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.

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.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Squire

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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Squire by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas - 2022 Quill Tree Books

Contains Spoilers

There's been a topic of conversation floating around recently putting forth the idea that stories with a 'message' are somehow compromised by their decision to prioritise some kind of 'personal opinion' over the 'telling of the story.' Now, anyone who has at least paid half attention to what they were told in literature class can tell you how silly of an idea that this is, but it is increasingly depressing to see how many people are parroting such nonsense.

The idea that 'the story' and 'the message' are two separate entities that can clash makes about as much sense as implying that 'the mechanics' and 'the movement' of a vehicle have no impact on each other. While, yes, it is possible for stories to tell broader tales with no great high minded purpose, even something as simple as 'this is funny' or 'this is exciting' still constitutes a 'message' and intent.

Really, I shouldn't have to waste my time going over this, but I felt it a particularly pertinent point to begin on given I'm about to cover Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas' Squire, a fun, simple adventure story with a capital M message.

Squire tells the story of Aiza, a young girl who lives on the fringes of the Bayt-Sajji empire and a member of the Ornu people, a colonised minority within the empire. As an Ornu, Aiza is a second-class citizen and is forced to hide her identity due to being treated as a potential insurrectionist, guilty until proven innocent. Aiza seeks to become a squire and later knight within the empire's ranks in the hopes of gaining full citizenship and proving to the greater populace that her people can be loyal subjects.

Aiza's attempts, however, soon prove to be in vain, as no matter how hard she tries she realises that she alone cannot gain acceptance for her people within the eye of an empire that calls for blind obedience. That no matter how far she goes to try and show that the Ornu can assimilate her masters will be more than happy to demand she take up arms against her own people.

Reading that short plot description you can see already that Squire is no entirely constructed fictional world, as if such a thing could exist. There are probably more than a dozen historical and contemporary conflicts that you could map Aiza's dilemma on to. Given that Alfageeh and Shammas come from Jordanian and Palestinian backgrounds, respectively, you can probably reason out yourself what history the story has been inspired by.

If all this is making Squire sound like a dour treatise on the nature of colonialism then fear not, because it's quite the opposite. The story is light, breezy and fun, with optimistic but well rounded characters. The story falls pretty heavily on the idealistic side, a much needed take given our current propensity for cynicism right now. It's a rip roaring adventure full of excitement and heart. You could easily consume it in one sitting, cover to cover.

Alfageeh's artwork brings a magnetic, animated style to the proceedings. There's a feeling of constant motion to the panels that emphasises Aiza's energy and optimism. As she refuses to be beaten down by the world, refuses to give up, we believe it because of the energy and dynamism Alfageeh give to her movements. Add to that the use of several real world locations as inspiration for settings of the comic, and it almost feels as through the panels are moving in front of us.

This is not to say that Squire takes it's own subject matter lightly, however. As mentioned, Shammas has put great deal of intent into the words and world in which we see this plot through. By choosing to set the story within a constructed, fictional conflict, the story takes on a more universal context. The injustices that Aiza faces mirror a great many injustices across the world, and her refusal to back down and be beaten into cynicism has likewise a universal appeal.

As Squire's story continues, we get drawn further into not only the empire's crimes, but also their justifications, and the apparatus in which evil is done and is continued to be done, sometimes by the most well intentioned of people. While the story concludes into a neat and tidy ending, it does not leave the reader with the suggestion that the evils of the world are so easily defeated through a single sword fight. Aiza's story may be over (for now) but her fight is far from done. Yet in spite of such insurmountable odds, her refusal to give up is a victory in and of itself.

Squire is a solid, fun, exciting and at times intense and emotional story that is wrapped entirely around it's message and it is all the stronger for it. Taking out the real world subtext of the story would be like taking the engine out of a car and expecting it to still go. It's a damn shame that we're still having silly arguments about how stories are 'ruined' by 'messages,' but I take heart in knowing that we have works such as Squire to prove that such an attitude is balderdash.

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Jack Harvey 2023. Squire (c) 2022 Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh. Images used under Fair Use.

How COPRA Redefines the Sincerest Form of Flattery - An Obscure Comic of the Month Special Edition.

This column normally takes a look at obscure comics. For every every sixth month, instead of taking a look at a comic that nobody talks about, this special edition will take a look at a comic I feel not enough people talk about.

