{"id":14129,"date":"2015-10-09T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=14129"},"modified":"2015-10-08T07:57:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T07:57:54","slug":"gabriel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2015\/10\/09\/gabriel\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabriel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jim Alexander<\/strong>, David Hill<\/strong> & Mick Trimble <\/strong>(Planet Jimbot)
\nNo ISBN<\/p>\n

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Home-Grown Feast of Wonders\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s a wonderful intensity to creator-owned comic tales which is all too often lacking in slicker projects from major outfits with all the financial resources in the world at their fingertips.<\/p>\n

When just the right creative elements are in place it can be like seeing The Buzzcocks<\/strong> playing live at a sweaty, heaving college gig in 1976 but then going home to watch to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, all seamlessly schmaltzed-out and over-produced to buggery by some cosmetically-enhanced, \u00c3\u00bcber-styled photogenic twinkie on X-Factor<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Past masters of getting the very best out of finite resources, fresh talent and strong ideas, Jim Alexander and his compadres at Planet Jimbot (whose new periodical release APP-1<\/strong> will star in our next Small Press Sunday<\/strong><\/em> feature) have been crafting superbly enthralling graphic narratives for a wee while now and have recently added to their roster this smart, magnificently chilling – and, arguably, cheekily blasphemous – intellectual challenge to complacent Christianity\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Packaged as a slim, starkly effective monochrome trade paperback, Gabriel<\/strong> is an archly askew urban drama touted as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a true story taking place in an alternative Scotland\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. The only noticeable difference I can see is that demons and angels are real and regularly meddle in mortal lives and matters.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6That and the fact that the Church is still supremely powerful: publicly operating its own secret service and special police force which supersedes regular Rozzers in matters both spiritual and temporal\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Writer Alexander’s prodigious back catalogue includes Calhab Justice<\/em> and other strips for 2000 AD<\/strong>, Star Trek the Manga<\/strong>, GoodCopBadCop<\/strong> and bunches of stuff for The Dandy<\/strong>, DC, Marvel, Metal Hurlant<\/strong>, plus loads of other places and here – bolstered by carefully understated illustrator David Hill (Luther: Echoes of the Hammer<\/strong>) – he turns his mercurial imagination to troubled soul Stewart Gabriel<\/em>: a poor sinner in another Glasgow with more than his fair share of burdens\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Stewart is an introspective, isolated chap who doesn’t want any bother but has trouble relating to his surviving relations. That’s not uncommon, but he’s also afflicted with terrible dreams of past lives and demonic darkness. Perhaps it’s all because he and his estranged wife Donna<\/em> are trying to get a shameful, nigh-sacrilegious divorce\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Of course that major doctrinal misdemeanour can’t explain why he is somehow being irresistibly drawn to scenes of carnage and chaos involving the extremely excessive Saint Templar<\/em> Church militia or why he’s suddenly started walking through walks, doors and other solid objects and even blinking out and rematerialising at scenes of infernal atrocity…<\/p>\n

Glasgow is under siege these days: not just from increasingly violent protestors demanding sexual equality and abortions but also reeling from a series of savage serial killings by a particularly gruesome and determined demon.<\/p>\n

The beast has decidedly dark \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mommy-issues\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and is gleefully causing a stink and slaughtering the faithful, especially if they’re partial to a little sin or hypocrisy\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

In the higher ecclesiastical echelons, the synod of church leaders known as the Living Saints<\/em> are fiercely debating how best to quell The Abomination’s sanguine spree and when one of their number prophetically divines Gabriel’s name in connection to the crisis and moves to have him brought in for a little inquisition, the demon is listening\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Despite the growing movement agitating for personal freedoms and responsibilities, this is still a world with no need for faith.<\/p>\n

God is. The Devil is. Nobody is asked to believe anything because the spiritual is in fact all physical. So why does Gabriel believe there’s something going on that can’t be explained?<\/p>\n

With chaos in the streets, events spiral to bloody climax when The Beast invades the church sanctum and confronts Gabriel, Donna and the Living Saints with a testament and revelation of his own\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

First seen in the fabled 1990s thanks to much-missed pioneering publisher Caliber, this modern Mystery Play has been properly remastered for the 21st<\/sup> century and concludes here with an all-new palate cleansing whimsical addendum deftly illustrated by Mick (Bloodfellas<\/strong>) Trimble.<\/p>\n

Set six months later, ‘I Am the Resurrection’<\/em> follows a good-natured beardy-bloke as he spends one eventful day and night washing the feet of hookers, avoiding death and giving dodgy traders in Temple Market a bit of a kicking. Naturally he ends up in jail – the regular nick, not the Templars’ stronghold – and has a remarkable interview with dying priest Father Salmon, who felt so very much better after giving the stranger the all-clear\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Things only really start to make sense after the unworldly weirdo pops by Gabriel’s place\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Smart, incisive and fictively fascinating, Gabriel <\/strong>builds a brilliantly enticing world before asking all the right questions and offering just enough answers to make readers hungry for a sequel.<\/p>\n

This is another dark delight for all those who seek some intellectual meat in their reading matter, so why not break bread here and now?
\nGabriel \u00c2\u00a9 2015 Jim Alexander (story) and David Hill (art). I Am the Resurrection \u00c2\u00a9 2015 Jim Alexander (story) and Mick Trimble (art).
\nPlanet Jimbot has a splendid online shop so why not check out: https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/uk\/listing\/244444294\/gabriel-tpb<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Alexander, David Hill & Mick Trimble (Planet Jimbot) No ISBN Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Home-Grown Feast of Wonders\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 8\/10 There’s a wonderful intensity to creator-owned comic tales which is all too often lacking in slicker projects from major outfits with all the financial resources in the world at their fingertips. When just … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Gabriel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42,66,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-british","category-horror-stories","category-older-kids"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4AFj-gabriel","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14129","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=14129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}