturbed by a flashy supermarket owner’s offer to pay £30,000 to the first player in English football to score 50 goals in one season.

As the unity-shattering Goals Rush Challenge competition progresses Roy – himself a strong contender for a prize he does not want and will not accept if he wins – has to fend off dissent in the team, accusations of selfish greed from the fans and far worse from a crusading sports writer who thinks he’s selling out…

At the same time the close-knit squad was chasing an unbeaten-run record and forced to expand, wrecking the harmony of the team as new players with selfish modern attitudes muscled in and found that here they had to adapt to Roy’s way or the highway…

Along the way Penny Race quietly and dutifully had twins (so as not to disturb her husband’s soccer ruminations, I suppose) and as the team celebrated another stunningly successful year, Roy nipped over to the USA for the off-season to save a friend’s all-star soccer team from bankruptcy and found himself having to learn the glorified Rugby that Americans call “Football” before anyone would listen to him…

On his return he brought a few new-fangled ideas such as giant replay screens which came in very handy for the new season as the spectre of hooliganism at last reared its mindless head at Melchester, before the compendium of past glories concludes with the team looking for a sponsor for their new kit whilst Roy and the boys grudgingly become acquainted with abrasive Paco Diaz, the legendary Spanish soccer god forced upon them by the profits-mad Board of Directors…

As well as a Foreword from Frank Skinner, celebrity-studded photo-articles and pin-ups of the period, this edition includes numerous features by footy-mad comedy genius Eric Morecambe, games, puzzles, readers’ jokes in Famous Football Funnies and a mouth-watering selection of adverts of the time, offering everything from Dinky toys to Raleigh Bikes – a dedicated nostalgist’s perfect storm…

Old football comics are never going to be the toast of the medium’s Critical Glitterati, but these were astonishingly popular strips in their day, and produced for maximum entertainment value by highly skilled professionals. They still have the power to enthral and captivate far beyond the limits of nostalgia and fashion. If your footy-mad youngster isn’t reading enough, this might be the cunning tactic to catch him or her totally offside…
Roy of the Rovers © Egmont UK Ltd. 2009. All other material © its respective creators or copyright holders.

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The Phoenix Presents… Bunny vs. Monkey Book Two


By Jamie Smart (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-47-6

In January 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a weekly comics anthology for girls and boys which revelled in reviving the grand old days of British picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

Each issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material: a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. Since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the totally engaged kids and parents who read it…

Inevitably the publishers have branched out into a wonderful line of superbly engaging graphic novel compilations, the latest of which is a second engagement in the dread conflict gripping a once-chummy woodland waif and interloping, grandeur-obsessive simian…

Concocted with gleefully gentle mania by Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!), Bunny vs. Monkey has been a fixture in The Phoenix from the first issue: a madcap duel of animal arch-enemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia which is a more-or-less ordinary English Wood.

With precious little unnecessary build-up The Phoenix Presents… Bunny vs. Monkey volume 2 continues where its predecessor left off, detailing the ongoing war of wits and wonder-weapons spread over a year in the country. The obnoxious anthropoid intruder was originally the subject of a disastrous space shot. Having crash-landed in Crinkle Woods – a scant few miles from his lift-off site – he now believes himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, whereas sensible, genteel, contemplative Bunny considers the idiot ape a obnoxious, noise-loving, chaos-creating troublemaker…

With battle reports spanning July to December hostilities recommence as Monkey and his devious ally Skunky (a brilliant inventor with a bombastic line in animal-inspired atrocity weapons and a secret agenda of his own) fail to make proper use of ‘The Wish Cannon!’ The reality-warping gun could change the world but also makes really good cakes…

A much better terror-tool is colossally ravening robot ‘Octo-blivion!’ which ruins Bunny’s boating afternoon, but sadly the tentacled doom-toy becomes an irresistible object of amorous intent for irrepressible cyber crocodile Metal Steve before it can complete its nefarious machinations…

A hot day inspires Monkey to demand bonkers boffin Skunky whip up some volcanoes but their ‘Journey to the Centre of the Eurg-th!’ only uncovers chilly regions and crazily cool creatures before the scene shifts to those not-so-smart but astonishingly innocent bystanders Pig and Weenie Squirrel.

When their afternoon playing with crayons results in a lovely drawing of a crown, soon everybody is bowing down and obeying ‘King Pig’ after which surly radical environmentalist and possessor of a big, bushy tail and French accent ‘Fantastique Le Fox!’ finds time to share his incredible origin stories with the dumbfounded woodland denizens. Yes that’s right: stories, Plural…

Hyperkinetic carnage is the order of the day when a cute little dickens turns up in spiffy running-toy ‘Hamsterball 3000!’, providing Skunky with the perfect power source for his latest devastating mechanical marauder: the horrendous Hamster Mobile…

Puns, peril and a stinging hidden moral inform proceedings when all the animals celebrate ‘Bee-Day!’ whilst a happily brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman turns into a tormented super-genius when he accidentally falls under the influence of Skunky’s Smarty Helmet in ‘Action Beever2‘. Happily for everyone, before it wears off the increased cognition – in conjunction with a handy lemon puff – demolish an unleashed Doomsday Device which might just have ended everything…

From September onwards the stories drop to two pages a pop and ‘Gone with the Wind!’ finds Pig and Weenie making trouble with their windsurfing cart after which ‘I, Robot Crocodile!’ sees Metal Steve on a destructive rampage until Bunny and Monkey team up to show the steel berserker the simple joys of dance…

