Review of OUT THERE!

REVIEW

TITLE: Out There (A Journey Of Discovery and Freedom)

WRITERS: Emily & Laurence Alison

ARTIST: David Hitchcock

FORMAT: 40 pages A4 Full colour

PUBLISHER: Psy Comics

AVAILABLE FROM:

REVIEW:

This is a colourful, uplifting, all-ages sci-fi adventure. The near-future story follows human teenage, Lucy Diamond, and her robot companion as they escape from their bleak isolation on a future post-pandemic Earth to search the galaxy for a place to belong.

Before I start, I should make full disclosure that I know most of the creators involved in this project very well. I officiated at writers Laurence and Emily's wedding and I have worked with artist David many times myself. But I'll attempt some objectivity!

Illustrated in luxurious painted colour by the ever professional David Hitchcock, this book is obviously a treat for the eyes. David's work is usually monochrome and much more likely to be horror-orientated, so this is a huge departure for the gothic Victorian-style artist. But David is so professional that he manages to turn his hand to this Alice-In-Sci-Fi-Wonderland-style with aplomb. To anyone who knows his work, this will be instantly recognisable, but it's quite a change for him. He dials back the darkness here and opens up his art for the colour. There is something of Windsor McKay's Little Nemo In Slumberland in his imaginative designs and creatures. He continues to bring all his eye for continuous spell-binding detail in the background of every scene. His colour choices are bright and sun-drenched. You can't help but wonder if he missed his calling illustrating children's books (until you remember how good he is at atmospheric horror!) And as usual David is a master storyteller, choosing just the right way to frame the shots that will best sell each moment to the reader without confusion.

I know from personal experience that sometimes when there's art this stunning on a project reviewers can forget to mention the writing, so let's turn our thoughts to that. I'm always curious when there are two writers credits as to how working with a co-writer can possibly function, since I usually work in blessed isolation. Perhaps I just have too much ego to imagine working with someone else? I must ask them how they worked this the next time I see them.

Emily and Laurence were obviously inspired to create this story by the recent Corona virus pandemic that we've all been through and the way that it impacted a younger generation who were robbed of vital formative experiences by 'lock-down'. Transposing the story thirty-to-forty years into the future they are able to free the metaphor from talking about a single moment in time to be able to hint at more general trends in society.

Psy Comics' whole aim is to produce stories that maybe fun and exciting romps on the surface but reveal something about the psychology of the human condition when you dig a little deeper. So you won't be surprised to learn that the writers are psychologists in their day jobs. But this story isn't hitting you over the head with it's messages and never forgets that it's target audience will be more interested in the questing, adventuring nature of the story than any deeper meanings. There are jeopardy and villains and even some darkness in 'Out There' but never to the extent that it would upset younger readers.

I would have loved for this to have had even more pages to have allowed the story to really breathe and soar... But I realise there were probably budgetary concerns that dictated the length of this book. So my only slight disappointment is that there isn't more of this, so I could have really got my teeth into the characters and world in a more naturalistic way.

Although this is safe for younger readers, it is by no means a childish work and I hope that grown-up comic fans will also read this and appreciate it. In fact the more sophisticated the reader, the more you will get out of this I think, since it can be read on more than one level.

The letterer, Neil Roche, really had his work cut out for him for this project. There are some pictures where there's a scary amount of speech balloons, but he always manages to fit them in and I don't think I ever got lost with the order in which to read them.

A stunning comic. Imaginative and colourful. Recommended. Order it here: https://www.orbitinterviewing.com/category/comics?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1L7Op-AhLwwPE5wrq5G4lVAFtZoEdWDdWHmFZPj4IoskIEqkPjRSacpwU_aem_QF2PL0Kwfs4FpPVUPz4lsg

John A. Short 2024

REVIEW of 'MY BIG BOOK' 1 - 5

 

TITLE: My Big Book RAP 1 - 5

WRITER/ARTIST: Richard Anthony Pester

FORMAT: 24 page each A4 Colour & B/W

PUBLISHER: Chang3lings Comics

AVAILABLE FROM: https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11910794-first-big-book-of-utter-c-rap

REVIEW:

Richard A. Pester continues his wonderful collection of stray strips and wayward art in new issues every few months. I've been a fan of his slick art for the past thirty years and I've been lucky to work with him a number of times (including on our on-going near-future robot rebellion strip RESISTORS in SHOKWAVE.)

