{"id":13266,"date":"2015-03-22T08:40:34","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T08:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=13266"},"modified":"2015-03-22T13:11:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-22T13:11:27","slug":"department-of-the-peculiar-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2015\/03\/22\/department-of-the-peculiar-1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Department of the Peculiar #1 & 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy <\/strong>Rol Hirst<\/strong> & <\/strong>Rob Wells<\/strong>
\nNo ISBNs:<\/p>\n

In strikingly similar vein from alternative press veterans Rol Hirst and Rob Wells is a splendid mash-up of <\/strong>X-Men<\/strong> and <\/strong>X-Files<\/strong>, given a splendidly seductive British taste and tone.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>DotP<\/strong> #1 sees scripter Hirst and illustrator Wells take a laconic look at what ails the world in ‘Sick Day’<\/em> where we meet Malcolm Drake<\/em>: an American metahuman embarrassed by his powers and hiding out in the UK.<\/p>\n

His sad life didn’t get any better this side of the pond but suddenly changes forever when he is blackmailed by the ever-vigilant government quango known as the Department of the Peculiar<\/em> into joining their covert, severely under-funded and cash-poor rapid response team.<\/p>\n

Malcolm makes people sick (that’s his power, not his attitude – well, maybe a bit of his attitude too) and when abrasive chief administrator Lisa Cole<\/em> confronts him in a Manchester shopping centre that is exactly what she needs.<\/p>\n

Another \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Peculiar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has seized control of an office building owned by food conglomerate Matheson-Beaumont<\/em>. He did it by making people ill and wilfully distributing heart attacks and transfats amongst the security staff.<\/p>\n

Threatened with deportation unless he replaces D.O.T.P.’s already-downed field agent, Malcolm reluctantly approaches the hostage building, but discovers that his strange gift can’t protect him from a heart attack either\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The story concludes in #2 with ‘Cure for Cancer’<\/em> as Drake provides a life-passing-his-eyes flashback and origin tale whilst aggrieved eco-warrior and nutritionally-abused walking cholesterol bomb Paul Aday<\/em> carries out his ghastly revenge on the execs who poisoned a nation.<\/p>\n

However Malcolm is made of stern stuff and rallies just enough to do the necessary\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Gross, scary, funny and wildly beguiling, this is outrageous non-stop spoofery, surreal whimsy, deceptively gritty action and bureaucrat-bashing as only world-wearily laconic Brits can do it, marking this as one of the best indie titles I’ve seen in decades\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Comicbook sized in stunningly powerful black & white, <\/strong>Department of the Peculiar<\/strong> #1 & 2 are available from rolhirst.co.uk and you can follow him on Twitter (@rolhirst) whilst these and Rob’s other wonderful canon of cartoon fun can be found via crispbiscuit.co.uk. He can be Twitterstalked on (@robertdwells).<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a9 2012, 2013 Rol Hirst and Rob Wells.
\nwww.facebook.com\/departmentofthepeculiar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rol Hirst & Rob Wells No ISBNs: In strikingly similar vein from alternative press veterans Rol Hirst and Rob Wells is a splendid mash-up of X-Men and X-Files, given a splendidly seductive British taste and tone. DotP #1 sees scripter Hirst and illustrator Wells take a laconic look at what ails the world in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Department of the Peculiar #1 & 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,108,107,193],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-miscellaneous-superhero","category-science-fiction","category-small-press-sundays"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3rY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}