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COPRA by Michel Fiffe 2012 - Present

Contains minor Spoilers

If you've been into comics for a reasonable amount of time, especially superhero comics, then discovering a story that involves thinly veiled versions of pre-existing characters will come across as nothing new. Heck, it's common knowledge by now that Watchmen, considered by many to be the Citizen Kane of comic books, was originally conceived as involving a bunch of Charlton Comics characters that had been recently acquired by DC before Alan Moore decided to change them in order to tell a more definitive, daring story.

Still, the act of 'poaching' characters from other publishing lines and altering them just enough not to trigger a copyright case is, if not looked down upon, certainly considered less artistically valid than creating a cast of unique characters from whole cloth. In instances where the duplication is more blatant, then the more people view the writer's legitimacy as suspect (See basically anything Rob Liefeld created for his Extreme Comics line.)

In this regard it is somewhat difficult to explain why COPRA is one of the most fantastic, unique and creative comics out there, because, gun to my head, if I had to explain it in one sentence it would be "Suicide Squad with the serial numbers filed off." And to be fair Fiffe has no interest in disguising these inspirations. The story follows a top secret government taskforce led by a stern, stout black woman who's only different from Amanda Waller because she's called Sonia Stone. Deadshot, Deathstroke, Vixen and more, the line that Fiffe is willing to walk at times feels almost arbitrary.

Of course this is all in service on one singular goal; to write the greatest Suicide Squad story that DC Comics would never allow him to write. Unburdened by corporate oversight, publisher targets and the cyclical nature of comic book continuity, Fiffe is limited by only his own imagination, and folks, let him take you down because we're going to...

1987 was the year that John Ostrander's run on Suicide Squad began, and is considered by many to be the definitive take on the characters and setting. Hailed at the time for being dark and uncompromising, and willing to kill off it's characters permanently at a moment's notice, it's a formula that many later revivals have tried and failed to replicate, not least because the series has become somewhat of a Harley Quinn side comic in recent years. DC's own editorial mandates have ensured that the kind of environment that might produce such a comic might never be seen again.

And so, stepping from the shadows like a nebulous government agent, came Michel Fiffe, a renegade who answered to nobody, seeking only to bring back that feeling of John Ostrander's comic from 1984. If you were expecting a simple homage, however, you'd be dead wrong. As dead as many of the unfortunate characters in this very comic.

While COPRA lifts the premise and many of the characters from Suicide Squad this is no simple homage. It is clear from the get go that this universe is much grittier, much bleaker, and much more surreal than that of the mainstream DC line. If I had to compare it to another comic, it actually feels more like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol at times than Ostrander's Suicide Squad.

The very first story involves the shard of ancient power being fought over with an eccentric mass of brain in a jar called Dy Dy and it only gets stranger from there. What I find really interesting about the comic is how it reinterprets the fundamentals of the superhero shared universe into something more frightening and unknowable. Fiffe doesn't just pull characters from the Suicide Squad but also brings in a Dr Strange-like character. Unlike in Marvel Comics, however, where no matter how dangerous the magic we know the good doctor will survive, the magic Vincent deals with constantly feels more threatening and malevolent given that we know his survival isn't guaranteed.

Additionally, a form of Apokolyps and the mythology of Kirby's New Gods is likewise reinterpreted as a strange and unsettling dimension whose inhabitants are utterly confused and out of their depth once stranded on Earth. Fiffs' take on a superhero universe feels so utterly unique in what it decides to explore, to the degree where I'm not really sure it's accurate to say it actually does takes place in a superhero universe, given the lack of many of its more traditional archetypes. Superpowered universe might be more accurate.

The idea of being surrounded by mystical and para-natural forces that could change an individual's biology at a moment's notice is treated as nothing less than harrowing. The fact that multiple crime syndicates and enemy government forces are made up of unkillable agents and mind controlling parasites is shown as being as horrific as you can imagine. The fact that the forces of good have to resort to the most repulsive methods to hold the world together shows us clearly that they are barely the forces of 'good' at all.

So COPRA continues. Characters die, suffer life altering trauma and carve out lifelong grudges in the wake of failed and barely successful operations. Yet life goes on, and the pain never goes away. COPRA is not a happy comic, though it can be laugh out loud funny in it's comedic moments. Unlike the big two, where a status quo needs to be maintained, COPRA can genuinely explore the consequences of it's arcs. It's why, going back to read it, I'm surprised how plot much unfolds over the course of six volumes.

