Crisis #1

17 Sep - 30 Sep 1988. Cover price 65p
32 pages. Full colour.
Fleetway Publications.

Edited by Steve MacManus.

Cover by Carlos Ezquerra, design by Rian Hughes.

Contents:

 2 Third World War UNTITLED credits / Chronology.

 3 Third World War Hamburger Lady w: Pat Mills; a: Carlos Ezquerra, lettering by Gordon Robson.

17 New Statesmen Book Reviews - All Men Are NOT Created Equal Chris Lawson. In-universe book review by John Smith, illustrated by Jim Baikie.

32 Crisis Talks Credits. / UK Tour: Handle It! Tour dates and locations. / Indicia

Eve Collins has just turned eighteen, and has been drafted into Freeaid, an organisation funded by multinationals to free the third world from poverty. Her hopes for deferment, as a student, are dashed when the youth selection board learns her subjects are art, English, and sociology, so in order to avoid her fate takes an overdose. After having her stomach pumped out, and being classed as psychologically disturbed, Eve is sent to a psychological warfare battalion nicknames "the Psychos"

Assigned to move the populace of a Central American village to a new "prosperity zone," the group Eve is with encounters resistance to the forced relocation. Garry, a volunteer, begins kicking in doors and threatening the inhabitants, while Eve and Trisha attempt to convince a woman that her quality of life will be better at the model village. Despite assurances that there is a clinic, with a school and shopping centre to come, Mrs. Garcia refuses to leave her home, and the situation rapidly escalates.

A strong opening, with lots of delicious moments, the story manages to surf over near-future predictions which never came to pass by dint of being so engaging. Hamburger Lady is much more accessible than it at first appears, though a few of the details seem awfully far-fetched. It is difficult to imagine multinationals expending money to operate in the third world, where there is little return for their investment. Anyway, companies such as Disney, or McDonalds, or the rest, are too busy plying their psychological warfare in the west to consider a new field of combat.

Pat Mills is a force to be reckoned with, and here - in full flow - he manages to deliver on the promise of intelligent, socially-aware, politically-minded comics, wielding ideas as if they were weapons. Ezquerra's art is perfectly suited to the script, lending the setting a grimy and slightly worn-out quality. With a cast of characters who have solid backgrounds and personalities, this doesn't operate with the same palette as most of Fleetway's strips, feeling more like an independent title which just happens to share a publisher with more commercially-minded fare.

It is an odd experience reading something so (relatively) recent, set in a future which has now passed. It would be churlish to delineate all the divergences, though one specific visual caught me by surprise - Ivan's portable television is, even by 1988 standards, remarkably large. It recalls the Sony Watchman, in elongated form, rather than sleek modern iterations of the technology.

The Optimen, a group of genetically-engineered superheroes manufactured by the US government, were rebranded as the Statesmen in order to appease public mistrust. An incident in South Africa has tarnished their legacy, and, as global televangelist turned miracle worker Phoenix launches a campaign for Presidency, the Halcyons - a black ops division of the Statesmen - are sequestered in preparation for a reunion. A protest led by Reverend-Colonel Leon Kastner has gathered outside a bathhouse, which is being covered by Larry Scanlan for Channel 9.

Meridian decides to go for a walk, despite the risk of media exposure, which Vegas uses as an excuse to leave in order to purchase alcohol. Burgess, the weight of his actions weighing heavily upon his conscience. As he tears apart his room, handlers assigned to watch over the Halcyon are reluctant to intervene. Dalton, at the bathhouse, is caught in an explosion...

The New Statesmen is incredibly rich in detail, with small and revealing glimpses into the world of the Optimen hidden in plain sight. Right from the faux book review, names, of people and groups, are dropped with abandon - Genizah Books? Very clever, though one wonders how many readers bothered to figure out the cryptic references. Even the almost-analogue for traditional superhero teams, the Halcyon, are aptly named - it is exceedingly rare for quasi-military intervention to make things better, and this group are anything but firmly on the side of angels.

