Jack's April Update

Things have been quiet here of late. I've been working on a lot of behind the scenes stuff, but I expect that this year will be a little dry for new story content. Still, here's an update on where we're at and what's going on.

Conventions

- I'll be at the Leeds Comic and Sci-fi Fair on Saturday 1st June. As ever I'll have copies of all my print stories and comics, along with art and whatnot.

- As with last year, I'll be at Carlisle Megacon on 17th August. It was great to see the event come back from a prolonged absence last year, and here's hoping it continues to grow this year too.

- I mentioned last time that I'll be at the British Fantasy Society's Fantasycon at Chester on October 11th - 13th, but I'm repeating it again here in case you missed it. It's a three day event, so here's hoping I can use the opportunity to get my work in front of some new eyes.

Blog Stuff

- You might have noticed that I did not upload an Obscure Comic of the Month review for March. This was partly due to it being a hectic month. Easter was earlier than usual and I had prep for Sheffield all at once. However it was also down to me just not being able to motivate myself to write about comics at the time. I didn't want to just pump out something half hearted. You can expect the column to return this month, but I am toying with the idea of making it a more irregular thing, and possibly using my time to write about other subject matters instead. We'll see.

So, only a short update this month, but gears are turning, and I expect to have more significant updates for you very soon.

Cheers

Obscure Comic of the Month - Coal Face

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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Coal Face - The Devil in the Smoke by Jay Gunn - MoonAlp Books 2023

Contains 'Miner' Spoilers

There's always been a somewhat oversimplified framing of the 1980s miners strikes as a simplified David vs Goliath story in popular culture, but it's easy to forget that things were much more complicated. Even more so when it comes to the legacy of those strikes and the industry they were connected to.

The book I'm looking at today isn't a comic pre-se, though it did start life as one, and ultimately it's final form as an illustrated prose story is close enough as far as I'm concerned. It's my column and I can do what I like. Written and illustrated video game developer and National Coal Board work-experiencer Jay Gunn, who uses his own past and family history as a jumping off point into this period fable of teenager Tony Gray's maybe real, maybe imagined, adventure into the ancient cursed history of his town's local and currently be-striked coal mine.

Gunn weaves a great deal of tendrils throughout the tale, having Tony not just have to deal with the local strife and uncertainty around the strike, but also, and not limited to, his parent's broken marrage, health problems caused by local pollution, class divides, family expectations and his desire for a future in programming video games.

From these themes weave out the fantastical. From the vampire-esque Fancy Man representing corporate (and personal) greed, to Maybell The Wooden Girl speaking for the blighted rural areas, to the dragon Coal Face itself becoming the nexus of pain from which radiates from the coal industry, long term respiratory problems and premature death.

Gunn plays with a lot of threads and does so pretty effectively for a story that isn't all that long. It's works for the most part given the ambiguity of the fantastical elements, which may be no more real than dreams or part of Tony's imagination, especially given that he is seen working on a video game with a story that exactly mirrors the adventures he is supposedly experiencing for real. This allows Gunn to frame these fantastical elements as a child's rationalisation of the difficult reality surrounding the pit closures.

Whereby the striking workers through noble cause can give in to their worst impulses, it is easier for someone like Tony, who lost his grandfather to the pit and saw his parents ripped apart by idealogical divide, to rationalise the whole thing as the schemes of a legendary beast that can poison the mind as easily as it can poison the body.

In that respect, you might expect that Gunn is going for easy answers here, but in fact he is doing quite the opposite. All through the story Tony shows little desire to follow his father and grandfather into the mining industry, clearly not having the temperament or the physical health to do so, yet he is treated with suspicion and destain for wanting to seek a future in video games. Likewise, Tony's lower class upbringing is mocked by those more well off who never have to worry about work like coal mining, and Tony is tempted away from class solidarity with the promise of luxuries and frivolity.

I love the intricacies and difficulties that Gunn explores here. I'm no stranger to striking myself, and have little sympathy for scabbery, but even I'm not so foolish as to think people slot into easy roles. My town is a former mining town. I have family member who have died due to the health problems their work down the pit left them with. There are constant promises of re-opening the coal mines, and despite the fact that we are in desperate need of more jobs, I absolutely do not want to see that industry return to blight this town.

If I have one criticism of the story, it's that this attempt at showing the shades of gray comes with the risk of walking away from this story with anti-union sentiment. Of course, Gunn makes it pretty explicitly clear that the true villain of the story is the pursuit of capital, but we do unfortunately live in a world where folks will ignore the moral of a story if it doesn't suit them.