And I haven't even spoken about the art yet. If what I have written above already has you interested, let me just say what Fiffe achieves in his writing he achieves doubly through his art. I've never seen another comic artist do it quite like Fiffe. He pulls out every visual technique in the book. Panels will duplicate and multiply, or split into mathematical grids. Characters and speech bubbles will warp with every thrown punch or broken wall of reality. Whole swathes of story will be rendered in different shades of single colour, sometimes to represent a mystical forces, sometimes to represent a character's psychological mood.

Let me be utterly clear here. Fiffe's art grabs you by the neck and refuses to let go. His interdimensional forces and eldritch horrors genuinely feel beyond human comprehension in the way he depicts them, the structure and consistency of the pages breaking down in front of our eyes. Yet human frailty and psychological damage is depicted in much the same way. He understands more than anything that art can convey emotions in more ways than just drawing a pained expression on a character's face.

If all that wasn't enough, even the feel of the pages between your fingers is a small part of COPRA's storytelling. Right from the get go Fiffe decided that he wanted the comic published on rough newsprint like the comics of old, even in the collected editions. There's just something about that feel, that coarseness, that feels missing on the shiny laminated pages of contemporary comics. It's why I felt it was a bit of a shame that COPRA lost that once Fiffe scored the deal with Image to get it a greater distribution. Then again, I don't blame him. This is the reality of comics. You gotta' take what you can get.

I hope all of the above helps to emphasise how calling COPRA "Suicide Squad with the serial numbers filed off," does it a disservice even when it's at it's most blatant in it's replication. Just because Guthie is obviously Duchess doesn't make her story any less heart breaking. Just because Castillo is obviously The Punisher as played by Sylvester Stallone doesn't make his fate any less gut wrenching.

What Fiffe achieves goes beyond simple homage. It is comics uncompromised. It is storytelling where the rules can be broken. It's a superpowered nightmare world where no twist, turn or reveal can be predicted, because the boundaries don't exist. It's the artistic equivalent of choking down oysters doused in Tabasco and following them up with harshest of whiskeys. Each turn of the page feels like I'm getting my teeth pulled out and I am desperate for more.

COPRA is probably one of the greatest comics out there right now and I genuinely don't think it's getting the respect it deserves. If you've been burned out by predictability and the lack of experimentation in mainstream comics of late, COPRA is the perfect cure. Michel Fiffe has given us six volumes so far, and I'd happily eat up sixteen more. Read my lips: Make mine COPRA.

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Jack Harvey 2023. COPRA is (c) Michel Fiffe. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - X, Y, Z

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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X,Y,Z by Iqbal A. and Aleksandar Bozic - 2018 Mild Frenzy

Contains Mild Spoilers

One of the great things about exhibiting at comic conventions it that if you're lucky you end up with a table adjacent to somebody really interesting. Sometimes they're an artist who's been on the convention circuit for a while, sometimes they're a creator fresh out of art school, sometimes they're the person that ran the Fallout themed 'Ask Caesar' RP Tumblr account back in 2014.

For 2023's Lakes International Comic Art Festival, I was seated next to Iqbal Ali, who I had a great time chatting with as a fellow creator. We traded stories about the woes of getting decent printings while self publishing, working with artists and just getting the work out there. That and dealing with the dodgy condensation under the marquee that we had to deal with.

But never mind how we got along personally. This column isn't for that. This column is about the comics themselves. Iqbal had a lot of decent stuff out there, but it was X,Y,Z that immediately drew my eye. It's stark, moody cover immediately intrigued me, and I was willing to jump right in even before I knew what the premise was.

X,Y, Z tells the story of Abn. An Asian student at an otherwise all white school who, already under immense pressure from the prejudices of his peers and teachers, finds himself drawn into a supernatural mystery surrounding a mysterious book 'How to Disappear Completely.' Soon enough Abn has to contend with the manifestation of unusual powers and the machinations of a nefarious entity that may be a representation of his own secret desires.

Textually X,Y, Z operates on a weirdness level equal to 2001's Donnie Darko (With a touch of 2015's Life is Strange). A socially awkward young man finds himself entangled with powers beyond his comprehension. X,Y, Z's characters have a great amount of depth, even the most antagonistic have at least some degree of sympathy to them, and Abn often finds allies where he once expected to find enemies. There's action, drama, disaster and epiphany. All good stuff in a comic that is direct and to the point.