‘There’s a Moose Loose!’ has Skunky back on bad form and trying to fool his enemies with a vast Trojan Elk before Monkey spoils everyone’s September by going big after being introduced to a sweet childhood game in ‘Conkers Bonkers!’ and – with the Beaver bedridden – the perfidious pair of animal evildoers employ the rather dim ‘Action Pig!’ to test pilot their devilish Dragonfly 5000. Such a bad idea…

Tidy-minded Bunny has no hope of sweeping up all autumn’s golden detritus in ‘Leaf it Alone!’ once friends and enemies start helping and an extended sub-plot opens in ‘Duck Race!’ as impetuous Monkey pries into Skunky’s most deadly and diabolical secret behind a locked door. In a frantic attempt to deflect attention, the smelly scientist then unleashes the colossal Lord Quack-Quack!

The saga sequels in a surprisingly downbeat follow-up as Bunny, Pig and Weenie dare the fiend’s lair to check out ‘Door B’ before scheduled insanity resumes as ‘Hypno-Monkey!’ finds the hirsute horror misusing a memory ray and briefly assuming godlike power…

Who doesn’t like igniting marshmallows and telling scary stories around a campfire? Not Bunny, Pig and Weenie after hearing the tale of ‘Monster Pants!’ after which the local idiots decide to join Monkey’s gang in ‘Bad Influence!’

The monkey is no role model – except perhaps for painful ineptitude – as seen in ‘Lost in the Snow!’ but the winter fun expands to encompass everyone when Skunky’s ‘Chemical X!’ unleashes a cold tidal wave of blancmange leading to seasonal silliness as ‘The Small Matter of the End of the World!’ reveals time-travelling madness as the true story of the demise of the Doomsday Device is finally exposed in an extra-length yarn.

Everything changes when ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Monkey!’ sees peace and goodwill grip the woods – or perhaps it’s just that the simian seditionist has gone missing? When the innocent inhabitants go looking for Monkey they find him far beyond the forest associating with strange two-legged beings, singing carols and swiping mince pies, but nobody realises just how dangerous the ‘Hyooomanz!’ can be as the year ends with plans found proclaiming the demolition of Crinkle Wood and the coming of a new motorway…

To Be Continued…

Endlessly inventive, sublimely funny and outrageously addictive, Bunny vs. Monkey is the kind of comic parents beg kids to read to them. Don’t miss out on the next big thing.
Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2015. All rights reserved.

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Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – the graphic novel


Adapted by Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy (Waverley Books)
ISBN: 978-1-902407-44-9

As part of the celebrations for Edinburgh’s selection in 2004 as the first UNESCO City of Literature, Scottish comics veterans Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy were invited to convert a brace of classic tales by Robert Louis Stevenson to publishing’s hottest medium…

The second appeared in 2008 with a bare minimum of abridgement or adulteration by Grant and galvanically brought to life through the stunning art of the inimitable Kennedy with colours and letters provided by Jamie Grant: all seamlessly collaborating to perfectly picture one of the most famous and groundbreaking tales of terror in the annals of storytelling.

The timeless tale opens as lawyer Mr. Utterson becomes intrigued by the ‘Story of the Door’ as related by walking companion Richard Enfield. That worthy describes how, after remonstrating with a bestial, shrivelled homunculus of a man who was thrashing a street child, he discovered a possible although unlikely and unwelcome connection to a mutual friend of superlative honour and worthiness.

However what connection a depraved creature such as Edward Hyde might have with the benevolent and brilliant Dr. Henry Jekyll was beyond either man’s conception. Blackmail perhaps…?

The multi-layered and convoluted chain of events unfolds at a beguiling pace as the pair begin a systematic ‘Search for Mr. Hyde’, even consulting the scientist’s great mentor Dr. Lanyon before unexpectedly encountering the despicable decadent himself, sneaking into Jekyll’s home through the means of his own key.

Eventually Utterson is compelled to ask the suspected extortion victim himself but ‘Dr. Jekyll was Quite at Ease’ and even extracted a promised that the lawyer would ensure that Hyde got his legal due should untoward circumstances warrant…

Events overtake everyone when details of ‘The Carew Murder Case’ become a public sensation and Hyde is hunted for killing a prominent politician in fit of unprovoked fury. Long-shrouded secrets begin to leak out after the ‘Incident of the Letter’ as Jekyll assures his distraught and apprehensive friends that Hyde will be seen no more, leaving Utterson to conclude that Henry is completely under the thumb of the desperate fugitive…

‘The Remarkable Incident of Dr. Lanyon’ precipitates further speculation as the failing sage gives the inquisitors a letter to be opened upon his (imminent) demise, prompting Enfield and Utterson to reluctant action and intervention on ‘The Last Night’ which reveals the shocking truth of the affair…

With the tragedy complete all that remains is to discover the reasons and causes which are provided by the aforementioned letter containing ‘Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case’…

Chances are high that nobody reading this is unaware of the general events of this much retold tale but the moody, evocative, dynamic and suspenseful reiteration here is a sheer pictorial triumph which adds freshness to familiarity and emerges as not simply a distillation, adjunct or accommodation but actually works as well in comics terms as the original literary ones.
Adapted text © 2008 Alan Grant. Illustrations © 2008 Cam Kennedy. All rights reserved.

