Bowel-shifting

October 29, 2013, 5:41 pm

Every year since 1995, or at least whenever I've remembered or been able to, I try and find/purchase Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, an annual anthology of "spooky" Simpsons comics. This year's was a bitter disappointment (in that it wasn't funny at all), but that's par for the course with The Simpsons these days.

Anyway, in that very first issue eighteen years ago, this page was in it:

That's Matt Groening listing a load of things that spooked him during his developing years. I'm going to have a go at doing that now! Probably the last opportunity I'll have to do something "thematic" for this month, so it's back to the comics after this. But just for now, here's as many things as I can remember that frightened, confused, perturbed or caused mild discomfort to me over the years...

Certain cartoons. Only certain ones. We watched cartoons for fun and distraction, and they were SAFE (you know, because cartoons are for kiddies, right?). But occasionally, characters would be thrown into peril, peril that I just wasn't expecting.

For example, The Little Mole (1941) has a short-sighted mole leaving the burrow, getting some glasses sold to him, then seeing the world in all its colour and so on. All very nice until he loses his glasses and falls in the water, and as he's drowning he hears all the words and advice he never listened to:

Or how about Mickey's Garden (1935). Mickey, of all things! Who'd be scared of that? Me, when he gets chased by insects, that's who:

Unexpected peril, that's what it's all about. You wouldn't expect anything of the sort from a Mr. Men cartoon, would you? Well, it happens to Mr. Greedy:

There was another one too, one that I haven't been able to find in all the years since. A more "arty" one than the usual stuff we'd watch, I just remember a big gaping chasm between two cliffs. A baby walked right over it, only for a bridge to appear beneath him and he made it safely across. The old woman behind the baby tried to follow, but the bridge crumbles behind her right the way across. That's all I remember, and it wasn't exactly pleasant viewing.

Not so much "perilous", more "surprisingly unsettling" is a certain group of characters from the otherwise completely harmless, fully hilarious, Terry Wogan-fronted Stoppit & Tidyup, those characters being the Sit Downs:

Bigger than any of the other characters, all they ever did was sit down and emit a low, humming noise. And they looked a bit like ghosts. They could cure diseases somehow, so obviously weren't a threat, but they always seemed somewhat sinister compared to everything else that happened in the Land of Do As You're Told.

There's another cartoon I only saw for the first time within the last year, and to this day it remains the ONLY piece of media to make me physically sick. The ankle scene in Evil Dead and the bit with the hangnail in Hellraiser ALMOST did it for me, but this one is the most sickening thing I've ever seen. It's called Munchers: A Fable, and I'm only embedding it here, not watching it:

Teeth in general. That's another thing that's bothered me a lot, and remains my only true phobia. That bloody Munchers thing sent me running to the kitchen sink, as did a certain episode of Rocko's Modern Life which I don't even want to go looking for. The one with the giant rampaging tooth, in case anyone's wondering.

Who knows what caused this terror? As the oldest sibling, I was the first to lose a tooth, something I was completely unprepared for. I used to visit a psychotic dentist who'd stuff my mouth full of cotton wool and keep it there for half an hour until I passed out. I almost threw up on the floor in a science lesson when it came time to learn about teeth, and we had to look into each other's mouths. Or there's that bit at the start of American History X. All horrible stuff. One day, out of curiosity, I'll probably stick "teeth" into Google's image search, and immediately regret it. I'll NEVER watch Marathon Man, that's a sure thing. No, it is NOT safe!

Certain things on the television. Naturally. Spend a lot of time watching the thing and you're bound to happen across SOMETHING that unsettles you. Like this public information film about locking your car. I've never driven a car, let alone owned one and had reason to lock it, but something about this one sent the mind the wrong way. Skip to 33:55 to see the one I'm on about:

Are You Afraid of the Dark? was alright as "scary" TV shows for kids go, but ONE MOMENT in ONE EPISODE was a bit intense. Skip to 11:50 to see which moment I'm talking about:

Strange But True was a great Friday night bit of fun each week. Just a load of "dramatic reenactments" of paranormal happenings. This one about the Enfield poltergeist was a bit of a chiller though, mostly for the tape recordings "he" left:

Or how about this advert? Took me several years to track this one down, but here it is:

Clothes. Some of them, anyway. That Hotpoint advert's bad enough, and somehow I always had troubles with things like this:

Dressing gowns or coats hanging on doors. Nope, didn't like them at all. I was still a bit iffy about them even at the age of 20. I'm fine now, obviously. It's not as if the one that's hanging up just behind me is slowly reaching out to grab me or anything. Probably.

An episode of Just William (the 1990s series) had a headless ghost at some point - probably engineered by William moving a dress around the place with ropes or something. I can't remember exactly, but I remember not liking it.

Speaking of disembodied clothes, this book here was horrifying at the best of times:

But ONE PAGE in particular was a bit too much if it was night time:

Christ on a stick, the BONNET! Horrible stuff there. Other books spooked me a bit as well - certain pages of The Ten Doors of Doom and The Scary Book for example, but NONE as much as that empty hole in the top left there. This may've led on to a certain wariness toward monks, nuns and hooded folk in general. There's a bit in Death Becomes Her (1992), an otherwise hilarious film, that has Bruce Willis running down a corridor towards the hospital's morgue, when he has to get against the wall as a trio of nuns are somehow GLIDING down the corridor. That's not nice.

And speaking of "not nice" bits in otherwise highly enjoyable films...

The librarian ghost from Ghostbusters, obviously. We must've watched this film hundreds of times, and it still remains my favourite, but there was always that initial "hurdle" to get past before settling down to enjoy the rest of it:

The sequel was no more forgiving, what with that picture of Vigo the Carpathian, the carnivorous slime monster that emerges from the taps, the heads on sticks in the abandoned tunnel, and this piece of airborne terror (skip to 1:19):

What else? Well, the ghost train at Southport Pleasureland was a bit intense. And the farting cow on the Noah's Ark at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. You knew it was coming, but it still made you jump each time.

Speaking of Blackpool, I don't know if this sod's still there, but he's not nice:

No, I'm not one of those "Ooh, clowns are SCARY" types. He was definitely a laughing KING when I was a nipper. The horror of inherited privilege and all that. Plus, it was like he was chasing you if you ran round the back and he spun around to laugh at you some more.

Liverpool Museum (or World Museum Liverpool, as it's now called) had (well, has) a corridor leading up to the cafe on the top floor filled with antique clocks. Mostly of the massive grandfather clock variety. The tick-tick-ticking of them all, and the HEIGHT of the things, fairly unnerving. It looked like they were going to fall on top of me. Nope, didn't like those. That "fear" extended to tall wardrobes as well.

Speaking of irrational fears... We all have our bogeymen, right? That thing we dread encountering in the small hours? Well my one lived in the bathroom. This is the closest image I can get of him from the Internet:

Same as that, only more grey and dusty, with a big load of grey hair in a perm on the top. It never happened, but I always thought that one night, on a bathroom visit, I'd push the door open and THAT would be there. And he'd lift his head up to look at me.

More night terrors? How about one that involved something that simply didn't exist, but I still have memories of it for some reason? We did (DIDN'T) have a yellow stone carving of a woman hanging on the wall in the hall. We didn't, but one memory tells me that we did. And one night, walking past it, the woman turned to look at me, pointed, and said "DARE" in an accusatory tone. As in, "Don't you DARE tell anyone".

The imaginary ones are always the weirdest. The memory's solid, but grown-up rational thinking insists they couldn't've happened. At all. Like the time I was in the back of the car one night, and we were driving back from somewhere. I had one of those grabber toys - you know, like this one:

When we got into the car at the start of the journey, it had black eye sockets. Definitely black. During the drive home, with the car mostly lit by motorway lights, the car went dark for a few seconds as we went under a bridge. Once there was light again, the eye sockets had turned white. They were still white when we got home, and they were still white the next morning. I've never been able to figure out what happened there.

Another car-based mystery - we were out for a drive around Ince Woods one night. It was Hallowe'en, and those woods are supposed to be haunted... It was an annual tradition. Anyway, we're driving down the road, and the headlights lit up a house on the corner of the road. In front of the house was maybe two-dozen pale-faced people, mouths open and teeth bared, all sat or stood in a school photo-like arrangement. No-one else in the car mentioned it, or even seemed to acknowledge it. I can't remember if I asked anyone about it, but it's possible that because of my age at the time, the lack of reaction from anyone else must've meant it was a completely normal thing to see in the middle of the woods on a cold October evening.

Last of all is the one that didn't confuse or irk me at the time, but the more I think about it these days, the more I think it's a wonder I kept my sanity at the time. It involved a school trip to Normandy, with around sixty 11-12 year olds staying in some filthy chalet-based hostel. I was one of them, obviously. On the journey there, and during idle moments, a lot of us would play the poltergeist game. From memory, this involved bouncing a coin around the table whilst asking the poltergeist a question. So, like a Ouija board for the illiterate.

During the second night, we had one of those group hysteria moments - gradually, every last one of us got it into our heads that there was a ghost/murderer running around outside the chalets, which led to all of us kids running up and down the corridors screaming, or climbing out onto the roofs, or claiming to've seen various menacing entities. The four lads I was in a room with, and myself, armed ourselves with knives and saucepans and all tried to sleep in two beds.

Obviously, there wasn't a murderer or a ghost, and the only messy thing that happened was one of us went to sleep underneath a bed, and wet himself during the night leaving an impressive puddle. 12-year-old logic had it that the previous night's terror was because of the poltergeist game, but it didn't stop us from playing it.

The question I asked the poltergeist the next day was a stupid one - I asked it to kill someone (no names given here). The other people playing the game told me I shouldn't've done that, and I agreed, so we played again and asked the poltergeist NOT to kill that certain someone. And that was that, momentarily...

The week after that, back at school, at registration. The form teacher comes in, and tells us that (name withheld) has been hit by a bus. He wasn't dead, or even seriously injured, but he didn't come to school that week. I turned white, and am still shaking now just thinking about it.