Bozic's art is suited perfectly to the story, harkening just enough back to the traditional style of old 'school boy' comics from Britain's yesteryear while still giving it a sharp grit to keep you grounded in the story. Simple but palpable expressions help us experience the inner turmoil within the characters, while supernatural entities whizz from panel to panel, drawing our eye from action to action. All in a crisp black and white that gives the story an almost timeless quality.

It's sub-textually that X,Y, Z's greater strengths manifest, however. The meaning of the story is right there in the title. X,Y, Z with three arrows pointing across three different axis. This is representative, of course, of the subjects of maths and physics that Abn studies and also harnesses in his search for a higher purpose, but the three axis also represent his struggle for direction.

All throughout the story Abn is tormented over which direction he wishes to take his life. X, Y or Z. Assimilation, Rejection or Destruction. The staff and students of the school are constantly pushing Abn to change and become one with the crowd. To disregard what makes him him and ultimately become someone else in the name of an easy life. Conversely, the dark force inside of him wants to push Abn on a path of vengeance and accumulated power. To go beyond ambition and give in to anger and aggression.

Abn himself merely wants to, as the book he wields promises, disappear completely, but as these two forces begin to influence his life in greater ways, he realises such an escape is impossible.

Ultimately, the story is about realising that such binary direction is a false conclusion. Abn doesn't have to choose, life isn't about absolutes, and in the end he overcomes the pressures of all three demands to become his own person, driven only by his own decisions and his own road.

X,Y, Z is an absorbing comic with a sharp script and sharper pace. It handles it's subject matter with a maturity that doesn't easily give in to nihilism, and it's themes are both specific and universal. I had a great time with it.

Iqbal Ali is going to be at Harrogate Thought Bubble next month, so if you're passing by be sure to check him out. I highly recommend X, Y, Z and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

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Jack Harvey 2023. X, Y, Z (c) 2018 Iqbal Ali. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Acceptable Losses

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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Acceptable Losses by Joe Glass, Danny Flores and Moose Baumann - 2020 Queer Comix

Contains Heavy Spoilers

Last year I spoke very highly of Joe Glass' seminal superhero deconstruction The Miracles, and so today I'm taking a look at one of his smaller works, the self-contained one shot, Acceptable Losses, a comic that is probably easiest to describe as What if Captain America Became The Punisher?

The story of Sam Tyler, AKA superhero super-solider U.S Eagle begins in medias res as he undertakes a mission in the Middle East to eliminate a dangerous terrorist leader. Deliberate parallels to the hunt for Bin Laden are obvious here which we'll dig into more later. Tyler's mission goes awry, however, in part due to his unwillingness to endanger civilians in the crossfire, including a nearby school. Meanwhile mission command, overseen by the all too believable Senator McKeen, has little concern for collateral damage, the titular 'acceptable losses.'

As the terrorist leader looks to slip out of Tyler's grasp, McKeen orders an air strike, seemingly killing the hero alongside innumerable civilians, children included. From this opening sequence it is very clear the type of story that we are in for here, and the perspective in which it views the 'necessity' of the 'war on terror.'

Tyler, of course, didn't die, and the story's focus shifts to cover an extended revenge scene carried out against McKeen interspersed with flashback as Tyler is nursed back to health by the very people that he was deployed to treat as 'enemies of America.' What follow is a gorgeous, if extremely brutal and harrowing, sequence of events which Danny Flores' art and Moose Baumann's colours are expressly suited to. As the story jumps between the dark night of revenge to the comfortable browns of Tyler's recovery, it is almost sub-textually saying that we cannot view geopolitics in simple black and white.

This is easily the darkest of Glass' stories so far, and sits at an interesting point between his more optimistic and celebratory stories from The Pride, to his idealistic but still more grounded and pragmatic work in The Miracles. The story is vicious in it's storytelling, and definitely feels like somewhat of a rebuttal to modern superhero stories being muted and soft in their criticisms of American foreign policy and unquestioned patriotism.

As a one shot the story is sharp and to the point, done in one and complete in it's message. In all respects but one does this work in it's favour, but if I had to levy one criticism at the story it would be that the later reveal that Tyler and his 'inside man' Private Krinsky are in a relationship together, is covered somewhat too briefly, if for no other reason that so many incredibly interesting stories could be spun off from such a twist.