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Modesty Blaise: The Killing Distance


By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-712-0

Modesty Blaise and her lethally adept, compulsively platonic partner Willie Garvin gained fearsome reputations as top-flight super-criminals before retiring young, rich and healthy. With their honour intact and their hands relatively clean, they cut themselves off completely from a career where they made all the money they would ever need and far too many enemies – a situation exacerbated by their heartfelt conviction that killing was only ever to be used as a last resort.

When devious British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant sought them out they were slowly dying of boredom in England. The wily old bird offered them a chance to have fun, get back into harness and do a bit of good in the world. They jumped at his offer and have been cleaning up the world in their own unique way ever since …

From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (see Modesty Blaise: the Gabriel Set-Up) the dynamic duo went on to crush the world’s vilest villains and most macabre monsters in a perpetual storm of tense suspense and inspirational action for nearly forty years…

The inseparable associates first appeared in The Evening Standard on May 13th 1963 and over the decades went on to star in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, all in three panels a day.

Creators Peter O’Donnell & Jim Holdaway (who had previously collaborated on Romeo Brown) produced a timeless treasure trove of brilliant graphic escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero (and occasionally John Burns, Neville Colvin and Pat Wright) assumed the art reins, taking the partners-in-peril to even greater heights.

The series has been syndicated world-wide and Modesty has also starred in 13 prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, a radio play, an American graphic novel and nearly one hundred comic strip adventures until the strip’s conclusion in 2001.

The tales are a broad blend of hip adventuring lifestyle and cool capers combining espionage, crime, intrigue and even – now and again – plausibly intriguing sci fi and supernaturally tinged horror genre fare, with ever-competent Modesty and Willie canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallibly human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wronged…

Reproduced in stark and stunning black & white – and quite right too – Titan Books’ superb and scrupulous serial re-presentations of the ultimate strip trouble-shooters resume here with O’Donnell & Romero offering another chilling trio of tales spanning November 1992 to February 1994, each prefaced with informative prose introductions from devotee, publisher, strip historian and Mathematics Professor Rick Norwood.

The rollicking romps begin with non-stop thrill-ride ‘Guido the Jinx’ (originally seen in The Evening Standard from February 10th to July 5th 1994) as Blaise and Garvin take a well-deserved vacation tracing the route of the historical Silk Road, only to have their peace and contemplation disrupted by pompous yet lovable old self-promoter Guido Biganzoli.

The legend in his own mind is now working as promoter for a movie being shot in the lonely wastes but the production has hit a snag: the male and female stuntmen are unable to work on the big-money shot…

Against their better judgement Modesty and Willie tackle the terrible “waterfall drop” but naturally it goes terribly wrong and they are carried away and deposited under a mountain…

Trouble always finds the dynamic duo and whilst extricating themselves from their watery tomb they discover Soviet operative and former associate Colonel Greb gravely wounded and holed up in a cave.

As they minister to him a horrific story unfolds: the old soldier was guarding a secret installation warehousing uranium when a gang of mercenaries swooped in and wiped out the garrison. Ruthless bandit Kung-Li plans to fly out the priceless contraband and sell it to who knows how many terrorist groups, or even make himself a nuclear power…

Resolved to stop the merciless gang with nothing more than hand-made stone-age weapons, Modesty and Willie’s arsenal of destruction gets an unexpected and unlikely boost when bad penny Guido suddenly turns up once again…

After that phenomenal and bloody exploit the canny couple are called upon to save the life of Sir Gerald Tarrant from one of the world’s richest and most reclusive men in ‘The Killing Distance’ (July 6th – November 30th 1994) which begins as Charles B. Delaney starts issuing orders from his impregnable fortress in the Atlas Mountains. Once upon a time he was KGB chief Ivan Brodsky but due to Tarrant’s undercover endeavours at the height of the Cold War lost everything and turned CIA informant.

Sadly the “Red Admiral” used Uncle Sam’s bottomless pockets to kickstart a huge private fortune and is now ready to use it all to kill the man who beat him in the “Great Game”…

When the first assassination attempt fails, Willie and Modesty rush to Tarrant’s hospital bedside and fill in the gaps of Tarrant’s tale with details from their own dealings with Delaney during the period when they seamlessly ran their crime-combine The Network.

Confronted with the grim facts, the old warhorse all but gives up the ghost, forbidding his friends to further endanger themselves, but as usual he has underestimated the depth of feeling and sense of gratitude they feel for him.

Immediately Modesty begins taking apart Delaney’s organisation and imperiously foiling his follow-up attempts on Sir Gerald and herself. Before long the frustrated egomaniac is pushed into making a colossal mistake, issuing a direct challenge to the formidable female.

He will end his attempts on the British agent’s life if she can – within thirty days – break into his unassailable citadel and get within arm’s length of him…

What happens when Willie and Modesty cunningly circumvent all his guards, resources and traps and she gets within the disputed “killing distance” is something the outraged oligarch could never have imagined…

The catalogue of compelling capers concludes with ‘The Aristo’ (December 1st 1994 to May 3rd 1995) wherein the peril-pursuing partners visit old friends in Hong Kong and barely survive an assassination attempt by old enemy Wu Smith…

Adrift in a raft on the South China Sea they are picked up by freighter captain Miguel Camacho, currently transporting a cargo of electronics and his beloved, heavily pregnant wife Joaquina to Singapore.