Probably, DEFINITELY just a massive coincidence - kids are mad, they jump in front of buses all the time, right? I've just checked Facebook, and from the looks of things the guy is now married and has a fashionable beard, so unless the poltergeist has a long-term plan, it looks like I'm in the clear.

Bugger, I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight.

↧

Continuing Diseases

November 3, 2013, 2:37 pm

≫ Next: If you're happy and you know it, give a honk.

≪ Previous: Bowel-shifting

Next on the pile is one that took a fair while to find... I only knew about this one through a now-missing post over on Lee Turnock's blog, but find it I eventually did, and what do you know - it's from the same part of the world as I am! Here it is, it's called Igor.

Is it any good? Of course not, but that's all part of the fun... Right?

Seems like it's from 1990, and as far as I can tell this was the only issue that ever made it out - I'd happily accept being corrected, but in all of my "trawling" this is the only issue I've ever seen. It'd be unfair and absolutely false to say that the first page starts with a Zit reprint (Raging Knievel), what with Igor being a year older than Zit and all that - but my first thoughts were "Oh, I've already seen that in Zit", so there we go. Unfair, yes, and untrue also, but there we go.

Things get more promising on the NEXT page with Bill Naylor's strange horror parody, Black Panties, Killer Scanties, which is about a killer pair of black panties. Scanty:

Also from Mr. Naylor there is Clit Eastwood - He's a Bit of a Cunt. That might be my new favourite tagline for a comic character:

Just a shame it took three people to come up with that pun!

Next up we have a couple of cartoon parodies, sort of. Can you really call something "parody" if all it does is change some names and add a few swear words?

The other one's got a slight whiff of "scribbled at the back of an exercise book during maths" about it:

And again... It took three people to come up with "Four sentient pieces of fecal matter murder Gaffa from the Tetley Tea Folk". Interesting. Round the Bend did a better job of this one with their Teenage Mutant Ninja Toilets. It's not on YouTube, so if anyone knows what I'm talking about there they should give themselves four points.

This next one's the highlight of Igor, which might be saying a lot, but it's the silliness of it all... Like a sweary version of something you'd find in Oink!, it's Father Neville, The Frog Exorcist:

At the opposite end of my list of All-Time Favourite Comic Strips That Appeared In That One Issue Of Igor is this one, which plays on that comical notion that all homosexuals are predatory rapists:

The second most least-good is this junior version of Jimmy Tarbuck, but that might be intentional, who knows? There's some nostalgic adverts for people who like that sort of thing as well:

For those that are too young for this sort of thing, Jimmy Tarbuck's a Thatcher-loving comedian and possible child-molester. His daughter is the narrator of Supersize Vs Superskinny, and that really is everything there is to know about him.

What else have we got... There's this odd thing about Anne Diamond and Jack Charlton:

And here's the punchline...

On a more pedestrian, just-like-every-other-comic-ever level, here's the fat character/Enid Blyton parody:

Rubbette O'Slade from the 70's Decade (good rhyming name there!) is drawn nicely enough, but doesn't really do anything. Our hero just mentions some things from the Seventies then gets beaten up a bit, but at least it looks alright:

Igor does this as well:

And also seems to have a fascination with old people, and the death/removal of them, as evidenced in no less than THREE things (plus an article about pit bull pensioners):

So there we go, that's Igor. Worth all the searching? Sort of, it almost has its own personality (almost) that lets it stand out from many of the other Viz clones out there, mostly down to Bill Naylor's "fine" artwork. It only ended up costing me 99p anyway, so it's at least worth that much.

Before leaving, here's something I've noticed about all of these comics - EVERYONE gets their own T-shirt, even if it's just the first issue:

If there's anyone "out there" who still has (or even had) a Teenage Hero Mutant Turds T-shirt, I'm strangely envious of them.

↧

If you're happy and you know it, give a honk.

November 12, 2013, 9:19 am

≫ Next: Another "plug", why not?

≪ Previous: Continuing Diseases

Here's something new... As in, something that's available right now, and isn't a relic of the 1980s or 1990s. And I'm reviewing it! How interesting. It's two comics of the "small press" variety, which is what "underground" comics are called nowadays, I think. And they're both by a certain Mr. Turnock.

A bit of history first, why not? A year or two ago, I was reading that relaunched, revamped Dandy, and obviously something seemed a bit "off" with it. So, as is the fashion in this day and age, I went to the Internet to see what other folk thought of it. A fair amount of what I found was the current staff of the Dandy moaning about how people were too thick to share their artistic vision (in so many words), and how two notorious trolls in particular were ruining it for everyone else. But who were they? Further "research" led me to Kid Robson - an articulate, level-headed fellow who'll always fight his corner, and also post lots of nice Thunderbirds stuff and tell you about his schooldays. The other "troll" was the less-restrained yet still passionate Mr. Turnock, who posts a lot of his own work on his blog and, as it turns out, used to work on Acne, a comic I enjoyed as a nipper and will soon be covering RIGHT HERE.

In short, I liked what I was seeing on those two blogs, and felt "inspired" to start my own one too (as in, this one here, right now). It's a lot of fun, and about a billion times more "successful" than I'd ever anticipated, and it stops me from going out at night causing riots and stealing cars and so on. So in that respect, I think a bit of plugging's due - Mr. Turnock now has two new comics, that you can actually BUY and OWN, printed with REAL INK on REAL PAPER. Smashing, eh?

Here's the first one, it's called Honk!

One big long story, that's what it is, "in the spirit" of Alan Moore's Lost Girls, in that we have Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Alice from Alice In Wonderland and Mary Poppins from... Mary Poppins, I think. One of those "how it REALLY happened" sort of tales, filled with all the fun things you'd expect from a cartoonist who hasn't got any editors or censors breathing down their neck.

Lovely bouts of violence:

Sorry for the bad scanning there, staples play havoc with flatbed things.

"Unusual" fetishes:

Digs at things that the artist personally detests:

Utterly deranged scarecrow sex:

And of course, a rare behind-the-scenes look at that old favourite, The Raccoons:

Those little buggers get really nasty later on - I won't spoil it here, mind.

In short, it's everything you'd want from a comic that's not available in the shops. You know, proper "underground" stuff - or at least as underground as pointing your mouse at the right website is.

The other comic is Scumbag Funnies, which seems a lot more "personal" than Honk! - beginning, appropriately enough, with a page ripping into Jamie Smart (one of the previously-mentioned Dandy staffers):

Scumbag consists of a series of shorter comics, rather than the epic that Honk! is, featuring a variety of characters. Whattock Hunt, for one:

And a four-page adventure in which the Goodies are tasked with erasing the UK comedy scene and bringing it back to rights:

The "main bulk" of Scumbag consists of a 12-pager titled The Goddess Lucy, a seemingly autobiographical (?) thing that's equal parts funny, depressing and even... sweet!?

That's the main reason I find myself seeking out small-press comics whenever and wherever I can - when there's so much of the artist actually ON as well as IN the pages, it seems so much more relateable. Maybe some interesting or horrific or amazing or even mundane things have happened to you in your life, stick it into cartoon form and it becomes completely yours, as well as everyone else's. I love 'em.

Plus, you get to say what you think of a LOT of things, and offer some solutions of your own:

And there we go, two comics that are new and cheap and readily available - get yourself over to The Comix Company and have a browse. Loads of stuff for every taste and whim!

And also, because it's a Canadian company, they're super-friendly. This is the envelope my comics arrived in:

And there was a free gift in there too, which was nice:

If you've any idea what a Tijuana Bible is, I don't have to tell you what's inside that thing. And if you don't, it's probably best keeping it that way (wink wink, nudge nudge).

↧

Another "plug", why not?

November 19, 2013, 4:36 pm

≫ Next: A Marvellous Book

≪ Previous: If you're happy and you know it, give a honk.

Here's where I pretend I'm a "proper journalist" that gets things sent to him all the time for reviewing purposes, but the truth is just that a certain Mr. Adam Smith is an all-round nice person. Back when I first started "doing" things about the various Viz-like comics that've been and gone over the years, he sent me a near-complete run of Northern Lightz, for absolutely nothing. And this week, what's he send me? He sends me this:

It's one of those small-press things which are always interesting, if not always good. This one would've been "in the shops" now, except Mr. Smith got the cover the wrong way around before sending it to the printers, the silly bugger. So we'll call this the dodgy BETA-version, yes? Some stuff about Northern Lightz when I find the time, but for now a bit of plugging - my way of saying "Thanks" for the undeserved freebies.

Those familiar with the Scottish comics-scene - as in, not the DC Thomson stuff, but the other stuff - Wasted, Khaki Shorts, that sort of thing, will probably recognise Mr. Smith's work, perhaps. Maude-A-Go-Go is a compilation of his comics with the theme of semi-obscure British pop groups of the 1960s. Some of them have appeared in programmes for festivals and tribute nights, some of them are new, but at least there's a theme here, which is always nice.

There's a couple of pun/name-based strips in there - The Pearls of Spencer Davis has Spencer Davis (of the Spencer Davis Group, no less) nicking some pearls and running away, and Mick's Aviary has the Kinks' drummer taking us through his bird collection:

Stolen from Smith's own site - my scanner just wasn't playing ball with this one!

Cheap puns will never stop being funny, ever. Have a chuckle at this lot:

That's part of the second epic adventure that The Move go through in Maude-A-Go-Go, and it's a cunningly disguised educational piece. Prior to reading this, I knew of The Move for singing Flowers In The Rain and Blackberry Way - now I know that Roy Wood was their "leader", Jeff Lynne was involved at some point, and the Electric Light Orchestra was somehow formed from the collapse of The Move - at least that's what I took away from it all.

"It's beautiful!" "Yes, really well drawn" - that bit gave me a good chortle.