The depiction of a gay Captain America is not something that is particular new (look to Andrew Wheeler's Soldier Sailor for another such example) but the idea of one explored through the Acceptable Losses' grounded and gritty lens would certainly be a unique one. Still, that's far from a deal-breaker, and if anything it feels as though Glass has more of these types of stories in him, it just being a question of when he's ready to write them.

Acceptable Losses is a brutal bullet to the head of a comic that doesn't pull any punches. If you felt like bigger franchise fair has been skirting round the subject of the war on terror for a while now, then this is a fine antidote.

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Jack Harvey 2023. Acceptable Losses (c) 2020 Queer Comix. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Knights vs Pirates

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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Knights vs Pirates by Jay Martin, Chris Imber and Chris Jenkins - 2020 Reckless Hero

Contains Mild Spoilers

We like to get somewhat intellectual here at Obscure Comic of the Month (and by we I mean me.) Whether it's dissecting the Life is Strange comic's criticism of it's own source material, or discussing what the alien societies of Prism Stalker have to say about mankind's inhumanity to man, dissecting themes, subtext and metaphor is what a lot of this column is all about.

Sometimes, however, along comes a comic that is shaped exactly as it is. Where there are no depths to plunge. What you see it what you get. Knights vs Pirates is one of these types of comics.

Pitting King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table against the crew of legendary pirate Blackbeard, Knights vs Pirates steps into a long standing genre of historical mashups that we have previously seen in such things as the video game For Honour, the tabletop game Unmatched Battle of Legends and the Half-Life mod Pirates, Vikings and Knights.

The video game comparison is apt, really, as Knights vs Pirates is all about the action. Jay Martin isn't here to bring us a story about the class differentiation between noble knights and stateless pirates. He's not here to bring us any kind of exploration of each character's mythic qualities and the legacy they left in historical folklore. He's here to have a bunch of cool looking guys with swords smash up against a bunch of cool looking guys with guns, on boats. It's not dissimilar to downloading a skin pack for Unreal Tournament 2004 so that you can have Gordon Freeman fight the Master Chief.

If it sounds like I'm counting all this as a negative against the work of Martin, Imber and Jenkins you may be surprised to find out that I'm not. If you know me, you know I actually love downloading skin packs for Unreal Tournament 2004 so that I can have Gordon Freeman fight the Master Chief.

Is there a reason that King Arthur here wears the St George's Cross and a crusader's bucket helm, despite predating both those things by centuries? Because it looks cool that's why. The historical and folkloric perspective doesn't really matter. This is pure popcorn munching entertainment. It's smashing action figures together in comic book form, and Knights vs Pirates manages to excel at such goals with high speed and panache.

The story, such as it is, takes place during Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail, as pestilence stalks the land. However, he and his knights become embroiled with the machinations of Poseidon of Atlantis (Why is there a Greek God here and why does he also happen to be a fish man? Because it's cool, that's why,) as has, centuries later, Blackbeard and his crew, who are lured to the Bermuda Triangle and sent backwards in time with the promise of riches and glory.

As the Knights come to terms with gunpowder weapons and the pirates capitalise upon the confused forces of the past, so proceeds a series of battles and skirmishes between Arthur and Blackbeard's forces. The characters are all larger than life, more akin to Street Fighter characters than their historical counterparts, with their own colourful set of unique designs, motivation and gimmicks.

Chris Imber's fast and bold art really stands out in these battles. Keeping a sense of movement and logic at the same time, while making every bloody strike and blow feel heavy and visceral. Likewise, Jenkin's vivid colours really pop out of the page, and bring to life the personalities of these colourful characters (pun intended.)

The writing is archetypal with Arthur so noble it's almost maudlin, and Blackbeard very much the pantomime villain. Still, there are genuine moments of pathos here and there, such as Blackbeard expressing his past admiration for Arthur when he read stories of his adventures as a boy, and being nightmarishly torn between the optimism of his youth and the cynicism and selfishness that has overtaken his life.

Like any good versus story, after many bloody losses, the two sides eventually join forces to fight the real villain. Poseidon rises at the end to reveal the full extent of his schemes, which primarily concerned the retrieval of Excalibur, the sword having been constructed from his three pronged trident (Why? Because it's cool, that's why.) The climax brings an action packed battle as Imber really pushes the visuals to create a striking melee between Knight, Pirate and aquatic sea-folk.

