Comic review: 2000AD-PROG 1946: Fire ain’t supposed to be so wet

Writers and artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 2nd September 2015



I began the day so inspired, bursting with creativity due to a musical experience into sweet, dark atrophy, begat from seduction, led through conformity, ending with a sigh as the masses dig their own graves, as they do. I was inspired, crazy with passionate, emotional drive, and I put down the words, the review, and it’s here, on the blog, for all to see.

I’m talking here about my review of Aphotic by Jupiterian. I really enjoyed both the album, and the review. The music was great, and the review came easily. But now it’s time for PROG 1946 of 2000AD, and all I feel is tiredness, and an urge to get it over and done with. Statism, collectivism, conformity and hiding under pretty pictures, throw in some disregard towards Christianity and reality, and that’s all there is here. Oh well, let’s get it over and done with.

Tharg begins with info about the new big hitter in 2000AD, ‘Dreams of DeadWorld.’ He talks it up, making it sound like something that you can’t afford to miss, but what is the reality? Read on, and I’ll let you know.

First off is Dredd, and its all about ice monsters and the Judges that are shooting them. The ‘dead’ Dredd returns as a hero, of course he does, and that’s it.

I talked about the sweet art in ‘The Alienest’ last week. It’s still good this week, but what of the story? A Christian relies on his faith to save him. He dies, and is called an idiot. Nobody will comment about this. Nobody will even care. I’m not a Christian, but I’m not an idiot. Making Christians look like fools is very PC in the west today, and I don’t like it. Christians are not fools. Atheists are fools. Believing in nothing is idiotic, but when are atheists made to look like fools in mainstream comic books? Does it ever happen? No, of course not, because atheists believe in the new ‘God’ of science, and if you don’t believe in their new God then you are to be mocked and scorned.

Well, here’s a message to the faithful followers of the new God of science. Your heroes are government-funded tools, and you wouldn’t know truth if it hit you over the head with a signed copy of the bloody God Delusion by his holiness Pope Dawkins. You are dimwit dupes, and you don’t even realise it.

Apocalypse Anonymous settles down into the story that I feared it would be. It’s set in Syria in 2015, but there’s no reality here. US Special forces are now fighting monsters. By ‘monsters’ I don’t mean ISIS, I mean comic book monsters, demons from a different reality that have been drawn to Syria because of the (western backed) fight against the Syrian government.

How do you make US Special Forces that are fighting to take down the government of a sovereign country look good? Easy, you chuck in a monster and make out that they are saving the world. Is the monster an allegory for ISIS? Perhaps it’s a clever tale where it will be shown that the US created said monster (accidentally, cough, cough) and are very sorry for doing so, and will now do all they can to defeat it? That would have been a good story, don’t you think? It would have been, but that’s not what you are getting here. What you are getting here is quips and monsters. Oh dear, next story please.

That next story is Grey Area, and apart from some casual blasphemy it wasn’t exactly memorable this week. Jokes and people sitting around chatting, that’s all you getting, but it’s a calm before the storm moment in the ongoing narrative, and it’s been a pretty decent series so far.

So, here we go, onto the main event story, the Tharg pushed, ‘Dreams of DeadWorld- Fire.’ The art is sweet, dark, painted gothic nastiness. It looks ill, diseased, unwell, sickly, and as coal black as a Goth falling down a well, on Halloween night, in a Graveyard. The story though is a bit threadbare, and it doesn’t hold together as an analogy. It follows a character called ‘Fire.’ He’s a bit of a lovesick teenager, experiencing rejection and concluding with an emo moan about feeling ‘nothing.’

That’s not how fire feels. Fire feels hunger, the need to consume, the need to destroy in order to sustain itself. Fire doesn’t do emo self pity. Fire exists to consume.

Fire is me on a perfume bender (I love perfume, did I mention it?) looking for the new flacon, but never satisfied, submerged in capitalism, hating the need, the desire, but feeding on it, and feeling alive whilst doing so. If fire feels nothing it dies, and it’s no longer fire, it’s soggy wood, so nope, it didn’t work for me. The art was great, but the story, fizzled, and the writer took the concept of fire and instead of doing something interesting with it, turned it into a depressed, damp, dull and dreary teenage boy. That’s not hot, that’s wet, very wet.

Wow, what an epic moan. How did I manage to say so much about so little? I amaze myself sometimes. Okay then, 2000AD PROG 1946 wasn’t exactly great. None of the stories shine, and the only noteworthy, or commendable aspect about the entire book was the artwork in ‘DeadWorld- Fire.’ That’s the thing about 2000AD. Sometimes it’s great, and other times it’s the absolute pits. Get it if you want some cool Gothic artwork, but if you are looking for a decent story, sorry guys, there’s very little on offer this week.


Rating: 4/10 (For Dave Kendall’s art in Dreams of DeadWorld-Fire)

Theatre review: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes- Atheist Picnic at Lydiard Park

Event: Open Air Garden Theatre
Venue: Lydiard Park, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK.
Date of Performance: Friday 31st July 2015
Performers: Chapterhouse Theatre
Website: 
http://www.chapterhouse.org/show5.html
Writer: Laura Turner
Director: Phillip Stevens


The ideology underpinning this quaint, twee and inoffensively anachronistic play in the park was that ‘progress’ means the abandoning of religion, and that we need to boldly stride into a new world order of humanism, abandoning religion to the dustbin of history where it rightfully belongs.