The OTHER big long story starring The Move is a Scooby-Doo sort of thing, in the vein of Davey Jones' mad displaced popstar strips he does for Viz - The Human League in Space, The Adventures of Radiohead, Slipknot and the Doorway in Time, that sort of thing. The setup? Jeff Lynne challenges The Move to spend the night in a haunted hotel without screaming:

Mr. Smith gets a nice amount of detail into his interiors - I did a genuine "Ooh" when I saw this page:

And look out for the Simpsons reference on this page, which nearly made me fall off the bed laughing:

In case you don't like squinting, it says "This story is set in 1968, 25 years before the Simpsons episode Cape Feare".

And just as the chase sequence is the "highlight" of any Scooby-Doo episode (oh how I hate Scooby-Doo!), this chase sequence right here is the highlight of Maude-A-Go-Go:

"Look out, it's a trompe l'oell!"

Obviously I'm not going to be showing the climatic unmasking scene - as that would make this a synopsis and not a review - but feel free to take guesses at "who did it". Overall, Maude-A-Go-Go is exactly the kind of small-press thing I'd be all over if I found it in a shop - it's scratchy, it's silly, it's unique, it's consistent and it's bloody hilarious. If Mr. Smith ever gets the printers sorted out, be sure to pick this up if ever you see it. I'd recommend places to look out for it, but all my usual "haunts" seem to've abandoned the small-press books for some reason. Ah well.

↧

A Marvellous Book

November 21, 2013, 3:32 pm

≫ Next: The Annual from the Future

≪ Previous: Another "plug", why not?

Bare with me here - this is a festive "mini series" sort of thing that I wasn't planning to do until December, but the reality is there probably won't be enough time in that month to do much... So it's being brought forward a bit. All the adverts have been on telly since March anyway, so I may as well.

RIGHT. The "theme" goes like this: What happens on the 25th December, usually? If you're aged between five and twelve, maybe beyond? You get ANNUALS, that's what. Nice hardback books, to keep you busy throughout the festive week. Some people grow out of them, most don't and end up with hundreds of the things stacked in the corner of the room twenty years down the line. Like the majority of people, I fall into the latter category, and so... Well, it's my Top Twenty-or-so Most Favourite Annuals Ever. In no particular order, and I probably won't get that many done by Christmas, but it's worth a go. And we're starting with a bloody Marvel book of all things.

Now, just to clarify - I don't like superhero comics. Convoluted plots, cross-referencing over different titles (not just different issues), mass investment of time... These are reasons that people who DO like them cite as good things, and that's fine, but they're just not for me. I like my comics to be funny, or scary, or weird - superheroes (and especially those of the all-American, clean cut Marvel variety) just don't do anything for me.

Monsters, on the other hand - they can have ALL of my time if they want it. As much as they want. And on my eighth year on this planet, I became momentarily enamoured with a certain big green monster:

Yeah! Look at him go! I didn't actually get this particular book for Christmas - it's from 1987, a year in which I hadn't yet advanced beyond Richard Scarry books - but we saw it at a car boot sale, and I wouldn't put it down because the Hulk was on the cover, so that's how it came into my life... Anyway, here's the Hulk breaking a deer's neck with one punch, just because he can:

Eeh, the loveable brute. It's a good story this one, as Marvel things go. Here's a weird character called Doc Samson, the fabulous flying green-haired muscle-man:

He goes off to fight the Hulk, because he's mad like that, and gets right pulverised. Then all these odd things happen:

Fairly thrilling stuff when you're a young tyke who's into his monsters, and there's your current favourite "monster" scrapping with some impressively monstrous folk. Especially Modok, what a mad looking bastard he is! I suppose it would've been nice to find out if Doc Samson ever "cures" Banner permanently (a pointless endeavour if you ask me), but I'm guessing with superhero comics, it really is something you have to be "into" from the start. I got more enjoyment from reading the Beano than I ever did from the Marvel Super-Heroes Omnibus, and I'm now a fairly well-rounded individual. Who knows what would've happened had I gone down the route of melodramatic comics, rather than the funny stuff? Who cares?

Here's some more fun bits from the book - some people have made careers out of looking at Marvel's stuff, but I promise this will be the only time it'll ever feature on this particular part of the Internet (unless I ever get around to the other "big project" that's sort of getting planned).

Some deliciously cheesy dialogue from the X-Men here:

Here's some of the X-Men fighting Spider-Man. I'm unaware of when the Marvel folk decided that Beast should be an actual beast, rather than a hairy-limbed man in an ill-fitting jumpsuit. And I could try and think of something witty here about making a connection between Spider-Man's comments about the X-Factor and ITV's X-Factor, but my heart's not in it at the moment.

Oh look, here's a cameo appearance from the Griswolds of National Lampoon fame:

And the reason for Disneyland being closed lies with Tony Stark (aka. Iron Man), who's rented out Disneyland for the day because he's a dick like that:

If I'd made this post back when Disney bought Marvel a couple of years ago, I could've been witty and relevant by saying something like "Oh look, Marvel bought Disney in the past and now it's the other way around". Ho hum.

One last thing - I'd LOVE it if they made a film of this character here called the Tumbler. If only to see his method of transport replicated in such a way that's at least TRYING to be taken seriously:

And... That'll do for that one. More "unexpected" annuals on the way, hopefully.

↧

The Annual from the Future

November 28, 2013, 2:25 pm

≫ Next: The REAL Annual (can't think of a snappy title for this one, sorry)

≪ Previous: A Marvellous Book

A curious thing I realised a couple of years ago - I was reading 2000 AD BEFORE I was reading the Beano. Well, not actually reading it, just looking at it. As the previous post mentioned, monsters are all I've ever really cared about for large portions of my life, and the particular issue of 2000 AD I remember having as a youngster was filled with the things. If I describe the setup, could someone point me in the direction of whatever issue it was? No? Well I will anyway. A load of monsters standing around having a discussion (about what I do not know - it's not like I was "reading" the thing), and one of them, a green-skinned woman, eventually gets a sword thrown through her. She carries on talking and removes it like it was nothing...

Well, over the years I've acquired and then got rid of THREE big stacks of 2000 AD comics, and that issue I remember was in the first pile. Why I got rid of them? Who knows? They're probably the ONLY comics I've ever let go, which is just not right. Anyway, I remember having 2000 AD comics at least a year before getting my first Beano or Dandy (and THOSE comics actually helped me learn to read!), so with that in mind it's only fair that a 2000 AD annual should be one of my favourites. This one, specifically:

Oh, and I definitely WON'T be getting this "top twenty" finished before Xmas, so it'll run over into June probably, but that's fine.

So yes, 2000 AD, the 1990 edition (meaning 1989, obviously, what with the weird dating system that UK annuals use). It's another one from a car boot sale, as I wasn't of the annual-receiving age in 1989, but I've still had this for as long as I can remember, and it really is a good book. Even going over it again over the last couple of days as a "refresher", it makes me think that I should really invest more time into this sort of thing. Comparing it to the previously-"reviewed"Marvel Super-Heroes Omnibus, everything about it's so much more eye-pleasing, weird, funny (in an actual, tongue-in-cheek, Paul Verhoven-esque COMEDY way as apposed to just plain stupid) and all-round enjoyable. So that's a good start. This nicely-drawn contents page tells us what's inside, obviously:

A bit beautiful that, no? No idea who it's by. It says "Vigilant" on the table leg, is that a clue?

Moving on, the one character that almost everyone knows 2000 AD for is, of course, Judge Dredd. A bit of a bizarre "hero" for kids, in that he hates everything that most kids love, and arrests folk for enjoying such things, but that just makes his strips all the more fun to read. This one, titled Headbangers, sees Judge Police Chief Joe Dredd taking down an illegal heavy metal club - written by Alan Grant, drawn by Kev Hopgood and lettered by Kid Robson:

The longest story in the annual is the five-part, 24-page Invasion of the Thrill-Snatchers by Massimo Belardinelli, a bizarre tale concerning intergalactic parasites that have been hired to suck out the mind of Tharg the Mighty (2000 AD's "editor", for those that don't know). I'm not posting the whole thing here, because that would take forever (and this annual's cheap enough on Amazon - one penny at the time of writing), so here's just a few snippets - a profile of the titular thrill-suckers:

A battle scene showing the gruesome way that they dispose of rival parasites:

And this bit, playing up to the odd Nazi familiarities - that's called SATIRE:

For anyone whose only familiarity with 2000 AD is that Judge Dredd film from last year, here's an excerpt from a strip starring Anderson (the psychic judge), which concerns an oppressed housewife invoking the very soul of the Earth in order to become a mad Amazonian warrior, intent on getting revenge on the nearest chauvinists:

Yep, weird things happen in 2000 AD. Perhaps the all-round weirdest pages from this particular book are those of the Zenith Interlude by Grant Morrison and Jim McCarthy, featuring such visual delights as these:

There's a lot more in the book, obviously, but there's also about a hundred and fifteen other websites which will tell you all you want to know about 2000 AD - I'm just here today to look at a few of my favourite pages from this particular annual. Not really well-read enough to tell you anything NEW about it, just to point and say "Look at that!", and that's what I've done.

To summarise - I'd prefer to be given ONE issue of 2000 AD to read instead of a hundred Marvel comics, and I'm not trying to be big and clever by saying that as there's thousands who'd probably agree and blah blah etc.

Expect another underwhelming annual review shortly.

↧

The REAL Annual (can't think of a snappy title for this one, sorry)

November 29, 2013, 2:56 pm

≫ Next: See You Jimmy!

≪ Previous: The Annual from the Future

Next on the pile... This one!

It's the 1990 (as in, 1989) Real Ghostbusters annual, and this one actually DID arrive on the 25th day of December, all those years ago. Ghostbusters and its related media seems to be one of life's constants, at least in my experience. Early exposure and all that. And out of the four Real Ghostbusters annuals I've got over the years, this is the one that stands out for some fairly unique reasons...

It's another one published by Marvel, based on their Real Ghostbusters comics (which lasted for a LONG time), which in turn were based on the also long-running cartoon series. As American as you can get then, BUT - there's a running "theme" throughout this annual, that theme being that the Ghostbusters are visiting the UK on a "Bustman's Holiday" (really, that's what they call it).

