Morning and welcome to December.
The rushing prospect of Christmas and a much needed rest lays hiding behind a need to finish up work projects in time, get presents and shopping done and find something to keep us occupied during the long dark and often boring break.
Luckily, over at the ACP we are in the game of letting you know what is good to read. This week we really get into it with J. (Jemma) Webster-Sharp and talk about pushing the limits of what can be shown/done/talked about in a comic. Free expression and daring to take chances is an area that Jemma cares strongly about and this one really gets us thinking.
You can buy The Scrapbook of Life and Death released through Avery Hill Publishing by visiting their site. Easily one of the most interesting comics of the year it comes highly recommended.
And, onwards dear reader.
Small Press Comic of the Week.
Grisly is an inexpensive little corner of US small press that I’m loving. I initially read the stories of longboxes and back issue searching on the instagram feed of Nate McDonagh. But when I saw these card-stock A5 zines on the shelf at Gosh for just £2.50 I snapped some up. If you’re the sort of person who loves finding gold in a back issue box then this is for you. Nate perfectly captures the comic shop environment – obsessive customers, cranky counter staff and all the rest.
Tops.
We have a return of a comic that I haven’t featured for over a year. In all honesty I got a little bored with him pushing the narrative of kids at at a pride march previously. Not that I’m necessarily against it, depending on the kids and the celebration, but it just bored me a little and I felt like it was just a continuation of some idiotic social media argument. But this one was fun, and at moments saucy fun.
Spoilers – Dragon gets a massive kicking. One of the things I’ve always loved about Larsen is his ability to show a punch being thrown and how it lands. Unlike a lot of artists elsewhere you feel that he knows the reality of a good smack in the gob. (If anyone feels a need to do some research, give me a call.)
Bottoms.
This one is the source of some frustration and pipped the cackiness of the new West Coast Avengers series’ interior art in a race to the ‘Bottom’.
What is happening here? How did the quality drop off so quickly in an entire area of comics?
It’s not just limited to Uncanny X-Men, although the writing is diabolically bad, but nearly the whole X-Universe. I suspect that there has been an Editorial dictate to dumb everything down and make it both uncomplicated (possibly sensible) but also uninteresting (possibly a by-product of ‘uncomplicated’). Take a look at the new X-Factor for example – it’s a weak-ass baby-talk version of what Milligan tried decades before. With just google-eyed artiness.
I have never not bought X-Men. Literally, since the B&W Marvel UK reprints of the original line-up in the seventies, all the way to Uncanny and even through those dark nineties. But now I am seriously considering breaking a fifty-something year run over this tripe.
How about some massively overwritten nonsense from the erroneously titled Exceptional X-Men? And then at the end of a hard day battling don’t forget to act out of character in the NYX title and go partying on a strangely sloping/not sloping dance floor …???
They’ll reboot it again in a year. This will just be an oily mark we’ll forget…hopefully.
Thought of the Week – While the UK press and TV news pursues Greg Wallace for his wrongdoing, everyone (including the majority of the Comics Press) continues to ignore the alleged terrible past behaviour of Neil Gaiman. Weird huh. Are we seeing the power of a PR campaign? But, how much of a stain on some consciences is this?
Many thanks for reading. See you next week. We have some DC Comics Presents chat over at the NIA podcast on the way. Superman, Curt Swan and Santa will be making you forget your troubles.
Cheer up. It’s almost time to watch The Great Escape again.
Never Iron Anything - The Comics Review Website 