Review: 2000AD PROG 1924: SPRING 2015 STARTS HERE

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 1st April 2015


It’s worth getting this issue of 2000AD for the simple reason that it’s the perfect entry point for new readers. New arcs are beginning here, and there are helpful ‘catch-up’ pages before each story. So get the book, try it out, see if you like it, because this is the perfect opportunity to see if 2000AD in 2015 is the comic book for you.

Here’s what I made of it, and I’m not going to talk about it in massive amounts of detail, I’ll just briefly scan the stories, and let you know what has potential, and what I personally think is going to be the highpoint of 2000AD in these coming Spring months.

First story is good old statist control freak, Judge Dredd. The beginning of this story introduces a prison planet and a bog standard (in Judge Dredd stories) mad crazy serial killer, dog on his head type person. The crazy bloke is easily sorted out, so don’t worry about him. He was just there to be beaten up whilst introducing readers to the setting for this new Dredd story. The art looked a bit rough, but the story is just beginning, so I’ll give it a few weeks before I pass any sort of judgement on it. It was a brief intro with a fight scene, and it worked well.

Second story this week was Slaine. Everything about it screams awesome, from the art, the ancient British mythology, to the talk of how death isn’t really death at all, just the end of the body meat suit, as the soul is immortal. I loved it, and can’t wait for next week to see how the story is going to progress.

Third story ‘Grey Area’ has an interesting premise, with the narrative focussing on an alien holding pen, reminiscent of quarantine for animals, designed to protect earth from horrible intergalactic diseases. The art was a bit dull and messy, but the idea is good, and it intrigues me.

Fourth story ‘Orlok’ has a great idea with a Pre-Cog artist who can predict the future through his paintings. This artist is interested in freedom and democracy (I hope it’s real democracy, and not the fake two party democracy currently enslaving the west) so he’s an obvious threat to the state. That’s a great idea and the art is very good as well. This story could be a good one.

Last story of the week ‘Strontium Dog’ has flat art, but the story interests me. It has elements of real world 2015 concerns in it, with the protagonist working against his will as an agent of a totalitarian future state, so pretty much like any blackmailed person working for our own totalitarian (new world order) state in 2015 really. He even has the orange jump suit, so beloved of the US and their proxy army buddies in ISIS. What did I just say? That those loonies in ISIS are working for the west? Yep, they sure are.

The west (plus Saudi Arabia and all of the other Sunni totalitarian states) are using ISIS as a proxy army to fight against the Shia states supported by Russia. Syria has been going on for a while, and now it’s happening in Yemen. ISIS are not a threat to the west, they are allies to the west. Western governments need ISIS to carry out their unpopular foreign policy objectives and to give them a reason for establishing a Police state back home. That is why they allow them to behead people on the Internet without doing a damn thing to stop them. That’s a tough truth, but it’s truth nonetheless.

Real life is just as interesting (or mad) as any comic book, so when real world elements come up in the books I’m not going to shy away from talking about them. If I don’t do it then who else is going to? Don’t expect any other comic book reviewers on the Internet to stick their heads up and talk about these issues. It’s a sad fact, but they don’t care about these issues at all. All they want to do is to bury their heads in the sand, raise their asses in the air and be willingly raped by the real world authoritarian maniacs of our times.

The vast majority of comic book reviewers on the Internet care only about re-tweets from writers/artists and future career opportunities where they can write boring reviews for boring websites. Truth be damned. They would rather talk about panel layouts, narrative flow and how 'cool' everything is than bring up anything that has real world relevance, the bloody cowards. If they were reviewing comic books in Nazi Germany they wouldn’t care less about what was going on around them there either. That’s their mentality, and that’s why they completely and utterly suck. Rant over, sorry about that, back to 2000AD.

Looking back at what I have just written (not the angry rant, just the 2000AD bits) I have to conclude that this jumping-on point issue of 2000AD has been a great success. Five new stories and none of them are bad. One of them has amazing art (Slaine) but all of them have a lot of potential to be very interesting indeed. I’m so happy. My comic book reading week has began on an up, and my 2000AD reading in Spring 2015 is looking very promising indeed.



Overall rating: 9/10 (If you want to check out 2000AD you won’t get a better opportunity than this)

Best story: Slaine- 10/10 (Awesome sauce)

Worst story: None of them. At this early stage all five stories intrigue me.

Miss Morality in ‘The Tunnels of Intolerance’- Part Four (The Conclusion)

Written by: Mark. A. Pritchard

Released on: The Rorshach Rant- 25th March 2015



‘The tunnels of intolerance are everywhere my silly, muddled headed little daughter. When you think that you have closed one, another two open. That’s how it works, that’s how it has always worked. You might know me by another name….THE DISSENTER….Yes, it is me. The gang of criminals known as the ‘Politically Incorrect Scoundrels’ is my little group. I set it up when I faked my death and abandoned your stupid mother to get away from you. How is your mother nowadays anyway LOVE? Ha ha ha. Yes it was me who forced her to take those drugs; it was me that drove her into an early heroin induced grave. Ha ha ha ha, you women don’t know what you are up against. Your feminist resistance is doomed to failure, doomed I tell you, ha ha ha ha ha’

The dull grey glint of evil, white middle class privilege shone like a dirty cancerous tumour in his eyes as Miss Morality’s father spat his horrible, nasty, intolerant truth into her beatific, innocent face.

‘Daddy, I…. I…I…I can’t believe it…’ she stuttered, unable to respond to the hatred laced revelations coming from her own father.

‘Shut your cake hole, you spoiled brat. If you can’t talk without stammering, don’t talk at all. Did you really think that I was dead? Did you really think that my kind had simply died out, gone extinct like the dinosaurs? No, I simply bided my time, laid my trap, and you fell straight into it, like the stupid GIRL that you always were.’

Now he was bragging, really starting to enjoy himself and his final victory. Miss Morality slumped to the floor of her prison cell, unwilling to look into the face of evil, the face that was her father.

‘Get up LOVE,’ and he spoke that last word with particular spiteful relish, enjoying the connotation of sexist degradation that the word carries.

‘I have another surprise for you SWEETHEART. Stand-up, take it like a GIRL. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

And as his callous laugh taunted the very air around him a familiar voice spoke up from somewhere very near.

‘Sister, sister, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, sister indeed.’ 

‘Brother? Is that you?’ 

Miss Morality had bravely found her voice, and as she stumbled to her feet, there waiting, at her tiny prison-cell window was the leering face of her brother Ruthus.

‘The tunnels of intolerance run deep Sis. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yes, I am one of them now. Daddy has cured me of my evil homosexuality. I am a real man now, and the Politically incorrect scoundrels have welcomed me with open arms. I even have a girlfriend. Her name is Claire. She is reaaaalllly pretty, ha ha ha ha. She is a secretary, ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

Miss Morality was on the verge of passing out. Her father always was an evil bastard, but he was a dead evil bastard, or so she had believed. Now, not only had he had returned from the dead, but he had brainwashed her poor innocent, homosexual brother Rufus as well. This was simply too much for her to take.