Sometimes, as with the name of the bathhouse, subtlety gets kicked to one side in favour of blatant foreshadowing. Burgess (named for Guy Burgess?) is an enigma here, set aside from the others, and yet is the most interesting. Unfortunately, the overtly-complex nature of the plot doesn't suit itself to the printed page in such stark fashion, and, by absorbing storytelling techniques from disparate forms, the tone is wildly uneven.

In-universe texts (a Watchmen trick), television clips (from The Dark Knight Returns and RoboCop), a near split-screen, flashbacks, inventive panel and text box placement... Everything is piled atop a plot which requires clarification and solid foundations, leaving some elements isolated, and others too obscured to be of immediate benefit to a casual reader. Vast complexity is something to be built up to, and dropping so much - and so rapidly - in the first issue is, perhaps, asking too much.

Rian Hughes' design elements for Crisis help, in some small way, to unify the disparate stories, yet the two halves of this issue are so vastly different that it is difficult to see who the title is aimed at. An impressive, if slightly unfulfilling and overwhelming, start.

Dice Man #1

Mar 1986. £1.45.
68 pages. B&W contents.
IPC Magazines Ltd.

Fantasy Game Special

Edited by Simon Geller.

Painted cover by Glenn Fabry.

Contents:

 2 There are worlds beyond our own... text introduction by Steve Geller; illustrated by Kevin O'Neill.

 4 You Are Judge Dredd House of Death w: T.B. Grover, game design by Pat Mills; a: Bryan Talbot, lettering by Tom Frame.

25 Play in two new world-beating Play-by-Mail games from Mitregames. advertisement.

26 You Are Nemesis the Warlock Torture Tube w:/game design by Pat Mills; a: Kevin O'Neill, lettering by Steve Potter.

45 From the legendary co-creator of THE DUNGEONS & DRAGONS GAME (half page) advertisement for Sagard the Barbarian Gamebook / Alchemy Metal-Wear (half page) advertisement.

46 You Are Slaine Cauldron of Blood w:/game design by Pat Mills; a: David Lloyd, lettering by Gordon Robson.

65 Odyssey (half page) advertisement. / Grenadier Models UK Ltd. (quarter page) advertisement. / Axle says: WHY NOT VISIT THE GUARDROOM (quarter page) advertisement.

66 Rolling Soon next issue information.

67 Forbidden Planet advertisement.

68 Know Then, O Prince.... advertisement.

Fabry's deliciously odd cover, a fantasy melange entirely disconnected from the actual contents, is the perfect way to introduce the concept of a game-based comic title - the yellow background really stands out, especially in this large format. While there is probably a good argument to be made for featuring bankable 2000 A.D. characters for the launch, this speaks to a slightly different audience - one, hopefully, familiar with titles such as Imagine or the Game Master module-magazine-thingamajig.

There are worlds beyond our own... The worlds of if...

If Judge Dredd had been a second slower drawing and firing his gun...
If Slaine had failed to prise open the doorway to doom...
If Nemesis the Warlock had taken that turning too fast in his Blitzspear...

Their worlds - their lives - would have been different. There is only one key to those alternative realities. YOU hold the key... THE DICE. For they control the worlds of IF... the savage, phantom worlds of Dice Man.

Dredd (or the reader/player) drives down Dock Street to Croglin Mansion, parking his Lawmaster to survey the building. A scream from within urges him on to investigate... There are choices to pick from, and here is where the title has an edge over similar choose your adventure publications - unlike the Masters of the Universe book (taking a well known example) this is completely told in comic strip format. It may be a small step, moving from a full-page illustration and a block of text to comic panels, but this provides an important shift in tone. There's more immediacy in the journey.

The point-of-view illustrations are extremely effective, and one has to wonder if the imagery herein played any part in the development of visually similar computer games. There's even a panel (37) which will cause anyone familiar with the Doom franchise to smile, so familiar is it, alongside callbacks to 2000 A.D. strips ("Gaze into the face of fear!" makes an appearance). This is groundbreaking work which has been largely ignored in the intervening years, and it is well worth revisiting.

