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https://gazzareadscomics.blogspot.com/2022/06/
review
The Stainless Steel Rat Deluxe Edition
“Stainless Steel Rat”, “Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World” & “Stainless Steel Rat For President”
By Harry Harrison, Kelvin Gosnell & Carlos Ezquerra
Review by Luke Williams
This handsome hardcover collection collects all 3 of 2000ADs adaptations written by former Tharg, Kelvin Gosnell and the legend that is Carlos Ezquerra. For those of us who don’t know the Rat (prior to reading this book that your reviewer would fall into that category) the Stainless Steel rat is otherwise known as “Slippery” James Bolivar Di Griz. In a far future where crime is almost a thing of the past, Jim is a rebel, kicking against authority until authority finally gets the better of him. He is press ganged by Galactic Law Enforcement, Jim is as good getting out of scrapes as he is getting into them, making him an ideal candidate for the “Special Corps”, specialising in high risk, time and space spanning missions.
Through the 3 stories we see Jim tackle interplanetary espionage, corruption, theft, time travelling tyrants, a little bit of politics and most notably the pulchritudinous but lethal Angelina.
Gosnell and Ezquerra, adapt a fun packed world, Jim Di Griz is loveable rogue. A modern comparison in the Prog’ would be Nikolai Dante; someone who is spends less time grimacing and more on wise cracking, robbing you blind with a twinkle in his eye.
Gosnell was 2000ADs second editor after (Uncle) Pat Mills, but by the time the Rat was published in the Prog’ he had gone freelance, writing Future Shocks Time Twisters and went onto write the Oliver Frey painted Terminal Man in legendary computer magazine Zzap64 (Has that ever been collected?)
Never stopping to draw breath, the plot is pacey, the script punchy and witty. Despite being classed as sci fi, this is basically a collection of caper strips with ray guns, space ships and time travel and it’s great fun . Art wise this is classic period Carlos Ezquerra, Carlos’s curvy technology (and Angelina) dynamic layouts and some gorgeous double page spreads. Carlos again uses James Coburn as a template, Jim looking a bit like Major Eazy sans forage cap & cigar but avec cheesy grin.
Rebellion have reprinted colour pages from the centre spreads when the Prog was on toilet paper, but occasionally they have an annoying break in the middle due to the binding process, but that’s a minor complaint. The version that is reviewed was the webshop exclusive version, with a “likely to get dirty quite quickly unless you’re careful” white cover.
If you are a bit sceptical of comic adaptations of novels, (what’s the point etc?), put that to one side. This is old school 2000AD fun, prior knowledge of the character unnecessary. A good fit for the Prog’ fast paced, lots of action and most importantly, humour.
The book is now out of print on the 200AD webstore, but still available digitally or via other online outlets (or so they say anyway).
Mek Memoirs
By Jack Adrian & Kevin O’Neill
Published by Dark & Golden Books
Review by Luke Williams
Kevin O’Neill is a legend of British comics, his idiosyncratic, anarchic art style harking back to classic British humour comic artists like Ken Reid and MAD magazine contributors like Jack Davis and Bill Elder but with a hard sci fi edge. He is legendary for being “banned” by the Comics Code Authority (ask your parents) for his contribution to a “Green Lantern” strip written by Alan Moore, possibly even more noteworthy for being a controversy not instigated by Moore.
At the start of his career, O’Neill took various jobs, including design work for film magazines and comics, and to help raise his profile, worked on fanzines and self published comics.
Mek Memoirs is a reproduction of one of King Kevin’s earliest comic projects. Stuck in the dead end of IPC humour department, Kevin needed to find an outlet for his passions, the work that he really wanted to create.
Writer Chris Lowder, aka Jack Adrian famed of early 2000AD and Starlord amongst other work, and Kevin put together this first episode of what was going to be a reportage style future robot war story. It has a surprising amount of salty language, pitching this towards the more “adult” market and perhaps where both creators saw the future of comics, or at least what that future should involve.
Stylistically, it is unmistakeably Kevin O’Neill, the textures of his early work have a touch of Ron Turner about them, but you can’t hide that imagination. The robots featured are grand and bizarre designs, and the human characters belie that humour comics influence. This is the seed that would grow into classics such as Ro Busters, ABC Warriors, , Nemesis the Warlock his design of Walter The Wobot and this writer’s personal favourite, Metalzoic .
Thankfully, reports of his retirement following the end of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen were exaggerated and he’s working on a strip for this year’s Battle Action special, written by Garth Ennis.
