Best of British

Solar Wind meets The Geezer!

The O Men by Martin Eden

REVIEW: The best of British

I WAS shocked to discover the sad state of homegrown comics in the UK these days. Where once there were dozens of titles, now all there remains is 2000AD and a few kiddie mags like The Beano.
Growing up, I was a huge fan of English comics – you could rely on them to turn up in my local newsagency every week, unlike the monthly US comics which had more haphazard distribution in rural Australia. I would regularly subscribe to several comics during the 70s starting with Valiant & Lion in 1974. I liked its name and some of the quirky strips it contained.
Both were 60s comics that had merged into the one title a year before I started buying it. It took me years to work out why – seems it was a clever marketing gimmick by publisher IPC Magazines who repeated it regularly for the next 10 years: link a weaker-selling title (eg. Lion) with a stronger-selling title (eg. Valiant)…put Lion’s best strips in the merged comic, thereby keeping old fans of both comics happy…slowly reduce the size of Lion’s logo on the masthead…then, one day, leave it off altogether.
The two most successful comics of the 70s were also two of my faves – 2000AD and Battle Picture Weekly (home of strips like Major Eazy, Rat Pack, The Sarge, Johnny Red and D-Day Dawson). Both were very successful in the merger business. Battle swallowed a host of smaller titles including probably my third-fave comic, the controversial Action, before it finally met its doom in 1988 at the hands of the relaunched Eagle. 2000AD gobbled up Starlord (a great little title that spawned Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters, which later transformed into ABC Warriors in 2000AD) and Tornado. It’s still going strong today.
Other titles I picked up over the years included TV Comic, Vulcan and the humour titles Monster Fun, Shiver & Shake, Cheeky and Krazy.
Due to distribution issues I never saw the weekly titles from IPC’s rival DC Thompson (Hurricane, Warlord, etc), but I did pick up the occasional hardback annual and summer special from this mysterious (to me) publisher.
I also still have a ton of IPC hardback annuals (mainly 2000AD).
While I’d always dabbled in Marvel, I moved fulltime into the American monthlies in 1980. I occasionally picked up the odd 2000AD (plus indy English titles like Warrior, where I first discovered Alan Moore, and the Marvel UK line), but I had no idea as time went on that the arse had fallen out of the British comics industry.
I learned that piece of news through UK mag Redeye, which is where I also learned that British comics are making a comeback, albeit on an indy, DIY level for the most part.
Redeye, now up to its fifth issue, has been invaluable to me in sourcing some great new comics from “the old country”. The latest ish – squarebound cardboard covers, 98 pages and cheap as chips at £3/US$6 – features interviews with Tharg The Mighty (aka 2000AD editor Matt Smith, an in-depth look at Alan Moore’s yarns for 2000AD, an overview on what went wrong with Starlord and a staggering amount of news, views and reviews. The English scene is going off right now and Redeye is in the thick of things reporting it. E-mail editor@enginecomics.co.uk for more details on this essential publication.
And, courtesy of hot tips from Redeye, here are three new English comics I bought that are highly recommended.
If you want to get a feel for what made British comics so great (and yet delightfully stupid), then ignore Alan Moore’s crappy “reimagining” of the characters in Wildstorm’s Albion and get into the far more entertaining Solar Wind.
The first issue immediately captures the essence of those heady 70s days as a fictional editor (in this case, Cosmic Ray) and his misfit band of writer/artist drones churn out the kind of silly sci-fi stories so prevalent in these type of comics such as Death Runner, Death Sphere and Death Squid. Notice a theme running through this issue, readers? Virtually all the art is top-notch and the few strips that aren’t (notably Lefty and The Stinging Death – the world being overrun by killer nettles – are at least saved by good humour). In between the strips are some fantastic mock ads and ongoing scenes in his Cosmic Ray’s offices. There’s also a free gift: a CD (which sadly didn’t work on my computer) or, as it states on the disc “if you are in the past” a Frisbee (which worked perfectly).
This leads nicely into the next ish (with free manly moustache) where Solar Wind gets “invaded” by girly comics Wendy, Screech and Lunar Ladies. Cosmic Ray manages to fight off the interlopers and rid his comic of all “female” influence, only to find the following issue (with free cosmic rod…NOT a glow stick as some might assume) being assaulted by the forces of Big War comic. Naturally, Solar Wind takes on a distinctly war-like theme (Ghost Tank, Gingerbread Colditz, etc) before the eventual “merger” (see above) sees Solar Wind triumphant.
And so it goes in #4: Solar Wind and The Geezer…and Big War in tiny, tiny writing on the masthead (with free evidence bag) sees street-wise violence-filled strips briefly gain the upper hand over the sci-fi strips. But Jack Knacker and Hard Man Harry can’t stop Cosmic Ray.
Nor can Dracula and his evil minions from House Of Fright! (#5, with free glow-in-the-dark fangs) or Sporto (#6, with free glow-in-the-dark whistle).
Either as an hilarious tribute to the IPC comics of yesteryear or as a funny, well-drawn anthology series, Solar Wind succeeds on both counts.
In addition, I also received a copy of Big War (with free flying glider) – a spot on send-up of Battle with El-Alamein Anderson and Lord Charley’s War being particular stand-outs – and OmniVistaScope, a CD comic playable on Adobe Acrobat Reader containing 60 pages of sci-fi comix in a more serious vein.
For more info on any of these great titles, e-mail paulvonscott@yahoo.co.uk.
I ALWAYS think the best English writers (Alan Moore, Mark Millar, Peter Milligan and so forth) always approach this essentially American genre from such a unique perspective. Two fascinating new takes on the superhero genre are Pest Control (grantspringford@yahoo.co.uk) and The O Men (martrpeden@yahoo.co.uk), both from Ominous Comics. Pest Control is about a mysterious team run by the amoral ex-superhero Miriam Gladstone. Her team consists of Nick Black or Airforce, the lone survivor of Earth Force Five, who’s come to the realisation he may not be entirely human; Casper Kirby or 10 who’s now a pure conceptual form; Penny Dreadful, who lives up to her name; and The Link, a dapper-looking fella who may be the group’s most sinister member. I like the nice touches writer/artist Grant Springford has sprinkled through this title’s 7+ issues including a sinister home base with a teleportation room containing a parrot on a perch known as The Last Place On Earth. Or the fact The Link communes with the ghosts of dead superheroes. Or that Grant had the audacity to have a supporting character called Squirrel Man!
While I’m fairly up to date with Pest Control, I’ve only read Book One: Little Earthquakes of The O Men. Writer/artist Martin Eden recently sent me Books 2-9, but that review will have to wait until I’ve given them a proper read. Although this first collection features the first three issues dating back to 1998, you can see that, even back then, Martin was bursting with talent and some unique ideas on the nature of superheroes. Intelligent, shocking at times and nicely violent when it needs to be. I’m looking forward to perusing the rest of his books.
And I suggest you get in touch with these guys ASAP before Marvel or DC snaps them up for another rejigging of their bloated corporate universes.