Welcomed and cosseted, Modesty and Willie can’t help but worry when they hear of a modern-day pirate – a supposed British lord in his heavily armed vessel The Etonian – currently terrorising shipping in the area. After all, trouble has a tendency to find them wherever they end up…

Especially appalling are the stories of what The Aristo does with any women he takes from his nautical conquests, so when the brigand inevitably surfaces Willie and Modesty enact the most desperate gamble of their long and vivid careers with Jo and her imminent unborn the invaluable bait.

Moreover the subsequent punishments the crusading couple inflict on the vile sea-reavers are brutal and most assuredly final…

These are incomparable capers crafted by brilliant creators at the peak of their powers; revelling in the sheer perfection of an iconic creation. Unforgettable excitement-packed escapades packed with sleek sex appeal, dry wit, terrific tension and explosive action, the stories grow more appealing with every rereading and never fail to deliver maximum impact and total enjoyment.

Modesty Blaise © 2014 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.

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Ordinary


By Rob Williams & D’Israeli (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-009-2

Admit it. We’ve all pondered – and both comics and movies have explored in various tones and styles – a particularly thorny contemporary question: what happens when everybody wakes up with superpowers?

Collecting a rather witty riff on that quandary, this wickedly charming little fable from Rob Williams & Matt “D’Israeli” Brooker – first seen in Judge Dredd Megazine #340-345 at the end of 2013, then as a Titan Comics miniseries and now gathered into one scintillating colour hardback tome – takes the big question a step further by positing that on that day of astounding ascension everybody becomes a modern Prometheus but you…

After an effusive Introduction from Warren Ellis the strange tale of off-the-books plumber and inept gambler Michael Fisher begins one typical morning as he wakes up in Queens, NYC. He’s late for another call-out and stumbling almost unthinkingly straight into a great big bunch of complete insanity.

Narrowly escaping a thorough thumping from the Samoans he owes cash to, the harried divorcee arrives at his latest job just in time to see the elderly client rapidly de-age to squelchy nothingness and short-tempered boss Brian turn into a talking bear.

The metamorphic madness is everywhere. Giants, flaming men and snotty dragons are popping up every second but all Michael can think of is calling his ex Sarah to see if their son Josh is okay.

As the freaked-out military rapidly fail to control the situation, the truth slowly dawns. Not just New Yorkers but all of humanity have, in the space of an instant, become a race of shapeshifters, superhumans and worse.

Everyone, apparently, except Michael…

As madness and panic grip the world Mike naturally heads for a bar and after Brian joins him they watch the President’s emergency news conference. It would have gone much better if someone had been able to tell PotUS that his new power was broadcasting his actual thoughts in little cartoon thought balloons above his head…

When TV news reveals his son Josh’s school is on fire Brian urges Michael to get across the river and find his boy but the now-empowered Samoans almost catch him and it takes low cunning, a Midas touch and a cosmically aware cabbie to save the day…

As chaos and carnage grip the nation, deep in the Pentagon the President is visibly (to all and sundry) losing it as his fundamentalist Vice-President stridently argues that the power proliferation is a Heaven-sent blessing intended to help the Land of the Free smite all the world’s unbelievers.

Scottish Genomics Professor and resident scientific expert Dr. Tara McDonald has a more reasoned argument. The situation is a literal plague and uncontrolled super-abilities will destroy mankind unless they find a cure quickly. Already America’s enemies are gathering and nations all over Earth are marshalling their burgeoning meta-resources to settle age-old scores and eradicate contemporary rivals.

However before McDonald can even postulate a remedy they have to find someone who is immune to the catastrophic contagion…

Against incredible odds – which comprise both transformees and the increasingly hard-pressed, savagely dictatorial remnants of the civil authorities – and all his normal instincts Michael has made his way into Manhattan even as in Washington McDonald’s best efforts have yielded pitiful results.

Things really go south after a nuke detonates in Afghanistan and the Veep seizes command. The rabid Christian doesn’t want a cure and when the only man in existence without uncanny abilities becomes a minor media celebrity after rescuing his son from a New York school, the acting Commander-in-Chief’s zealots are only one of a number of ruthless factions instantly targeting the unfortunate Mr. Fisher…

Now it’s a race against time as deadly opponents from warring and friendly nations alike contend to control the unluckiest, most useless man in the world with the fate of humanity in the balance. Fate and science however have teamed up to deliver a big surprise for everybody…

Also included in this thought-provoking package is a gallery of guest pinups from Edmund Bagwell, Ben Oliver, Laurence Campbell, Brian Ching & Michael Atiyeh, Brendan McCarthy, Neil Googe, Dom Reardon, Henry Flint, Alison Sampson & Ruth Redmond, James Harren, Ale Aragon and Mark Buckingham & D’Israeli, plus a little learned discourse – stuffed with the illustrator’s behind-the-scenes sketches and working drawings – on ‘Ordinary Science’ from Evolutionary Biologist and comics fan JV Chamary (PhD)…

Devilishly clever, cruelly passionate, potently humane and devastatingly funny, this sharp treatise on the true meaning of power politics offers a uniquely British spin on the eternal fantastic flight of idle fantasy and will delight all lovers of he genre with a world-weary eye to the way life really works…
Ordinary is ™ and © 2014 Rob Williams and Matt Brooker. All rights reserved.