So there's all the usual spookiness that one would expect the Ghostbusters to encounter, such as haunted shop dummies:

Then there's the more UK-specific stuff - encounters with the Loch Ness Monster (drawn by John Geering!), a haunted roller coaster in Margate, Slimer getting excited about meeting Beefeaters (in a strip lifted from Marvel's It's Wicked comic), even a night spent at Borley Rectory:

Plus this nice-looking encounter with a kelpie:

All this while Janine (you know, the receptionist played by Annie Potts) is stuck at home minding the phones:

It's a Marvel comic and she's a woman, of COURSE she's drawn in a "sexy" way.

The highlight of the whole book though, no doubt, is this mini-masterpiece titled Stonehenge Revenge. It's got ridiculous puns, drug-based jokes, references to the film (even lifting and semi-altering lines from the film!), and a monster almost as fun to look at as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is. For these reasons, here's all five pages of the thing:

The rest of the book's filled with what you'd expect from a TV show tie-in annual - board games, craft projects, character profiles, text stories and so on. It does end on a massive high though, with the Ghostbusters reaching the end of their ghoul-hunting tour of the British isles:

Followed by a picture that soaked up more of my eyeballs' attention throughout childhood than almost any other page in any other book, save for perhaps the cutaway of a boat in Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day? - just LOOK AT THIS:

If the annual was just one big piece of paper that folded out into that picture, it'd be amongst the ten best-selling books of all time, and that's completely without hyperbole.

In summary:

Marvel doing their own superhero things = Nah.

Marvel doing stuff based on other properties = Makes me feel good.

A little Ghostbusters joke there, ho ho etc.

↧

See You Jimmy!

December 4, 2013, 4:11 pm

≫ Next: Willy the Third

≪ Previous: The REAL Annual (can't think of a snappy title for this one, sorry)

I've received several "comedian-based" annuals over the years - from Lenny Henry's Well Hard Paperback to Harry Hill's Fun Book. None of these (well, perhaps excluding the Spitting Image Book) have made as much of a lasting impression, however, as Russ Abbot's Fun Book.

Why was the five-year-old version of myself gifted this? Was I a junior Russ Abbot's Madhouse fanatic? Were things getting desperate on the 24th of December in 1990? Those are questions I'll probably never get around to asking. It's still a book that lives up to its "fun" title, though.

Allow the blurb to give the first impressions, if you'd be so kind:

So what have we got? According to the credits page, all of the stuff inside this book's adapted from the BBC's Russ Abbot shows, in the sense that it's all been converted into comic strips, text stories, puzzles and infographics, with varying results. Fatman Vs. The Joker, for example, is a bit of a dud:

This Oliver Twist parody's a bit more like it - funny wordplay and all that, I like that sort of thing.

The Fencing Master, meanwhile, whilst a favourite of mine at the time, soon enough turned out to be a straight Monty Python rip-off. At least this fencing instructor's got a bit more patience than the Black Knight:

As mentioned, there's more than "just" comic strips in here - there's a cookery section:

And a gardening page too!

Wait for the punchline...

There's a script for a Basildon Bond film in here too, which goes on forever (well, six pages). The poster's nice enough:

A sampling from the "script":

CUT TO Z'S LABORATORY. Z IS P'S EQUIPMENT EXPERT. THE LABORATORY IS THE SIZE OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. IN THE BACKGROUND, THE WELSH GUARDS ARE ATTACKING TANKS WITH GIANT, LASER-FIRING TORTOISES. A KILLER WHALE IS BEING TAUGHT TO JUMP BY PARACHUTE AND AN ARMY OF TECHNICIANS IS ASSEMBLING A FULL-SIZE QE2 MADE OF POT NOODLE. Z IS DEMONSTRATING HIS LATEST DEVICE TO BOND, WHOSE ATTENTION IS TAKEN BY A TEAM OF MEXICAN GIRL SYNCHRONISED SWIMMERS WHO ARE FIRING PIRANHAS FROM BETWEEN THEIR TOES.

Pay attention. Bond. These...

HE HOLDS UP A PAIR OF METAL Y-FRONTS.

...are the very latest underpants. Made of titanium alloy. When you press this button at the back, an atomic-powered midget submarine will self-inflate and burst out of your trousers, destroying anything in its path.

BOND:

Looks lethal. I trust there's no reverse gear. What's the name of that Red Indian? Ah yes... Geronimo.

HE ACTIVATES HIS LITHIUM-FILLED ROCKET BOOTS AND HURTLES TO A HEIGHT OF 5000 FEET IN 30 SECONDS, LEAVING A LARGE, JAGGED HOLE IN 14 FLOORS OF THE MI5 BUILDING. WE CUT TO BOND, FLYING THROUGH THE AIR, AT ONE MOMENT, LIGHTING HIS CIGAR FROM THE STATUE OF LIBERTY'S TORCH AND THE NEXT, ZOOMING BETWEEN TWO STARTLED LIMBO DANCERS. HE HURTLES INTO THE MOUTH OF THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. THERE IS A PAUSE AND THEN HE RE-APPEARS, HAVING OBVIOUSLY DONE A U-TURN. HE SPEAKS TO AN ASTONISHED WORKER.

BOND:

So sorry. I didn't realise it was early closing.

DURING THIS WE HEAR KYLIE MINOGUE, SHIRLEY BASSEY AND THE PET SHOP BOYS SINGING THE BASILDON BOND THEME.

And so it goes on...

Here's another comic strip, my favourite one (actually). It's called East Side Story. Ignore all the other stuff on these pages, they're the answers to some of the various puzzles that Russ Abbot's Fun Book contains.

Twenty-three years ago, this following thing was my favourite part of the book for the bizarre illustrations. Older now, and being able to read (which helps), the text is also my favourite part of the book. Who saw that one coming? It's a parody of that old body-horror favourite, The Fly:

Finally, there's this Barrett Holmes yarn, full of mystery and suspense and all that:

"Continued next year" it says! That's probably definitely a joke, but I remember, "at the time", seeing this and thinking something along the lines of "I hope Father Christmas remembers to get me this book again next year so I can see what happens". He didn't, obviously, and there wasn't another book. It was all a cruel hoax. Still, it amused and perplexed me enough to form a liking for Russ Abbot's silly brand of humour - which is more than Lenny Henry's Well Hard Paperback ever achieved.

↧

Willy the Third

December 5, 2013, 3:34 pm

≫ Next: Putting the tinsel up.

≪ Previous: See You Jimmy!

Anyone who's taken their enjoyment of comics beyond the "casual" level is surely aware of Leo Baxendale's Willy the Kid books, right? Mr. Baxendale , creator of the Bash Street Kids, Grimly Feendish, Minnie the Minx, Little Plum, Sweeny Toddler and so on, working only for himself, free of any editorial restrictions - the first book's an absolute masterpiece, and the second one's not too shoddy either.

But how about... the THIRD Willy?

Cover image taken from Kid Robson's blog, for reasons soon to be made clear.

Yep, there was a third Willy the Kid book - and it's a bit of a rarity. Whereas there's around 150,000 copies of the each of the first two books out there, the third one was only printed 10,000 times due to Mr. Baxendale being too busy with his autobiography, thus missing the print deadline for annuals. Consequently, the book was higher priced and sold alongside "posh" books, instead of the annuals.

Well, landfills aside, I can count myself along with the 9,999 others who've had a chance to read this one. It's definitely the third best Willy book, and I feel like I'm showing off a bit here, but you know - public interest and all that. Oh, and I'm guessing I managed to get a copy of it so cheaply because it's missing its dust jacket, so instead of looking like the above image, my one looks like this:

How exciting!

It's not as long as the first two books, being just 48 pages (including the front and back cover). There's more text stories than the others as well, and there's not as much detail in the drawings. A lot of it's presented in a landscape format as well, meaning the book has to be turned around a lot. All these negatives can be discounted though, because it's still a riot on the inside. I'm just going to be showing the book's first story here - mostly because I don't want to wreck it too much through scanner radiation, and also because there's still probably a few more copies of this knocking about out there. Go and seek one of them out! This is the sort of thing you could be enjoying!

Oh, there's a Spotty Dick story in there too, which is ALMOST as funny as his zoo-based adventure in the first book. Just to whet the appetites of folk even more.

↧

Putting the tinsel up.

December 6, 2013, 2:30 pm

≫ Next: Twenty days left, not like anything's going to happen

≪ Previous: Willy the Third

Hmmm... Nineteen days to go, I got my first card today. Been selling trees to people for two weeks now, A Spaceman Came Travelling has been on the radio at least twice a day this week, and I feel like watching Scrooged. Suppose something "festive" should be done here?

Okay, the Christmas issue of Viz is out now. Everyone should go and buy it. We Blight Christmas will warm your heart like nothing else, and you get a free 2014 calendar. This is what you're looking for:

Well hey look, it's the return of Norbert Colon as well!

Here's something of a "Christmas Cracker" from December of 2002, and from the pages of the NME no less. Everyone goes through that "NME phase" at some point in their life - my phase, fortuitously, included this nice little two-pager by Viz man Alex Collier, written by NME staffer Mark Beaumont. It stars the Cooper Temple Clause, a band I'll still have time for today (this is them, in case you don't know them), and they're visiting various other musical folk dressed up as Father Christmas. If you weren't into the whole "new music" thing in 2002, it's doubtful that any of the jokes here will make any sense, but here you go anyway:

↧

Twenty days left, not like anything's going to happen

December 11, 2013, 2:12 pm

≫ Next: Look behind you and all that

≪ Previous: Putting the tinsel up.

So we may as well do this "year in review" thing that everyone else started doing in September. Let's see now...

On a purely cultural level, it's been a bit of a bugger. We've lost Bob Godfrey, Ray Harryhausen, Lou Reed, Richard Briers, Mel Smith, Charles Grigg, Marcia Wallace, Patti Page, James Gandolfini, Richard Griffiths, Felix Dexter - more or less everyone that anyone's ever cared about is now dead. It's not that nice, really.