There is no let-up in pace with Nemesis the Warlock, as Torquemada has captured Purity Brown and is enacting his Edgar Allan Poe fantasies with her. Well, the PG-rated ones, at any rate. With Torquemada threatening to kill Purity at the stroke of midnight, there is an urgency to the story which feels more essential than in Dredd's adventure - this isn't merely a job to be undertaken, but a mission to save a character we like. O'Neill gives this strip everything he's got, and the level of detail worked into the main characters is astonishing.

This strip, unfortunately, encourages players to mark their speed on the images, so... Yeah. There's an unholy amount of blue and black ink in my copy, along with (for some reason) three highlighter colours.

Thank you, Mr. Mills.

The view from inside the Blitzspear is phenomenally cool, and makes me hunger for a racing game based on this story, especially if we are treated to scenes like panel 42, which may be the ickiest thing O'Neill has ever drawn. What the hell is that coming out of Nemesis' eye? Actually, scratch that. I probably don't want to know.

I'm not sure what, exactly, I was expecting from Sláine's story, but Cauldron of Blood is far, far better than anything I could have imagined.

You are the legendary Warped Warrior - a Celtic Berserker who fights with the strength of ten men. YOU are about to begin a new and dangerous quest...

To steal the mystic CAULDRON OF BLOOD from the Tower of Glass.

The evil Drune Lord SLOUGH GRUNSGUL rules the Tower, which is guarded by hideous monsters like the MAGACH - the Beast with a Hundred Heads.

The cauldron is the source of Grunsgul's power.

There's plenty of humour, horror, and genuine drama in the journey through the tower, with certain panels (16, in particular - a photograph) instantly familiar despite not having looked at the issue in nearly twenty years.

Quality paperstock make this infinitely better looking than the parent publication, though the contents were, perhaps, a tad ahead of their time. Worth seeking out for the artwork alone, yet by investing a little time in the games you will appreciate how good the contributors are. Brilliant and a little bit mad.

One of the best comic launches of the 80s.

Revolver #1

Jul 1990; Cover price £1.65.
52 pages. Colour.
Fleetway Publications.

Edited by Peter K Hogan.

Cover by Rian Hughes.

Contents:

.2 We've Got the Thrill Power! in-house advertisement.

.3 Hello, This is Revolver Contents page / indicia.

.4 Purple Days UNTITLED part one, w: Charles Shaar Murray; a: Floyd Hughes, lettering by Gordon Robson.

15 Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future Dare part one, w: Grant Morrison; a: Rian Hughes, lettering by Ellie De Ville.

24 Pinhead Nation UNTITLED part one, w:/a: Shaky Kane.

26 Happenstance and Kismet UNTITLED part one, w: Paul Neary; a: Steve Parkhouse, colouring by Bernie Jaye.

32 Rogan Gosh UNTITLED part one, w: Pete Milligan; a: Brendan McCarthy, lettering by Tom Frame.

40 Dire Streets UNTITLED part one, w:/a: Julie Hollings, lettering by Eliza.

47 Nine Inches to the Mile w: Igor Goldkind; a: Phil Winslade, lettering by Bambos.

50 Outro text feature.

51 Marlboro Classics advertisement.

52 Into the Past With the Future advertisement.

For a little while at the start of the nineties Revolver was regarded as the future of British comics. A shade more mainstream than Crisis, yet skewing more towards the audience cultivated by Deadline rather than those who had been reading Eagle or 2000 A.D.. The style of the title is dominated by Rian Hughes, whose iconic design style permeates the comic without overloading on unnecessary elements - the contents page is remarkably clean and simple though doesn't feel under-developed.