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Troy Trailblazer and the Horde Queen


By Robert Deas (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-46-9

In January 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a traditional anthology comics weekly aimed at girls and boys between 6 and 12 which revelled in reviving the good old days of British picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

Each issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. In the years since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the totally engaged kids and parents who read it…

The magazine inevitably led to a line of superbly engaging graphic novel compilations, the latest of which is a rollicking space opera romp that will delight readers with a profound sense of fun and unchecked imaginations.

From that fabulous first year and created by Robert Deas (November, Manga Shakespeare: Macbeth, Pride & Prejudice, Medikidz) comes impetuous stellar sentinel Troy Trailblazer – who originally appeared in The Phoenix #10, 18 and 27-32 – in a riotous complete adventure which mixes light-hearted sidereal shenanigans with just a touch of dark and dreadful doom…

Thanks to the double-page pin-up ‘Meet Team Troy’ you’ll quickly become familiar with the valiant lad, his advanced tactical droid Blip, animalistic alien associate Barrus and super-cool former bounty hunter Jess Jetrider.

Moreover the schematics for ‘The Pathfinder’ will provide all you need to know about the freelance heroes’ astounding starship, so there’s no need to pause before racing into ‘Chapter 1: Mistakes of the Past’ which finds the questing quartet bombastically retrieving the Infinity Jewel with a maximum of collateral damage from the Royal Palace on planet Thagus…

Congratulating themselves on a job well done the astral adventurers celebrate by setting course for the sunny beaches on Solus, but before too long battle-hardened Jessica is roused from hyper-sleep by a disturbing dream and acknowledges a distress call from ice-world Siberas…

On awakening, the baffled lads are far from happy to be wading across glaciers in beachwear and when the arctic conditions wreck the Pathfinder’s engines they lose all sense of proportion. It’s quickly regained, however, when a gigantic snow-beast starts chasing them and hurt feelings turn to pure terror when a clutch of horrific bug-like parasites easily bring the shaggy carnivore down…

Pushing on rapidly through the snows the cosmic champions soon find the mining colony which issued the distress call, only to discover the workers possessed by more of the creepy bugs. Most disturbing is the fact that Jess is seemingly hearing voices and acting weirdly distracted…

Things come to a grisly head when they recover a holo-message from security chief Alan Ripley which describes how deep excavations disinterred a monstrous hive-creature from an entombed starship. His warning is cut off mid-sentence and almost instantly our heroes are running for their lives from the bug-wearing, mind-locked miners who tirelessly hunt their would-be rescuers…

Somewhere amidst all the chaos Jess gets separated from her companions and, apparently answering a mental siren call, wanders off into the deepest part of the pit…

There’s a brief tension-break for ‘Blip’s Autopsy Report’ – wherein the robotic science wizard dissects and provides dissertation on the diabolical parasites – before the shocking suspense resumes with the Pathfinder crew following Jess but ultimately failing to stop her being taken over by the Horde Queen and becoming the malevolent monster’s perfect weapon of complete conquest…

After a frantic panic and race to escape the story resumes fifteen years later in ‘Chapter 2: The Fate of the Future’…

Over that dark period the Horde Queen’s spawn have erupted into space and devastated planet after planet. On Troy’s homeworld of Nova 2, the older, wiser and battle-weary Trailblazer is now leader of the hard-pressed Horde Resistance, fighting a losing battle against the ghastly melding of his best friend and the parasite-mother.

The determined freedom-fighters have lost every battle but thanks to brilliant Blip have devised a last chance solution which might win the war. Unfortunately, just as they activate the cobbled-together time-machine and head back to Siberas to stop Jess ever falling under the Queen’s spell, the triumphant horror bursts in and follows Troy and Barrus back to the beginning…

What happens next is both astoundingly heroic and bitterly tragic and reveals what happy endings actually cost.

Fast-paced, fun and not afraid to be really scary when it counts, this is a superb interstellar saga, excitingly told in a broadly manga manner which will delight space freaks and thrill seekers of all ages.

Text and illustrations © Robert Deas 2015. All rights reserved.

Troy Trailblazer and the Horde Queen will be released on June 4th 2015 and is available for pre-order now.

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Neroy Sphinx: Back in the Game


By Daniel Whiston, Johnny McMonagle, James Kircough, Dave Thomson & Bolt-01 (FutureQuake Press)
ISBN: 978-0-9931849-0-1

If you grew up British in the last half century and read home-produced adventure comics you were primarily consuming either war or science fiction tales – and preferably both.

2000AD launched in February 1977 and quickly reshaped the minds of a generation of readers. It has been doing so ever since, consequently affecting and inspiring hundreds of creators…

Very much in the mould of the anarchic, subversive and wickedly cynical weekly comes this superb collection of tales starring a devious and irredeemably self-serving chancer with the fate of humanity unhappily piled on his shifty, unwilling and mostly uncaring shoulders.

Neroy Sphinx first began intermittently appearing in Indie comics sensation FutureQuake – specifically between issues #4-20, from 2005 to 2012 – and his quixotic escapades have now been fully remastered and gathered in this bombastic black-&-white paperback book, supplemented with two new tales.

Any further background you might require is eagerly included in ‘Who is Neroy Sphinx? – Foreword by James Lovegrove’…

Written throughout by Daniel Whiston, a peek into the legendary wrong-un’s murky history is first provided by ‘Blast from the Past: Prologue’, illustrated by Dave Thomson and set in the final days of EarthFed when sleazy politico and trade-whore Neroy saw most of his Ponzi-scheme style deals with alien races coming adrift all at once.

