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.

More from Brum!

By Regie Rigby

So, where was I?

Oh yes. B.I.C.S.

It really was a fantastic show, and as I observed last week, I wish that I had been able to spend the whole weekend there. As it was, as I believe I might have mentioned last week, my primary reason for being there wasn’t to take in the event, and if I’m honest I missed quite a lot of what was on offer, even on the day I was there.

I regret that I missed all of the talks and panels, spending my day instead browsing the stalls and stands, and of course signing a contract to write my own comics series.

Did I mention that already?

I also hadn’t gone to B.I.C.S. to spend money. It was the weekend before payday, which meant that I was more than a little skint and being downright stingey with my remaining cash. But I couldn’t go all that way without buying anything, now could I?

And there was some good stuff on offer.

I was thrilled to discover that the scripting genius that is Simon Spurrier was behind his own stand, not just with copies of his latest Frazer Irving illustrated opus Gutsville, but also copies of his new novel Contract. Hell, he was even offering special deals for people who bought the whole lot! Skint I may have been, but I still have an eye for a bargain, and let me tell you, seven quid for issues #1 and #2 of Gutsville and the paperback of Contract, all signed by the author, is a bargain.

I haven’t read Contract yet, since time does not permit. I’d been wanting to read Gutsville for some time though, and I was thrilled to be able to pick up the first issues. I had no idea what it was about, you understand, but I’ve been a fan of Simon Spurrier for some time now, and a fan of Frazer Irving for slightly longer, so any collaboration between the two of them was always going to find its way onto my “must read” list.

I certainly haven’t been disappointed, although it’s not at all what I was expecting.

Gutsville is a place. A town created out of necessity. A town created when, in 1850, the SS Daphne, en-route to Australia was consumed – swallowed whole – by “a leviathan of the deep”. The ship, her crew and her passengers survived. Their world shrunk to the size of their vessel, stuck in its bio-illuminated gastro prison, the survivors create their own society. Ruled by what I’d describe as a Puritan Christian Fundamentalist elite, the citizens of Gutsville have waited for one hundred and fifty years for God to deliver them, as he did Jonah.

So far, their prayers have gone unanswered.

So they wait. Some govern, some plot to overthrow that government. Most simply endure. But as his beloved chooses to marry power over love, one man decides he’s had enough. He wants out of this repressive society. Fair enough, but how do you escape from the innards of a giant fish?

Gutsville is utterly, utterly mad and utterly utterly brilliant. Isolated and extremist communities are always good story fodder, but I have to say this is the most original take on that concept since The Prisoner. Spurrier’s creative imagination has clearly been operating on overdrive and the insular self destructive community he has brought into being is utterly believable.

That in itself should be ample proof of his writing prowess. This is, after all, a Puritan society living inside a fish and you don’t question it for an instant. Spurier’s dialogue is spot on, and his characterisation highly astute. These are people you can believe in, however much you want to hiss and boo when the villain appears on page…

And then, of course, there is Frazer Irving’s art.

Hoooooooooooboy.

Irving is nothing short of a comics drawing god. His lines are clean and sharp, his panels have movement and dynamism, and perhaps most importantly of all, his expressions are clear, true to life and, well, expressive. If you’ve ever seen any of his work you know what I mean. If you haven’t, then you should go and buy Gutsville because Irving really is one of the greats, his style combining elements of realism and caricature to produce a sort of stripped down hyper reality that lends itself beautifully to the telling of this kind of story. His colours too are soft and muted, expertly matching the tone of this extraordinary tale.

Equally beautiful, but rather more familiar to me was Rich Johnson’s The Flying Friar. “What’s that Regie?” I hear you cry, “didn’t you review this excellent historically based Superman homage by the Gutter Lying former SBC columnist some time ago?”

Well, yes. And If you remember it was a very positive review because it was a fabulous fabulous book. Based upon the life of a real person, a Monk who had a reputation for being so holy he was able to levitate. Telling a story about this guy with a Superman twist was a genius idea – adding a science obsessed character who was a descendent of Martin Luthur, a certain “Lux Luther” was just a whole other level.

So why am I telling you this again now?

Well, at Birmingham Rich was there with a brand new, shiny, hard covered edition from Markosia – it should be available in your local comics emporium about now. If you didn’t buy it the first time I told you to, now’s your chance. I might even go out and buy a copy for myself, in spite of the fact that I already have a copy of the original version. And no – I’m not being seduced by the mere addition of a shiny hard back cover. I’m seduced by the face that unlike the original edition, the new version is presented in glorious colour.

And yes, I know that I keep telling you how much I prefer Black and White art, and I certainly don’t advocate using colour just for the sake of it, but well used, colour can add an extra dimension to a story. In the new edition of The Flying Friar, the colour is used very well indeed.

Mostly the palette is muted and slightly sepia, suggesting old parchment and ecclesiastical books. But every time the Friar takes to the air there is just a hint of theblue and red about his robes, and every scientific gizmo that Lux builds seems to be green and purple. It’s subtle, but it’s brilliant. The kind of inter-textual referencing I really like in a book.

So, check it out, even if you read the original.

Trust me. I’m a comics writer. (More on that next week…)