Mek Memoirs is a “slight” volume. It’s unbound , has 8 pages of strip with another 4 pages of editorial and commentary from O’Neill and a new cover on top. For £8 plus postage that’s a little pricey. But it is a reproduction of O’Neill’s earliest work; a historical document for us Kevin O’Neill stalkers and a nice companion to the Cosmic Comics volume published by Hibernia and Gosh, reissued last year with added content.
It’s worth hunting out to see the earliest work of a true original.
https://goshlondon.com/mek-memoirs-pre-order/
Further reading
Nemesis The Warlock : A Potted History
ABC Warriors : A Potted History
Metalzoic Mega City Book Club Podcast
New Statesmen
By
John Smith, Jim Baikie, Sean Phillips and Duncan Fegredo
Review by Luke Williams
New Statesmen was the ignored second child to the attention seeking first born Third World War in Fleetway’s late eighties / early nineties punt into “mature comics” Crisis.
Brain behind Tyranny Rex, Indigo Prime and various Future Shocks, writer John Smith was paired up with veteran artist Jim Baikie to create a retro futuristic political thriller cum Watchmen pastiche. Set in a future where genetics had advanced sufficiently for the USA to have won the superhuman arms race, where the EEC is a superpower, Britain had become the 51st state of a debauched and super powered celebrity obsessed USA
The US government had created the Optimen, gifted with “hard” (physical strength) and or soft (psychic) talents. Once their existence was revealed to the world, these Optimen were each assigned as the representative of each of the 51 states of the USA.
Five of those statesmen are known as the “Halcyons” “Ice queen” Meridian, the tortured and troubled Burgess, sleaze ball Vegas, stoic Cleve and party boy Dalton. The Halcyons are tasked with dirty undercover jobs for the government, which nevertheless still manage to attract significant attention. Their latest target is the Statesmen Phoenix of Nevada, an evangelist running for President, but on a wave of corruption and blackmail. He was too popular, he has to go; either by fair means, or more likely, foul.
As a strip New Statesmen is a bold attempt at rising the wave of “mature” comics. In his introduction to the collected edition, Smith describes it as a mystery story, but pare away the occasionally confusing story telling techniques and you are left with a fairly straightforward if under developed plot, swamped with ideas.
The late Jim Baikie’s art is beautiful, bold colours and dynamic page compositions adn underappreciated master of comics. The appearance of Sean Phillips on fill ins appears to attemptto copy Baikie’s style, but only achieves to break up the flow. It’s only toward the end of this collection that Phillips as we know and love him appears. The final visual is a young Duncan Fegredo, freewheeling, light and almost impressionistic, lovely stuff.
Baikie and Smith don’t shy away from violence, there’s plenty of claret spilled on these pages interspersing the dialogue heavy scenes and Smith’s often cryptic script. The jump cuts between scenes hide some uneven pacing and Smith gets side tracked quite easily. The plot builds slowly, before seemingly sprinting to the denouement. It feels that Smith wanted to clear the decks of the strip so that he could Smith could start developing the weird body horror and genetic experimentation themes that had been bubbling away in the background, sadly not realised.
An odd partner to Mills and Ezquerra polemical Third World War in the early issues of Crisis, its violence, political and science fiction trappings were an incongruous fit in the woke, before there was a woke, sister comic to 2000AD.For all its pacing flaws and the fact that reading it episodically made it occasionally incomprehensible, it has fully realised, believable characters, great dialogue, and beautiful art, but it’s not an easy read. The edition reviewed is the sole collection of the series, althought it was also reproduced in 5 US comic sized issues in a failed attempt to crack the American market. Out of print for many years, a digital edition wouldn’t go amiss – how about it Rebellion?
Further reading : Turn and Face The Strange : Script Droid John Smith
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Deviations : Judge Dredd
“Howl Of The Wolf”
By John McCrea and Mike Spicer, with Simon Bowland
Review by Luke Williams
Four years old now, but topical considering that Disney+ is now streaming their What If series, an animated version of their well established comic exploring alternative universes where significant events in the MCU took a different path . 2000AD have tried this a few times in the past, and “Diversions” is IDW’s take.
The initials IDW on the cover of most comics with2000AD characters should make you shudder. But the feeling diminishes when an experienced droid is at the helm, in this case it’s John McCrea, ‘ritin’ and drawin’ and coloured by Mike Spicer. It’s the alternative take on John Wagner, Alan Grant and Steve Dillon’s classic “Cry Of The Werewolf” Dredd strip from the eighties and McCrea’s tribute to his late friend and homage to one of his favourite Dredd strips.