Knights vs Pirates is excellent evidence that you can produce a story that is silly and over the top without being dumb. It's shallow only in the sense that greater depth would actively make the story worse. The story need not be saddled with attempts at highbrow storytelling. This is a monster truck rally. This is professional wrestling. This is a visual cavalcade of larger than life characters carrying larger than life weapons.

I can safely say that if I had read this as a sixteen year old I would have easily become obsessed with it, and sometimes, you just have to give the sixteen year old inside yourself something like this every now and again, as a treat.

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Jack Harvey 2023. Knights Vs Pirates (c) 2020 Reckless Hero. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - No Romance In Hell

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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No Romance in Hell by Hyena Hell

Contains Mild Spoilers

No Romance in Hell tells the story of an idealistic demonic woman, while unnamed in the comic itself, we do quickly learn of her love for romances and her longing for a similar experience. Having failed to achieve any meaningful relationships in the bowels of hell, she travels to earth and blends in as best she can, with the hopes she can strike up a whirlwind romance there.

The comic is, frankly, the best possible execution of such a premise, in my opinion. As you may or may not know, I am not unfamiliar with writing demonic romances myself, so when I saw Hyena Hell's comic sitting on the shelf of Newcastle's Travelling Man, stereotypical romance novel text above a scantily clad green-skinned woman disintegrating a helpless suitor, I knew I would have to check it out. It was absolutely my jam.

Not an inch of space or time is wasted within the story, which serves as a razor sharp satire of modern dating culture. From the vapidity of online dating apps, appearing here as the fictional 'burner' app, to the insecurities facing the vast majority of of those singles today embarking upon such a chaotic and daunting endeavour, Hell manages to condense perfectly our own anxieties into this lumbering, clueless dolt that we can't help but grow attached to.

Every joke manages to land perfectly. There's visual comedy, as the demonic woman struggles to get dressed by clumsily liberating clothes and a wig from a shop window dummy. There's the classic repetition of her constantly disintegrating people who insult or displease her. There's the aforementioned satire, covering both the fast paced, no strings attached attitude towards modern relationships, as well as the heightened idealism of classic romance comics of yesteryear. The writing is never too overwrought or corny, never spoon feeds the reader, but isn't afraid to go for those easy laughs when the chance arises.

The art too is just wonderful. Every character is eye-catching and full of personality. At all times it manages to be grotesque and vulgar and sexy. Hell is a realm of flimsy boob tubes, thongs, jock straps and codpieces, while Earth is a realm of casual hookups and disappointing sexual encounters. Nudity is presented unceremoniously throughout the story, while the idea of objectively 'beautiful people' exists purely within outdated romance comics, which both fits with the story's themes and helps humanise these characters. In a world where nobody is beautiful, there is beauty in everyone.

If there's a moral to this story, it's very much in line with that way of thinking. In the end our demoness realises that she wouldn't actually enjoy living the happy ever afters of her romance comics anyway, and concludes that actual happiness can come from something more humble. Hell manages to tie the whole story together with the final pages into a nice little bow, fittingly, and still manages to get a good few final gags in there for good measure. If you don't have a smile on the face by the time you get to that final panel then you have no soul.

The adventures of our wayward demoness are not over just yet, as it appears that Hell has more stories to come, if recent art previews online are anything to go by. After No Romance in Hell, I'm really excited to find what existential crises she ends up falling in to next.

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Jack Harvey 2023. No Romance in Hell (c) 2020 Hyena Hell. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - The Envoy and the Warrior

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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The Envoy and the Warrior by Simon Roy and Linnea Sterte

Contains Spoilers

Way back in my second entry in this revived series of columns I took a look at Simon Roy's Habitat and came away with the feeling that I really wanted to discover more about this strange, seemingly galaxy spanning dark age. In the years since then, Roy has given me exactly what I wanted, with his webcomic Griz Grobus showing us more of these strange and wonderful feudal societies living within the ruins of a half-forgotten high tech civilisation.

It is not, however, Griz Grobus I am here to talk about today, but the short comic The Envoy and the Warrior, which came as a bonus with Grobus' Kickstarter campaign. In my last entry on Habitat I talked about being fascinated by the reawakening of what seemed to be some kind of eldritch star god that got little explanation by the story's closing pages. So fascinated was I that I even did fan art of the creature. So imagine my delight to discover that the short comic itself focusses entirely on these enigmatic beings.

