Tops and Bottoms 22nd January 2025

Morning,

I’m typing this whilst on another work trip. Sat in a hotel bar. Trying not to listen to the corporate drunks around me and the sickly smell of perfume and Christmas present aftershave. Weekend warriors mid week – in January no less.

I have also started a Substack. If you fancy you can sign up here.

It’s also only a few days until the 500th live ACP event. We are all pretty pumped and leaving the day in hands of laughs and booze, who I am sure can take care of all of us. Then leave me dirty on the carpet full of shame and grot. We have Richard ‘The Don’ Sheaf on the newest episode and talk about how the weekend timetable will be run. (We make a stab at pretending we are organised but will, I am certain, will give in to chaos about thirty seconds into the day. I also talk about some 1947 Meccano Magazines. Promises are occasionally promises so here are some examples.

The weekend that has just passed was also an eventful one and now sits in my rear view mirror. Not exactly comics. ‘New Year, New Who’ was held at the Epsom Playhouse and featured three cycled out Doctor incarnations who were most certainly not ‘New’. So, along with my buddy, we listened to the stories of Davidson, Baker (C) and McCoy (maybe not a ‘C’ but I am unsure). Add into the mix that bloke off Blue Peter, Nyssa, Tegan, Davros, Peri, Susan and more. They politely kept the audience entertained and put up with some bloody awful questions thrown at them. There was also an interview with Andrew Cartmel – the man partly responsible for three good stories in a pile of shit doughnuts during the McCoy years. An altogether great day. Here is a bad photograph. (See if you can spot who is Who).

Back to the task at hand. For those new. This is a brief mention of the comics that made the ‘Top’ and the ‘Bottom’ of my weekly reading pile. I try to keep it to new releases. Much of my habit is made up of old issues but I try my best to keep up to date with the new.

First up.

Small Press Comic of the Week.

‘The Fermenting Men’ by Barry Flynn.

This was great episodic and chaotic fun. A couple of pub boozers get together and use their skill to create craft beers. The first accidentally includes kitty litter and the name ‘Pussy’. This is the collection of the series put together by Ugly Man Comics who you can find right here.

Tops.

Geiger issue 10 has Gary Frank back on art along with Geoff Johns continuing this post-apolcalyptic road trip. We finally get the much hyped meeting between Geiger and Junkyard Joe. As with all Ghost Machine this is just professionally done, well crafted and good-looking comics. Marvel and DC really should be looking to these guys as a good example of how to do monthly comics (especially Marvel who are currently really falling behind in the quality race!)

Bottoms.