Rufus was no longer the confused, bumbling, effeminate sweetheart of a man that she had known and loved. He had been brainwashed, changed against his will (presumably) into something evil, something beyond human. Yes, those monsters had changed him into that worst of all creatures, the straight, white male.

The horror was almost too much for her to bear. Everything about him seemed different. He was wearing a football shirt. He smelt like cheap lager and his nails looked absolutely awful as he gripped her prison bars before delivering this final taunt to his despairing sister.

‘Hey Sis, before I forget. Your brat kid. She is ours now. The BBC Jimmy Saville Care-home for abandoned and vulnerable young girls is doing a fine job, but we need to bring her into the fold. She will make a fine housewife for one of our members, a fine housewife indeed, ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

The evil lager enthused laughter was punctuated only by the screams of a desperately clawing at her cell bars Miss Morality.

‘Noooooo, you monsters, you monsters, nooooooooo.’

‘See you in the pub later Dad. Champions League tonight, later mate.’ 

And with these final Hellish words coming from the now obscenely manly lips of her unrecognisable, brainwashed, not gay anymore brother, he was gone.

The last words in this awful scene of patriarchal brutality came from the woman hating mouth of the uniformed Police officer standing infront of the cell that contained a now curled up, weeping, convulsing Miss Morality.

She could no longer speak. All she could do was cry, and the evil incarnate that was her father, THE DISSENTER, delivered his final words like a knife in her back.

‘I’ll have custody of your darling baby girl in the morning LOVE. My Politically Incorrect Scoundrels own the courts. We own everything. Baby Sojourner will be taught to respect her man. No more feminism for her, she will never, ever taste the sweet, sweet air of emancipation and freedom away from our manly, hairy mitts. Goodbye DARLING, and remember. You can BITCH, you can whine, you can moan and complain, but the tunnels of intolerance run deep. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The tunnels of intolerance run deeeeeeeep.’

END (Or, is it?)

And so ends my story. The message that it contains should be very clear. The tunnels of intolerance run very deep indeed dear reader. The world is a terrible place, but together we can break down those tunnels of intolerance, those hidden, underground networks of sexism, of racism, of homophobia and err, all of the other evil stuff like that. We can stop the evils of white, male, middle class, straight, privilege. Together, we can free female warriors like Miss Morality. We can save young girls from the evils of marriage, from motherhood and a wasted life loving and caring for their patriarchal prison construct called ‘family.’ It’s going to be a tough battle, but we can do it. Join the social justice warrior movement, and together we can rid the world of the evil that is patriarchy, forever.

* If any artist would be willing to illustrate this story, then please let me know.

Review: The October Faction #5- Good idea, wrong book

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW
Released: 25th March 2015

There is one good idea in this month’s ‘The October Faction,’ but apart from that it’s just the usual combination of a story with a muddled tone that features some very cool, gothic artwork.

The good idea is that a bloke who turns into a werewolf is suffering from terminal cancer, but that it doesn’t appear to affect him when he’s a wolf, it's just the human side that’s done for. The obvious solution to the problem then is to stay as a permanent wolf. That’s interesting, but I don’t see how it’s going to be well used in this story that is ostensibly about a jokey Adam’s family/Munsters group and their inconsequential, don’t take all of this too seriously, adventures.

Put the wolf/cancer thing in another book, a book that has a serious tone, take the same artist with you (the fantastic Damien Worm) and then you’ll have something that would really be worth following. Perhaps the wolf blood can be used to cure cancer? But does that blood have other side (murder related) effects?

Do you see what I mean? It’s a good idea isn’t it? It has loads of possibilities, and you could do an entire little series about it. But having that idea in this book as it is, with the comedy tone, and the feeling that nothing really matters, I don’t like to say this, but it’s just not working.

This is particularly evident in issue #5. The book concludes with a cliff-hanger where one of the main characters is put in a life or death situation. That’s a big deal, right? Well, it should be.  It should have a huge, dramatic impact, but because of the casual tone of the book the impact is negligible. You can’t take it seriously, because the book isn’t serious. The entire tone of the narrative is silly, light and inconsequential. You can’t get involved in it, and you can’t take any threats to the protagonists seriously, because they themselves are not written seriously.

Getting emotionally engaged in this book would be like getting worried about Wile. E Coyote as he flaps his arm and falls helplessly to the bottom of the mountain. You don’t worry about poor old Wile. E because he’s a cartoon. He’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. That’s the same feeling I get with the characters in this book, the only difference is that the Roadrunner cartoon is funny, whilst this book is just a big old muddle.

I don’t understand what the writer is going for here, or what I am supposed to make of it all. It confuses me. I don’t understand what it’s trying to be. It’s not funny enough to be a dark comedy, and not interesting or emotionally involving enough to be a drama, plus it looks spooky and creepy, but the story isn’t scary at all.

I love the dark, atmospheric, spooky art in this book, but I can’t pretend that it’s a superior comic book just for the art alone. Take away the great art from this book, and what do you have?  Let’s be honest. It isn’t great. It’s okay, but in a comic book market flooded with okay isn’t it about time that we started to ask for something a bit better?


Rating: 5/10 (Plodding script, but I loved the art, as I always do with Mr. Worm)

Review: Conan the Avenger #12- Dreaming of pretty girls, wizards and monsters

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 25th March 2015


Dreams of pretty girls, of wizards, monsters, and far away lands of legend, myth and adventure give you a reason to live, a reason to battle through the hangovers, a reason to keep on writing, to keep on dreaming, to keep on living.

For if there cannot be anything better in this world, write it, and live it in your mind.

I can sense that feeling of silent desperation and loneliness when I read Robert E. Howard. It’s a feeling of disconnection from his world, and a longing to go back, to be somebody else who could be brave, strong, fearless, a leader with passion in his life, a passion that drives him, that makes living not a chore, but a pleasure.

Reading ‘The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob’ by Jim & Ruth Keegan (the excellent short at the end of Conan the Avenger #12) I get a sad sense of who Conan author Robert E. Howard actually was. It’s not a happy tale. Dreaming of being somebody else, of a beautiful woman, of a ship, a monster, a beach, he wakes to reality with a hangover:

‘Dreams, and dreams and the ghosts of dreams. Last night I was drunk but there seems to be no especial hangover this morning.’ (Robert E. Howard)

Looking on the bright side, at least his head doesn’t hurt from the wasteful nothingness of the night before. He can write again, make something happen in a world that he feels no connection to.

