Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

The Best of Bristol

By Regie Rigby

Yes, yes, I know. I’m serially unreliable. For the last who knows how many weeks I’ve been a day late, now here I am a day early.

Sorry.

Unavoidable I’m afraid, I’ll be losing the internet for a few days in a couple of hours, so it’s either post now or make you all wait until Saturday, and I’m trying quite hard not to be as late as that anymore.

So anyway, here we are, with the pile of unreviewed excellence from Bristol still rather larger than I’d like. So let’s take a look at those automatic weapon wielding simians, the Monkeys with Machineguns. Issue two was available at the Expo, and I’ve been trying to work out what the hell to say about it for about two weeks.

I mean, what do you say about a book like this. It’s an anthology of the most piquant wit, perfectly balanced by a dash of horror and some truly flavoursome twists. This time the monkeys offer us strange alternate realities, ending worlds, red snow, and the most unexpected ending to a letter from the trenches I’ve ever read.

Resident scribe Chris Lynch handles it all with the style and aplomb I’ve come to expect from him over the last couple of years, and once again the art blends beautifully with his words. The stark brutality of Stu.Art is present once again, accompanied this time by a strip from the more cartoony pen of Christian Ward. Very different styles which give this anthology a deliciously eclectic feel.

The big innovation in this issue though, is the total abandonment of the traditional comics format for two of the story segments. ”Why Snow shouldn’t be red” is an illustrated prose story, while Photonic Graffiti is a collection of, well, I guess a collection of photo poems.

That might sound a little poncey, but they’re all written by Chris Lynch, so naturally they’re not. The Photonic Graffiti section is in fact both mesmerising and chilling, as Lynch allows his darker voice full reign. Two of these one page vignettes in particular stood out. The frighteningly ambiguous Burn Baby Burn is truly terrifying, while the wonderfully psychotic Gone with the Wind is a study in obsession that made be laugh so hard I snorted Coca-Cola out of my nose!

What more of a recommendation do you need?

This is a hugely entertaining, strangely haunting and dangerously thought provoking book. You should give it a look, you really should.

You should also take a look at the latest issue of The Girly Comic from Factor Fiction Press. Can you believe that they’re on their sixteenth issue already? I certainly couldn’t – it doesn’t seem like five minutes since the first one came out!

This latest offering is every bit as good as you’d expect from this beacon of the small press scene – and everything you could possibly want lies behind the striking cover by Motodraconis. You’ve got high camp space drama, two different but equally moving reactions to terrorism, some very twisted romance and much more besides. These are stories and art by some of the finest writers and artists in the world of the British small press. Funny, thought provoking, and moving, this is another anthology you don’t want to be without.

And there are yet more fantastic books to tell you about. There were two new issues of Bevis Musson’s Queen of Diamonds, a couple of Manga versions of Shakespeare, and a whole anthology about zombies which are more than worthy of your attention. More about those comics and more besides next week, but for now I want to run you through some of the things I missed at the Expo this year.

I know that Carl Critchlow was there with a new issue of the pinheaded Barbarian Thrud, for example. I even caught sight of him once or twice. But when I came to look for him on Sunday so that I could buy the latest instalment in the misadventures of the stupidest man ever to wield an axe and quaff a pint of ale (both at the same time, on occasion), I couldn’t find him.

That was disappointing, but at least I know I can pop on over to the website and order a copy online. I’m having no such luck with Ninja Tom. I’m assuming that the creative genius behind my favourite kung-fu fighting polar bear was there somewhere, because I came away with a set of free Ninja Tom finger puppets, picked up from the Freebie Table by the door. But a full blown comic? None could I find. Nor, indeed, can I find the website anymore, so I hope the creator of this fabulous piece of anthropomorphism hasn’t given up. Anyone with information, please do swing by the message boards.

There was no major new material from Dave “Springheeled Jack” Hitchcock either. That’s always disappointing because his stuff is just so damned good. All was not lost on that front though, since he does at least have a story in the Zombies anthology from Accent UK, which I’ll be reviewing next week. I’d still like to see another major work though – and I still have to wonder why somebody as amazingly good as Hitchcock isn’t fighting major publishers off with a stick.

I feel similarly about Gary Spence Millidge and his enigmatic Strangehaven series. Again, no new issue this year, which is always a disappointment. There’s always next year I suppose – when I’ll also get to read the next Tozzer book. Rob Dunlop and Peter Lumby were there with a preview of the next adventure, to be set in the movie capital “Peckerwood”. It looks like they’re beginning to move away from the satirical pastiche characters that’ve been the cornerstone of previous adventures, but that their wit has lost none of its cutting edge.

And only eleven and a half months to wait…

But in a way, the fact that there’s so much I wanted to see but didn’t is encouraging. We’ve reached a point in British Comics now where, however small the print runs, there is so much good stuff to be had you can’t possibly get through it all in a weekend. In the end, however much I hate missing out, I’d rather there was too much good stuff than too little.

And for more of the good stuff, be here next week!