He's a versatile and professional artist who is able to turn his hand to a number of different styles from cartoony to photo-realistic. But he is probably best known for his fetishistic futuristic good girl art (which got him a spot at Fantagraphics' Eros Comix back in the day.) He makes a splash with plenty of his PVC maidens here – including the covers...

But the main back-bone of these books are the pages of his serialised 'Dave -Trails Of The Cosmic Oddity' strip (seen in colour here for the first time.) This autobiographical strip is very different from his exploitation cheesecake art. 'Dave' is very much a heart-felt (some might say 'Heartbreaking') slice-of-life, true-confessions style strip about Richard's early life as he grew up as an abandoned, unwanted child. He mixes his cartoony and photo-realism to tell this story of his troubling and angry home life back in the pre-teens and teens.

Comics seem to be a medium that lends itself to the autobiographical tale, but it's something I could never see myself doing. Some creators seem to be able to turn the most mundane events into compelling stories and I have to admit, I'm not sure how they do it. But this is anything but mundane. I see why Richard wanted to get this off of his chest and I hope telling this helped him. If nothing else, seek out these issues for this story. I hope he will consider collecting the colour version as it's own dedicated book once he completes this serialisation as I have a feeling that many of the people who would be impressed by this tale are missing it while it's tucked away in a collection with latex ladies on the cover. This should be award-winning.

But there is plenty more in these pages too, from copyright baiting tales of sci-fi film and TV and comic characters that he has produced as samples and try-outs down the years. In the latest issues you can see a certain future cop taking on a time travelling terminating robot.

Not to mention his illustrated text stories about 'Derna' with plenty of rubber-ware, violence and swearing. (Much more what you would expect to find in this title judging by the cover images.)

And if you like his stuff on his own title, do come and see what we're doing together on 'Shokwave'.

John A. Short 2024

REVIEW: THE SILENCE OF UNICORNS

REVIEW

TITLE: The Silence Of Unicorns (A Tara Togs Adventure)

WRITER/ARTIST: Stref (Stephen White)

FORMAT: 66 Pages A4 Full Colour

PUBLISHER: Comics Scene

AVAILABLE FROM:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tara-Silence-Unicorns-Stephen-White/dp/1739681975

REVIEW:

This is a charming all-ages adventure comic in the style of Herge's Tintin books of the 1930s and 1940s. Set in the present-day and starring Tara Togs, a teenage female would-be photo-journalist protagonist who gets mixed up with art thieves and forgers. Set in a fictional corner of writer/artist, Stref's, native Scotland.

Although Herge and Tintin aren't mentioned anywhere on the support material or advertising for this European-style 'album', their influence is worn very clearly on it's sleeve. As such I feel it's justified to compare this comic to that series of books when that might normally come across as an unjustifiable and unfair yard-stick to measure someone's work by. I have loved Tintin since childhood, no doubt sucked in by those terrible Belvision cartoons of the 1960s where that booming American voice would announce, 'HERGES ADVENTURES OF TINTIN!' at the start of every ten minute episode, shown daily in every school holiday of the 1970s. Well, that and the fact that every library (including my school libraries) would have a selection of hard-backed Tintin books to choose from. I now own all 24 Herge Tintin books and read them so many times during my youth and I can practically resite all of them word for word. They are of course masterclasses in comic storytelling. I can't begin to measure how much I have learnt from them about the craft. Funny, exciting and clever.

If you enjoyed the books of the second great era of the Tintin stories (where stronger mystery/quest plots came in, after the more aimless wanderings of the first few books) you will like this too. Even though this book is set in the twenty-first century, so strong is the influence of those pre-World War Two books that The Silence Of Unicorns often feels like it's taking place in a surreal otherworldly age where these periods are mixed together (similar to how the 1990s Batman Animated series occupied another undefined time.) This is no bad thing for me, but might be slightly off-putting for younger readers who might be unfamiliar with those early Tintin works.

Even the title of this work is clearly paying tribute to Herge's 'The Secret Of The Unicorn' – a book very firmly from the era that this book is styled after. The story too, features elements from another of Herge's other 1930s books 'The Broken Ear' – as both stories start when thieves steal something from a museum, only for it to be seemingly returned the next night. There are parallels too from a much later Tintin book – the one that remained incomplete on Herge's death 'Tintin And Alph Art' – as both feature art forgers.

