Comic Book Review: Lake Of Fire #1- Cathars, Catholics, Crusaders & Creatures

Illustrated by: Matt Smith
Written, Coloured & Lettered by: Nathan Fairbairn
Publisher: Image
Release Date: 24th August 2016



I haven’t written a ‘proper’ comic book review for a very long time now, having being put off my sometimes hobby due to an avalanche of same old, same old PC programming coming from just about every bloody comic book that I read today.

After all, how many times can you moan about Cultural Marxism programming coming from painfully emasculated PC writers before all you are doing is repeating yourself?

In my experience, not long, and so I stopped doing the weekly reviews, returning only when I found something that was worth writing about because it offered something different, either good different or bad different, just different.

All I really want is different, but in the consensus liberal comic book world of today, different is very, very rare. If you like teen girl heroes with oddly masculine characteristics then you’ll love the state of the comic book industry today, but I’m a guy in his forties, so sorry, call me weird, call me misogynist, but I just can’t relate to teen girl protagonists and their ass kicking shenanigans.

Lake Of Fire #1 isn’t about a teenage girl kicking men in the face. It’s different and that is why I’m writing about it now. So, what is it about? Without spoiling it for you (and I suggest you buy a copy of the book immediately) it’s about a group of believable people dealing with an unbelievable situation. It’s set in the time of the crusades, when the Catholic Church was getting very worried about the Cathars, a group of pacifist Christians who were actually living their lives as good Christians and thus exposing the hypocrisy of the not so Christian Catholic Church. Set amidst the backdrop of that historically fascinating time the narrative follows a group of very believable characters with recognisable human motivations, flaws and personalities. When you read the characters you get the sense that you are reading about real people, not agenda driven wish fulfilment characters that you get in so many mainstream comic books today.

The comic book alchemy in Lake Of Fire #1 is really quite simple. Take two elements of realism (convincing human characters and historical accuracy) add the third element of sci-fi fantasy, mix together, and you have created the perfect comic book magic potion that will delight, enthral and entrance the readers.

The art, by Matt Smith, has a knowing, but not annoying knowing, sense of humour to it. It’s friendly, but not too friendly, there’s danger there, lurking, like a walk in the park, everything is soft and fluffy, but then it starts to rain, it’s getting dark and oh crap, can I hear something stalking me? Everything is very clear, easy to understand, there’s no smoke and mirror messing around with the panel layouts and the individual characters are distinct and easy to distinguish from each other. The artist understands his role in this undertaking, he understands that the writing is bloody good, and so he does all that he can to enhance the story without making it all about himself and distracting from it.

That’s all I’m going to say about the book. I don’t want to spoil any of it for new readers. Look at me, read my other reviews, look at my other reviews on YouTube and you’ll see that I’m a big old bearded complaining git who spends three quarters of his time slagging off comic books. Lake Of Fire #1 is not your average comic book. It’s bloody good, loads of fun, so get onto ebay, go to your comic book shop, do what you have to do. Get the book, read it, enjoy it and you can thank me later.


Rating: 10 /10 (In a different league to the vast majority of comic books on the market today)


Never heard of Cathars? 
Click here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism

Why I won't be buying any comic books today

50-Word (comic) review: 2000AD-PROG 1959- Reflections on a world gone wrong

Writers and artists: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 2nd December 2015



2000AD, you really are spoiling me. What can I complain about when your stories are about Police brutality, political corruption, false justifications for war, resistance to tyrants and the ‘highest’ being questioned by the ‘lowest?’ This is how you get with the times. This is how you actually say something.


Rating: 10/10

Check out the following quotation from ‘Defoe//London Hanged’ by Pat Mills- 

‘By what authority are the highest in the land to be questioned by the lowest?’ 

Look at the front cover on this issue of 2000AD (by Cliff Robinson) where an unrepentant Judge Dredd is caught on a camera phone beating a civilian to death for the crime of talking back to him. 

Read ‘Bad Company//First Casualties’ a story where ex-soldiers find out that the war they risked their lived for was based on fear propaganda and lies. 

Something happened to 2000AD recently. I don’t know how or why, but something clicked, and rather than being lost in the silliness of identity politics (like US comic books) they started to reflect real world concerns within their narratives. 

When I read a typical DC, Marvel (and most of the 'indie' US books as well) I read nostalgia, style over substance, identity politics and the worship of collectivism and state authority. 

When I read 2000AD I read about individuality, resistance and the desire to be free from those that wish to enslave and control. PROG 1959 of 2000AD has three excellent stories: Dredd, Bad Company and Defoe. These three stories are UK stories. You will only get them in 2000AD. 

When people ask me- ‘Why should I bother reading 2000AD in 2015?’ I will point them to these three stories. If you care about the world around you, about what is happening now, then you will get a heck of a lot more insight from these stories than anything that you will read coming out of the almost completely worthless US comic book industry. 

For a story to excel, it has to reflect the times in which it is being written. We don’t live in the 1990’s anymore. The cold war is over. Things happened. They continue to happen all around us as I type these words. Comic books need to reflect these realities. We are not children, and we don’t need a ‘safe-space’ to protect us from harmful reality. 

When we get with reality, things change. Politicians cannot fob us off, as they always try to do, and they have to actually engage with the people that they are supposed to represent. 

That’s us, we are the people that are supposed to be in charge, not corporations, not banks, and not arms dealers. We get with reality and things start to change, so when I read 2000AD reflecting the real world of 2015 back into their narratives, that makes me very happy indeed.

50 Word Review-Drax #1: CM Punk’s Pipe-Bomb Comic Book Fails to Ignite

Writers: CM Punk & Cullen Bunn
Artist: Scott Hepburn
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 4th November 2015


Smart butt one-liners, quips, self-aware jokes, the book laughs at itself. Empty protagonist Drax runs on revenge/hatred. Punk commenting on his own life? CM railed against corporate WWE system of dull conformity, too legit, he quit. Here, he puts his name to just another corporate comic book. Fandom, or money?