He didn’t care. He was using government resources to sift space for priceless Pre-Collapse artefacts and relics. A fortune could be made with the smallest shard of 10,000-year-old tech and he’s been stockpiling them for years…

However when über-psionic Clarence Griffin located a high-potential prospect, Sphinx, with assistants Anubis and Bast, discovered an asteroid-sized armaments cache of the Ancients and allies quickly became enemies. Sphinx was the only one to return, escorting a lethal and lovely autonomous weapons-system and concealing a deadly secret…

From FutureQuake #4, ‘One Last Job’ (art by Johnny McMonagle with grey-tones by Thomson) opens ten years later with Neroy now a scuzzy conman and partial amnesiac, fallen foul of elderly, astoundingly vicious mobster Mr. Dubblz. The wizened felon wants Sphinx to shepherd an art-heist but hasn’t reckoned on his cat’s-paw fooling not just the cops but also his employer…

Free and finally off-planet, ‘The Job From Hell’ (James Kircough/Thomson) finds the aging grifter on Proxima and slowly recovering memories. Unfortunately the first thing he remembers is that he removed certain recollections himself, in an effort to excise something too horrible to deal with.

In a certain place a decade ago he and Griff had accidentally unlocked a gate which had kept out voracious things from beyond human space for ten millennia. Griffin had done something to slow them down but with the door open they would certainly return one day soon… and now Sphinx again knows they’re coming…

An aimless wanderer, the mountebank resurfaces on a feudal backwater and becomes a pawn in a royal power-grab on ‘The De’Splurge Job’ (McMonagle/Thomson) before getting stuck as an indentured labourer on a privately-owned planet where his native cunning soon exploits the exploiters in ‘Fall to Rise’ (Kircough/Thomson)…

Glimmers of a long-term plan of counterattack can be discerned but things get decidedly hinky after Sphinx’s libidinous nature drags him into a transgender trap and another scammer’s scheme to steal a precious treasure in ‘What You See Ain’t What You Get’ (McMonagle/Thomson), after which more suppressed memories are revealed in ‘Ice Woman’ (Kircough/Thomson) as he is reunited with Fenris, the living weapon he once resurrected.

The meeting is brief and not amicable…

With human space gradually being infested by alien intruders ‘Cassiopian Queen’ (Kircough/Thomson) sees the Machiavellian miscreant captured by the sorry remnants of EarthFed security, only to turn the tables on both cops and the crazy space pirates challenging them for mastery of the void with exactly the kind of illicit tech everyone is chasing him for…

A valued old associate Neroy doesn’t remember fortuitously returns in ‘Enter the Griffin’ (Kircough/Thomson) when Sphinx is infected with a nano-virus to make him a much more motivated thief. Sadly for the gang boss with the antidote, the fabulous fraudster’s former friends haven’t forgotten him…

By now aware of the alien hell that’s coming, the getaway genius finds himself in a most unpleasant Institution beside humanity’s foremost expert on Galactic History, but as he now has a plan to deal with the incipient incursion all Neroy needs is a little more background information before ‘Breakin’ Outta the Bughouse’ (Dave Thomson)…

The final piece of the puzzle means heading back to poor, shattered Earth and a reunion with Griff and Fenris, but sadly ‘Old Familiar Places’ (Thomson) often house bad memories too and Mr. Dubblz has exceptional recall but no mercy…

Everything ends with a tantalising taste of things (hopefully) to come as last survivor Ensign Eudora Carver barely escapes her final skirmish with alien horrors thanks to an infuriating holo-message and bequest from the legendary Neroy Sphinx himself in the Thomson limned ‘Blast from the Past: Epilogue’…

To Be Continued…

But Wait, There’s More…

Rounding off the extraterrestrial experience, ‘Extras’ offers a pulchritudinous pin-up of ‘Princess Alloria’ by McMonagle, a handy ‘Timeline of the EarthFed Universe’ and ‘Script Notes & Sketches’ by Daniel Whiston & McMonagle, plus Dave Thomson’s ‘FutureQuake #20 Cover’ of the diabolical Mr. Dubblz.

Ambitious, gloriously engaging and exceedingly well-executed; this is contemporary space-opera with a broad scope and a deft touch that will delight lovers of edgy but light-hearted fantastic fiction.
© 2014 Daniel Whiston. All rights reserved.

Neroy Sphinx – Back in the Game is a mere £5.00 (plus P&P) and the latest issue of FutureQuake and companion mag Zarjaz are also available at the shop on their website.

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Johnny Nemo


By Brett Ewins, Peter Milligan and friends (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-070-2

In the mid 1980s a creative explosion in British comics saw many groundbreaking new titles and a darkly cynical cultural flowering and renaissance in established titles. Many emergent writers and artists achieved prominence and a goodly few were promptly poached by America, forming what was called a “British Invasion”.

One team that crossed the pond in 1985 was Pete Milligan & Brett Ewins – already firm favourites with 2000AD readers – and for Eclipse Comics they created a darkly nihilistic post-punk private eye in alternative anthology Strange Days.

A year later the stylishly murderous maniac returned in Johnny Nemo Magazine for further far-future mayhem. He then dropped out of sight until Ewins co-opted the P.I.’s caseload and added some original exploits for the first year of indie British start-up Deadline Magazine – a seminal publishing landmark combining comics, pop culture, style, music and fashion he had created with fellow artist Steve Dillon.