Conan is essentially a boyish dream, a fantasy character that allows you to experience a life you want to live, but without the difficulty that real life contains. You get the muscles, the cool hair, the exotic locations, the monsters, the wizards and the pretty girls, and you don’t even have to put your pants on and leave the house to get it all.

But live there for too long and you will start to rot from the inside. You cannot hide from the real world forever. You can try, for a while, but reality has a way of getting to you, and of bringing you kicking and screaming back to that dull grey place that you don’t want to be.

Reality can be awful disappointing, and people are never as interesting or courageous, as you want them to be. If people were like the characters in Conan comic books then I would be surrounded by heroic, honest, strong, morally upright, beautiful, monstrous, interesting, passionate, deceitful, mendacious, scheming, mysterious, fascinating people. Guess what? I’m not surrounded by those kinds of people.

I’m surrounded by the bored, the lonely, the stupid, the uninteresting, the cowardly, the trapped, the dreary, the suspicious, the petty, the angry, the spiteful, the lost, the indifferent and those just stuck in an endless routine of keeping their heads down until the day that they die. That’s real life, and it’s hard to square it with what you read in a Robert E. Howard story about Conan. You end up asking, where are the heroes? Where are the villains? Where are the interesting characters? You find none, and it’s bloody depressing, so here’s my solution to the problem. If you cannot find somebody who interests you, then be the person who interests you.

Set a goal, go for it, be good at something, achieve something, increase your social status and have adventures.  You don’t have to stay indoors, and you don’t have to create worlds in your head. The real world is big enough, and although the people might seem a bit dull and predictable compared to the wonderful characters of fiction, there are real adventures waiting for you in reality.

Take the masculine essence of Conan if you want to be Conan, and achieve, achieve, achieve, and if you don’t achieve, well sod it, a good failure can be just as much fun as well. There are a million ways to do this, all you have to do is set your mind on a goal, and go for it. Having something to strive for, to get out of bed for, to live for, will be enough, and don’t worry; there will be plenty of wizards, monsters and pretty girls along the way.

Robert E. Howard wrote a lot, probably too much. He created so much, but lived too little, and when life kept kicking him in the guts there was nothing left to anchor him to the reality that he didn’t really care much for anyway.

You have to force yourself to care. Fantasy is enjoyable, but fantasy is not reality. Take the metaphors, the analogies and the moral lessons, and use them to navigate the real, but don’t get the two confused, and don’t spend too much time in a world that doesn’t exist. Fantasy can lead to unhappiness, to self-delusion, it can lead you into voting to be a slave, and reality is a lot more interesting than you might think.



Rating: 8/10 (A happy ending to the arc with some enjoyable moments of humour from a delirious Conan)

Review: The Goon- Once Upon a Hard Time (Part 2 of 4)- A human being a human

Writer and artist: Eric Powell
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 25th March 2015



The central narrative idea in this book is that the main protagonist (The Goon) is reverting to an animalistic nature, and that there is a parallel between his story and the half-human, half-animal characters in ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ by H.G. Wells.

This sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately when you look at it with objective eyes it’s quite apparent that the parallel doesn’t really work.

I’ll explain. The idea is that Goon is so angry that he has become an ‘animal’ and all he cares about is bloody, violent revenge on all those who have wronged him. Do you see the problem yet?

I’ll continue. At the beginning of this book Goon picks up a copy of ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ by H.G. Wells. The narrative then switches to telling the story in that famous book, with the obvious inference being that it’s a parallel with the situation that Goon finds himself.

I enjoyed reading about Dr Moreau, but the story of that book doesn’t quite fit with the story of the Goon for the obvious reason that the tormented creatures created by the mad Doctor Moreau are nothing like the character of the Goon. The half human, half animal abominations are fighting against their animal natures, trying to convince themselves that they are men, but they are not men, and their true animal natures dominate. The moral lesson being that you cannot turn an animal into man, because man alone is touched by the divine spark of his creator, and any attempts by man to play God is doomed to end in failure.

The Goon is not undergoing the same dilemma as these poor, doomed creatures because the emotion that is driving him is not animal at all, it’s a very human emotion called REVENGE. He is not turning into an animal when he kills his enemies. What he is doing is acting like a wronged human. Animals kill for food. Humans kill for revenge. So having Goon reading The Island of Dr. Moreau and worrying about becoming an animal because he is killing for revenge doesn’t really work. It’s a sad fact, but the more he kills, the more human he becomes.

‘Far from being ‘instinctive’ or ‘hard-wired,’ revenge is a profoundly social desire; and it is one of the desires that distinguishes us from other species of animal. Revenge is probably not an occurrence in the animal kingdom. Of course, intraspecies aggression is common among animals. But aggression is almost always futureoriented: that is, animals fight to gain or defend territory, for status within the group, or to win a mate. Revenge, by contrast, involves aggression that refers back only to a past action, and so is unlikely to exist among animals.’ (Why do we humans seek revenge, and should we? Study by Sonia Kruks, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 2009).

The idea behind this comic book is great. To have a book within a book that explains the psychological torments of the main protagonist is something that works, but when the parallel doesn’t fit you end up self-sabotaging the entire project.

The fact that the parallel between Goon and TIODM doesn’t fit is particularly noticeable in the final panels of this comic book as Goon violently assaults his enemies. This is portrayed with accompanying panels of text straight from Well’s novel where the protagonist talks of his feelings of estrangement from humanity, and how he just wants to be left alone, to enjoy isolation, books and astronomy till the end of his days. There’s no thoughts of violence there, just resignation. This man has quit life, whilst Goon is still full of it as he stabs a screwdriver into a man’s neck in one panel and wrenches an arm out of it’s socket in another.

Goon is not resigning from life. He’s full of passion and righteous anger. He is not conflicted about the animal part of his nature, he is fully human, doing all of the awful things that angry human beings do, all of the time.

Goon OUAHT Part 2 had a great idea, but the choice of book, and the choice of parallel didn’t really fit. The sub-heading of the book is ‘A Man Turned Animal,’ but this isn’t really true. The sub-heading should actually be ‘A Man acting like a Man.’

This comic book is about revenge, and revenge is a very human emotion, not animal. We have free will, so we are in control, we get to choose whether to act violently, or not. Animals act out of instinct, man acts out of choice. I really enjoyed this book, but I strongly disagree with the central premise. Taking violent revenge on our enemies does not make us animals. Revenge is about choice, and choice is what makes us human beings.



Rating: 6/10 (Good book with flawed central premise)


Link to study quoted in this review: 
https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ias/insights/Kruks7May2.pdf

Review: Mister X: Razed #2 of 4- Shuttered from reality, please leave me alone to read my ‘noir’ detective book

Story and art: Dean Motter
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 21st March 2015


This issue of Mister X is an involving, interesting and enjoyable read that is laced with subtle humour throughout. There’s no denying that Dean Motter is a very clever writer indeed.