Rating: 4/10

Drax #1 is ex-WWE wrestler CM Punk’s second attempt at (part) writing a comic book (the first was in the Feb 25th 2015 Thor annual). It’s co-written by established writer Cullen Bunn, and to me, the book reads like just another safe, corporate, Cullen Bunn narrative. It’s character based, daft, uncontroversial (not like Punk at all) and pretty much indistinguishable from any other Marvel comic book that you will find today. The story exists as mere background to the characters as they engage in witty banter, ‘cool’ dialogue, knowing asides and smart a*** comments. It’s going for that comic book ‘cool’ factor that made the last Avengers movie such an interminably bore to sit through, and I’m not impressed. CM Punk was all about anti-authority, rebellion and telling it like it is (or at least as he saw it), but I don’t detect ANY hint of that anti-corporate rebellion in this comic book. Pipe bomb? Nope, it’s not even a softly deflating balloon. It’s just another comic book, and as CM Punk was more than just another wrestler, this one has to go into my ever-increasing pile of comics bearing the scribbled legend, ‘Disappointing.’ I’m reading little of worth in contemporary comic books, and that’s why I’m starting to write my own webcomics on this blog. Please check them out. I know that the art is bad, but at least I’m trying to say something, and that’s a lot more than you can say about Drax #1.

50 Word Review- The Goon in Theatre Bizarre: Halloween break from despair

By: Eric Powell & John Dunivant
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 14th October 2015


Ephemeral, inconsequential, gorgeously illustrated and coloured, Halloween fun, made to make you smile, dialogue is jokes, butts, one-liners, asides, quips, spooky clown, ghost theatre, fog, olde no time, fun with the boys, no depths reached, read, enjoy art and jokes, Goon so depressed by recent events, takes Halloween holiday here.


Rating: 7/10

The Goon has been having a hard time recently, suicide inducing hard. He's been down in the dumps, betrayed, lost and in fight/drink/fight despair mode. Is there any point in living (hard as it is) when there is no love in your life, and no possibility of finding it in the future? Probably not, and when there is no hope, it's all over. Goon was in desperate need of a break from despair. He gets it here in this Halloween special where he takes a trip to a spooky theatre. The story relies heavily on beautifully painted artwork and silly jokes based on female posteriors. I didn't like the ending, it fell flat, but the book looked great, and most of the jokes hit. It's a decent Halloween book, not scary, not really doing much, but as a break from the trauma and despair of recent Goon stories, it's a welcome break and a silly, inconsequential, throwaway bit of fun.

Saints #1- Fifty-Word Review: When everything is a joke, nothing is important

Writer: Sean Lewis
Artist: Benjamin Mackey
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: 7th October 2015



Intriguing, interesting narrative idea spoilt by quips, one-liners, cuteness, knowing jokes and going for cool, style over substance, diminishing effect of narrative potential, end result irrelevant cool and irritation of this reader. Cool turns story soft, flabby, loses impact. Could have been good. I wanted it to be. It isn’t.


Rating: 4/10 

(Muddled book about a rock band, saints and the devil. Could have been something, but it falls into the same trap of a lot of contemporary comic book media, thinking that one-liners and cleverness is more important than telling an involving story with emotional/intellectual resonance. It’s a shame. There’s a good idea here, but the character dialogue is far too quippy and irreverent, diminishing any impact that the story could have had, turning everything that happens into an inconsequential joke. A book with a muddled tone is a failure. The reader doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be, and thus, it ends up being nothing.)

Comic review: Survivor’s Club #1- The new new is the old new

Writer: Lauren Beukes & Dale Halvorsen
Artist: Ryan Kelly
Publisher: Vertigo/DC
Released: 7th October 2015



The blurb on the front cover of this book (from Joe Hill, son of Stephen King) describes the book as, ‘a throwback to books like THE SANDMAN and HELLBLAZER.’

With that blurb you have a declaration of intent. The producers of the book are telling you that they intend to go back to the past, and use nostalgia to create the new ‘new.’ I wrote about that yesterday when I compared contemporary comic book writers to Jeremy Corbyn and the ‘new’ ‘new’ Labour party, which is actually the old Labour party from the 70’s/80’s.

What is it with writers working for mainstream entertainment corporations that stops them from getting with the NOW and doing something genuinely NEW rather than relying on dusty old ideas and ideologies of the past?

I’ll answer that question in a sentence:

Neoliberal consensus, collectivist, authoritarian political correctness, pushed by your local (state funded) university in gender studies/Marxism classes.

It’s everywhere now, you can’t escape it, and this new/new/old comic book is all on board and willing to do its bit for the progressive collectivist cause.

The narrative of Survivor’s Club #1 is focused on the ubiquitous champion of progressive ideology, the young, sexually appealing (but not overly sexualised) woman of colour. She is a leader, an engineer, a computer gamer (expert level, obviously ), and a survivor of the evil white racist regime that was apartheid South Africa.

Do you have your PC tick box ready? Here we go, tick off those politically correct brownie points.

- Young female.
- Not white.
- Victim of white racism.
- Engineer.
- Leader.
- Computer game player, and an expert one at that.

I want to make this very clear. I’m not complaining about any of this. All I am doing is pointing out the neoliberal corporate consensus agenda, an agenda that is being pushed right now in comic books.

There is a severe lack of diversity happening right now in the comic book genre. It’s dominated by progressivism, feminism and Marxist identity politics. That’s not my opinion, it’s just the way that it is. Pick up any contemporary comic book, have a look, and tell me that it’s not the case.

The new heroes (young females) are starting to look very similar, and the new villains (racist, right wing white males) are just as similar as well. If I didn’t know any better I’d suspect that there’s some sort of ideological consensus in contemporary comic books that people should be talking about, but perhaps I’m just another evil white man and I don’t know what I’m talking about?

I can feel the anger building up now. Am I really complaining that young women of colour are being portrayed as heroic protagonists in comic books? No, I'm not. What I'm complaining about is a lack of diversity. There are too many strong independent young women in comic books now. Book after book and the heroines all look and act the same. That's boring, really, really boring, and I'm starting to get really fed up with this lazy, self-congratulatory progressive/feminist agenda being shoved down my throat in all of my comic books.

I began this ‘review’ with a quote that described this book as a ‘throwback.’ Sorry, but that’s not true. This comic book might have a narrative based on 1980’s computer games, but it’s a book very much set in the identity politics obsessed mainstream comic book world of today. I read this book and it doesn’t remind me of Sandman or Hellblazer, it reminds me of just about every other comic book that I’m reading at the moment.

So what is it about? Did I mention that yet? Probably not, okay then, here we go. It’s about a computer game turning people into violent murderers, or something. Is that new? Does that sound ‘new’ to you? Do we really need to look at the link between computer games and violence again? Didn’t that debate end many, many, many years ago, and with the conclusion that no, computer games don’t make you violent?