Purple Days is a rich, textured and intelligent script, ably illustrated by Floyd Hughes, without relying on the any of the iconography associated with Jimi Hendrix. There's a warmth and humanity which draws the reader into the life of the musician, and certain panels still manage to punch above their weight, such as when Hendrix states that he has completely given up all drugs forever. The connected narratives spread across his life pull every ounce of drama to the fore, and there are moments which come as a surprise.

The end is, frustratingly, abrupt. One of the problems when dealing with serialised material which is intended to be collected is that it can often feel like the installments aren't sympathetically tailored to the anthology format. A minor quibble, all things considered.

Unfortunately I have to address Dare again.

It's an smart, well-put-together script, and Dan isn't wildly out of character, but there's something about the handling which feels off. It isn't necessarily that melancholy doesn't feel appropriate (being set at the end of his life), though that is partly responsible for the sense that this isn't so much a sequel as an alternate version entirely. The links with the original stories are maintained through Rian Hughes' art, which combines retro-futurism with simplified extrapolations of the design type which Hampson would likely approve.

While Dare works as a narrative, it is one which isn't in the spirit of the original, and feels more exploitative than nostalgic. I wanted to enjoy the story for what it was, but the beautiful Eagle stories loom large in the imagination. Without recognising the strengths of the moral certainty which made the character so appealing leaves a hollow centre to the story.

Pinhead Nation isn't really a story, per se, as it is a moment in the lives of the characters. Delightfully silly, and a palate cleanser after the hand-wringing of that strip. Shaky Kane's work is always entertaining, and this is one of the better introductions to his style.

Happenstance and Kismet is the best strip in the comic, with inventive language, clever plotting, and thoroughly unlikeable characters. Paul Neary is as accomplished at writing comics as drawing them so it shouldn't be surprising that he steals the show, but the writing here is mad. Lucius Kismet translates juicy stories for a French tabloid, and has a drinking problem who claims drunken ramblings are merely a sign of his loquacious lyricality, while Monty Happenstace is an inveterate gambler. Every panel is a delight.

The relatively sedate opening to Rogan Gosh suggests that a character study of Rudyard Kipling is on offer, but rapidly escalates into a series of surreal visuals and non-sequiters which culmitates in Rogan Gosh, a karmanaut sought out by Kipling, appearing in a present-day curry house rather than accepting death. It is incredibly difficult to judge the story from the first installment, as things aren't spelled out in a manner which enables complete comprehension of events.

Milligan is a writer who often surprises with concepts which are difficult to summarise properly, and who seems to take delight in being odd. With Rogan Gosh he pushes further against the structure and form of comics than at any other point, and most of the joy is to be had seeing how he manages to present his ideas. Brendan McCarthy does a superb job in maintaining a solidity to the fluid and free-wheeling plot, and provides some startlingly good illustrations,

Revolver doesn't rest on the madness Happenstance and Kismet or Rogan Gosh throws at the reader, as Dire Streets is a kitchen-sink drama with all the socially-relevant content required of the genre. There's a nice twist to the tale, but it feels rather lightweight after the previous material. Had the story appeared elsewhere, it is likely that it would have been lauded as a modern classic, showered with awards, and adapted for television.

Nine Inches to the Mile is back to being weird for the sake of being weird, but does so with such aplomb that it would be churlish to criticise it. The tongue-in-cheek script rattles along at a quick lick, and the art contains enough humourous elements to rise above similar non-stories which attempt something approaching philosophy.

The reference in Outro to a resurgence of British comics is, in retrospect, hopelessly optimistic, and the comparison to the sixties hangs too much hope on the thinnest of premises. As with most anthologies there is a disconnect between the strips which no amount of editorialising can brush over - there was never going to be a happy compromise among the readership for trippy, psychedelic material and the more grounded strips.

Would it have been better to launch two titles for the different audiences? Maybe. But brought together, the contents strangely work in unison to present a notion of the possibilities a full-colour mainstream title could accomplish. While uneven, and in places self-indulgent, Revolver is a remarkably likable comic. It is also a beautifully-designed comic, with enough small touches to retain interest even on the driest of text pages.