For those not aware, in “COTW” MC1 is experiencing a series of werewolf attacks, the lycanthropes are traced back to the undercity. Dredd is sent to investigate (read “exterminate”) them but gets bitten in the process. McCrea poses the question what if ™ Dredd was never cured of his lycanthropy?
McCrea has some fun with this, mixing in some other memorable strips from the period and his affection for the source material and that classic era shines through. McCrea’s anarchic, kinetic work is a distinct contrast art to Dillon’s clean, bold lines, but it’s a good fit, complemented by Spicer’s atmospheric colouring.
Rounding off the package is a short written tribute from McCrea, an insight into book’s creation and some top notch pin ups from Brendan McCarthy, Garry Leach, Mike Spicer, Jock and Duncan Fegredo.
Completist me bought this following a mention in the Mega City Book Club podcast. To labour a point , with the exceptions of some of the Dredd mini series and the brilliant “Rogue Trooper” mini most of IDW’s 2000AD output has been poor. This is fits in with the minority, recommended.
Now that 77 #6 Kickstarter has launched, Luke finally gets around to reviewing issue 5.
The 77 Issue 5
Review by Luke Williams
Neil Blackbird Sims delivers a knock out cover for his swansong, illustrating a short text story by Dave Heeley. This is very much a transitional issue as a few strips make their (temporary?) swansong and there are three debuts.
In comes the intriguing Red by Day and Black by Night, with an interesting intro written by Jo Heeley, set in alternative world where occultist shacks up with Elizabeth the 1st and introduces fairies to England, but without straying into Neil Gaiman territory. The art on the strip proper by Rupert Lewis Jones is remarkable.
Continuing their tradition of attracting well established creators artist Mike Collins and letterer Annie Parkhouse make their 77 debut in a “Future Shock” type strip, hosted by“The Traveller” written by Mike Powell. Not a particularly original twist, but well executed some nice nods to 70s and 80s culture those of a certain age.
Paul Goodenough & Ian Stopforth’s “Extinction 2040” has a striking art style, redolent of a coloured Dave D’Antiquis of “Brigand Doom” (if you can remember that far back). Story wise so far this seems standard post apocalyptic fare, roaming armed gangs in a desolate landscape. The story is a little confused, but its’ early days and its a bold and confident start.
Brendon T Wright’s “Martian Law’s” whimsy on speed, exits stage left with this issue. A very eccentric, but appealing, light hearted sci-fi western.
Speaking of whimsy, but of the non threatening horror kind, David Thomas & Jon Roydon’s ”Penny Pentagram” reaches the final episode of its run, cell shaded loveliness, but with added bad jokes.
Following “Martian Law” and “Penny Pentagram” through the stage door is Joe Dunn and Jeremy Dunn’s glacial “Undertow”. It’s well written and lovingly drawn, but the pace of the strip has hampered it. Hopefully the pace will pick up in the next chapter.
Dave Bedford and Mac’s “Trackless Depths”, also gets its coat. The art is beautiful; greyscale, soft pencils and fine detail, but the story has been slight. It needed to build up some steam (or more appropriately more wind in its sails). It’s clearly building to something, but like “Undertow” needs to get there a bit quicker. Hopefully it won’t be absent for too long.
After their brief interludes from last month, Regular thrill “V” by Steve Bull and Ade Hughes, with vibrant colours from Darren Stephens takes a left turn from being confined to the gladiatorial arena to a broader sci-fi “Spartacus”. Dave Heeley and Sinclair Elliot’s “Division 77” gains a new artist to replace the departing Elliot. In comes Gary Burley, whilst Darren Stephens stays around to colour, introduction to the Division and it’s world out the way and plot elements are seeded.
In “The Cell” Andrew Sawyers’ pen is set to “psychedelic haze” mode (not a criticism) and he also supplies the eye catching back cover. Scripted by Bambos Georgiou the story remains bleak, a little levity wouldn’t go amiss.
Finally, you can always rely on the “‘77’s” “Captain Hurricane” (but with better jokes) “Sgt Shouty” to be silly, but fun.
“The ‘77” feels like it has found its rhythm. Editorial have got the balance of “light and dark” about right, too much nihilism can be a wearing. It over used statement, but yes there is indeed something here for everyone. If there is one criticism, it’s that some of the stories are a little too “decompressed”; with the large (though regular) gaps between issues it would be better to have faster paced strips. Collected, they’d read well, but in episodic format there needs to be more action per instalment.
Reaching issue 5 in the British Comics market is quite a feat. As this is written, the Kickstarter for issue 6 has launched. Issue 6 previews promise exciting content, definitely worth checking out.
Everything Comes Back To 2000AD 