The only difference in the debate about computer game violence in 2015 as compared to 1986 is that today it’s been taken up by the social justice warriors, whilst before it was pushed by right wing evangelical Christian types.

There’s nothing new here. Computer games are sexist, racist and violent, and they warp the minds of the young, blah, blah, blah. Do we really need a comic book to be talking about this tired old nonsense again?

I don’t care if this story is coming out on the side of computer games, and gamers, it doesn’t matter. The debate is old, irrelevant, and I don’t want to read about it. I have no interest in ‘Gamer-Gate’ because it’s bull****. The whole thing is bull****. The social identities of the authoritarian nut-cases might have changed, but the bull**** remains the same, and I don’t want to rehash old controversies that have been debunked decades ago and are not even worth wasting any time on in 2015.

‘Survivor’s Club #1’ is nothing. It’s just another new/new/old comic book that is pushing the same old agenda as all of the other new/new/old comic books that make up the US comic book industry in 2015. It’s not saying anything new, it’s not connecting with any cutting edge issues of today, and as a forty something year old guy who is getting increasingly fed up with young girl protagonists and white male guilt identity politics bull**** it has absolutely nothing to offer for me. I had high hopes for this one. I should have known better, what a fool I am.



Rating: 3/10 (Yet another in a long line of stuck in the past, yet obsessing over PC identity politics comic books from the progressive mind of the mainstream comic book collective)

Comic review: Negative Space #2- Misery Loves Companies

Art: Owen Gieni
Script: Ryan K Lindsay
Publisher: Dark Horse
Released: 23rd September 2015



‘Misery mourns to be devoured.’ (Manic Street Preachers- Removeables)

I have been thinking about that line, analysing it, deciphering it, and trying to extract every last ounce of meaning from it. I’m still not 100% happy with my conclusions, but as far as I can understand it, what it’s trying to say is that unhappiness feeds on itself, leading to more unhappiness, the cycle continuing forever, more misery, more unhappiness, feeding forever, never satisfied, always unhappy, but demanding more unhappiness.

‘Negative Space #2’ takes this idea of unhappiness as energy, and speculates that as well as it feeding upon itself, perhaps there is some other entity that benefits from it as well? I’ve read about the concept before, the idea that there is a race of extra-dimensional beings that feed on human suffering. They are usually referred to as Archons, or Reptilians, and are often described as working within the bloodlines of the ruling elites of our planet. David Icke talks about it all of the time, so if you are reading this review and are not already aware of the idea, get one of his books, you won’t regret it.

Anyway, the idea of an alien race feeding on human misery is given a slightly new and different take in ‘Negative Space.’ There are no reptilians here, no mention of bloodlines, and no mention of government agencies or any of the real world slave masters of planet Earth. As far as I can tell, the blame is being put onto a private corporation in this book, a corporation that works with the aliens, harvesting the food for them by promoting misery all over the world.

I don’t really have too many problems with corporations. It’s governments that control the world, not corporations. Corporations are powerful, but they don’t have a monopoly on the use of violence. They can’t put you in jail for failing to pay them. They can’t start wars. They can’t even force you to buy their products. Government however, can pretty much do whatever they like. They can extort you, rob you, torture you, kill you and kidnap your kids, then say that it’s legal and that there’s nothing that anybody can do about it.

I didn’t see any mention of government in ‘Negative Space #2’ and I don’t know if that’s a deliberate omission, or just something that the writer didn’t think about. The blame for misery appeared to be completely heaped upon a corporation, and I find that a bit strange. Sure corporations have power, but real power is always within the centralised control system, and that system at the moment is government, not corporations. Corporations do indeed try to pay off politicians and I do understand the revolving door between the two, but government has the gun, and guns have a way of getting things done.

Perhaps the omission will be addressed later? I hope so, because Negative Space is a very interesting book. There is a daft sense of humour to it all as well, making it a very enjoyable, occasionally silly, read.

There are quite a few interesting characters in the book as well. The main villain is ridiculously over the top, (‘I can only beat on a hipster for so long before I need breakfast nutrition.’) and issue #2 introduces a daftly entertaining alien character that is on the side of the heroes.

My favourite character however is the main protagonist, an overweight, unattractive, unhappy, middle-aged bloke. That one character alone is enough to get my interest in a comic book. If I have to read another supposedly ‘rebellious’ book starring a punk haired young girl then I’m going to start losing my mind, so it’s nice to see some real ‘diversity’ in comic books for a change.

I have to mention the art as well. It has a unique atmosphere to it, a dark, almost abstract quality, like it’s touching on reality, but is not quite there yet. It’s unique, and for an equally as unique book, it’s a perfect fit.

Issue #2 of Negative Space adds a heavy dose of dark humour to the pathos of issue #1 and that combination of misery and comedy produces an excellent black comedy with depth and emotional resonance. I need more government in my misery, but apart from that noticeable omission, this is an excellent book that stands out from the crowd and is well worth you investing both your time and money on.


Rating: 8/10 (Not as doom laden as you might think, there is a lot of enjoyable silliness in this one)

Lyrics:

Conscience binds you in chains

Trail by stone hammer and nails

No-one made the holes but me

Misery mourns to be devoured

Killed God blood soiled unclean again

Killed God blood soiled skin dead again

Again everywhere again

All removables, all transitory

All removables, passing always

All removables, all transitory

All removables, passing always

Never grown preserved gently

A bronze moth dies easily

Unknown to others weak to me

Broken hands never ending

Aimless rut of my own perception

Numbly waiting for voices to tell me

For voices to tell me

All removables, all transitory

All removables, passing always

All removables, all transitory

All removables, passing always

All removables, all transitory

All removables, passing always

Comic review: the Tithe #5- Islamic Extremism and the ‘Progressive’ Left

Writer: Matt Hawkins
Co-Creator: Rahsan Ekedal
Artist: Phillip Sevy
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 23rd September 2015


****SPOILERS IN REVIEW****


I need to add a few disclaimers before I start off this review. Firstly, I haven’t been reading ‘The Tithe.’ I bought this issue because the preview mentioned ‘Islamaphobia’ and that intrigued me, as Islam is rarely mentioned in contemporary comic books. Secondly, I assumed that the comic book would address all issues concerning Islamic terrorism from a secular, atheist, liberal/progressive point of view, with an attempt to minimise the personal responsibility of the individuals actually involved in recent terrorist outrages.

