NEWS: 'A1 Deadline' to launch in July

So, this looks like it might be worth watching out for.  

'A1' and 'Deadline' were British anthology comics of the late 80s and early 90s - the latter being by far the more famous thanks mostly to the presence of cultural icon to be 'Tank Girl'.

'Deadline' arrived in 1988 alongside a host of comics - 'Crisis', 'Revolver', 'Toxic!' - aimed at older readers who had grown up reading '2000 AD' but who were in need of something new.  Created by artists Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon, it adopted a magazine format that mixed comics, both new ('Tank Girl', 'Johnny Nemo') and reprinted ('Love & Rockets', 'Milk and Cheese), with articles on indie music, championing the rise of what was to be 'Britpop'.

'A1', created in 1989 by Dave Elliott & Garry Leach and published - initially- via their own Atomeka Press acted, like 'Deadline', both as a vehicle for introducing UK audiences to strips and characters like Mr. X, Concrete and The Flaming Carrot whilst and as home to original stories by the likes of Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell, Ted McKeever, Neil Gaiman, Brian Bolland and a host of others.

The new title with it's clunkily combined name was announced recently by Dave Elliott and will launch via Kickstarter in July.  Contributing to the new title so far include, Steve Pugh, Kevin Eastman, Mark Nelson, Shaky Kane, Bill Sienkiewicz, Rhoald Marcellius, Ron Marz, Rufus Dayglo and Simon Bisley and you can sign up for their mailing list here...

https://mailchi.mp/8703ca1e35a9/sign-up

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD

Established at the same time as the nascent punk movement in the UK, 2000AD tapped into the same anti-authoritan zeitgeist. It was big, bold, bloody, beautiful and bonkers and for the best part of five decades this weekly anthology comic (and it's various spin offs) has been providing us with work from some of the worlds top comic creators. The role call of contributors is mind blowing, Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill, John Wagner, Pat Mills, Alan Grant, Brian Bolland, Bryan Talbot, Simon Bisley, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Dan Abnett, Grant Morrison, Mike McMahon, Dave Gibbons and so many more. All of these guys - and it was almost exclusively guys, women creators have always been horrendously under-represented in comics generally and 2000AD in particular  - would go on to define how comics looked and what they said from the late 20th century on.

Between them they gave life to hordes of classic characters, future teen Halo Jones, dystopian cop Judge Dredd, alien freedom fighter Nemesis, mutant bounty hunter Strontium Dog, Celtic warrior Slaine, genetic soldier Rogue Trooper, alien teenage delinquents DR & Quinch,  pop culture superhero Zenith, the list goes on.

It also provided us with the single greatest panel in comics...

two Dredd films of varying quality (we heartily recommend the Karl Urban one) and an upcoming Rogue Trooper one.

Over the years I've been an occasional reader of the weekly comic but am an avid reader of the graphic novels.  Many of the classic 2000AD stories have been collected together in phone book (anyone remember phone books?) sized collections and the publisher - Rebellion - continues to issue nicely produced collections of more recent stories. 

This documentary was released in 2014 and features contributions from many of those mentioned above, some of whom are sadly no longer with us, as well as fans such as Geoff Barrow, Alex Garland, Scott Ian and Karl Urban, and is a fascinating and informative watch that tells much of the creation of a great British cultural institution.

 

 

(In the interest of clarity, a version of this post has appeared here before celebrating the 40th anniversary of the comic, but I wanted to update it to include this excellent documentary.)

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Absalom

Spinning off from the 2000AD series Caballistics, Inc - which happily got a 'complete' story reissue recently - Absalom is the story of Inspector Harry Absalom who polices the agreement between the respective ruling powers of Britain and Hell known as 'The Accord' and he's not entirely happy about it.