Gloriously free of specious character development, Johnny Nemo remained who he always was: a murderous, devious, occasionally self-loathing London lad making a living from his only gifts.

He’s an over-sexed, avaricious, nosy, introverted, philosophical, existentialist thug. He’s also a problem-solver for hire and he lives in the future, which is not so different from now…

Following a fondly reminiscent ‘Introduction by Peter Milligan’ and ‘You’re Bastards. All of You. You’re All Bastards.’ – a heartfelt missive from the moody merc himself as seen in the 2002 collection Johnny Nemo: Existentialist Hitman of the Future – this sturdily resplendent hardcover compilation commences with ‘The Good, the Bad and the Nemo’ wherein the toughest ‘tec in 2991’s New London town is commissioned to investigate Father Burgess’ Orphanage.

The old institution – which once had the displeasure of young Johnny’s company after his parents’ last nervous breakdowns – is run by nuns and they’ve started exploding for no good reason. A seasoned riddle-solver, Johnny knows just who to smack around and soon discovers the incredible reason for the campaign of carnage before smoking out the habitual assassin…

Having made a lot of enemies, Nemo is always prepared for assassination attempts but nothing like the TeleInfo mind-mine which implants thousands of years of rational meanderings and philosophical cant in his usually indecision-free bonce. The measures taken to free-up his brain long enough to terminate his insidious attacker in ‘Cogito, Ergo Buggered’ are both shocking and shockingly effective…

Punishing puns and hyper-absurdism inform the strange case of ‘The White Quiffs of Dover’ after Nemo is hired to ferry a box containing the left testicle of Bing Crosby to an occultist. The potent eldritch artefact is also highly prized by a cult of albino Teddy Boys who will stop at nothing to obtain the treasured totem and unleash the uncanny crooner’s diabolical transmutative force.

However neither they nor the satanic singer pent inside the box have reckoned on Johnny’s innate ability to fight dirty…

Chronologically adrift, the 3 chapters of ‘The Orb of Harmony’ were first seen in the aforementioned Strange Days (from November 1984 to April 1985) and introduced Nemo and his robot secretary/sex-toy/therapist Kalina in a time-twisting tale which saw the enquiry agent hired by the government to recover an alien artefact before its loss sparked an interplanetary incident and intergalactic war.

It wasn’t hard to find the culprits in the jingoistically xenophobic League of Adam, but as they had already disposed of the Orb, the solution and return to status quo (involving the conquest of Earth, an invasion by Sirian slugmen and vast amounts of bloody violence) took a lot of planning and quite a bit of time…

From 1988 ‘The Immaculate Misconception’ is still a marvellously outrageous and controversial yarn as notoriously shag-happy Nemo is hired to protect the virginity of haughty alien hottie Princess Dania.

The demure deb is getting married in the morning and needs to be virgo intacta – something she is determined to avoid at all costs. Set on one last party she is nonetheless stuck with Johnny but calmly convinced that her looks and otherworldly pheromone arsenal will result in some serious, wedding-ending deflowering: if not from Nemo then one of his friends or enemies…

Of course Princess Da has neglected to mention the inescapable biological consequences of a night of illicit bliss with her…

Steve Dillon illustrated the clever case of murder-for-hire which saw media mogul Merdock Ridley contract Johnny to end his mega-rich life. Instantly suspicious, the lethally likely lad did some checking and discovered the job was a ploy on the gazillionaire’s part to cheat his trophy wife Fatima.

However since the trick involved freezing the assets along with the stiff (both to be revived at some time in the future) Nemo and ‘Lady Lucre’ put their heads – and sundry other body parts – together and came up with another option…

Whilst most of this book is in stark black-&-white, the three tales from Johnny Nemo Magazine are re-presented in strident full colour and ‘New London Pride’ (issue #3, February 1986 by Milligan, Ewins & Dillon) sees the hardboiled gumshoe troubled by uncharacteristic bad dreams. To gain a firm grip on himself he decides to go walkabout in the very dangerous gutters of miles-high New London City and vent some spleen against the vile and arrogant skinheads who infest the depths…

‘The Spice of Death’ – an all-Ewins art-fest – was a 2-part tale from Johnny Nemo Magazine #1 and 2 (September and November 1985) which detailed an old-fashioned tale of revenge as grieving Liza Creeture hired the man and his guns to find the killers of her brother.

The trail led to a bunch of rich-kids who hunted the poor for sport, desert metropolis Cairo and a gang of death-junkies who got high on extracted psychic auras of people who died in agony…

As the case proceeded and the bodies piled up, even Nemo began to smell a rat and suspect a cunning trap was in play…

Moving back into monochrome ‘The Hand of God’ then sees the independent trader blackmailed by bent coppers Flask and Stuff into taking out the returned messiah Jesus Christ, leading to the strangest confrontation in future history. However the Son of God is a wily sod and has a trick or two up his sleeve…

This turbulent, irreverent tome terminates with a stunning jam session as ‘New Tales of New London’ offers strip sessions by Rufus Dayglo, Ewins, Jock and Ashley Wood illustrating a sordid shift as Johnny – deflated by recent election results – indulges in introspection and tries out a few alternate personalities in ‘The Make Over’.