I made a lot of assumptions, but after reading this book those assumptions turned out to be pretty much spot on. That’s not me patting myself on the back, it’s just that I read a lot of comics, and as 95% of contemporary comic books come from a liberal/progressive mind-set and world-view, I pretty much know what I will be getting before I actually read the books.

The beginning of this book really shocked me though. It started with a quotation coming directly from the Koran, a quotation that gives valuable insight into what Muslims are taught to think of Jews and Christians by their holy book. Does it teach them about tolerance and respect? Nope, it doesn’t. It tells Muslims that they cannot be friends with either Jews or Christians. That’s a fact, it comes from the Koran, and to see it as an opening statement in a comic book was quite shocking to me.

The narrative of the book itself then proceeds to show a young Syrian immigrant shouting‘Allahu Akbar’ in a church as he detonates a suicide vest, blowing himself up, and murdering hundreds of innocent people.  This immigrant had been taken in by a Christian family, so what he is doing here ties into the concerns of many Europeans at the moment as refugees descend upon the west, escaping from the conflicts in their own war torn countries.

The fear in many European countries right now is not just about terrorism. It’s about the impact of an entire culture, a culture that is not exactly liberal when it comes to anything to do with women’s rights and homosexuality. Surely there will be tensions? What will happen when you have entire communities of people that oppose the very laws of the land in which they live? These concerns are not addressed within this comic book, but the first one is, that being the concern that Muslim refuges are potential suicide bombers, and that the more we let in, the more chances there will be of horrific events happening in our local Churches, sports stadiums and supermarkets.

I understand the concern because I’ve actually lived in Saudi Arabia, the spiritual, ideological and financial home of all things related to Sunni terrorism. If you want to know anything about Sunni terrorism then go to Saudi Arabia, that’s where the 9/11 hijackers came from, it’s where Osama Bin laden came from, and it’s where the funding behind ISIS comes from as well.

When it comes to Sunni terrorism, all roads lead to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi’s fund terrorism, and are encouraged to do so as the main enemy of the west is not Sunni terror, it’s the Shia states, with the main villain, and eventual target, being Iran. Syria first, and it’s Iran that will be next on the chopping block.

Western governments support Sunni extremism today, just as they did in the 1980’s when they supported a young Bin Laden in his fight against the Russians in Afghanistan. Our governments are always eager to help out Sunni terrorists, as they give them a reason for the ever-expanding Police/surveillance state back home, and an excuse for wars for resources in the Middle East and Africa.

But back to the story in ‘The Tithe #5.’ After reading a plot that began leaning suspiciously to the right, I knew that the progressive side of the writer had to kick-in at any moment, unless of course this was the rarest of all things in 2015, that being a right leaning comic book writer? Is writer Matt Hawkins one of those rare creatures?

Nope, don’t be daft, of course he’s not. There’s no room for the evil right wing in comic books at the moment. When it comes to contemporary comic book writers, they are as left leaning as you can possibly get. It took a while, but the left wing side of Matt’s nature finally kicked in, and boy, when it did, what a laugh it all was.

***HERE COME THE PLOT SPOILERS***

Writer Matt Hawkins was absolutely brilliant in what he did here, and a real credit to the liberal progressive left. His story began with a suicide bombing in a church, and by the end of it he had managed to put the entirety of the blame for the atrocity onto right-wing, white, Christian men. I’m not joking. The final panels of this book include an evil white skinhead leaving a Church and laughing about his actions designed to stitch up the poor innocent Muslims. The final panel of the book features this evil white man framed with a giant crucifix in the background as he walks away from his base of operations, that being a Christian church.

The message is clear. Islam is a peaceful religion, and the terrorist events that you see around the world are part of some weird right wing conspiracy carried out by crazy skin-headed Christians.

Great work Matt, I really applaud your dedication to the cause of never offending people who strap bombs to themselves in order to further their sick, demented and twisted ideological agenda. Your determination to blame all of the ills of the world on the most politically expedient group out there today (right wing Christians) was particularly brave of you as well. Good job mate, good job.

The Tithe #5 then is not quite as controversial as you might think that it is. I applaud it for addressing the big Wahabbi Elephant in the living-room, a violently stampeding Elephant that is completely ignored by DC and Marvel, but what I have read here comes from a painfully liberal, laughably progressive mind-set.

This PC mind-set goes out of it’s way not to offend, and puts the blame for a Islamic terrorist event onto the easiest, softest of all targets, that being white Christian men. In doing so it comes across as a bizarre, politically correct, left leaning conspiracy theory book. It brings up real world concerns about Islamic terrorism, then takes the easy way out by placing the blame upon a group that has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamic terrorism.

It’s usually the right that gets accused of conspiracy theory paranoia, but this book proves that when it comes to ridiculous conspiracy theories, the ‘progressive’ left is fast catching up and becoming even more insane and wilfully ignorant than the old right.


Rating: 7/10 (I applaud writer Matt Hawkins for dealing with issues that most writers choose to ignore, but his conclusion that Islamic terrorism is actually a right wing/Christian conspiracy is absolutely ridiculous)

Comic review: Journey to Star Wars- The Force Awakens-Shattered Empire #1- Identity Politics Golem

Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Marco Checchetto
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 9th September 2015



Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens-Shattered Empire #1 is the most underwhelming ‘Star Wars’ book that I’ve ever read.

The story starts at the end of the final battle in Return of the Jedi, and the main focus is a staple of mainstream comic books today, the pretty, young, empowered, female. The story unfolds from her point of view as she flies around shooting assorted villains before assisting Luke Skywalker in his escape from the soon to be exploding Death Star.

I don't remember that in the movie, but oh well, what can you do? As our society collapses and real freedoms diminish I guess it's all going to be about cultural marxism and identity politics now.

Who wrote this book? Let’s have a look, ha, it’s Mr Greg Rucka, he can always be relied upon to put out a good PC girl-power unit shifter. I’ve read so much of his stuff over the years, and it’s about as memorable as a mid-card WWE story line. (Note: The WWE cannot do stories, at all, they are terrible, really, really bad).

Greg Rucka is one of those names that you remember, but you can never quite recollect what book he wrote. He writes a lot, but what has he ever done that is actually good, or memorable? Was it Punisher? Could be. I stopped reading that one months ago.