One of Roy's greatest strengths is to leave an element unexplained and allow a certain degree of ambiguity to generate around an aspect of the story. He trusts the audience to pick up on what they're reading. While the origins of the star gods is never fully spelled out, the story heavily hints at their nature as artificial beings. There's a heavy does of Iain M Banks' Culture series in this story, tapping into the idea of artificial intelligences as benevolent, but not benign, custodians of mankind's future.

The story begins with two such gods meeting, approaching first in physical space and appearing as unsettling, and nightmarish looking creatures. They then manifest as more recognisably humanoid once they pass into another plane of existence. A paradise, once again heavily hinted, but never outright confirmed, to be a digital space.

Much like Habitat the artwork is on impeccable form. This time Linnea Sterte creates a mind bending blend of body horror and geometric impossibilities for the forms of the star gods, before drawing us in to the beautiful serene landscapes of the paradise. It's human inhabitants, recognisable but unremarkable, clash with the slight and ethereal gods. Their somewhat subdued facial expressions betray that these creatures are far beyond human, and that their thoughts are likewise alien to ours.

The larger of the two gods is introduced as a former god of war, now tired from violence, having created a paradise to house the souls of those innocents that had previously suffered at their hands long ago. The smaller of the two gods, an envoy, has arrived to ask a favour. Part of humanity is now beginning to crawl out of it's long dark ages and back into the stars, bringing potential weapons of galactic destruction with them.

The old war god, however, has no desire to return to their old ways, no matter how noble the intentions. After the envoy questions their motivations one too many times, the war god seemingly kills them in physical space, and they awake in a humbler body, back within the paradise.

The Envoy and the Warrior is short but it packs a lot of themes behind it's sparse script. This tale is one of guilt and responsibility, of action and reaction. Despite only a few moments passing between them, the two star gods debate their fundamental philosophy, in both what they say, their body language, and ultimately their actions. Does the true pacifist seek to exempt themselves from conflict, or seek to avert it? Are actions of atonement for past sins negated if those sins are repeated once more? How ethical is violent action when it is a reaction to an evil that may not even occur?

As mentioned above, Roy is not a writer that wants to spoon feed you the subtext. As the story ends, it is up to the reader to decide how warranted the war god was in the action they took against the envoy, and if, as lowly mortals, we can even comprehend the stakes of such immortal beings.

Even at only sixteen pages long, The Envoy and The Warrior is equally as fascinating and dynamic as Habitat and Griz Grobus. As mentioned above, Roy is clearly content at showing us snapshots of these worlds and galaxies, allowing the reader to piece the connections together themselves, rather than dump lore and backstory on top of us. It's a great approach and everything I could have hoped for after Habitat. Roy's work continues to impress, and I can't wait to see where he goes with it next.

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Jack Harvey 2023. The Envoy and The Warrior (c) 2023 Simon Roy. Images used under Fair Use.

Elevating the Lowest of Art to Something Grander with I Roved Out In Search of Truth and Love - An Obscure Comic of the Month Special Edition.

 This column normally takes a look at obscure comics. For every every sixth month, instead of taking a look at a comic that nobody talks about, this special edition will take a look at a comic I feel not enough people talk about.

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I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love by Alexis Flower 2014 - Present

Contains Mild Spoilers and discussion of extremely Not Safe For Work subject matter.

John Carmack once said "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important," and while this column is neither about video games nor porn movies, I think it's still a pertinent quote to start this discussion with. Today I'll be talking about Alexis Flower's pornographic comic, I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love.

Yes, you heard me. Pornographic. I'm not going to mince words here. We're not talking about a cheeky romance or tastefully erotic adventure. This isn't Sex Criminals or Sunstone. The sex depicted in Roved is about as graphic as you can get. Pretending the comic is just mildly saucy would be ultimately dishonest.

So let's go back to that John Carmack quote. Is the storyline of Roved merely there to serve as a delivery system for vulgar titillation? No, it is not. However, that isn't a rare thing in and of itself. There is famously a Star Trek The Next Generation porn parody out there that works as a genuinely good TNG episode if you just excise the sex entirely. Well written stories sandwiched between sexual content is not unheard of in the world of adult storytelling, but Roved doesn't fall into that category either.