You know me though, or do you? I like stories that deal with deeper issues, with BORING real world stuff, like human consciousness and slavery (aka government), but that’s just me. I’m a bit weird you see. I like my stories to actually say something, not just do pretty figure skating patterns before concluding with a bow, left the stage, was everybody entertained? What, I was supposed to say something? Not happening here mate, I do clever patterns, not thinking. Yeah, that’s me, annoying critic that I am. I want thinking, not just pretty patterns.

My main concern with the writing coming from Dean Motter (as I’ve experienced it so far at least) is that it appears to be about pretty patterns, about cleverness, about putting on a good show. He’s great at that, and that’s why I’m reading his book, but is he saying anything?

Let’s look at the two stories that make up this issue of Mister X. The first story (Razed Expectations) is about a missing building. It’s a great idea, that an entire skyscraper can disappear overnight, and nobody knows what has happened to it. That’s a great launching point for a story, you have me interested already, just because it’s so bizarre.

From that starting point the narrative introduces quite a lot of other stuff, characters and situations that make-up the backdrop to the missing building. It’s like a movie really, with lots of things going on that you assume will make more sense later on, being drawn together to form a coherent whole from what is at the present seemingly disconnected threads.

Mister X himself is one of those characters that I can see a writer identifying with. He’s cool, mysterious, high status, the girls like him and talk about him when he’s not there, and he is at the centre of everything that happens. He’s the kind of guy who a writer wants to be. The writer can’t be that guy in reality, so he writes him, enjoying the experience as he does so. X is not just an detached observer of life (as the writer is) he’s a powerful observer who actually drives the narrative rather than just sitting on the sidelines and watching other people do all of the exciting stuff. That’s how I see Mister X. He’s a writer’s image of himself, or how he wants to be, but cannot be in the real world. In that sense he’s quite a childish creation, a wish fulfilment creation born out of loneliness and the need to make yourself more interesting and important than you actually are. Oh Mister X, you’re so in charge, so cool, so mysterious, and all of the pretty girls are secretly in love with you. See how it works? Well, that’s how I read the bloke anyway.

The second story (Electropolis) isn’t really a second story at all, rather it is a story occurring at the same time as the main story, and what happens in it will probably tie into the larger picture. The main protagonist in this second tale is highly involved in the first story (she’s that easy story-line tie in, a reporter) and although Mister X isn’t involved here you know that if something important occurs then he’s bound to pop his bald head into the narrative if needed.

This second story introduces new characters into the world, and they are funny, adding an element of humour into proceedings, which makes for a more enjoyable read. See? It’s that Dean Motter. He knows how to write a good story, the clever, clever bloke. This is really good stuff. You have an ostensible ‘main’ story, and a secondary story that follows it. But the ‘secondary’ story is actually about the main story as well, and what happens in that story is going to affect the outcome in the main story. Isn’t that a great idea? Other comic books should steal that one.

Okay, so there’s some clever stuff going on here, but (and I always go back to this point in ALL of my reviews) is it actually saying anything? Let’s have a look. The story involves a missing building, a dodgy architect/millionaire, stolen gold and chemical zombies being used as bank robbers. It has a recovering alcoholic reporter in it, and a pretty young girl who is the love interest of Mister X. It’s interesting for sure, but I’m not getting anything deeper. There’s a very noticeable lack of sub-text going on here. It’s not really about anything at a deeper level other than exciting and intriguing the reader on a narrative level.

I could be wrong, but I’m not getting anything here. Is it about the commodification of all human interactions where your value as a human being is purely dependent upon your financial status? Is it about the transhuman agenda? Is it about collectivism, the idea that humanity needs to be herded into a dumbed down mass of spectator order followers to be bossed around by their betters and eventually exterminated/culled like in Communist Russia or China? No, none of that is going on here. All of the important issues worth debating in a 2015 context have fallen into a black hole as far as this book is concerned. We will have nothing contemporary here please. This is a comic book about a missing building and all of the wacky individual characters involved in it’s disappearance, that’s all.

The clue to it’s determination to shutter itself from reality is there in it’s deliberately ‘nowhere’ setting. It’s set in a noir movie futuristic robot kind of place that I used to read about in my old copies of 2000AD back in the 1980’s. This setting is futuristic, but not in a 2015 sense. It’s futuristic in a 1980’s sense.  It’s very 80’s actually, and as I read the book I can’t see any nods to the present day world of 2015 at all. This one could have been written in 1986, as there’s nothing here that connects with the post 9/11 world at all.

You know what? I’m okay with that, just because it’s so well written. I’m going to keep on reading it, and I’m not going to harp on how it doesn’t connect, how it’s not saying anything. It’s a 1980’s book that has gone through some kind of time-warp where the last 30 years didn’t happen, and as long as you treat it like a very well written 2000AD story from the mid 1980’s then there’s enjoyment to be had here.

It’s never going to be a nine or ten out of ten book because it’s not trying to say anything. It’s trying to be a good story. It’s trying to be clever, and it’s trying to be funny and cool. To me it is a 7/10 book because it has set it’s own limits and is happy to exist as a 7/10 book that ignores the world around it.

I’m going to read it and pretend that I’m that ignorant kid in 1986 that I once used to be. I’m not going to be silly and declare it a work of contemporary genius, because it isn’t. It’s a comfy pillow to lay your head upon as the bombs go off outside.

Austerity, never-ending wars, the new world order, media lies, privatisation, academic consensus, corporatism, statism, banksterism, false flags, anarchy, freedom, liberty, truth. You’ll find none of those VITAL issues being discussed here, but what you will find is a very clever, involving story that will entertain you and help you ignore the reality of the world around you.

Take it, read it, enjoy it, but this kind of clever story telling is best taken in small doses. Too much cleverness will warp you, making you act like a new age hipster prat, inculcating within your mental make-up a love of ignorant shallowness, and ‘geek’ culture nothingness.  I have nothing against shallow comics and cleverness, but life is short, so we have to say what we want to say whilst we are here.

Comics like Mister X are fun, but they are not going to help the human race break free from it’s current condition of slavery to centralised control systems. Clever ultimately helps nobody but the state and all of their scurrying little helper minions who live their lives in order to divide, distract and eventually load you and your kids into their BBC, World Bank and UN approved paddy wagons. Clever keeps the masses busy, clever keeps them away from reality, clever protects the status quo, and clever keeps humanity enslaved.


Rating: 7/10 (Very well written, enjoyable, clever but there is no connection to anything that has contemporary socio-political relevance)

Review: 2000AD PROG 1923- Less yapping, more slapping

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 25th March 2015


Sometimes the best thing about 2000AD is the front cover, and such is the case this week with a gloriously mad offering from Nick Percival.