Anyway, back to this utterly underwhelming book. This female warrior girl shoots up some villains, kisses her boyfriend, has a brief chat with Luke, and Han Solo, then goes back out on a ‘mop-up’ mission to kill some imperial soldiers that were left over from the main battle. That’s it, that’s all you are getting, thanks for buying the book, suckers.

Why the Darth helmet would I want to buy issue #2 of this series. Come on, somebody give me a reason, because I don’t get it. Am I supposed to like the girl warrior because she is pretty? Come on, there has to be more to it than that, because as far as her personality goes, she’s as generic as you can possibly get. 

I understand what Greg is doing here. I get it. He’s trying to write a ‘strong’ female character, the kind of character that is ten a penny in DC and Marvel comics in 2015.

Want a career in mainstream comic books? You better get writing about strong, independent (i.e. working for the government) pretty young females then. Give your ‘progressive’ character a military uniform or a wacky haircut and nose-ring, show her beating up some random men (preferably white sexist/racists) and you’re flying.

Am I being unfair here? Buy a comic book, any comic book, and judge for yourself. Strong, independent female characters (in other words, women acting like overly masculine men) are as ubiquitous as lies in mainstream television news broadcast these days. Every other comic book features an empowered female. It’s not ‘brave’ or ‘new’ or ‘edgy’ or ‘rebellious.’ It’s easy, boring, predictable and lame. Comic book writers are largely singing from the same song sheet here, and it’s getting really, really boring now.

What you are getting in Star Wars- Shattered Empire #1 is a comic book Golem, a character that is more about being a female than she is about being an interesting or engaging personality in her own right. She moves with purpose, yet has no semblance of life about her, at all. I don’t care about this Golem girl, not because she’s a girl, but because she is a two dimensional, generic character that has no memorable features, quirks or personality attributes. She’s clay, she’s not real, she’s a Rucka inspired Golem.

You can’t just put a girl in a role that men would usually occupy and expect people to care. I’m not obsessed with identity politics, so I need a bit of character, a bit of personality, a bit of life. Oh Greg, you’ve done it again. You’ve produced another unit shifter of a book. I’ve read it, reviewed it, and now I’m starting to forget about it already. Greg, I know you want to write about empowered girls, but please put a bit of personality into the next one that you launch onto the comic book reading public. It’s not enough that she’s a girl, I need a bit more than that.



Rating: 3/10 (Move on, there’s nothing to see here)

Comic review: The Covenant #3- Bible story kicks superhero butt

Created and written by: Rob Liefeld
Illustrated by: Matt Horak
Coloured by: Ross Hughes
Lettered by: Chris Eliopolous
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 26th August 2015


The Covenant #3 is doing what I like my comic books to do. It’s keeping it simple, letting the story unfold and keeping the readers thrilled, excited and in eager anticipation for what is to come next.

They didn’t teach Bible stories at my school, and I never knew what I was missing out on. This story is a superhero story, with all of the constituents that you need to excel within that genre. It has bloodthirsty evil villains, brave heroes and a supernatural angle that makes you think that the humans might be the players, but there’s a bigger game going on here.

The Covenant is a comic book that brings God back into play, in a world that no longer believes in him. I like that. I like the fact that it’s so different, that it’s going against the mainstream atheist grain and telling a fascinating story about the history of the ancient Israelite and Philistine people.

This story can be given to children, but it’s not childish. The art helps a lot. It’s big, bold and uncluttered. It matches the script, which has the same uncluttered qualities. There is nothing needlessly ‘clever’ or ‘ironic’ or Kevin Smith post-modern about this book. It’s a good story, simply told, and clearly illustrated and, dare I say the word, educational.

It’s giving me fascinating, valuable insight into Biblical history, and I’m very appreciative of all of the people that have spent their time and energies on producing the book.

I’m being sincere here. Guys, thank you.

Three issues in and The Covenant is fast becoming my most anticipated book of the month. I shouldn’t be enjoying a story based on a Biblical narrative so much, but I am, it’s as simple as that.

There’s no feeling of emptiness here, a feeling I too often experience after reading mainstream superhero comic books. This is a story that resonates, and I’m enjoying every single second of the time that I spend with it. The Covenant is a Bible story that makes me want to know more about the Bible. It’s great, sorry atheist nation, but it is.


Rating: 10/10 (Revelatory Bible story that reads like a contemporary superhero tale)

Comic review: Gotham by Midnight #8- Television, Cops and the State

Writer: Ray Fawkes
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 26th August 2015



Gotham by Midnight #8 is an unpleasant, unimportant and depressingly stuck within the matrix little comic book, so I won’t waste too much time in reviewing it.

The tv gets us at each other's throats, no **** Sherlock

The story is perfunctory, nothing happening, statist drivel. The protagonists are cops and a couple of television hosts. The two hosts are well-worn-out clichés (ruthless and ambitious) and the cops are divided into the usual two categories, good and bad.

There is no underlying understanding of the immoral nature of order following, not that I would ever expect that in a DC comic book. The cops are either ambitious (bad) or trying to do the right thing (good).

Comic book writers still fail to understand that the state is violent coercion, that it is a control system of human enslavement backed up by order following goons. It always has been, and what do they do? They still play the game that the television plays, the game that the politicians play, the game that the newspapers play.

The game is this: You have a choice, but all of your choices are evil. Choose one evil over the other, and that means that you are free, and that evil now has your consent to rule over you.

But what if you don’t want the evil that is violent state coercion? Tough luck, you’re getting it anyway, slave.

I’m fed up with the game now. I’m fed up with comic book writers not understanding it, and I’m fed up of books like Gotham by Midnight #8.

Don't worry, the diverse agents of the state are here to save us.

There was one thing of note in the book. The two hero cops are smart, young and attractive, as they always are in cop shows. One of the cops is an attractive young girl with short hair, a Goth type that you might have seen in a 1990’s comic book by Neil Gaimen.

I’ve met real cops, female cops. Sorry, but they are not cool, comic book style Goths. Real life cops are simple-minded rule followers. They do what they are told, and are happy to do so.  I feel sorry for them. They are lost children in a world of predatory adults.

