A Day Late, A Euro Short!

Morning,

Apologies. Yesterday was spent on the motorways of England so I missed my deadline.

Another great week in comics.

This is my regular post about the books I have most enjoyed and those that I haven’t. I usually call it ‘Tops and Bottoms’ or something similar, but this week I’m trying to be a clever twat with the titling. I occasionally also ramble about other stuff.

You know what was a cracking listen this week? The Mega City Podcast (that’s who!). Eamonn and his guest Peter McKinney tackled the much talked about nineties 2000AD story Big Dave. It’s always great when this sort of discussion gets the listener thinking, and that’s certainly the effect it has had on me. The pair discuss both the bad and the good of this story. Even-handed in their opinions and their own reading experiences, both at the time and since, of the hooligan Dave. Have a listen here.

Elsewhere, I had prepared some notes and a long diatribe on reading accessibility to Marvel and DC books. Especially the Superman and Batman titles. I ranted on the unnecessary complications and cast. Shouting at clouds over how a book about a single superhero just became a mess of a team book.

But then my favourite read of the year threw itself into my letterbox with a ‘Please Love Me’ sign attached.

So, let’s not fuck around and get started.

Top.

Leave it to mainland Europe, and in a team-up mini-series nonetheless, to produce a Batman comic that is both totally accessible to the new or laxed reader and also one that is brilliantly drawn and written with an eye to character, action, fun and a visit to London.

Batman follows Joker and Killer Croc to London where he teams up with Dylan Dog. We find out that Catwoman is already there and Bruce has a London Stately Manor – complete with cave.

I was just chatting about this with comics creator Jonny Cannon and we both agreed that this is our favourite book so far this year!

Seriously! Get on it!

Check out a previous post with details of a visit I made to Dog’s London home.

Bottoms.

I’ll leave this up to you pick up on why this hit the bottom of my stack!