Of course it's hugely ironic and presumably deliberate that this story is all about art forgers! When all's said and done Stref's art-style is an amazingly accurate recreation of Herge's style and in most cases, if you pulled out random pictures and mixed them with Herge ones I would have trouble picking out which was by whom. There are however some places where Stref doesn't quite manage to have Herge's eye for framing a shot... Sadly one of these places is the cover of 'The Silence Of Unicorns', which just looks very empty and a bit dull compared to the more dynamic covers of the Tintin books. (Sorry!)

Story-wise this is also a fairly faithful riff on Herge's style. There is plenty of jeopardy, mystery and story-twists here. Mostly it hangs together, although there's at least one redundant dead-end plot thread here that is clearly just padding (where Tara goes to a car hire firm to try and discover if the villains rented their van? You could cut it without affecting the rest of the story at all and doesn't quite fit the logic of the plot either... If the villains rented the van in their own names, the police would have them bang to rights – story over!)

My biggest criticism however is the way that Stref handles the numerous exposition scenes here. There are far too many of these and they go on for too long, with too much dialogue in too many balloons which just make some parts of this drag a little too much. In fact I think Stref has made his lettering smaller than that which appears in the Tintin books (the English language ones anyway) just to cram it all it. Herge had a way of keeping his exposition scenes short and lively, often by lacing the scenes with jokes, background business (Snowy chasing a cat or something) and other visual tricks to keep young minds engaged. And I'm reminded of one important lesson taught to me by an old friend of mine about writing... After you have finished a script, go back and see how much dialogue you can strip out of it and still keep it understandable... I feel this would have been a valuable exercise here.

Some might say Tara herself is a little low on personality, but I feel this is deliberate and quite similar to the Tintin character. It has the effect of allowing the reader (especially in this case young girls) to put themselves into the place of Tara. Of course Herge surrounded the bland Tintin with a cast of colourful characters to liven things up and provide humour. Snowy is naughty but brave. Captain Haddock is a drunken rogue, but loyal. Professor Calculus is deaf, eccentric and doesn't much like being compared to a goat.

This is something Stref is a little uneven on. Tara's main adult co-star and Captain Haddock substitute is something of a dud. Even by the end of the story I couldn't really get a handle on his personality. Mr. Lemmens is a little more successful as the Calculus stand-in, but he hasn't much beyond his hay-fever to pick him out. The real break-out funny/helpful/characterful side-kick here is Major the myna bird. With his old-fashioned military-style dialogue he's a lot of fun as a kind-of Snowy-if-Tintin-could-understand-his-dialogue-style character. If only he had met up with Tara earlier in the adventure, instead of the last few pages?! Oh well, maybe next time?

When Herge died in 1983 I was heartbroken. Although there were a few more of his books still due to come out in English at that stage, I knew there wasn't much and I had seen the best of it. No new Tintin books were to follow. And they had been so good in that last golden era of the 1960s and 70s. Getting more and more clever and funny and exciting. I hate that there isn't a new Tintin book out every year for me to read. So was very pleased to see the coming of Tara Togs.

If you love Tintin like me, then I think you'll find this a pleasure to discover. This deserves to sit on the shelf next to your Herge collection and I hope Comics Scene can get it into school libraries (if such things exist now) not to mention every bookshop in the country. I hope it's translated into French in particular and can be taken into the hearts of future generations of children like the Tintin books were in the past (but there's so many rivals out there now for kid's attention, so I don't know what the chances are.)

I'm aware this review has been a bit too eschewed towards the negative as on the whole I hugely enjoyed this book. It's caused by the fact that it's far easier to articulate what things have gone wrong, than what has gone right... And most of this has gone very right. I hope my criticisms are taken as constructive not destructive.

To put it into perspective let me rate this next to Herge's works... This is at least the equal of Herge's non-Tintin books (like the Jo, Zette & Jocko books) and it's clearly better than Herge's early 'travelogue'-style Tintin adventures (Soviets, Congo & America) I might even put it above 'The Shooting Star'? I hope that's taken as the high praise it's meant to be.

Brilliant, but not perfect.

I hope there's more to come.

John A. Short 2024

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