Add caption

That cover is great, but the rest of the book offers little, so without wasting too much time, here’s a quick run-down of what’s inside 2000AD this week.

Judge Dredd- ‘Perps, Crimes & Videotape’ (movie reference from 1989) features giant walking sharks, mutant piranhas and a hipster geek nerd bloke. The story is a joke, but not a very funny one.

Tharg’s 3Rillers- ‘1%’ (the final part of the story) ends up being about a corrupt rich guy and his planet sized brain. It was an okay ending to the arc, but I didn’t like the art and the whole thing felt a bit inconsequential.

Survival Geeks- ‘SteamPunk’d’ had one decent joke about a future UK coalition government being an ‘end of world scenario’ but the rest of it washed over me. I won’t miss this one. It was there, that’s all.

Bob Bryne’s ‘Twisted Tales’ is a revenge story where the oppressed masses finally gang up to get rid of their pig-like over-lords. I liked it, and just wish we’d do the same in the real world with our own pig-like over-lords. The noticeable thing about the story was the total absence of dialogue. There could be a message there. Perhaps the message is that we need to do less talking and more acting, less yapping, and more slapping? If that’s the message in Twisted Tales, then I wholeheartedly agree with it.

Savage- Grinders, follows our tool of the state ‘hero’ as he places his trust in another leader, making the same mistake that every statist always makes come election time. Oh Bill, will you ever learn? If you keep voting for a master you’ll keep on being a slave, that’s how it works Bill.  I did enjoy the villain in this one though. He’s the same bloke who is featured on the front cover, a ridiculously angry brain in a fat suit. Good stuff, now that’s my idea of fun. Who says that I don’t have a sense of humour?

That’s it for this week in 2000AD. There’s not much going on, well apart from that mute story about pig slapping and an angry brain in a fat suit. Next week sees the start of some new stories for spring 2015, so although 2000AD was a bit lightweight this week, I remain ever optimistic for the future.


Rating: 5/10


Best story: Twisted Tales: 7/10 (No dialogue, and it works very well)

Worst story: Judge Dredd: 3/10 (I was never a fan of the Judge, even as a youngster, so this isn't just an 'anarchist' thing. It's an in-built anti-authoritarian thing. Judge Dredd is a bully with a badge. An unpleasant piece of c**p. The only good Judge Dredd story is a story that shows him for what he actually is. He is not big, not clever, not cool. He is a tool in a uniform, just like all of the other tools in uniform who prop up government/slavery systems in the past, present, and if we don't start doing something about it, in the future as well. 

Review: Groo the Wanderer: The Kids who would be Kings- Chapter 2, by Sergio Aragones

You will find 'Groo the Wanderer' in: Dark Horse Presents Issue #8

Contributors: Sergio Aragones, and others

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Release Date: 18th March 2015



Let me know if anything that I’m about to describe sounds familiar to you:

Groo (a man who likes to eat and fight) has made a young boy the king of a country called ‘Larchmout.’ Not liking what he has seen Groo has decided that the old King needs to be replaced by a new King. Groo (a very good fighter) puts his new King on the throne of Larchmout. This new King sets about changing the country he now controls, whilst Groo busies himself filling his belly. The new King collectivises industry, raises taxes and lowers wages, making everybody equally poor and lowering the quality of goods and services, since nobody cares any more as incentives for excellence no longer exist.

Because everything in the country has been collectivised the King now finds himself with incredible wealth, and he’s scared of losing it, so he builds a big army, forcing his subjects to sign up as soldiers and making it illegal for them to leave his kingdom. Larchmout is now a collectivised country of poor indentured servants with an insanely wealthy centralised control system that tells them what they can and cannot do.

Groo (the man who started it all) has a full belly, and he wants to engage in his other favourite past time- fighting. However, when he starts to fight the King’s army they tell him that they are ‘Still in training,’ and not yet ready to give him a good, satisfying fight. So he tells them he’ll be back later to fight (and defeat) them all when they are better trained.

Having failed to find a good fight Groo decides to eat again, but there’s nothing decent to eat anymore in a collectivised country where the incentive to excel has gone and all wealth is going to the King. The people are understandably upset that all they have to eat is ‘left-over garbage,’ and Groo slowly begins to realise that his new King is just as bad as his old King.

What is he going to do? He’s already tried a new King, and all it did was make things worse. A young girl then walks up to Groo with the obvious solution. ‘We do not need another King! What this lands needs is a Queen.’ The narrative thus concludes, and will likely continue with a new Queen put on the throne by Groo.

I’ll ask the question again. Does any of that sound familiar to you? To me it sounds like the history of the modern world, portrayed in a ridiculous comic book strip that is nowhere near as ridiculous as the actual reality that it is satirising. This is the history of US imperialism, of faux-democracy, of Communism, of China, Russia, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and America today.

Here’s another question- Who is the figure of ‘Groo’ supposed to be? Who is this man who goes wandering around the world putting Kings on thrones, whilst interested only in eating and fighting? Here’s my take on what he is supposed to represent:

The obvious conclusion to be drawn would be that Groo is America, but I don’t see it that way. Groo is not America, or the UK, or China, or Russia. No, Groo is the power behind the power. The power that controls temporary Kings and Queens, putting little boys and girls in positions of power, only to see them destroy that country, time after time after time. Groo is an idiot, a dolt, a fool, but he’s the worst kind of fool. He’s a fool who places people in positions of power and naively expects them to do something different than the last person he put into a position of power. So who is he?

Is he the globalists, the new world order, the banksters? I don’t think so. Remember that Groo is not a devious manipulator. He’s not interested in world domination, all he’s interested in is fighting and stuffing his belly. He puts Kings on thrones, but he doesn’t try to manipulate them like a puppet on a string. He places them on the throne because he’s an idiot who doesn’t know what he is doing.
Bearing this in mind you cannot really conclude that Groo is a satire of the ‘illuminati’ or any other occulted group of world controllers.

Groo is the collective mentality of humanity encapsulated as it is today. He’s a great lumbering, bumbling moron who thinks only of short-term physical pleasures. He’s a fool who gives power to petty individual tyrants, thinking that they won’t act in exactly the same way that all petty individual tyrants act. He’s a man who keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, but always hoping for a different result. If only he can find the right leader to put on the throne, that would make everything different this time, right?

Groo believes in leaders. He believes that people should have Kings, or Queens. He believes in top down power, he believes in the legitimacy of the state. So what is Groo other than a reflection of the statist mind-set that has contaminated the world and made it what it is today?

Groo is us. He is the voter at the ballot box. He is the follower of the cult leader, the loyal subject of the latest King or Queen tyrant, dictator, president or Prime Minister. Groo is the face in the crowd at the election rally. Groo is the human race, thinking only of their bellies and the next good fight, giving away their power and allowing themselves to be slaves to their leaders.