Still and all, whether a frou-frou interior designer, a sports hooligan, a laid-back loafer or a depressed down-and out, Johnny Nemo is still a man you don’t want to tick off…

Raucous, vulgar, excessively violent, politically incorrect and powerfully socially conscious, this superbly entertaining catalogue of chronal contretemps and spatial sorties is as potent and powerful as ever and today’s generation of toadies and Brit-fops should make certain they read, absorb and react accordingly…
Johnny Nemo is ™ and © 2014 Peter Milligan & Brett Ewins. All rights reserved.

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Solid State Tank Girl


By Alan Martin & Warwick Johnson-Cadwell (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-003-0

Comics have grown up since I was a kid. On one hand they’ve bloomed, adopting and encompassing serious attitudes whilst challenging social issues to become a literary arena as potent and valid as any other art form. And then there are those that boldly celebrate irrepressible vulgarity, inspirational rudeness, intoxicating visual bravura, incorrigible invention and sheer raucous daft fun, sort of like TISWAS for the Soul…

I’m going to say a few things about Solid State Tank Girl and let you guess which kind this book is…

Once upon a time upstarty art-students Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin (and, tangentially, Phillip Bond) prowled the convention circuit impressing the hell out of everybody with their photocopied fanzine Atomtan. At the back of issue #1 was a pin-up/ad for a dubious looking young lady with a big, Big, BIG gun and her own armoured transport. Things happened. Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon commissioned a redeveloped version for their forthcoming publishing venture Deadline (a pop-culture magazine with loads of cool comics strips): the absurdist tales of a feisty, thoroughly well-armed bad-ass chick roaming the wilds of a futuristic Australia with her Kangaroo boy-friend Booga which caught the imagination of a large portion of the public and the zeitgeist of the times. Tank Girl got massive. There was even a movie…

Collecting the miniseries from 2013, this gloriously surreal full-colour hardback is one of the books spotlighted in Titan Comics’ Best of British Month and another explosively unforgettable annal in the chequered history of a true icon of Empire and decidedly dubious darling of the comics Commonwealth…

Expressively scripted by Alan C. Martin and astoundingly illustrated by the amazing Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, the story starts with the gun-gal and her marsupial man popping into an on-its-uppers radio shop in search of advice and trinkets for Booga’s Ham Radio kit and walking into a trap unlike any other…

Before long kangaroo-boy is in a coma and Tank Girl, Jet Girl and Barney are taking a Fantastic Voyage (with all the inherent and leftover pop culture mod cons) around his (extremely) nervous system, intent on destroying the brain clot slowly killing the clot in question.

It all goes tragically wrong though and soon instead of charting the cerebellum the trio of chaotic cussing kanganauts are helplessly ‘Circumnavigating Booga’s Left Bollock’…

What they find there is a microscopic but rapidly gestating little infant whom they quite naturally pluck from its ghastly environment and return to the relative safety of the good ship and sausage-shaped submersible Significant Triode…

Once aboard the vessel the pretty pink foetus proves far from normal as ‘Three Ladies, a Kangaroo & a Little Baby’ quickly descends from charming comedy pastiche into a hairy horror story as the rush to fix Booga’s brain blockage introduces the team to deadly ghosts, involves them in a mad dash to get out of the patient before they all regain their normal sizes and inculcates a worthy yet impossible resolution not to swear in front of the nipper…

Mission improbably accomplished, the girls and more-confused-than-ever Booga can only watch in shock and terror as their wee newcomer swiftly mutates into an unstoppable, super-powered evil antithesis… an Anti-Tank Girl…

The Big Pink She-Beast’s initial attack in ‘Awesome Wells’ almost ends our unsavoury heroine’s life and only Booga’s natural tendency to react with excessive violence and extraordinary ordinance drives the still-growing invader off.

As her friends fall back to a secret fortress and try to revive her, Tank Girl’s consciousness is visiting a very strange and hippie place, gleaning impenetrable clues on how to end the evil nemesis crisis…

She returns to the physical world just in time for a showdown with Anti-Tank Girl and a hastily gathered if rather sub-par gang consisting of Anti-Barney, Anti Booga and Auntie Jet Girl…

Soon cataclysmic final battle is joined in ‘Flippin’ ‘Eck Benny’ but even after the good guys somehow triumph there’s still the little matter of dealing with the sad little anonymous evil genius who crafted the whole plot. Luckily Tank Girl’s brief sojourn in La-La Land has pointed her subconscious in the right direction…

Bizarre, manically hilarious and crammed with captivating cartoon-violence, Solid State is an unashamedly riotous romp which comes with a brace of mini extras, beginning with a typically restrained exercise in bludgeoning ballistic ballet entitled ‘Make Them All Die’, after which a quiet moment spring-cleaning the tank goes messily awry in ‘The Girl That Cleansed Our Souls’.

Also included are a half-dozen motivational poem/poster pics, a cover gallery, sketch/artwork pages and an Afterword from the Anti-Alan…

Wild, weird, endlessly re-inventive and spectacularly silly, this an ever-so-cool rollercoaster thrill-ride and lifestyle touchstone for life’s incurable rebels and undying Rude Britannians, so if you’ve never seen the anarchic, surreal and culturally soused peculiarity that is Tank Girl, bastard love child of 2000 AD and Love and Rockets, you’ve missed a truly unique experience… and remember, she doesn’t care if you like her, just so long as you notice her…
Tank Girl and all related characters are ™ & © 2013 Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin. All rights reserved.