This disregarding of religion (mainly Christianity) is ubiquitous today, especially in the UK, and especially on the BBC, so it’s no surprise to see that the writer of this play already has BBC writing credits under her belt. Her atheistic ways will fit in very nicely at Jimmy Saville towers, so I wish her all the best. I’m sure that she’ll do very well for herself writing liberally deluded multicultural fantasy plots for EastEnders, or the latest murder or hospital shows where politically correct multiculturalism is forced onto the BBC audience of wilfully ignorant, corporate indoctrinated statists.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this cultural ideology of Godlessness will have been barely noticed by the majority of the audience in Lydiard Park on Friday night 31st July 2015.  I’m equally as sure that the writer herself wouldn’t have noticed it. Why would she? God is silly, right? God is for children, right? God doesn’t exist, right? That’s not a radical point of view in suburban households in the UK of 2015, it’s the majority view, accepted like gravity or the idea that democracy, bombs and taxes equates to freedom.

Laura Turner, the nice lady who wrote this play (and I’m sure that she’s very nice) has written a simple play about Sherlock Holmes, and her main concerns will be about entertainment and clarity, not ideology. Her ideological underpinning of atheism is a cultural assumption. It’s how she thinks, and it’s how she has been taught to think. This indoctrinated, programmed version of reality informs her writing and subconsciously assumes that her audience will share the same cultural, atheistic programming as herself.

If you are taught as a child that God doesn’t exist, then that must mean that he doesn’t exist. It’s not something that you think about, it’s just taken as a given. That’s probably as far as Laura’s thinking goes. God doesn’t exist, of course he doesn’t. Would my teachers and television lie to me? Of course not, and so onto my career as a writer.

I assume that Laura won’t have thought very long and hard about the atheism in her play. Like I said before, it’s a cultural assumption, and all it says to me about the writer is that she was brought up in a UK middle class suburban household, watched television, and went to school, that’s all. I could be wrong, but that’s all I get from her writing.

In ‘The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes’ her intention would have been to construct a light-hearted, fun, slightly silly, enjoyable play that would be easily understood by an outdoor audience watching it in a park.

In that sense, she did a fine job. The plot was silly, and easy to follow and inoffensive. The bloke playing Holmes (Matthew Christmas) was suitably eccentric (in a BBC Doctor Who kind of way) and I enjoyed my Ginger Beer as all of the nice, middle class atheists around me drank their wine and rustled for crisps in their picnic hampers. The play was the backdrop to the evening. It rumbled on, serenely, in the background, lots of wine was consumed, and everybody enjoyed a lovely, early evening picnic in Lydiard Park.

My lasting memories of the evening will be of concentrating really hard to hear the dialogue, trying to work out who the villain was, and being slightly shocked, but not that surprised when the ideology of the play became apparent as it began to wrap up. The play was okay. It was very middle class, BBC atheist, tame and polite. It was a mainstream play for people who watch television and think that religion is something for museums, not everyday life.

I didn’t hate it, but that’s probably because I’m not a religious man. If I were a regular churchgoer then I’d probably be quite offended, but that’s the mainstream in the UK today. The mainstream has abandoned Christianity and abandoned tradition. I’m old. I notice these things. It happened slowly, but it’s the norm now. Jesus might be alive, but there’s little sign of him in the UK of 2015. The people have turned to humanism. God no longer exists. The people are their own gods now. Does that sound dangerous to you? I am living in a society that has rejected God. That can’t be good, can it? What do you think about it? Seriously, I want to know.


Rating: 6/10 (Easy to follow, silly, fun, but it has an ideological underpinning that left me feeling cold)

Comic review: The Tithe #1- The best comic book in the world

Co-creator and Writer: Matt Hawkins
Co-creator and Artist: Rahsan Ekedal
Publisher: Top Cow Productions/Image Comics
Released: 15th April 2015


Do you know what I think is the most important, vital issue that is threatening the very existence of humanity and the planet Earth today?

Is it international banks and corporations owning and controlling western democratic governments, robbing people of their freedoms through neo-liberal consensus politics and giving people the illusion of freedom through social justice campaigns that obsess over race, gender and sexuality (but only in the west) issues?

I love the masks. Very edgy.

Nope, none of that stuff is important at all. What is REALLY important is Christian television evangelist fraud scandals from 1989. That’s what I’m really concerned about, and that’s why I absolutely love ‘The Tithe’ #1.

This book really is cutting edge. I love how it’s unafraid to hit those evil Christian Pastors where it really hurts, exposing their big Church donation based corruption for all the world to see. These big name US Christian Pastors have been getting away with their scams for far too long now, and it’s about time that somebody like brave writer Matt Hawkins and artist Rahsan Ekedal put their heads above the parapet and exposed these con-men Christian Churches for what they really are.

Co-creators Matt Hawkins and Rahsan Ekedal are taking a big career risk on this one. Just think of all those angry Christians who are going to be screaming blue murder about what is being exposed here.

Writer Matt Hawkins himself knows that there will be a HUGE backlash after what he has said about 1980’s Southern US Mega-Church Christianity in this whisteblowing paradigm shattering comic book, so he’s cleverly put a ‘good’ Christian character in the book as well to rebalance that situation.

It’s a wise decision, as the hard-core, militant, extremist Christian backlash against this book is going to be huge. I just hope that nothing violent happens as what this world needs right now is more people like brave, heroic, intelligent, cutting-edge, scandal breaking warrior writers like Matt Hawkins to really shine a light on the seedy underbelly of those Devilish, evil, satanic, scumbag, disgusting 1980s’s US Churches.

Great job Matt. Great job Ekedal. You’ve created something very special here, very special indeed.



Rating: 10000000000/10 (By far and away the best comic book in the world)