That’s my take on Groo, that’s how I see him, but this is the first time that I’ve ever read the work of Sergio Aragones, so I’m 100% sure that my (late to the party) analysis has been said a thousand times before. All I can do is to react to his work as a new reader and declare that I’m very impressed with what I am reading. Scrub that. I’m more than impressed. What he has done here is excellent, and it’s in a category of excellence far removed from the usual nonsense that I read and review here on my comic book blog. I might be late to the party, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot catch up with the work of Sergio Aragones, and as I finish off this review, that’s exactly what I intend to do. I need to find out a lot more about this guy. I have a lot of reading to do.


Dark Horse Presents (overall rating) 8/10

Best story: Groo the Wanderer: ‘The Kids who would be Kings’ Chapter 2, by Sergio Aragones (Excellent cutting edge satire)- 10/10

Worst story: Murder Book: Night Fare, by Ed Brisson- (Empty, bleak, distressing and depressing) 2/10

Comic review: Alex + Ada #13- How can you read a book if you are asleep?

Story and script assists: Jonathan Luna
Story and script: Sarah Vaughn
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 18th March 2015


The closing down of free areas of discourse on the Internet, the use of police swat teams to arrest anybody who wants the freedom to be happy outside of mainstream norms. The refusal to prosecute, or even investigate, criminal wrong doings by corporations that squat over democracy, giving orders, raping and pillaging and doing whatever the Hell they want to do until the entire planet is a wasteland.

People no longer say what they want to say because they fear the wrath of their new God. The corporation is God now. Pay your respects, or we’ll send around the swat team of brave uniformed heroes who will drag you away where you will be caged for the rest of your life. Resist and they will murder you, heroically of course.

What am I talking about here? Alex + Ada #13 or corporate controlled westernised capitalism 2015?

It’s quite obvious. I’m talking about both.

Alex + Ada is set in the ‘future,’ with robot Police dogs and android girlfriends, but it’s not really about the future, it’s about NOW. It’s about what happens when you allow corporations to control governments, when you structure your entire society not around human happiness, but corporate profit and human manipulation, control and enslavement.

‘World peace is none of your business
So would you kindly keep your nose out?
The rich must profit and get richer
And the poor must stay poor
Oh, you poor little fool- oh, you fool.’ (World Peace Is None Of Your business, by Morrissey)

You need to fight, or you need to run. Either way you’ll be dealing with uniformed order following agents of the state who will proudly enslave you. That’s what government is, and whether you set in the past, present or future, the message is always the same.

‘Each time you vote you support the process.’ (Morrissey again, same song)

Yes, you do. So, stop voting, stop supporting the process and stop letting them get away with it.

Alex + Ada #13 is about two lovers running from the state. They live in the future, but their story is very much a story of today. Their story is of an awakening of consciousness, of what happens to a sleeping human being when s/he realises that s/he is a slave to the state. S/he wakes, is horrified, tries to find a place to hide, but government allows no place to be happy outside of their control system. The awakened slave is now a threat. Uniformed order followers are sent in, and s/he runs.

Alex + Ada are the bad guys now, at least, that’s how they would be portrayed in the corporate, mainstream media. They have hurt nobody. All they want is to be free and happy and to live their lives the way they see fit. Because of this they are a bigger threat to the state than any terrorist, or any invading army. They want out, so they must be eliminated.

Any refusal to comply must end in prison or death. Send in the drones, send in the lawyers, and send in the mainstream media to justify slavery. Don’t see this story as a nightmare vision of the future. See it as a commentary on what is happening NOW. If you want to break free from the corporate state with their taxes gained at the threat of violence, and arbitrary laws designed to subjugate individual human liberty and freedom then you will be hunted down, imprisoned or murdered.

Alex + Ada is the story of human awakening, of government, and human slavery. It’s a book that a lot of people won’t ‘get.’ That’s very understandable. How can people read a book if they are asleep?


Rating: 9/10



World Peace Is None of Your Business, by Morrissey:

Comic review: Frankenstein Underground #1- Average Frankenstein monster book

Writer: Mike Mignola
Artist: Ben Stenbeck
Colours: Dave Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 18th March 2015


I’ve just read an average comic book about the Frankenstein monster. It’s not horrible, but there isn’t much to it.

The monster is abandoned, as is usual in Frankenstein books. He finds a kindly face, the kindly face dies, monster is alone again. The book concludes with the monster getting a passport to what looks like the HellBoy universe, so if you want to see what he gets up to, buy Frankenstein Underground #2.

As for me, I’m not a Hellboy fanboy (if they even exist) so I don’t see what else this series has to offer for me. The book is set, ‘Somewhere in Mexico, 1956’ so that holds no interest to me. Why is the monster in Mexico? So he can be put in a narrative involving Mayan/Aztec spooky god stuff I guess. Why is it set in 1956, and not the far more interesting present of 2015? I don’t know. I guess it’s just easier and less controversial to set it in that time period, rather than dealing with what is going on in Mexico today.

The artwork has nice colouring by the always very good Dave Stewart, but there’s a lack of detail in the pencilling. The monster looks lanky and generic, and the supporting cast lack enough detail to make them interesting.

Nothing going on here feels new. It feels routine, and ordinary. I’m not very excited about it, and I can’t see any other readers being blown away by it either. It’s okay, but there’s a million okay comics out there and if something’s just okay you ask yourself, what’s the point in it? I don’t know. It seems pretty pointless. I don’t want to be unkind, but it’s just another book with a lonely, persecuted, tormented Frankenstein monster in it, that’s all.

Rating: 4/10

Comic review: Millennium #3- Glorious colouring, boss front cover

Writer: Joe Harris
Artist: Colin Lorimer
Colourist: Joane Lafuente
Publisher: IDW Comics
Released: 18th March 2015


Along with the gloriously gothic and spooky regular cover from menton3 you get some equally atmospheric and splendidly coloured interior art in Millennium #2.

This is a book that you’ll want to enjoy with the lights on, as every page is awash with psychedelic swatches, blurs and shades of dazzling colour, creating an effect that’s really quite impressive and a joy to experience.

I’m one of those reviewers who doesn’t usually mention the art and colouring, so the very fact that I’m mentioning it here must mean that it's stand-out good. Actually it’s a lot better than good, it’s great, and bottom line, a heck of a lot of fun to look at.

The story itself is inoffensive to this jaded anarchist, even though it has murders in it, but I forgive that as it’s a conspiracy/murder-mystery genre book and I guess you have to sprinkle a few corpses around a bit to make it what it is.

The book, at the moment at least, is in the stage of the narrative where things are still being hinted at, and the fun to be had here is to follow it all the way through and see everything link up at the end.