What with all the death and disaster, there hasn't been much good "new" stuff around either (at least not that I've noticed). The fact that my favourite album of the year is a compilation of forgotten indie bands from the Nineties that Ben Baker put together could be considered "evidence" of this, but it's more likely I'm just not paying enough attention.

But just like last year, at least there's been that one constant to hold onto and laugh at/with. Viz is what I'm talking about, and it's never going to go away and that makes me and several other people GLAD. Here's the twenty-seven best bits of Viz from 2013, in roughly descending order. How happy we shall be!

27 - Cover of the Year - Lichtenstein Fartpants

Ooh, look at that etc. I'm thinking I should get a bigger scanner soon, it'd be easier than trying to convince Dennis Publishing to reduce the width of Viz slightly. The problems this brings to freeloading folk such as myself shall become evident as this list progresses...

26 - Jasper the Gasper

A big surprise in the Christmas issue (out now, go and buy it and hang the calendar on your wall in a couple of weeks) is the Fulchester debut of TOM PATERSON! That's just a few panels from the two-page extravaganza there, to whet the appetites and whatnot. Admittedly it's not the best thing ever - the story doesn't make a lot of sense and it's easy to tell that Mr. Paterson's been waiting his entire career to say "fuck" in a comic, but it LOOKS fantastic as always, and if it means that Tom'll be a regular fixture in future issues, I'll keep on saying that this is the best IPC character parody that Viz has ever done.

25 - Ski Cunt Magazine

A magazine parody proving that I can still get belly laughs from seeing swear words used in such a blasé way. Secret Beekeeper was another funny fake advert from this year, but this one topped it, just about.

24 - Hen Cabin/Horse Box

The stuff that Barney Farmer and Lee Healey do for Viz is one of the world's great dividing issues. I'm of the side that loves it, although it's hard to say why. Use that clichéd analogy of trying to explain the taste of Marmite to someone who doesn't like it, why not. Anyway, this episode of Hen Cabin relates to that hilarious horse meat "scandal" from the first half of 2013. I got a lot of free food out of that one, let's hope it's an annual event, eh?

23 - Cockney Wanker's Terrible Accident

Oh, such drama! Had this one been published a few months later (maybe during the week that had nine cyclists getting killed on the roads of London) there could've been a bit of good old fashioned comics controversy in the news.

22 - Terry Fuckwitt's Christmas Adventure

Another one from the current issue (click on it!), but it's only seven panels long so you can have the whole thing. Terry's increasingly surreal existence has effects as far reaching as two thousand years into the past, evidently.

21 - Get Married In Maplin

"Maplin - It's safe in here"

Love it.

20 - The most depressing strip of the decade

More from Farmer and Healey (sorry), this one taking their fatalistic approach to comics to new highs/lows.

19 - The Exorcism of Biffa Bacon

A bit of the good old ultra-violence to cheer everyone up again. The possession's getting WORSE! Bring out the holy cricket bats!

18 - The Apprentice: Fulchester United

The Apprentice is the funniest thing on telly every year. Combine the thick-headed egotisms of its contestants with the ridiculous nature of the adventures of Billy the Fish and we have something fairly funny indeed.

17 - Fru T. Bunn's Amsterdam Adventure

Not the best thing Frubert's ever done, but I went to Amsterdam this year and had an enjoyable time, so this one's here as a "tribute" to it all. Nice to see that visiting the "Bread" Light District (little joke there) is a common thing for ALL bakers.

16 - Beddley Wettington

Just like there are people who can't stand Farmer and Healey's stuff, there's also folk who don't like Cat Sullivan's stuff (me, for example). This one, however, proved to be an exception to the rule. Which is actually true!

15 - Jack Black's Mouse Plague Mystery

Jack's Hitler jigsaw and knowing when to turn a blind eye to a lynch mob being nine-tenths of the law... Simon Ecob's world is a truly horrific Daily Mail wonderland.

14 - Roger Mellie's Science Kitchen

What happens when Roger Mellie is given the opportunity to do an educational kids' show. Go and buy the current issue to see the whole thing, it's worth a chuckle.

13 - Toby's Two Grannies - They Insult Each Other's Fannies

Something else by another member of the "new talent" at Viz - don't know who though, it could be any of this lot: Carl Hollingsworth? Martin Meeks? Joel Morris? Jason Hazely? Tom Ellen? Nick Tolson? Mark Bates? Julian Boffin? Terry Stickney? Lizzie Hoskin? Come on, own up! There's some wonderful insults here... "At least mah manicured muff nay resembles a burst hedgehog or an axe wound in a gorilla's back". Ladies, please!

12 - The Hinted-At Past of the Drunken Bakers

I'll admit it now, I can't get enough of this pair. As the years have gone on, the jovial pair have only gotten more and more tragic, and over the past year or so we've been given hints at how they ended up in the state they are today. Turns out they've been at it for a LONG time now...

11 - Big Vern's C.A.B. Adventure

More comical misunderstandings with the quick-thinking man-about-town. I like how Ernie's surname is revealed to be "Normal".

10 - Roy Lichtenstein's Schooldays

It's always nice to see Lichtenstein's name dragged through the mud, here courtesy of Lew Stringer. In the same week this one was published, Nigel Parkinson did a nice little bit of destructive analysis of the big bloody charlatan over on his blog. Worth a read if you've got a spare two minutes.

9 - Octavius Ace and the Slug Trap Conundrum

You have to compliment 8 Ace on managing to save the ninth can for his wife, at least. And too much of the Ace will make your body react to salt in the same way as a gastropod, so be careful.

8 - Lucky Frank has his chips

Yonk, Yarp, Yirp, Yop and Yoinks! As if Frank's luck couldn't get any better...

7 - Sid the Sexist Wins the Game

A three-page "epic" from Simon Thorp of the silver-tongued cavalier. Poor Sid gets a bit carried away with himself here, with obvious consequences. Seen that clever "saucepan-on-the-head/long-casualty-waiting-times" joke in the last panel? I like that.

6 - Biffa Bacon Vs. The Horse

The ridiculous lengths a parent will go to in order to batter their child, Biffa's often-hinted-at cultural sensibilities and Mutha's masculinity being called into question... Another classic adventure with the Bacons.

5 - Terry Fuckwitt's Big Idea

It clearly runs in the family... Or Terry's just contagious. Either way:

"Honestly! You really are a trio of utter cockwits! It's a lovely day and you're all cooped up inside this enormous revolving wooden box!"

4 - Roger Mellie, Farrier

Roger's fairly professional at times. He knows what he's doing, until he's pushed. His response to being asked if he'd like a go at shoeing a horse? Almost spat my tea out reading that one.

3 - Gilbert Ratchet's Piss Pipes

Only the most absurd things can happen in Gilbert's line of work. Where a programming error can result in a bird feeder spitting out camping equipment instead of seeds, or where a woman whose house is filled with frozen urine can have her problems solved by the Sarah Miles fan club.

2 - Johnny Fartpants and the Adequate Send-Off

In which Alex Collier helps us to celebrate one of 2013's happier moments, with all manner of celebrity guests - including Paul Whicker!

1 - The Real Ale Twats and the New Barmaid

Hmm, one of this trio might be me in twenty years time... For now, I'm always up for a giggle, and no single panel in Viz this year has made me giggle as much as the second-to-last one on this page.

Wonder if Thorp, Dury, Jones, Ecob, Collier et al can top that in 2014? Of course they can! Oh, and go and buy it every month if you don't already. Cheers.

"It's not as funny as it used to be" - Mark E. Smith, 1986

↧

Look behind you and all that

December 19, 2013, 3:38 pm

≫ Next: Merry Fishmas!

≪ Previous: Twenty days left, not like anything's going to happen

Six more sleeps till "the big day", and somehow, despite all my efforts, I'm not feeling "Christmassy" in the slightest. I'll be blaming recent real-life events for that, but am still endeavouring to get at least a BIT festive. This might help:

Yeah, a pantomime! The Hoot pantomime no less. I've talked about Hoot before, and I'll be talking about it again - it's far too good a comic to be as neglected as it is. It was completely left out of the otherwise excellent Classics From The Comics (it's not even mentioned on the cover), and last year, when DC Thomson put out a book collecting several pantomime-themed stories from their archives, Hoot was left out once more.

In my ongoing heroic quest to right such wrongs, here's the whole thing, in full...

Exciting stuff, eh? That bit where everyone flies in to save the day only to be unceremoniously vaporised? All the more impressive is that (apparently) Steve Bright did this whole comic himself. Peter Gray says that he did anyway, and he knows his stuff. Obviously drawing his own characters (Super Fran and Want-A-Job Bob), but ghosting everyone else as well - Barrie Appleby, Ken Harrison, Robert Nixon, and to an unbelievably-convincing level, David Mostyn (Snackula) and John Geering (Dogsbody).

And you know what? Because Christmas is a nostalgic time of year (in that it was ALWAYS better when you were younger), here's something else. The Hoot pantomime was Babes In The Wood, which just happens to be the first pantomime I ever went to (or so my memory tells me), way back in... 1990. Yes. So here's the nice-looking programme from that very show, along with a few interesting bits from within:

A nice start with the cover there, combining two favourites into a whole. What challenges await and so on. Here's your usual programme stuff - a list of who's in it:

Ooh, him off Neighbours! And one of the Nolans too. Smashing. Here's the "forthcoming attractions" bit - I definitely remember going to see Rainbow. The thing with Zippy and George and Bungle.

And a puzzle to keep the kids quiet. NONE of those differences could escape the keen eyes of me and my brother:

Really, I wouldn't've bothered scanning (or even keeping) this programme were it not for the OTHER puzzle pages, done by a mysterious pair called Annie Butcher and Ken Meharg. Just LOOK at these things!

I can't remember anything at all from the actual pantomime, but these images have stayed with me my whole life - a show outperformed by its programme? Seems that way. Just thought they were worth sharing with the world.

And here's an advert from it, from when a Curly Wurly was about five feet long:

↧

Merry Fishmas!

