Morning Comics Chums,
To be fair, you’re probably here to see what I have been claiming is the worst small press comic in the world. A claim I am also about to make on unsocial media. Calm down, it’s not an autobio comic where nothing happens and someone is sad. It’s at the bottom of this page, but do me a fucking favour and read the rest of this. I don’t just throw it together (well, actually I do).
It’s great how things turn out. Above is my copy of Megaton Man issue 1 at the exact moment myself, Vince and Dan got the opportunity to ask it’s creator a good hour of questions. Don (Simpson) was pretty candid with his answers and we discussed his early days with Kitchen Sink, his pen name, some Eros Comics and his current Zoop project bringing back his main man. You can have a listen to the interview right here.
This Friday is also the ACP Drink & Draw. Running between 7pm and 10pm you can join on Zoom and chat, draw, drink or not do any of that. Everyone is genuinely welcome. Hit me or the pod accounts up for a link.
I met up with Falpy this week to discuss our Five Year Anniversary over at Tribute Press that will be rocking along in March 2025. We have cooked up plans for at least a couple of new titles. We may have just roped in someone that I haven’t made a comic with for about twenty years. More news soon.
Hold on…almost there.
Small Press Comic of the Week.
This was a nice little surprise of a comic that was mentioned on the ACP Slack. I reached out to the writer/artist Bryan Kelly as I couldn’t find a UK postage on his site and he sent me to Amazon where I grabbed a Kindle reading version.
Nothing groundbreaking, just well made autobio one-page short story comics that lean heavily into the gag of workday repitition. They tell of Bryan’s experiences working in a bar with real and imaginary (kinda) customers. Well worth your time.
Tops.
Another Ghost Machine comic. The family dynamic isn’t something that I am normally drawn to outside of the Fantastic Four. But somehow this charming and fast paced time-travel adventure made it over the line mostly due to the outstanding art from Francis Manapul.
Ghost Machine are really a class act. Everything is on fire for my tastes at the moment. Just a group of people at the professional top of their game. Long may it continue.
So…
This is the one you have been waiting for. The comic that we did a live reading from on the new episode. Seeing is believing. Quite possibly the worst comic I have seen for a long time.
Bottoms.
The inside pages do not get any better.
Well, I suppose that at least it isn’t about another female Viking or Ninja. And in common with those themes, original it ain’t!
Randy Edit – I’m just adding a couple of thoughts that came to me about this book before I pressed ‘publish’. First off, the above diabolical mess is at least a little bit more honest about the use of photographs in comics than we see elsewhere. One of the big moans I commonly have is about digital comics artists who just transport a photo into a panel/cover/print and just trace over it or give it a computer tweak. We see and hear about it all the time. It will often, not always but often, take me out of the story when I instantly recognise the face of an actor. Comics, those making them and the reader all combine to dictate the speed of the reading experience. A realisation of something like the appearance of , for example, Winona Ryder in a random image messes with that speed/pace/ingestion. There are artists out there that we all see rely far too heavily on it. It’s rarely ‘reference’ and much more commonly a lack of skill or laziness.
My other thought about the above comic. They are charging for it?! Really? Cheeky fuckers.
Thanks for reading and have a fun week and don’t forget to draw dem backgrounds.
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