The key is whether or not it’s interesting enough that you want to hang around. I do, not because it’s a ‘conspiracy’ book, but because the art is great, there’s nothing in it that offends me too much and the plot is interesting.

I want to follow that plot to the end. I want to know what is happening. I want to slowly find out where it’s all going and I want to find out with the evil villains are up to in relation to unleashing evil into the world (err lads, it’s already here, it’s in charge, and it’s called ‘Government.’)

I’ll keep on buying it, and I’ll keep on putting my lights on when reading the book in order to get the full benefit of the very good art and absolutely stunning colouring work by Joane Lafuente.

If you like the X-files, and if you like books where occulted groups are getting up to mischief, only to eventually be thwarted by brave agents of the state (sorry, but that’s what’s happening here) then you should get a kick out of it. It’s atmospheric, subtle, interesting and well worth spending a couple of quid on. Just look at that front cover with a Slender Man/Demon on it. That’s great, and the book itself isn’t too bad either.


Rating: 7/10 (Not exactly government shattering, but it’s a fun read)

Comic review: The Punisher #16- Shocking moments of truth in a mainstream comic book

Writer: Nathan Edmondson
Artist: Mitch Gerads
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 18th March 2015


I can’t quite believe it, but I’ve actually read a Marvel (Disney) comic book where the villains are politicians who control drug gangs, propagandise the public through the mainstream media, and use soldiers and police as order following enforcers to violently suppress any public dissent.

The hero of the story is a war veteran (I’m not sure which war, or in what time period this is set) who is fighting against high level corruption. This hero (The Punisher) is being demonised as a villain by the compliant government propaganda machine known as the mainstream media. The Punisher is not fighting against unconvincing and anachronistic Nazi’s or petty drug dealers like he usually does, but real life criminals. He’s fighting against the political puppet criminals that exist in the real world of 2015.

Shocking.

What’s even more shocking is that when the Punisher captures one of these high ranking political puppets and asks him, 'Who else is behind it?' the answer is ‘More than you can get to before a drone takes you out.’

That’s so refreshing to hear, not just that there are powers above the puppet politicians, we all know that by now, right?  No, what’s so refreshing is to see drones being mentioned in a mainstream comic book, and put into their proper context as the unrestrained evil that they actually are. Drones are the perfect corporate soldiers because they kill without any risk to the brave order following ‘hero’ who pilots them a 10000 miles away in a US military base. Drones are the future of warfare, and as we mess around on our isurveilance devices and waste time posting selfies this hellish reality and threat to the future of mankind continues to grow by the hour.

Punisher #16 is a case study that shows how government actually works. It shows how government uses the media, the police, the military, drug gangs and drug laws to further their hidden agenda of consolidation of private wealth for the rich and powerful, and slavery for everybody else. It shows what government actually is, and that's extremely rare in a mainstream comic book. I don't know what's happening in Marvel this week, but this is the one book that you cannot afford to miss.

Before I finish off this review I just want to acknowledge that this current portrayal of the political realities of life in contemporary America CANNOT last in a mainstream comic book. I’m not stupid, and I’m not naïve. I already know how it’s going to end.

The Punisher is going to get rid of a few rotten apples and business will continue as usual, the moral of the story being that the system is not broken, it’s just that it had a few bad people in it. It has to finish that way, because if it doesn’t that means that writer Nathan Edmondson is actually telling the truth about the world, and doing so in a mainstream comic book. Do you think that he will be allowed to get away with this? I certainly don’t. Do you really think that he’ll be allowed to conclude a story with the truth?

You might think that I’m incredibly arrogant when I talk about truth, and that truth doesn’t even exist? You might think that I’m deluded, that truth can never be known. I disagree, and yes call me arrogant if you like, but truth is truth, whether you accept it or not. Here’s the truth about politics in the US as of March 18th 2015.

US political power elites are bought and paid for career obsessed sociopaths who will do anything to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of humanity. Morality is not a concern to them; the only concern is for themselves and the party that has put them into a position of power. They serve rich people, not poor people. They serve the 1%, and the other 99% are there to be duped, used, abused, controlled and discarded when no longer useful. Government is a criminal gang that has given itself a monopoly on the use of violence. That is what it is, that is reality, that is the truth.

If you admit this truth in a mainstream comic book then you are lifting the blinkers from the eyes of a blinded public, and calling for a revolution. You are admitting that government is a lie and advocating an over-throw of the current political status quo where two identical globalist parties serve the interests of private banks and corporations, and not the American people that are duped into voting for their own enslavement.

I don’t see how this message will be allowed in a mainstream comic book, I just don’t. What I do envision happening is that a cartoon villain will be blamed for all the evils that are taking place within this comic book, he will be unmasked by the Punisher who will give him a good kicking, and then it’s all back to normal again.

The Punisher will then probably go into space, or time travel back to 1970 where he can safely battle Nazi’s, communists or zombie aliens just like he usually does. That is what I expect to happen at the conclusion of this story arc, but for the time being this is a must buy book as what you are getting here is a rare glimpse of truth in a mainstream comic book.

I applaud writer Nathan Edmonds and wish him all the best as he tries to wrap up this story in a way that won’t harm his future career and will leave a few grains of truth before the Punisher is inevitably moved on to safer comic book waters where he won’t be shining such a devastatingly accurate spot-light on the way that real world criminals are operating out of Washington DC today.


Rating: 9/10 (Shockingly realistic portrayal of real-world reality in a mainstream comic book)

Review: 2000AD PROG 1922- ‘Iron John went laughing to his end.’

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 18th March 2015


The beginning of my comic book week begins when I get my issue of 2000AD. I get it, read it, and review it. I’ve already done the first two, so on to the third.

This week's contents

Judge Dredd this week is a one shot story with a group of young corporate enforcers being told about how great Judge Dredd is. It’s an old narrative technique, used to make the main protagonist seem like a legendary figure, a man of mystique, intrigue and importance. It works here, but as I’m an anarchist, as opposed to the statist that the book is aimed at, I’m not going to be impressed by the glorification of a representative of the status quo.

The idea that you need a uniformed thug like Judge Dredd to protect civilians from crime is a corporate/banking/msm produced myth that helps justify Police state attrocities the world over. This myth has always been used to justify a lack of liberty, a lack of freedom and an increase in state surveillance and a march into state tyranny. The myth is that without cops the world would be dangerous and violent, so you need a bunch of unquestioning order followers in uniform to protect evil humanity from itself.

Here’s a question. Ask the people living in Ferguson USA in 2015 about that myth. What do you think their reaction will be when you try to convince them that cops are there to help and protect, and not to control and persecute? I think you get my point.