December 23, 2013, 8:02 pm

≫ Next: Is this too late? Probably

≪ Previous: Look behind you and all that

Speaking honestly, 2013's been a bit of a shitter mostly. There were some good bits, definitely, but it's all been downhill since around September-ish, hence the general Scrooginess I've been feeling throughout December. HOWEVER, over the past two nights I've been visited by three spirits (well, two good friends and a sibling), and that "festive feeling" has finally arrived, sort of. So let's have one last thing before the 25th happens - The Trout Xmas Special!

How appropriate! One of those terrible Viz wannabes that's also Christmassy. This being the only issue of Trout that I have, it makes sense to look at it now, otherwise it'd mean waiting a whole year for the opportunity to arise again. And a lot of things can happen in a year - what if something should "happen"? The world would be denied knowing about the contents of this particular comic! And what a tragedy that would be etc.

Let's have some context first - this one's from Lancashire, 1990. And because it's from 1990, of course it has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "parody". It's by Bob Wayne, who seems to do the bulk of Trout's content:

And yes, it's from 1990, and it's also an "alternative" comic, so of course there's a bit that's having a go at Jeremy Beadle:

That one's by Chris Perkins - I'm sure I've seen his doodlings somewhere else, but I'm not about to go investigating at this time of night.

This being the Christmas Special, most of Trout's (assumingly) "regular" characters are put through some sort of Christmas adventure, beginning with the abysmal Gozzer - a badly-drawn, wholly unfunny, tortuously long (four pages!) strip with the worst ending imaginable for anything:

Wasn't THAT fun?

There's even a Trout nativity set included on the inside back cover:

More Christmas fun arrives courtesy of the depressingly typical Hard Bastard:

And things only get worse from there, as this little lot shows:

There's even room in there for a certain cartoonist who would later appear in Jockstrap:

Should any of these characters seem appealing to anyone, Trout clothing exists:

Well, the one with the fish on it is funny.

It's not 100% terrible though, as two strips in this thing gave me a bit of a chuckle - the first being Samantha's Box:

And the other being this Numskulls parody, titled The Dickheads:

The whole thing's sixty pages long, so at least there's a lot to get through, but this lot here are the only memorable parts. The rest of it's the usual rubbish you'd expect from something like this - "rude" parodies of Fireman Sam and Postman Pat, unfunny "10 Things You Never Knew About..." lists, various homophobic, xenophobic and sexist comics, fake adverts... Trout may well be the most typical of all the Viz rip-offs, and isn't really worth anyone's time, ever.

Still, with this being "the season" and all that, I don't want to end on a sour note, so I'll pretend that this thing on the back cover is the best thing I've ever seen:

Here's to all of you! Enjoy yourselves on Wednesday, or at least try to. And if you're feeling miserable after finding out that Trout exists, here's a great little festive cartoon that's been around since 1982, but I only saw it for the first time a few days ago...

Ziggy's Gift, from Tom Wilson, Richard Williams, Harry Nilsson and so on:

That's more like it!

↧

Is this too late? Probably

January 14, 2014, 2:47 pm

≫ Next: Cheap Strong Beverage with an Uncompromising Bouquet

≪ Previous: Merry Fishmas!

Greetings, and a merry new year to one and all. Yes, I'm late saying that, but I AM working on... something. It's in keeping with previous themes, but it's also a theme-within-a-theme. While that's in development, I thought I'd best do something quick here - nothing screams "dead blog" like a miserable post made on Christmas Eve being at the top of the page when we're half way through January, so you're having this:

Zig and Zag's Zogazine - the New Year special! The Zogazine has been featured on this part of the Internet in the past. Twice, in fact. It honestly, honestly, REALLY IS one of the funniest comics to ever come out of Britain, thanks in no small part to it being headed by a certain Kev Sutherland, yet if the modern world is anything to go by, it seems that I'm 50% of the people who remember it. The other 50% made a video all about it, with genuine enthusiasm and everything - take a look at it, perhaps? Then go back to this thing, unless something else on YouTube distracts you. There's some pages to see if you want, and some "clues" as to what the next thing around here will be, if you're keen enough...

Merchandise! I've got all those figures there, and am seeking those mugs - anyone got any going spare?

Look at all those Scottish comic folk in the top-right panel there... Desperate Dan, Black Bob, Tam MacBam, Oor Wullie, Lobey Dosser... Och, whit braw heritage! etc.

So... Did you spot the big clue? No? Okay, it's a trilogy of rude Scottish comics on the way. That's not so much a clue, more of a spoiler. Be sure to check back sometime before 2016, and I may've got them done by then.

↧

Cheap Strong Beverage with an Uncompromising Bouquet

January 29, 2014, 6:50 am

≫ Next: Skin Up, or something

≪ Previous: Is this too late? Probably

It would've been nice to've had this one done by Saturday, but there we go. Another delayed celebration it is. The next few things getting "looked at" are from that Scotland place, but don't worry - these're nothing like that last Scottish comic seen here. So get your Irn Bru ready - we're starting with...

This one!

Started in Glasgow in 1989, by misters David Alexander and Tommy Sommerville, Electric Soup seems like so much more than the Viz wannabe that the media made it out to be. So people aren't allowed to make grown-up comics with rude words in them because there's already one of those? Balls to that! I'm feeling a bit guilty now with that "Viz-A-Likes" words I've been using, but a lot of them undeniably ARE cash-ins... It's just that a lot of comics sprung up around the same time, and people like to encapsulate things, so that's what's getting done. Electric Soup is one of the good ones, so let's just leave it at that. After looking at some pages from it, obviously.

That impressive-looking cover there is one of many done by Frank Quitely, who nowadays is one of those genuine comic world celebrities. Before he was doing stuff about daft folk in capes though, he created The Greens, an "affectionate" parody of The Broons - even doing the speech bubbles similar to how Dudley Watkins used to do'm. There's moments of actual "laugh-out-loud"-ness amongst these, and it proved too difficult to pick just one example of their adventures - so here's a whole mess of them:

How's THAT for an explosion sound effect?

Quitely's other main contribution to Electric Soup is Wendy the West-End Trendy, one of those celebrity-bashing things that've been popular ever since doodling was invented:

Electric Soup's very much a "core team" kind of affair, with just a handful of folk doing the whole thing, unlike the free-for-all disasters like Smut, which helps a lot, obviously. Here's a few bits from co-founder Tommy Sommerville, starting with Rocky McBlaw - it's by-the-numbers drugs humour, but at least it's funny to look at:

Equally yawn-making is the overheard pub joke illustrations of Jack Russell:

Fun information - another of Jack Russell's adventures was completely ripped off and redrawn by Jockstrap!

The more imaginative stuff is obviously more fun, so here's Adolf Busturd, the traffic warden:

And Electric Soup's resident superhero, Helmetman, with his giant, shape-shifting member:

One of my personal favourite comic people is Shug McKenna (aka. Shug 90) - there's a fair amount of his stuff in Electric Soup, including Polis Story:

The Bears fae Brigton:

And the utterly helpless Wildebeests:

And just because I like those doomed animals so much, here's another of their adventures:

Arguably the centrepiece of each issue of Electric Soup is David Alexander's own creation, The MacBam Brothers, Scotland's answer to Gilbert Shelton's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, although Alexander himself says it's more inspired by The Young Ones. None of that matters, because each one's a mini-masterpiece - be it a one-page thing like this:

Or a multi-page epic like this one:

Of course, nothing's ever perfect - try as I may, I just can't get any enjoyment out of Billy Pope (which I THINK is drawn by Padam Singh?):

Same goes for Spandex Sue, Capital Cabs and Wur Malkie:

On the other hand, a lot of (somehow?) enjoyment can be had from the deranged Sandwitch Lotter by "Kev" someone-or-other. I've seen that hand before, but I just can't place it!

Likewise, we have the mild-mannered Tunnock McNulty, by "Gerbil":

After seven issues, John Brown of John Brown Publishing (them who made Viz the success it was) was shown a copy of Electric Soup whilst in Glasgow, and loved it, sending it out all over the country and pushing sales into the 50,000+ mark. This obviously made for fancier printing, meaning fancier covers like this one:

And even fancy BACK covers too, such as this bit of fantastic-ness:

John Brown admitted that there may be problems with the language used in Electric Soup, but it was the Scottish-ness that made it what it was - so the first "national" issue included this helpful thing at the start, for all those soft southern bampots:

Nothing lasts forever, mind, and Electric Soup was finished after issue 17, although a tenth "Anusversary" issue was made in 1999:

And... That's that! What happened next is fairly interesting, so "stay tuned" or whatever. We'll finish here with another mighty MacBams adventure...

Oh, anyone got an Electric Soup T-shirt knocking about? I'd love that Wildebeest one there!

And one more thing - for those that don't like getting their fingers dirty on eBay but would like to see more of this kind of thing, there's these two books available:

Both fantastic, and both available from Braw Books. Get them!

↧

Skin Up, or something

March 13, 2014, 5:39 am

≫ Next: Could be a writer with a growing reputation, could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway station

≪ Previous: Cheap Strong Beverage with an Uncompromising Bouquet

Yes, yes, it's been a short while - explanations to follow and all that. For now let's get on with this trilogy thing here. This one!

It's 1999, and David Alexander (creator of Electric Soup mainstays the MacBams) came up with the idea for a dope-themed humour comic (initially titled Skunk) - Jim Stewart, Jamie Grant and Paddy "Pudsy" Morris (RIP) agreed, and so Northern Lightz came into being. What followed was eleven issues of mostly pun-based laughs, all in a "being-in-the-right-frame-of-mind" sort of vein. Let's "toke" a "ganja" shall we? As in, "take a gander". Do puns still work if you explain them afterwards? Pfft.

Before starting, maybe the more innocent folk out there should know that "dope-humour" largely relies on short-term memory loss. You'll be seeing the same jokes over and over again here. Think of a T-shirt shop in Blackpool or Scarborough or Amsterdam, only better drawn, and you're on the right track. It's nowhere near as rubbish as something like this:

...but if that tickled you, you're going to have a great time.