Anyway, the fantasy Goth Cop in Gotham by Midnight has a boyfriend. He’s a tribal tattooed pretty boy with long hair and a fondness for cooking. In other words, he’s playing the role of the female in their relationship. It’s all about equality now you see. The woman gets to work for the evil that is the state, and the boyfriend gets to stay at home and do her housework and cooking for her.

Yep, it’s that kind of book. That’s how lame it is, and I kind of hate myself for wasting my money on it. Yuck, what a piece of crap that was. Tame, lame and pushing a version of reality that comes from the wet dreams of a viewer of the Daily Show. I wasted my money again, didn’t I? Crap.



Rating: (More cop show disinformation from the liberal mainstream)

Comic review: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution #1- Holmes as a Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist

Adapted by: David & Scott Tipton
Art: Ron Joseph
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Released: 26th August 2015



I purchased this book because I am a long time consumer of everything and anything to do with the character of Sherlock Holmes. I thought that it was something new. I was mistaken. It’s not new at all.

The original book from 1974.

‘The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. is a 1974 novel by American writer Nicholas Meyer. It is written as a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure, and was made into a film of the same name in 1976.’ 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven-Per-Cent_Solution

I blame myself. I should have checked the previews before I purchased the book. I remember watching the movie over twenty years ago. I didn’t like it. The plot takes two original Conan Doyle stories and has Doctor Watson admitting that he made them up in order to save the reputation of Holmes.

The Sherlock Holmes in this tale is a paranoid, cocaine addicted, conspiracy theorist. The general gist of the plot is that his main nemesis, Professor Moriarty, is not a criminal mastermind, but an old mathematics teacher who Holmes mistakenly thinks (due to his cocaine addiction) is the, ‘Napoleon of Crime.’

The message of the book is that conspiracies do not exist, that life is random, and that crime is committed by ‘crazy’ individuals, and not organised by intelligent, well-connected groups of people who help each other out.

I guess that organisations such as the Bilderberg Group, Bohemian Grove, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations and the Bank for International Settlements don’t exist after all? They must all be a figment of our collective imaginations, I guess?

This message in ‘The Seven-Per-Cent Solution’ goes completely against the original stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and reinforces the mainstream idea that is pushed by Rockefeller funded educational institutions. You know the idea, right? Watch television, you’ll see it.

Here’s how it goes: Life is random, chaotic and cruel. There are no elite groups, just individuals. It’s a survival of the fittest zoo out there. Kill or be killed, be more ruthless than everybody else, there is no God, there is no morality, all is psychology, we are animals, Darwinian monkeys in a meaningless game. There is no such thing as ‘conspiracies.’ You’re all alone kid, and you need to get climbing up that greasy corporate pole, because that’s all that there is.

It’s a message of idiocy. A message that ignores reality itself, and promotes the kind of world that we have today in collapsing western countries, a world with easily manipulated masses and competing groups of ‘elite’ world controllers that play us off against each other with disdainful ease.

Sherlock Holmes was not a stupid man, but in this book, that is exactly what he is. That is why I disliked the 1976 movie. I disliked it because it portrayed Holmes as somebody who was not Sherlock Holmes. It portrayed a drug addict slipping into paranoia, not the best mind in England, not the man that I read in Conan Doyles’s original books.

I can understand why this comic book exists today. I understand why a 1974 novel has been rehashed into comic book form and here’s my own ‘conspiracy’ mind going into crazy land, and no, I’m not a bloody cocaine addict. I’m a boring, teetotal vegetarian who exercises twice a day.

Here’s my take on why this book exists: So called ‘conspiracies’ are becoming all too real now, thanks to the Internet. People are ignoring the mainstream indoctrination centres (television and the education system) and are looking at things for themselves.

What they have discovered is groups, large, wealthy groups, connected to international banking institutions, that make money out of nothing, loan it to supposedly ‘sovereign’ governments, at interest, and act like a vampiric spider in a world-wide web of evil, manipulation and human enslavement.

That’s what people see, not because it’s a ‘conspiracy,’ but because that’s how the world actually works. Conan Doyle knew how the world worked, and that’s why he created the character of Professor Moriarty, to encapsulate that conspiracy, and to put a face on the globalist spider in the centre of the world that feeds on us all.

‘The Seven-Per-Cent- Solution then is the mainstream’s attempt at discrediting the idea of a ‘conspiracy.’ Why IDW is putting this in comic book form in 2015 says a lot about where that comic book company stands. I’m not saying that they are part of the ‘conspiracy,’ itself. What I am saying is that there is some serious cognitive dissonance going on here, and that rather than deal with the revealed world as it is today, they are going back into the past in an attempt to validate their entrenched, indoctrinated beliefs about how the world works.

IDW sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil. They are a little comic book publisher that wants to be a big comic book publisher, and their mindset, rather than coming from the point of view of the underdog, is coming from the point of view of a servant that just wants to eat at the masters table.

I can understand that mindset, but I don’t have to admire it. We have the Internet now, and truth is available, if you want it.

We don’t have to accept the lies of the mainstream anymore. The lies taught to us by our televisions, teachers and newspapers are now naked before us, and we can finally see them for what they actually are.

Truth is now available. It’s on our telephones. It’s up to us, as individuals, to do the work, we can find reality, we can find truth itself, if we want it.

This comic book is pushing the mainstream lies of the discredited past. It’s a 1974 book that mocks the idea of a criminal conspiracy, and in 1974 it could have worked, but not now, not in 2015. The game is up, truth is getting out, and if all they can do is go back to the 1970’s to discredit it, then that says more than anything that I can put together here.


Rating: 5/10 (Faithful, solidly written comic book adaptation of 1970’s book that portrays Holmes as a paranoid conspiracy theorist)

The BIS, the real world Professor Moriarty.

Comic review: Grant Morrison’s 18 Days #2- The Art of War

Script: Grant Morrison, Gotham Chopra & Sharad Devarajan
Art: Jeevan J. Kang
Publisher: Graphic India
Released: 12th August 2015



Comic book reviewers shouldn’t really rave over this comic, and if they do so, you need to be very suspicious about their motivations (cough, re-tweets).

That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad comic though, because it isn’t. What it is, is a comic that is establishing what is to come next in the narrative. It’s a comic that is doing the boring work before the big battle kicks off. It’s a comic book about political intrigue, motivations, and the heroes of the upcoming war playing a strategic game of chess in order to set up their enemies for their inevitable defeat.