MOVIE REVIEW: Solo (in cinemas July 6)

IF YOU loved Two Hands, then chances are you’ll love Solo. If you thought Two Hands sucked hairy cock and Heath Ledger should be given a hot lead enema…well, you’re a sick fuck. But chances are you’ll STILL enjoy Solo.
Jack Barrett’s a tough, mean bastard paid to do the dirty work for a group of…ahem, “businessmen”. Trouble is, Jack’s 53 and he’s had enough of being their enforcer.
So he quits – but things are never that simple. Not when your employers are evil bastards, your best mates are bent coppers and you pay your “girlfriend” $200 an hour to stay with you.
Jack’s given one final job: kill a nosy uni student doing her thesis on the Sydney underworld. But our man doesn’t want to do it and that’s when things get really ugly (or good, depending on yer point of view).
I give a lot of credit to Colin Friels for making Jack – a nasty piece of work in the scheme of things – a somewhat sympathetic character. Almost likeable. Almost.
And I give first-time writer/director Morgan O’Neill even more credit for turning out such a stylish little flick on a mere $1 million. O’Neill scored the cash by winning Project Greenlight Australia, a comp run by Foxtel’s Movie Network to find new filmmaking talent.
Well, the comp succeeded on that score.
Final word: Never predictable, always entertaining and with a great Aussie cast including Angie Milliken, Vince Colosimo, Bruce Spence and Chris Haywood.