Okay, here we bloody well go then. We'll begin with the very first page of the very first issue - always important if you want a "feel" of what a comic will be all about, usually. It's Spliffy the Bush Kangaroo:

Don't worry, things get better immediately. Look, it's Frank Quitely and Alan Grant doing a Buck Rogers spoof!

And here we have the resident superhero of Northern Lightz, Jim Stewart's Astounding Ganjaman:

The high-as-a-kite superhero there had several of his own comics too, and even hosted his own anthology title - Ganjaman Presents. More on that another day.

Of course, Northern Lightz isn't ALL about puns. There's also out-and-out weirdness:

Or there's bits about folk enjoying the lifestyle, as it were, such as this pair here, by Jamie Grant:

Okay, that one ended on a pun again. Alright, how about this one instead, by Mark Stafford:

Well, that's a bit depressing really. Sorry. Let's see... Ah! Here we go. A morality fable by the dearly departed Pudsy (1949-2010):

Pudsy's one of many highly skilled cartoonists who contributed to Northern Lightz - his stuff's been collected into a book, if you didn't know, available from Lulu. Here's his take on a certain Beano character (guess which one):

Everyone we know loves a Beano (parody)

The already-mentioned founder, David Alexander, is out in full force too - here's crusty-type Bud Roach:

And Jon Haward's "toke" on the Robin Hood legends - Sherweed Forest, naturally, here under the name of Johnny Horney:

Along with Electric Soupfavourite, Shug McKenna:

And the absolutely insane Captain Zappa, by John Miller:

I've lost count of the amount of places I've seen Miller's stuff (or more likely forgotten which publications they appeared in), but they really are like nothing else - if you want to make your eyes bleed through comic-reading, Miller's your man! It loses a bit of the effect when colour is added, unfortunately:

...but if you like what you see, there's three whole books of his thirty-year career available on Lulu. If this is beginning to sound like a paid-for feature, it really isn't!

Let's have a few more pun-based things before something really special. Here's the mandatoryRainbow parody, this time it's called Insaneblow, by Jim Stewart:

And from the same pen, The Spliffsons, who I can guarantee you'll see on at least six different T-shirt stands if you go for a walk along Blackpool's Golden Mile:

Also appearing on several dozen T-shirts are the Jelejunkies and Tokemon, from Jamie Grant:

Now for that "something special" - it's David Alexander's MacBam Brothers in a big old Alan Grant-scripted adventure - The MacTadger Connection. A story so popular it was translated into Dutch and Spanish, and reprinted in Soft Secretsmagazine. It got its own Hergé-esque front cover and everything! Enjoy:

Good, eh? Now, onwards. Like many other publications, Northern Lightz went through a bit of a transformation about halfway through its run. Issue 7 is full-colour glossy pages all the way through, and up until the end there's at least a dozen colour pages in each issue. This is what Shug McKenna's stuff looks like in colour - featuring the return of the Wildebeests!

Jim Stewart's puntastic strips also got the colour treatment:

And of course, with each revamp comes new artists - including Robert Thomson:

"Gek":

And Doctor Simpo, one of my favourite current cartoonists, so it was a nice surprise to find this within the pages of Northern Lightz, to say the least:

New "regular characters" abound too, in the shape of the Bush Doctor - "He treats all known ailments with a spliff!" is about all you need to know:

Jon Haward's Tales of the Buddha is another one:

Jim Devlin's The Dopranos:

And Gibson Quarter's War On Drug$ starring Johnny Kunt - Agent of R.E.T.R.I.B.U.T.I.O.N.

Here's John Miller's take on Johnny Kunt:

And it'd be Johnny Kunt's hard-hitting ask-no-questions stance on drugs that eventually put an end to Northern Lightz, like so:

There's a BIG clue to the next part of the story there...

So, let's summarise? Northern Lightz definitely has an intended audience, and makes it obvious. I'm definitely not a member of that audience, but it's still an enjoyable comic, if only for the artwork alone. Just don't read too many issues in one sitting and you'll be fine. The covers are always good too - like this one featuring Alan Burrows'Fun Guys:

A massive, massive, MASSIVE thanks to Adam Smith, who sent me nearly the whole run of Northern Lightz completely free. Go and find his stuff and buy some of it!

↧

Could be a writer with a growing reputation, could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway station

March 24, 2014, 5:33 pm

≫ Next: Gordon Bell - 1934-2014, a mini tribute

≪ Previous: Skin Up, or something

Bit of a sad one here, as apart from Viz, this was the last (easily-obtainable) "alternative" British humour comic - as in, there haven't been any more on the high street since this one. That's not to say I'm done here, there's still LOADS left to look at, it's just that chronologically, this is the last. It's the "sequel" of sorts to Northern Lightz, and it's called Wasted. You may remember Johnny Kunt "hinting" at this (here). The last page of the last issue of Northern Lightz was this:

And now THIS:

...is Wasted!

Admittedly, there's not a lot that's new in here - at a guess I'd say it's about 65-70% reprints (albeit re-coloured) of stuff from Northern Lightz, Shit the Dog and possibly even Khaki Shorts and New British Comics (who knows?), but seeing as those titles were only available in specialist places, Wasted could be seen as an introduction to a whole other world of comics, if you like. A big glossy thing, available from the likes of Forbidden Planet, WH Smith's, Borders... This was a big thing! The first issue was out in 2008, and it was in 2009 when I found my first issue of Wasted (number two). Not having read any Northern Lightz personally until Adam Smith sent me a pile of them last year, at least it was all "new" to me - perhaps I was exactly who they were aiming for? Perhaps not? Let's not get definitive here.

The whole thing's another Alan Grant venture, published by Bad Press Ltd. and created (mostly) by the folk at Glasgow's Hope Street Studios...

That's the educational part, here's some stuff from it - beginning with a few "touched-up"Northern Lightz reprints. Jim Devlin's The Dopranos have a home here:

As does Spaceman Spliff, the Spaced Cabby by Jamie Grant. In this particular strip, the shipment of Northern Lightz comics has been "modified" somewhat from the original printing:

And here's our old pal, Gibson Quarter's Johnny Kunt, agent of R.E.T.R.I.B.U.T.I.O.N. in his continuing War On Drugs:

John Miller's eyeball-raping Captain Zappa is present too, in this chucklesome adventure featuring Eric Clapton:

And there's more... Reprints of David Alexander's MacBam Brothers, Shug's Dope Squad, Alan Burrows'Fun Guys, various bits from Jon Haward (more on those in a bit) - but moving away from Northern Lightz, here's some bits from Alan Grant, John Wagner and Simon Bisley's Shit the Dog - originally a series of four massive (as in A-1 size!) poster magazines, here the titular dog was resized and reprinted for all to see:

Just found out who Simon Bisley's sister is, how interesting!

Deemed "indefensible in court" by a legal counsellor for the Sport of all things, NOBODY would stock Shit the Dog - and that was back in 1997. Over ten years later and the dirty mutt got a bit more exposure thanks to Wasted. And for all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans out there, here's Kevin Eastman's take on Shit:

Let's see some "original content" now - as far as I can tell anyway. Here, here's Jed Raven illustrating a ballad by Alan Grant called The Devil's Arse:

Ray Manta's OK-COKEY is a rip-roaring something-or-other:

Also from Ray Manta is Ramrod, a series of unconnected stories/gags that share nothing but a title. Good though:

Whilst Gabrielle Noble's Spliffy the Stoner Chick is a bit on the odd side:

Name those kids - they're all famous!

If that one did anything for you, you can get a book of all of her various adventures "here".

Adam Smith's here too, with Khaki Shorts mainstay Boy Mindless (here given the air brush treatment that seems to befall many pages of Wasted for some reason):

And from him again, in collaboration with Martin Smith and Robert Smith (that's three Smiths for those at the back), it's this morality tale of sorts:

Now something from a guest contributor, Lee Turnock:

Naturally, it's not all fun - Lusi Sulfura by Alan Kerr just might be the most boring comic character ever created:

Really, how many times have you met someone like "that", and before they've opened their mouths you instantly know what their opinion on absolutely everything is? I'm entitled to a rant just as much as anyone else is! See also Lise Myhre's Nemi every day in the Metro (or in a comic shop in Norway). At least Ray Zell's Pandora (from Kerrang!) is mainly there to rip into the bands. There's a parody of Nemi in another issue of Wasted, but by sharing paper with Lusi there, it's just hypocritical. It's done by Curt Sibling as part of his Total Fear series, featured below:

And if that's not thinly-disguised softcore furry porn, you tell me what it is. Whatever floats you and all that, eh?

The highlight of Wasted as a whole is another thing that began in the later issues of Northern Lightz, before continuing onwards - Jon Haward's Tales of the Buddha (Before he got enlightened):

Semi-educational, nicely-drawn, not TOO many "haha drugs are funny" jokes, it's a winner. There's even a multi-issue spanning adventure in which the Buddha is tricked into taking on the Twelve Tasks of Hercules, of which the first part is presented here:

Just as Wasted was getting noticed, it all came to an end in 2011 when, after eight issues, Bad Press Ltd. was forced to close its doors due to "adverse and unforeseen circumstances". The character copyrights were withheld, but most of the multi-title-spanning characters remain in limbo, as far as I know - with the exception of your Buddha man there, who got picked up by Renegade Press and then compiled into a nice big fat book.

So, that's Wasted then, and the end of the "Scottish trilogy" that's taken up all my time here so far this year - not to say it was unenjoyable. A nice grasp for the mainstream there, that didn't resort to "hey drugs!" as a punchline on every page...

...Well, almost.

↧

Gordon Bell - 1934-2014, a mini tribute

March 25, 2014, 4:20 pm

≫ Next: Apathetic Amphibian

≪ Previous: Could be a writer with a growing reputation, could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway station

By now most comic readers are probably aware that Gordon Bell left this world on the 13th of February, aged 79. One of the hallmarks of being a "great" comic artist is your work being easily identifiable as uniquely yours, and Gordon's style was DEFINITELY a unique one. Tributes to him abound (for example, here, here, here, here, here and here), and here's another one - beginning with the first bit of Gordon's work that I ever saw, from the first Beano annual I ever got:

Here's a self-portrait of sorts from the 1993 Topper annual:

And arguably his finest creation, that master of hokum, flim-flam, posh and poppycock, Spoofer McGraw:

RIP, Mr. Bell.