18 Days #2 features people putting down their arms and armour, and talking about tradition, honour, oaths and fate. The villains have lots of rule about who and when they will, or will not fight. They are all related, and have long histories and grievances against each other. The heroes are exploiting all of this, as they talk to the different people, playing them off against each other, and strategize for the upcoming battle.

The message of course is that success comes from effective strategising, from brains over brawn. The strongest, bravest, fastest, most powerful warrior doesn’t always win, the smartest warrior wins. War is manipulation, about playing sides off against each other.

A modern example of the art of war and deception would be how the US (and EU) is currently using ISIS to destroy Syria, whilst simultaneously using the terrorist group (largely funded through US allies in the Middle East) to justify a Police state back home. The strategy of the US using ISIS as a proxy army allows them to destabilise Syria and to blame it on somebody else. When the country is a complete mess they can then send in their own ground troops to finish them off, murder all of the leaders, install a puppet government, and steal the countries resources, just like they did in Libya.

That’s how you strategise in war. That’s how you use your enemy to defeat a greater enemy, just as the US used the Taliban in Afghanistan to bog down the Russians in an unwinnable war that helped to destabilise the entire Soviet Union. Sure, the Taliban led to Al Qaeda, 9/11, 7/7, Iraq, the NSA and all of the other ‘problems’ in the world right now, but the bottom line is that the strategy worked. The Soviet Union collapsed, and the western banks and corporations that control western governments now have the perfect, permanent enemy in Islamic terrorism. This manufactured, and controlled enemy can now be sent around the world to bomb and maim, thus justifying less freedom in the west, and more western corporate imperialism and hegemony abroad, whilst claiming it’s all about human rights, freedom and democracy. Yeah, the US might be invading your country, but they are only there to protect you from ISIS/Al Qaeda. It’s true, yet it’s a lie at the same time. That’s the art of war, and that’s how you get things done.

The mainstream corporate media sell war as good versus evil, as neo-liberal democracy versus anything that dares to challenge it. They do so because they need to justify the corporate/statist/fascist status quo, and to portray their side as the heroes, and the other side as the villains. Contemporary superheroes play the role of soldier heroes, fighting against democracy hating dictator villains, fighting for freedom, whilst supporting indentured servitude to the corporate state.

Grant Morrison’s 18 Days #2 is a bit more complex than an average neo-liberal comic book. That’s partly due to Morrison himself, but largely because the book comes from ancient Indian wisdom (the Mahabharata) and so it has a bit more substance than the ignorant idiocy that is fed to us today.

Get the book if you want to explore Indian mythology and culture, but get it if you want to expand your horizons, and understand the complexities behind the art of war.

War is not about dictators and the illusion of freedom that is western style neo-liberal democracy. It’s not what you read in contemporary comic books, see on your television sets, and read about in your corporate newspapers. War is more complicated than what you see on the surface, and that is what 18 Days #2 is exploring.

It’s a book about war strategy, about what to do before the battle, and how to manipulate and weaken the enemy before a shot is fired. It’s about preparing for victory through proactive intelligence, using the most powerful weapon that we, as human beings, possess, that being the power of the mind.

Brains over brawn baby, it wins every single time, and that’s why the US isn’t bombing ISIS into oblivion right now. They could, but what would that achieve? ISIS are there to get rid of President Assad first (he’s an evil dictator, didn’t you know?) and then, who knows how they could be used next? Iran, Russia, something back home if the people start to question government authority perhaps? So many options, but that’s the game of war. We need to understand how it is being played, not for us, but against us, as right now, those in control, the evil people that control the world, are dividing, conquering, and walking over every single last one of us.


Rating: 7/10 (To divide and conquer, it’s the art of war)

Comic review: Batman #43- Starring Bad Haircut Batman

Writer: Scott Snyder
Art: Greg Capullo
Publisher: DC
Released: 12th August 2015



Ah Batman, my old childhood friend, it’s been so long. How have you been buddy? I haven’t read about your adventures since the Joker was messing around with your mate’s faces. That little event ended with a whimper, with the realisation that the Joker was, well, just joking, but how have you been? Seriously, you tireless black uniformed upholder of the corporate/statist totalitarian status quo, how have you been my old bat mate?

Check out that haircut on the new Batman

Okay, I’ll stop being silly. I haven’t read the main Batman title for a while. I stopped because it wasn’t doing anything. It was neither hot, nor cold. It was lukewarm, leaving me feeling nonplussed and a little bit wet.

I picked up this issue just to see if it was doing anything that resonates with contemporary concerns, and in short, off the Bat (gettit?) it ain’t doing any of that. Oh crap, come on Scott mate. At least try.

So what is it doing?

It’s doing character stuff. Here’s the story- Bruce Wayne died, came back to life (as he always does) but this time he’s come back with memory loss, and the trauma that made him Batman in the first place didn’t happen, at least in his mind.

The abbreviated impact of this memory loss basically means that Batman is now Commissioner Gordon with a daft haircut, and Bruce Wayne is just plain old Bruce Wayne, a bit of a drip hanging out with his girlfriend and going to charity events.

The gist of the action in Batman #43 is that there’s a new villain in town (Mr. Bloom) and he has Gordon/Bad Haircut Batman trapped in a hot box. He’s going to kill him, but probably not. Plus, he’s messing around with established villains like Penguin, and I guess we need Bruce to snap back into being Batman again to sort out these two problems.

So, it’s a character book. It’s a book that is looking into the psychological reasons behind why Bruce became Batman. There is no connection to any real world concerns of 2015, and the very fact that the villain is a drug pusher means that it’s supporting the current situation in western countries where governments openly declare that they own our bodies, and can legally lock us up and ruin our lives if we partake in a substance that they do not want us to partake in.

Drug laws create crime. Drug laws create criminals, because of supply (dealers) and demand (users). Governments love prohibition, because prohibition means control, and that’s what governments want. They want control, and because of the drug laws being the way that they are, that’s exactly what they have right now.

Superman is concerned, and not just about the haircut.

Batman #43 does not question contemporary drug laws that have destroyed the lives and families of millions of people. It does not question whether or not government owns your body, and thus has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it. Instead, it reinforces the status quo, portraying drug dealers as evil sociopathic villains, and the cops as heroic, morally upstanding heroes. In that sense, it’s a piece of crap that needs to be flung in the nearest bin, as it pushes a lie, and endorses human enslavement to a centralised control system.