However, I've only talked about the text of the story so far, when there is so much more to it with the art. Gunn's illustrations bring to life an already enthralling story, with a vibrancy and texture. The characters are animated and believable, the blighted landscapes drawing you in and cementing you into a specific place and time. The fantastical elements have an otherworldly, uncanny feel to them that emphasises the ambiguity of how much of what Tony is experiencing is entirely from his imagination.

The story's other big subplot, that of Tony wanting to get into programming, is emphasised and reinforced through the illustrations also. The stark, primitive visuals of the Atari days glow in neon green, feeling almost pre-historic by today's standards. This adds to the feeling that Tony's character is no weak and frightened fool, as even just through the visuals we can understand the skill it would have taken to programme a video game in those days. Tony might not want to go down the pit, but that doesn't mean he lacks willpower.

The visuals and the text work in tandem to create a tale that feels very simple and easy to digest in it's delivery but that contains a history with great depth beneath. The story closes with a bittersweet ending. The monster defeated, but Tony's personal strife continues, as he is left still finding his way in the world where he has to try and show solidarity for a line of work he knows is doomed to closure. The story does not let you off with any easy answers, and doesn't sugar coat that the world is not so easily fixed.

Coal Face is a finely executed all-ages tale that creates a perfect snapshot in time to emphasize that while heroes and monsters exist in both fiction and reality, it's only in fiction that these distinctions are so easily spotted. Right now, as it was in the 80s, being a hero is not as easy as simply picking up a controller, and defeating monsters can't be done with simple button presses.

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Jack Harvey 2024. Coal Face (c) 2023 Jason Wilson. Images used under Fair Use.

Jack's January Update!

Hello all. It's the start of the year once again which means we're currently stuck in the doldrums of the post festive deflation. So what better time to steel ourselves for the coming months with a look ahead at the good stuff in store. For me, it's going to be a busy year. Here's a few thing you might want to keep an eye out for.

- My final Sea of Spheres short story, Choose Your Weapons wisely, has now been posted in full, and can be read here. Updates for it are not yet complete, however, as Windlass is still cooking up some final artwork for the starting chapter, which should be coming soon.

- The magnetic Brian McCray is currently working on the artwork for a four page comic script of mine. I'm super excited to see the final piece and if you're a fan of my writing I think you'll get a particular kick out of this one. Watch this space.

- I'm currently working on a secret project with Turbomiracle. This may or may not happen, depending on how things pan out, but It's an idea with legs, and will no doubt see the light of day in the long run if it doesn't happen this year. You can see a sneaky peek at some blueprints for this up above.

- With all that in mind, writing will be taking a bit of a back seat this year as I move some pieces from here to there on some more physical projects. Information will be here as it comes through, but Obscure Comic of the Month will still continue as normal.

I'm always looking to pencil myself in to as many convention appearances as I can, and this year is no different. While I've had to deal with some moved dates and cancellations, so far I can confirm three as being set in stone.

- Whitehaven Mini Con is back on February 24th for it's third year and a second at the Civic Hall. Always really happy to see this convention do well, and I'll be there showing my full support. Also, I'll have an extra table selling second hand graphic novels and books for low low prices, if you fancy taking a peek.

- I'll be returning to the 6th April Sheffield Comic and Film Fair at the Showroom Cinema, which I had a fantastic time at last year. For such a small venue it managed to see a turnover of varied and interesting people, and I'm eager to jump back out there to reconnect with those audiences.

- For October 11th - 13th I'll be attending FantasyCon at the Chester Hotel. This one I'm particularly looking forwards to, as a lot of my prose writing tends not to do a lot of action at comic conventions, so an event more dedicated to fiction writing will hopefully be a good chance for my more wordy works to find an untapped audience.

I hopefully will have more conventions lined up as the year goes on, as well as some podcast appearances and whatnot as things tic over. As ever I'll be posting critical updates here, but you can find more off the cuff comments, rambles and doodles over on Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr and Deviantart.

Happy New Year and Stay Cool

Obscure Comic of the Month - 20th Century Men

Obscure Comic of the Month is a column where I take a look at a comic or series that hasn't really been talked about. This covers independent comics, zines, weird spin-offs, webcomics and more.