Second story this week is my old statist mate Bill in Savage/Grinders. This one has some drones taking time off from blowing up Afghani wedding parties to appear in 2000AD. Aside from the drone stuff this one is about brothers. It’s okay, but with the state and authority loving core to the story it’s pretty much like Judge Dredd really. So, is there going to be any anarchy (meaning freedom from centralised government slavery systems) in 2000AD this week? No freedom yet in the first two stories, so on to story three, fingers crossed.

Battling the unthinking corporate parasites

Nope, no freedom here. This one begins with some geek moaning about being bored. What??? Bored???? How is it even possible to be bored? Look at the world, read, learn, discover, improve, improve, and improve. If you are bored you have a severe deficit in the imagination department. I’m never bored. Do you know why? It’s because I’m not a bloody wet lettuce feminist liberal geek drip, that’s why. That’s enough of ‘Survival Geeks’ for this week I think.

Story four (1%) read like an episode of Doctor Who, but without the Doctor. If you like the paedophile cover-up crew at the BBC then you should like it. To me it was clever, but it’s not really saying anything. Clever is good, clever is fun, but I’m an anarchist reviewer searching for freedom, and I didn’t find anything here that I could get a good grip on.

The last story in 2000AD this week is the conclusion to ‘The Order,’ a tale about knights, a fighting feminist young girl and giant ‘wurms.’ I liked it. I enjoyed the courage of the protagonists, how they went down swinging, aggressive, fighting till the end, never giving up, never cowering, never begging for mercy. That’s how I want to go. I enjoyed the book.

So, that’s it for another week of 2000AD. Dredd was Dredd, Statist Bill was Statist Bill, Geeks were Geeks, Dr Who failed to turn up in his own tribute story and I got some iron willed defiance from some strong manly types in the conclusion to a delicious story about ‘wurms.’

2000AD is clearing out the winter dust next week, ready for spring and ready for a New Year. I complain about it, but there’s always something in it that I like. This week it was ‘The Order’ and that was enough for me.


Rating: 6/10

Best story: The Order- 9/10
Worst story: Judge Dredd- 2/10

Laptop Guy- Tapping into the vein of cultural alienation and thwarted ambition first opened by Generation 'Spaced''

Get Laptop Guy here:
http://blackheartedpress.com/titles-2/

Interview with Laptop Guy artist Sha Nazir:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv6G9Du78DM



It was during my three-day half marathon sojourn in Edinburgh Scotland last year that I discovered the utterly wacky, yet painfully realistic comic book called ‘Laptop Guy.’ I found the book in an atmospheric, wonderfully creepy and heroically hanging on in the face of corporate hegemony comic book shop called ‘Deadhead comics.’

Laptop Guy was a comic book that looked a bit sad, a bit lonely, and a bit ordinary next to all of the steroid enhanced superhero nonsense books that looked imperiously down upon it from their lofty positions on the adjourning shelves.

But there’s a truth in sadness, and the book radiated a rare beam of truth amongst the army recruitment pamphlets and Marxist social justice warrior nonsense coming from the corporate powerhouses that dominate the comic book industry. It called to me, and somehow, I knew it would be good before I had even read it.

When I did actually read the book I laughed my ass off, then read it again trying to figure out what was so good about it, why it managed to do something that other comic books just weren’t doing for me. It’s a question that I put to the back of my mind for a while, but now after reading issues two and three of the series, I think that I’ve managed to nail down just why it works, and why it’s such an absolutely (rare) fantastic comic book.

Firstly, it’s about a guy who seems real. It’s about a guy we can relate to because we all know him. Actually rather than knowing him, we might actually BE HIM. This guy (Sha) is working a crappy McJob, despite being smart and wanting to find something in life that’s actually worth doing rather than acting like a cog in a corporate machine. His completely ridiculous, self-deluded life-plan is to write and draw a comic book that everybody will love, and by doing so he will escape from the crappy life and even crappier job that is slowly draining the life force from his very soul.

That’s where ‘Laptop Guy’ comes into it. Laptop Guy is the creative lifeline that Sha hopes will help him to escape from his McJob forever. However, this character is so ridiculous, so ludicrous, so doomed to fail that poor old Sha seems to have no hope, no chance or escaping the greasy embrace of his McJob whatsoever.

So, will this wacky creation known as 'Laptop Guy' help Sha escape his life of drudgery, or will the failure of his creative masterpiece spiral him into mental illness and life-long depression? Throw-in the planning of his best friends upcoming stag-do and a seriously weird co-worker and you have yourself a comic-book that avoids the cloaks, loads on the funny, and actually has something to say about life in the UK today.

How can you not identify with this guy? This guy is everybody I went to university with. He’s the generation that is overqualified and underemployed. A generation that was lied to, ate up the lie like a hungry, yet overly obedient doggy, and then found out that the food was crappy and is now giving them the s***s. That’s my generation, the duped generation, and I’m finally seeing it in a comic book.

The character of Sha is of course a comedic representation of real life tragedy. He’s not supposed to be a flesh and blood character that will leave you wailing in despair. He’s a character designed to make you laugh, and what makes him really work is the artwork by artist Sha Nazir.

Nazir draws him as a nervous, deluded, unhappy, incompetent twit but there’s a huge likeability factor about the way he is drawn, and despite all of his his flaws he’s a deeply sympathetic character. Yes, he’s fictional, but the character traits and flaws resonate deeply. He’s a comedy character, but there’s something very real about him as well. I see him in my generation, and yes, I see him in myself.

Laptop Guy reminds me very much of that old television show with Simon Pegg, the show where he plays a dorky wannabe living in a flat and dreaming about making it big in the world of geeks and comic books. Spaced, that was the name of it. A show that sparkled with creative energy and a feeling that it was tapping into something new, tapping into something that was being ignored by the cultural texts of it’s time.

Spaced was a show that concluded it’s run in 2001. That’s a long, long fourteen years ago now, so don’t you think it’s about time that the vein was tapped into again? I do, and that’s what Laptop Guy is doing, tapping into the vein of bubbling, lost generation creativity that is being squandered in McJobs and rejection letter after rejection letter before unexpected pregnancies and middle-life compromise combines to crush the creativity all-together.

Laptop Guy is, at its very core, a very funny comic book. It makes me laugh, makes me feel good and makes me feel that there is at least somebody out there (in Scotland) who gets it, and has the ability to transfer that ‘it’ into an entertaining contemporary comic book. Could writer Jack Lothian and artist Sha Nazir be the new Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson of our post Snowden times? That’s quite a question to ask, but going on what I am reading here in LapTop Guy the comparison isn’t quite as out there as you might think.

The vein opened by Pegg, Stevenson and co in the late 1990’s is still good, and when I read Laptop Guy in 2015 I get the sense that something big could be starting to take off here. The smart comedy vein of geek culture alienation and thwarted ambition has plenty of mileage left in it yet, and if you want to see it being tapped into again, then Laptop Guy is a comic book that will be right up your geeky, lonely, run-down comic book store alley.