Get the book if you don’t care about human slavery to centralised control systems. Get it if you want to read about the psychological motivations of Bruce, psychological motivations that have been looked at in so much detail already that there’s a veritable library of it out there if you want to spend your life studying the fictional brain of a man dressed up as a Bat.

Get the book if you read this review and it annoys you. Get the book if you just want to chill out, forget reality and read a stupid, childish comic book that supports everything that is wrong about the world as it is today.

I’ll be the weird guy, and I’ll dip in, and dip straight out again. The water is still lukewarm in Batman. It’s not saying anything, and it’s not even trying to say anything either. I can’t be bothered with that, sorry, but I have better things to do with my time.


Rating: 5/10 (Another look into the mind of Bruce, yawn.)

Comic review: Neverboy #6- A call for experience, individuality, creativity, renewal and life.

Writer: Shaun Simon
Artist: Tyler Jenkins
Colours: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 5th August 2015



This concluding issue of Neverboy poses essential questions regarding the drained pool of creative inspiration that is currently stifling the comic book world and leading to a period of comic book stagnation, dominated by corporate, careerist ignorance and a refusal to deal with the vital socio-political issues of our times.

Old heroes, done to death, the well runs dry.

Comic books are stuck. Not because they are an antiquated, anachronistic form of old media desperately trying to cling on to relevance in this wonderful new digital age, but stuck because they refuse to reflect the age in which they currently inhabit.

That is my view, and I recognise that it’s not held by the majority of comic book readers in 2015. This is reflected in sales figures and the popularity of depressingly awful movies like the childishly bad set piece, pun and quip-a-thon, Avengers Ultron.

It appears that the majority wants unreality, silliness, the cool factor, explosions, quips, puns, one-liners, old references and tight uniforms. But just because the majority wants to put their collective brains in a jar and watch the Gladitorial games of our times, whilst the world around them burns, that doesn’t mean that I have to go along with them.

If something is stupid, then I’ll say that it is stupid, and I couldn’t care less if that makes me an unpopular social outcast. Telling the truth isn’t supposed to be easy. It never was in the past, so why would that be any different today?

I used to buy lots of comic books, but it’s getting less and less now as the weeks and month’s pass. I used to buy over ten books a week. This week I purchased three. This saddens me immensely, as I’ve always loved comic books, and I want to buy lots of them, but if all they are going to do is bread and circus, that no longer appeals to me.

I’m 42 years old now, and I cannot act like a child anymore.

My problem is that I’m a bit of a reality junkie. I pay attention to the world. I see what is going on, and it interests me. But then I pick up a comic book, and what do I see? I see the 1990’s being replayed, and it doesn’t interest me. I see nostalgia, and I see a love of government authority, mixed with race, gender and sexuality politics, attempting to put a new gloss onto what is a very old, tired and childish superhero toybox.

It’s not just a superhero problem though. I collect issue #1’s. Not because I think that they will be worth something in the future, but because I hope that they will be good, I read them, they suck, and I don’t buy issue #2. Hang on, I’ll just pop into my wardrobe and bring out my folder of issue #1’s.

The following is a random list of these #1’s and an explanation of what they were about:

1- 68 Bad Sign #1- 1960’s US serial killer and zombies.
2- Beyond Belief #1- 1950’s upper class detectives. Cute, charming and very anachronistic.
3- Savior #1- Plane crash and superpowers (like that old Bruce Willis movie).
4- Fight Club 2 #1- Weighed down by the 1999 movie, and doing nothing new.
5- Constantine- The Hellblazer #1- More 90’s reworking.
6- Weirdworld #1- Conan the Barbarian, but weirdly whiny and soft.
7- Doomed #1- Spiderman with slightly different powers and a smartphone.
8- The Tomorrows #1- Identity politics, Blade Runner and old art school references.
9- The Shrinking Man #1- Comic book adaptation of a 1950’s novel.
10- John Flood #1- Constantine clone who looks like Edward Cullen.

Now, here’s a quotation from Neverboy #6:

The imagination of a child, creating something new.

‘You’ve been using other people’s imaginations, and it’s destroying it for everyone. Paint something real- Something real to you, not to anyone else. Something that only you can see.’

Neverboy is a call for originality, individuality and genuine artistic creativity. It’s asking you to put down your isurveilance device, to put down your old comic books, and to experience something genuinely new. It’s asking you to go out into the world, to look around you, to experience life, then go back to the computer, back to the easel, and create something NEW, something that genuinely comes from within YOU. It is a call to the imagination of a child, of the new-born creative mind, unencumbered by the weighty backlog of what has come before.

It’s 2015, and the world has changed in so many ways since the 1990’s. Writers and artists need to tap into what is happening now, forget the past, and reflect what is happening in the world today.

A revolution is needed, and no, I’m not talking about a revolution based on Internet identity politics and university approved cultural Marxism. Social media arguments about race, gender and sexuality are not going to cut it. If comic books are going to start to reflect the real world then writers and artists will need to experience some of that real world, and that doesn’t mean arguing with a politically correct social justice warrior (or a right-winger) on twitter. Perhaps we all need to switch off, live a little, and then come back to this comic book thing again?

Be wacky, be weird, just do something new.

Neverboy has been a fantastic comic book, bursting with creativity, originality and vital, urgent philosophic questioning about the nature of artistic inspiration, about the wellspring of imagination, and what happens when the well begins to dry up and people continue to take, take, take without putting anything back. The art itself has been great, a celebration of life, not life indoors on the computer, or life with headphones on, but real scent life, vivid, colourful, beautiful, exhilarating, a bit weird, a bit wacky, but exciting, essential, exhilarating human life.

This wonderfully, genuinely creative title has concluded it’s short run with a message about doing something new that comes from within, not from the past, or a fake computer life. It’s a message that we all need to take onboard, myself included, and as I finish off this review/rant I take that message into myself.

I need to stop typing, stop complaining, stop twittering, stop reading, and to go out into the big old, beautiful colourful world, to find inspiration, to energise, create, reflect and live my life as it is supposed to be lived.

That’s quite a revelation, and one I took from this beautiful, rare gem of a comic book. I’m going to miss this one, but the message of life, experience, renewal, creativity and individuality that it contains will linger for a long time yet.


Rating: 10/10 (An intellectually engaging, fun, wacky and creatively inspired comic book)