A Heavenly Storm!

By Regie Rigby

Regular readers will know that for me, comics, like the rest of the world, are about stories. I love comics because I believe that the combination of words and pictures is perhaps the most powerful way of telling a story that we have, but for me it will always be the story and therefore the words that take precedence.

This has, over the years, occasionally caused me to fail to give enough attention to the people who are responsible for the pictures the attention they deserve. This is something of a regret, because although the story will always remain the central focus of my attention, and a good story with poor art will always remain acceptable to me, the fact is that a good story with good art is an infinitely superior thing. When the art is exceptional, well, then you’re into realms haunted by the true classics.

Just as there are writers whose work I’m always going to take a look at, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and so on, there are artists whose work is always going to attract my attention. I’ve loved Simon Bisley’s work since he first broke onto the scene drawing Pat Mills’ ABC Warriors strips for 2000AD. Steve Dillon too will always catch my eye, as will Bryan Talbot and Ian Gibson. All of these are guys who’ve been around a looooooooong time though. Even “The Biz” has been in the biz for nearly two decades. If there were no newer artists on the scene it’d be a pretty poor look out.

So, my Foolish Friends, whatever gods you worship, thank them for Frazer Irving.

I’m sure that I’ve been nice about Frazer Irving in the past. I’ve certainly admired his work for quite a long time – since, in fact, the very first time I ever saw his distinctive style gracing the pages of 2000AD, the self styled “Galaxy’s Greatest Comic”. (Also the venue that launched the careers of many of the pro’s noted above. Coincidence? I suspect not... I’m honestly not sure how to describe Frazer’s style, except to say that it’s stunning, and that it works equally well in black and white and in colour.

Fortunately, it’s not a problem that words fail me, because now, even if you’ve never seen a copy of 2000AD in you entire life (which if you’re outside the UK is rather likely) you can get your hands on some of Irving’s very finest work for dear old ‘Tooth.

Storming Heaven: The Frazer Irving Collection brings together the titular psychedelic masterpiece penned by Gordon Rennie with John Smith’s Vampire vs. Werewolf epic A Love like Blood, Simon Spurrier’s hauntingly visceral From Grace and a selection of short strips. All illustrated by Irving’s controlled but expressive lines, several of the washed in understated yet distinctively rich colours.




There are few comics I would regard as indispensable. Miller’s Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns perhaps. Moore and Gibbons’ Watchmen, Moore and Gibson’s Complete Ballad of Halo Jones and certain issue of Gaiman’s Sandman. And of course Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan story Another Cold Morning*, which for me remains the finest single issue of an American format comics ever published.

To this distinguished company, I would add this collection. All of the stories offered here are excellent reads, but on their own probably wouldn’t be worthy of such an accolade. What lifts them into the spheres of greatness is the beautiful subtlety of Irving’s art. The images presented between the cardstock covers are, without any shadow of a doubt, worth at least double the price of admission (a measly Ł12.99 in UK money) in their own right.




Even better, when you manage to stop drinking in the beauty of these images with open mouthed wonder and consider them in the context of the stories they are helping to tell, Irving’s staggering talent moves into even sharper focus. Irving is far more than a mere “pretty pictures merchant”. Being able to produce stunningly attractive pictures isn’t, in itself, any guarantee that you’ll be able to tell a story well – as anyone who has cast a critical eye over the lavish but woefully static work of Alex Ross can testify. To make good comics art you need more. You need movement. You need expression.

Irving serves it all up in spades.

Just look at his faces. Faces are a real test in comics, and too few artists get them entirely right. Irving can be counted well within that number though. When the Vampires fight the Werewolves in A Love like Blood, or the Winged fight the Wingless in From Grace, there is real hate, real fear. In other faces, there is love, confusion, compassion, every facet of human emotion. You could take all the caption boxes and word balloons away from the strips in this book and still get a pretty accurate idea of the narrative by reading the faces.

That is how it should be, of course, but it all too seldom is how it is.

There is yet more to Irving though. His pictures move. These may, in reality be simple patterns of immobile ink on paper, but the images are still dynamic, still full of energy. They aren't still, they're movement captured and frozen in place - which is not the same thing at all.

Storming Heaven: The Frazer Irving Collection isn't something I would've picked up if I hadn't been asked to review it - not b ecause I didn't think I'd like it, but because I already own all of the strips in it because I have the issues of 2000AD they originally appeared in.

But there's something about seeing all of these strips together that adds a little somethign ot the experience. Get yourself down to your local comics shop and have yourself a look. This really is a British classic, and if you don't have it I would contend that your collection is incomplete.

See you in seven folks!









*The online version of this masterpiece has been given the blessing of Mr Ellis on the grounds that it’s “one chapter out of sixty” and “nobody’s trying to make money out of it”. I don’t normally condone the reproduction of copyright material, but in the light of that, and because I genuinely want everyone in the whole damn world to read this story, I feel justified in linking to what is, in essence, pirated material.

You really should splash out on the real paper version though. It really is worth it.