Alexis Flower has created a rare thing. A first rate story with fantastic characters, dense world building and shocking twists and turns, where the sex drives the plot, not the other way around. While it's world and characters are taken seriously within their own context, the sex is often the cause of, or solution to, various plot complications and obstacles.

And the art is fantastic of course. By god the art is fantastic.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Roved tells the story of Cinder and Maeryll, two reluctant adventurers who just want an easy life. Despite their best efforts, they nonetheless end up drawn into a sprawling quest involving multiple factions fighting over a fallen piece of god. Along the way they end up getting lost, make a lot of enemies, run into figures from their past, and have sex with a lot of people, including each other.

Flower puts a metric tonne of raw charisma into these characters. Cinder and Maeryll are utterly complete personalities, with their own foibles and flaws. They are equal parts funny and tragic, and even when they aren't have having sex with someone, or some-thing, they are still magnetically fun to be around. Watching them bumble their way though an upper class party or try and helplessly survive in the wilderness is just as fun as watching them getting it on.

And get it on they do. This goes back to what I was saying earlier. Unlike many other stories that are intended to titillate, Roved does not rely on slim excuses or 'porn logic' to get the characters naked. A great deal of the plot is often driven by a character's decision to bang another character. Early in the story, Cinder has sex with a magical forest lord, accidentally triggering an ancient ritual that turns him into a frog, and leaves her with a not insignificant problem. Likewise, a great deal of the story involves investigating Maeryll's mysterious curse, that causes bad misfortune whenever she climaxes. Working around, and overcoming these problems, becomes a large part of what moves the story, and removing the sex would scupper it entirely.

What's great about the comic is that even if some of the sexual content is stuff you're not into (and there's big chunks that I'm not into,) there's still a lot of fun and humour to the sex that makes it enjoyable to watch even if you're not titillated by it. This is partly due to the fact that Flower understands that sex is a fundamentally ridiculous concept, which in real life is often clumsy and silly looking. This is depicted in a lot of the sex on show, where characters bash into each other, fall over, get blinded by airborne fluids and fall prey to other such minor misfortunes. There's legitimate raw comedy on display whenever characters choose to bone down.

It's this silliness that puts Roved a cut above a lot of it's contemporaries. There's a warmth and good natured attitude towards the sex that neither sensationalises nor eroticises. Shame and guilt are not words that apply here, at least not as far as the sex is concerned. There's a human quality to the whole thing that just makes it a pleasure to read (and not in that kind of way but also yes in that kind of way.)

Our two adventurers are only part of a wider story however. The world is also filled with a wealth of other characters, both heroic, villainous and in-between. Their stories all intersect in interesting ways, with some seeming to play the long game, a major plot point only blossoming slowly as time goes on. These intersections allow the comic to inject itself with a great deal of opposing tones, from forlorn, blossoming romances, to the ritual and ceremony around dark, horrific and unknowable gods. If you thought the comic was just a shallow parody of fantasy tropes, be prepared to be surprised at how deep this rabbit hole goes.

And ultimately, putting aside all talk of sex and titration, the story is still great in it's own right. This world of warring factions, long forgotten magics, gods unknowable, forces cosmic, conflict costly, riches desired, friendships forged and broken, secrets concealed and mysteries revealed is just fantastic to get lost in. I genuinely want to know what's going to happen next, independent of any of the smutty stuff that happens in the adjacent.

And the art is fantastic too of course. By god the art is fantastic too. Flower's painterly tone is firing on all cylinders at all times. Whether it is a sunrise over a beautiful scenic vista, regiments of tightly formed marching soldiers, grotesque dungeon dwelling monsters, or two characters pounding each other's brains out, every panel is a work of art in it's own right. Flower brings both their characters and fantasy world to life with the same charisma and depth that the writing has, and even if the story wasn't a perfect marriage between great storytelling and graphic smut, it'd be worth recommending just for the art alone anyway.

The comic has nearly completed it's third volume, with no sign of slowing down, nor running out of crazy, wonderful, surprising ideas. It'd be easy to dismiss Flowers work as vulgar, low art, but I disagree. John Carmack was wrong when he said that story wasn't important. We've long had evidence against that in the world of video games. I think Roved is proof that we can reject that notion when it comes to pornography too.

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Jack Harvey 2023. I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love is (c) Alexis Flower. Images used under Fair Use.