50-Word (Comic) Review- Red Thorn #1- If Kurt Cobain were alive today he would be 48-years-old

Writer: David Baillie
Artist: Meghan Hetrick
Publisher: Vertigo (DC)
Released: 18th November 2015 (not 1994)



Halfway through and it’s annoying the heck out of me. The characters are douchebags, nothing is believable, and the references are early 1990’s bands. Yuck, I don’t want to read about unbelievable, unlikeable asses. Why are comic book writers still stuck in 1993? Will I read the entire issue? No.



Rating: 2/10

I was a huge fan of Nirvana, and when Kurt died in 1994 I found it sad, but predictable. His songs were about a miserable, nothing happening adolescence, and as he got famous they morphed into songs about hating fame, and wanting to go back to the life that he hated anyway. Heroin addiction and death were inevitable for a man who refused to look on the bright side. He left some great, angry, pounding music behind him, but his refusal to embrace the possibility of future happiness killed him. I got over Nirvana a long time ago, but that’s doesn’t appear to be the case for a lot of people. I was in the supermarket today, and Kurt’s face was on the front of a top-selling (meaning it sells about ten issues) music magazine, and now I’ve just read a ‘new’ comic book from Vertigo, and Kurt is all over that as well. What the hell happened? When did our culture grind to a halt? When did looking back, relying on nostalgia, become the norm? Kurt died 21 FN YEARS AGO!!! It’s time to move on, and do something genuinely new, so when I read a comic book with (yet another) young female protagonist, and she’s all about Nirvana, it’s an immediate turn-off. A big flashing neon sign clobbers me over the head and tells me that this writer has nothing to say about now, so is going back to the past in an attempt to pump some meaning into his already moribund creation. Goddamn it man. Another FN comic with Nirvana references. I can’t believe it. Well, I can, and that’s why it’s so bloody depressing. Agggghhh, enough words, sod this comic book, over.

Comic Review: Fight Club 2 #2- Repackaging Fake Cool Revolution

Writer: Chuck Palahniuk
Artist: Cameron Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 24th June 2015



There’s no shining up this one. Fight Club 2 #2 has now officially plopped down, and the only thing to do with it is to flush it away as soon as possible, open the window and spray the heck out of the room to remove the foul stench of it’s existence.

Can we finally bury the 1990’s now, please? No more attempts at nostalgia cool, it’s getting a bit embarrassing and very desperate now. Yes, I know that Nirvana were great, but the dude died in 1994, find something new, find something that says something about NOW, not then.

Fight Club #2 is Nirvana, grown up, married, buried, not dead, but it might as well be. The narrative follows a bored suburban couple. The man is old, tired and useless, his wife is having an affair, but because it’s Fight Club, she’s having an affair with the married bloke’s alter ego, Tyler six-pack. Throw in a child kidnapping (Yawn, somebody call Liam Neeson) and vague references to change (call Obama) and you have your book.

It’s very boring, the jokes are ‘cool’ and meaningless, and nothing about it holds any interest to me, mainly because, as I said before, it’s a 1990’s relic, rejuvenated for nostalgia cool, and not something that should be read by anybody under the age of about thirty-five.

I’m over the age of thirty-five, and I remember the movie when it was first released. It was cool, we thought it was saying something, and it probably was, but what it said was largely back-drop to the all pervading ‘cool.’ The world watched, took nothing from, it other than entertainment value, and carried on doing the same voting, buying and moaning that they always do.

Fight Club was a movie that appeared to be revolutionary, but that was surface, as this comic book now proves. No revolution is happening here. Don’t expect it from career cool people, and don’t expect it from those hanging onto 90’s glories.

I decided to give Fight Club 2 a chance. After two issues I’m done with it. Nirvana were great, move on, get something new. Fight Club was great, move on, get something new.


Rating: 3/10 (Redundant)

Comic review: Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return #1- Nostalgia for the bearded generation

Writer: Brian Lynch
Artist: Jerry Gaylord
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Released: 11th March 2015


The last Bill & Ted movie (Bogus Journey) was released in 1991, and when my young niece watched it last week on Netflix she called it, ‘The most boring movie that I’ve ever seen.’ 

So, in regards to this 2015 Bill & Ted comic I’m guessing that the potential audience will consist of old people like myself whom lived through those dark days before the Internet, mobile phones and Edward Snowdon.

Who exactly is reading comic books in 2015? You know, sometimes when I look at all of the pointless alternative covers on new books I suspect that it’s bearded forty-year old losers like myself. My friends, I have seen the future. It’s a bit sad, and it needs a shave

Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return #1 is fluffy, inoffensive, cute and friendly. The art is nice and colourful and everything about it scream ‘nostalgia’ for the 40 year old bearded bloke crowd. I’m a part of that crowd. I’m the guy that the comic book is aimed at. So, did it hit?

Yeah, it did what you would expect it to do. It offered a five-minute jolt down memory lane, but I can’t see it winning over any younger converts. The comic book is still set in the early 1990’s (the safest place for comic books to exist in today) so it’s not really doing, or saying anything. It reminded me of the silly movie, but I was a different person back then, heck, the world was a different place back then, and things have changed whilst Bill & Ted have remained the same.

I don’t want to go back in time to the early 1990’s. I was there, and they weren’t that great the first time around. In fact, times were so stiflingly dull that Nirvana had to come along just to kick some life into the party. Okay, so they told people that they sucked, but at least they said something, and that was the problem with the early 1990’s, people were going through the motions, nothing was being said and nothing was really happening.

I guess in that sense we are living through a period much like the early 1990’s once again in 2015. There is a cultural vacuum that is becoming increasingly more apparent as the days pass. Who is going to fill it? Is it going to be a self destructive, nihilistic rejection of everything as represented by the band ‘Nirvana?’ Or is it going to be something more positive? Something that looks at the corporate/government tyranny of our time (like Nirvana did) but rather than turning inward and self-destructive, instead turns outwards and looks for solutions to the problems that face us all today? My money is on the later.

Bill & Ted are not going to help, but by going back to what they represented in 1991 we are being reminded that it’s time again for another shake-up.

2015 is the new 1991. It’s time for something genuinely new, genuinely revolutionary and genuinely determined to shake this joint up again.

There’s an open space, people are sleeping again, and the most exciting thing about living in 2015 is to have that sense of anticipation that feeling that something is lurking, planning, scheming, creeping, ready to pounce and ready to get this party going again.

Rating: 6/10 (Not bad, but it's just a nostalgia book)