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20th Century Men by Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian - Image Comics 2023

Contains Mild Spoilers

I wasn't expecting to write about 20th Century Men for this column. I had already seen quite a bit of buzz about it within the general comics community and expected that it would explode into the mainstream as soon as the series had hit critical mass. Instead, however, it doesn't appear to have reached the wider audience I was expecting it to. So, here I am, doing my part to try and evangelise a comic that far more people really should have heard about.

20th Century Men is, in short, a riff on Alan Moore's Watchmen. The story takes place in an alternate cold war where super-science and adventuring heroes turned the tide of history and their legacy causes a chain of events that dooms us all. The twist this time is that it's the Soviet Union who got the immortal supergod this time around and it is through communist eyes we experience most of the story.

If that makes it sound like 20th Century Men is a simple 'what if' then stay with me a little longer, because while Camp displays the Watchmen influence pretty proudly it is very much not trying to do a simple palate swap. The Dr Manhattan analogue only plays a minor role in the plot, more homage than anything, while the main crux of the story is centred around Platonov, a sort of analogue Iron Man if Tony Stark was a communist and also a Warhammer 40'000 Space Marine Terminator. While Watchmen was a murder mystery, with most action taking place in flashback, 20th Century Men is set during the Soviet expansion into Afghanistan, and the blood soaked conflict is very much front and centre.

The chosen perspective is definitely an interesting one, giving the Soviets a somewhat sympathetic point of view during a conflict that pop culture has frequently painted them the villains of. Depicted far more villainously in this story is US foreign policy, embodied by President Goode, part Captain America, part Lex Luthor, part Gary Busey, an institution and character more interested in proving their superiority as opposed to a utopian ideal.

Still, while not apparent at first, it quickly is made clear that it is Afghanistan itself that is the true protagonist of the story. The so-called 'Graveyard of Empires,' home to people deserving of life just as much as their American and Soviet counterparts, yet treated as little more than pawns by those who see themselves as the 'true' civilisation. It is at this point the meaning of the title becomes clear, and that it is the 'civilised' world's failure to treat Afghanistan as anything other than a tile on a game board to be fought over that has condemned us to the doom in which we now find ourselves.

The comic is blisteringly harsh in that regard. A real road to hell paved with good and not so good intentions. The line "A million of us dead and millions more to come because you couldn't imagine a civilisation without flush toilets," is particularly scathing and will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. Camp aims high with what he wants to do with this comic, and frankly, he hits every target he shoots for. 20th Century Men is a comic that left me with literal chills and made me ask things about myself that I'd rather not ask.

Which brings me on to Stipan Morian's art. It feels like the ultimate combination of 1990's Vertigo at it's best with the contemporary grit of current generation 2000ad all wrapped up slickly to the kind of standard Image comics is known for these days. Simultaneously retro and modern, Morian has to tackle a lot over the course of this comic, from blood soaked battlefields to utopian communist farmland to sleazy boardrooms and the dusty streets of Afghan villages that feel more real than real. Morian slips between the majesty of a techno-future past that never was and the grime between our fingernails of a tragic present that probably is.

That 20th Century Men hasn't become one of our seminal texts already is unconscionable but also probably unsurprising. As a Watchmen riff it already finds itself in the company of a billion other superhero comic deconstructions that we have seen in the years since. As a condemnation of the western world it covers subjects that one can easily find all too popular YouTube know-nothings arguing about for hours on end. In a lot of ways 20th Century Men has become lost in the shuffle, struggling to find a niche in areas already stuffed to the gills with diluted and far inferior products.

So here I go, ranting about it in the humble way as best I can and trying to sell it to my motley collection of followers. 20th Century Men is a monumental piece of work. You can feel the sheer force of will from Camp, Morian and letterist Aditya Bidikar bringing it to life. It should be a shoe in for every 1001 Comics to Read Before you die list and frankly if I don't see it enter on the 2024 edition I'll 'insert humorous self-deprecating action here.'

There's probably a billion other things I could string out to try and convince you to read it, but I dunno, I guess I'm just hoping my words can burst out of the page even a fraction as strongly as they do in 20th Century Men. Even holding the book in my hands feels like I'm carrying the weight of the world within it. It's a tome that almost refuses to be ignored as our civilisation spirals once more towards it's darkest impulses.

It's a good comic you should read it.

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Jack Harvey 2024. 20th Century Men (c) 2023 Deniz Campbell, Stjepan Mihaljevic, and Aditya Bidikar. Images used under Fair Use.