Tops and Bottoms – 9th April 2025.

And suddenly it was summer. 

That ‘Ship of Theseus’ theory came in to my eye-line again this week. Also, and better, well known as the ‘Theory of Trig’s Broom’ it posits that if you replace all the constituent parts does it remain, in effect, the same thing. The rotting of the wooden boards on the aforementioned ship and the regular changing of the brush and handle on the broom. It occurred to me that this theory can be directed at Marvel and DC. They’ve been about so long that they’ve changed everything over to a newer (and different in some way) version. Sitting in the sun with a drink then allowed me to change direction on this and apply it to us old fans and our worry of change. The ‘It’s worked in the past’ versus ‘ we need change’. Surely we need a bit of both. But there is no denying that we’ve had a lot of new handles in the last 60 years and more. Some good and some bad. And recently, some handles that people don’t want to spend money on. Weakly constructed handles with no sense of the craft of sweeping up leaves. 

And fuck me, those brushes have become expensive.

I’ve pushed that about as far as I can, I’ll move onwards. 

This week over at the ACP it was just the three of us. We gathered to talk about a big anniversary in the Mutant comics world. It was fifty years since the release of Giant-Size X-Men 1. That’s a long time! For some it’s history and for one host it’s just his childhood. Have a listen and see if we think it still stands up.

More forward motion.

Small Press Comic of the Week.

‘Caribou’ 2-3 from Francis Todd.

This was in an impulse buy off the shelves at Gosh on Monday. A strange mix of the disconcertingly personal and the Kafka-nightmare. Each issue (I have ordered the first) has a main story with hard and dark Burns style inks alongside shorter and differently styled weird back-ups. I’ll be interested to see where this dude goes next. A nice surprise. 

Tops.

This blew me away. Easily my favourite issue out of Marvel since the Doom one-shot last year. This is an older Matt. His powers seem gone and he’s surviving in a future Hells Kitchen in a fallen New York. The art by McNiven has a mid-career Miller feel that made this reader joyously read it twice! I got the Frank Miller variant – because it’s Miller and Daredevil. Highly recommended.

Bottoms.

Not a ‘Contest’ but a ‘Concert’. Passable art with a story that has nobody credible living in its zero direction narrative. Just another load of bullshit that would have worked better as a poster and has no heart. 

This was better.

I’ll leave you with one thought. Just over a year ago on April 1st 2024 Ed Piskor took his own life. He left a suicide note. There is no doubt that his jealousy-filled accusers and those who spend their time gossiping like children on the internet were a big part of why this tragedy happened. There is also a Venn diagram somewhere of the people accusing Piskor and those failing to mention the numerous much more serious and criminal allegations made against Neil Gaiman. I look forward to seeing these people in person and expressing verbally my disappointment at what they and a wider comics industry did and continue to fail to do. 

Here’s the link to M.I.N.D. A great charity to donate to and obtain help if needed.

Many thanks for reading.