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Apathetic Amphibian

April 3, 2014, 5:09 pm

≫ Next: Devastated?

≪ Previous: Gordon Bell - 1934-2014, a mini tribute

Here's an odd one, stylistically at least. In the realm of Viz-inspired comics, Lazy Frog from Big Star Publishing is certainly... anomalous? Thematically it's identical, yes, but it LOOKS like nothing else I've seen within the "genre".

Well, that cover's not exactly representative of what I'm on about, but hang in there. Okay, the first time I found Lazy Frog was on a trip to that London in 2002, and it was on the shelf of some swanky newsagent. Not the first issue, but the sixth issue. I enjoyed it enough at the time, but in the decade (and more!) since then I've only been able to find two more issues. And the only information concerning Lazy Frog on the whole of the Internet can be found in two paragraphs of one page:

Dave: You’ve sent me some of your recent work. Well, fairly recent. I didn’t know of the existence of Big Star Publishing and here are two titles from them. Lazy Frog is a kind of West Country Viz with lots of rude words and sheep-shagging. It’s about ninety percent comics, the strips variously signed by Shaky Kane, Shaky K and Joe Klutz. Time to come clean I think. This looks like a one-man show to me. But can I reassure Vikki that all those French personal ads were not down to you? I can’t believe you came up with “Sacre Bleu, I appear to ‘ave fucked you up ze ass.”

Shaky: Again, an opportunity came my way. Uncle Al The Kiddie’s Pal was my character, along with The Tic-Toc Man. But the personal ads you’re talking about were down to the editor, Ian Porter. He must have thought it was a good idea at the time. His Smelliest Clown Lonely Heart page was funnier! And he actually put the damn thing out, so it’s hard to be too critical.

There we have it - the extent of the Internet's knowledge about Lazy Frog (besides a slight discussion on the matter here) - it's a two-man job consisting of the artist, Shaky Kane (real name Michael Coulthard, of Deadline, 2000AD and Bulletproof Coffin fame) and the editor, Ian Porter, who also put out the magazine and wrote most of the stuff in it. It lasted for at least six issues, beginning in 2001, and that's all we know. So what can I do? I can show some of its contents to anyone who might be interested, that's what!

The first issue seems like more of a "lad's mag" parody than a comic - out of 32 pages, ten of them are comic strips, the rest consists of "funny" things, which of course is entirely subjective. Things like My Kind of Wank with Patrick Moore (featuring Declan Swan from the Claims Direct adverts), Diary of a Drunken Male aged 30 and 3/4 ("Woke up on the stairs! Despair..."), bar games, quizzes, daft news stories, things like this:

And this:

You know - the kind of things that give away the publishing date without even using numbers. And speaking of being an object of its time, the first issue also has this page:

Ah, when the Internet was still a novelty and not the main reason most people get out of bed on their day off. Only one of those featured websites still works, and it doesn't seem to match its original description (just don't try them out if you're in public!).

Right in the middle of that first issue though, is this:

That old "comic-within-a-comic" thing, similar to what Cheeky Weekly used to do so well, perhaps. It's kind of alright on the inside of this bit, in that it features Kooky Koala, the mandatory "children's TV puppet doing rude things" strip:

Uncle Al, The Kiddie's Pal, who is in every issue of Lazy Frog that I've read:

Irish gangsta rap sensation Duff Paddy:

And these two things - both of these strips were reprinted in the fourth issue, only with added colour, which is what you'll be seeing now:

In the "original" version, this was titled Indiana JAMES. That might come up in a quiz one day.

So... Fairly interesting as first issues go, but nothing special. I'm not sure what happened in the intervening issues, but by the fourth one, it's ALMOST like a completely different comic:

Slightly bigger so that it won't fit under the scanner properly, what a bastard!

It's still got a few bits of lad-mag nonsense (such as the included World Cup wallchart, complete with "flied lice" jokes), but it's also got Shaky Kane giving us freaky-deeky bits like this:

And what else? Some boring drug-humour in the form of Sinsemilla Street (not really worth the effort of scanning), Joey's Bar, in which Joey Ramone runs a bar in Heaven (ditto), and some more "sign of the times" stuff, this time in the form of political satire:

This will be stuck in your head all day now, sorry.

And the continuing adventures of Duff Paddy - notice how the first page of this one is word-for-word identical to his previous escapade, but drawn differently?

I'd completely forgotten about that horrible advert until reading this again.

And now we come to the SIXTH issue, the one that entertained me for the first half hour of the bus ride home from London all those years ago:

It certainly stood out on the shelf, that's for sure. Lots of high quality (as in, fun to look at, if not to read) stuff in here, such as the Freud-fuelled frolics of Professor Chad:

And nefarious supervillain-at-large, Tic-Toc Man:

So, Lazy Frog - definitely interesting, mostly for Kane's drawings (mostly under the "Joe Klutz" pseudonym). Not a lot of it's actually amusing, but to sound like a Londoner I'll say it's a visually stimulating tour-de-force if you want. More of this sort of thing will be scanned if anyone's interested, but for now we'll finish with this:

↧

Devastated?

April 13, 2014, 4:24 pm

≫ Next: Devastated? The Prequel!

≪ Previous: Apathetic Amphibian

Here's a lesson in why setting out to initially do things in a chronological order was a doomed task from the start... As in, I had this "piece" all ready and prepared when I found out that this particular publication is/was the "sequel" to another one. No worries, I'll just have to shift things around a bit and "do"Gutter after this one - which is called Gutted.

Get me and my fancy sample edition

The story goes that there was a comic called Gutter, itself an off-shoot of Zit - same publishers and everything (Humour Publications), and when things weren't going so well there Gutter was shut down and re-launched as Gutted, printed on cheap paper and using spot-colour throughout, and claiming "bizarre humour" as its selling point. Yep, it's rude comics having a go at surrealism, with mixed results.

Before I got hold of any issues of Gutted, I was informed that it was the equivalent of what you'd get if you could staple wank together - an understandable opinion when looking at lazily "random" bits like these:

Yes, that thing that Noel Fielding does nowadays, only on paper. I stand here today to say that despite such rubbish as this, I enjoyed reading the four issues of Gutted that I've acquired so far. I really have!

The "proper" first issue

Conceived and written mostly by Ged Backland and Shaun Taft (previously featured here within the pages of Igor), and lasting for... Maybe seven or eight issues? Beginning in 1992 anyway, and the only source I've found so far says it lasted for "about" eight issues, so that'll do for now. Let's have a peek at what else constitutes "bizarre humour", shall we?

By far the most prolific contributor to Gutted is Dave Iddon, whose Man Who Collects Eyeballs would go on to feature in Zit following the death of Gutted (even appearing on Zit the Video). This here is his first of many appearances:

Yep, why not give him two strips on one page?

That's Doctor Proctor underneath there, another regular Gutted character. Another issue has him inventing a teleporter, and he then appears on different pages all over the comic. In the seventh issue, he invents a "chaos generator", which turns out like a static Terry Gilliam animation, almost (probably the idea in mind at the time, anyway):

Gutted's usage of stock images continues throughout, as demonstrated here by Barry Freeman, along with a Don Martin-esque thing from Dave Iddon again:

The last of Iddon's somewhat regular characters is this devilish character:

And just while we're on the subject, sort of... Where can I get one of these?

Who bought them? Where are they all now? How come every last one of these comics had their own range of T-shirts?? Questions for another day and all that...

There's obviously more to Gutted than Dave Iddon, and here's some of it, beginning with something by staff-writer/co-founder Shaun Taft:

Those expletive-marks there (in place of "twat" I'm guessing?) give an opportunity for this bit of noteworthiness - there's hardly any swearing in Gutted, placing it around the level of Poot! in terms of... playful silliness? Will that do? Just thought it was worth mentioning.

Also from Shaun Taft, but drawn by Bernard Morris is this thing, which I'm only really including here because the last panel made me laugh a fair bit:

Ty Dalby is another frequent name appearing within Gutted:

And this page from him certainly befits the "bizarre humour" promised by the cover:

And speaking of the cover - good gravy, aren't these covers good??

Definitely of the "standing-out" variety, despite being mostly devoid of colour. Going for a Basil Wolverton look, perhaps? It works, is what I'm saying. You might also note that those covers mention interviews - these are played completely straight, and don't really fit in at all. Whatever helps to sell, I can only suppose.

The back covers, meanwhile, mostly feature "observations" by Dave Iddon (again), possibly of the sort that brought up that "stapled wank" accusation again:

Back inside we go now, with all sorts of recognisable names - we've got current Viz-man Lee Healy:

That pea house thing also appeared in Zit, word-for-word.

Former Smut/sometime Beano guy Nick Brennan:

The inimitable Phil Baber:

And of course, the omnipresent Nigel Maughan:

And just to prove that Barry Freeman's lack of artistic skills can still produce something hilarious, here's The Saint's Dad:

Well I like it anyway!

It's not all laughs though, and in the interests of balance may I present this obvious Viz reject by Andy Fraser:

As well as the mandatory "foul-mouthed parrot" characters, from Stuart Robinson:

Okay, Stuart redeems himself here with the fatalistic adventures of Jambo:

Depressed enough yet? Hold on, have some more:

Just getting you prepared for this thing by Gary Small - it's Young Steven! As in, the Smiths are depressingly awful and that's what I reckon of them besides maybe one song - but I'm sure the fans might enjoy this one:

This one's for you, Greenaum!

And there we go, that's Gutted - a pleasant enough surprise as far as I'm concerned, and from what I've seen of its predecessor a definite improvement over Gutter as well, as shall (eventually) be demonstrated. Not exactly "bizarre", but different enough to stand out. It's a goodie.

One last page now, by special request, sort of:

Always happy to oblige to any "requests" folk may have of these very particular comics.

↧