For Caballistics, Inc. writer and artist Gordon Rennie and Dom Reardon created a recognisably current shared world setting where characters and events we know from core Wyrd Britain texts such as Quatermass and the Pit and the formative eras of Doctor Who were canon. In Absalom, Rennie along with artist Tiernen Trevallio, further developed this world adding some venerable British cops including Harry Trout from the Dr Phibes movies and the tea loving Inspector Calhoun from Death Line to the story world.

The story of Harry and his associates ran between 2011 and 2019 in the comic and has since been reprinted in three collections that tell of the ups and downs of supernatural coppering alongside the slowly building story of Harry's bigger plans; a distinctly personal quest. Harry is an old school 1970s style copper very much in the tradition of Regan and Carter, always ready with a handy quip, a well deserved slap or a pint down the boozer and with the proverbial heart of gold underneath his shabby trench coat.

"He's not so bad, once you get used to him, old Harry.  Actually, that's bollocks. He's a god awful old git most of the time but he'll never let you down."

To keep him on the job he's been given a nasty form of cancer that is held in abeyance as long as he tows the magical line and which he deals with using an ever present hip flask filled with a heady mix of booze and laudanum.  Supporting him are an unlikely crew of coppers, spies, church sponsored vigilantes, vat grown homunculi, occultists, a psychic pavement artist and a partly mechanical - formerly demonically inclined - Victorian valet.

It's beautifully drawn with a gritty dynamism by Trevallio who looks like he's having fun with it but not as much as Rennie who is channelling his inner Gene Hunt filling Harry's mouth with unrepentantly un-pc dialogue while encouraging his characters to punch as many racists, toffs, demons and racist toff demons as he can fit in the pages whilst telling a story of regret, rebellion and redemption.

As I said the Absalom story has been issued as three trade paperback collections - Ghosts of London, Under A False Flag and Terminal Diagnosis – and are hugely recommended (as is Caballistics, Inc) and anyone with a love of the type of movies and TV shows we feature here on Wyrd Britain or of an occult detective romp in the vein of Garth Ennis' run on John Constantine, Hellblazer will find much to love here.

Finally, as a taster to the series 2000AD released a two minute animated prequel to the strip which you can watch below.  It's missing the characterful black and white art from the books and it's more cartoony renderings don't quite have the required level of grit and grime but it makes for a fun watch nonetheless.

.......................................................................................... 

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain 

 Any affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

V for Vendetta

1st March 2022 marks 40 years since the publication of the first issue of Warrior magazine featuring, amongst others,  the very first episode of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's groundbreaking 'V for Vendetta'.

Telling the story of the anarchist revolutionary 'V' as he unleases his plan to take down the fascist 'Norsefire' government that's come to power in the UK following a limited nuclear war that's left much of the world in ruins. He does this concealed behind the iconic imagery of the Guy Fawkes and with the (often unwitting / unwilling) help of his young protege Evey.

'V for Vendetta' was to live long past Warrior's demise in early 1985 with DC comics reprinting and completing a coloured version of the story between September 1988 and May 1989 and then of course there was the movie adaptation in 2005. 

Despite the superhero trappings 'V' is a far more complex character than was the norm in comics at that time and his actions throughout the book are often, at the very least, morally ambiguous as Moore led the charge to drag mainstream comics kicking and screaming out of it's comfortable little rut. Indeed one of the things that made Moore's work on 'V for Vendetta' so impressive is that he was writing it at the same time as he was writing other pioneering strips such as 'Marvelman' (later 'Miracleman') and 'The Bojeffries Saga' for the same magazine, 'D.R. & Quinch', 'The Ballad of Halo Jones', 'Skizz' and a barrel full of 'Future Shocks' for 2000AD, 'Captain Britain' for Marvel UK and 'The Saga of the Swamp Thing' for DC.  He even made time to release a 7" single with David J of Bauhaus as 'The Sinister Ducks'.

So, Wyrd Britain would like to take this opportunity doff our capotain hats to thank Moore, Lloyd and the team at Warrior and then DC for bringing us one of the seminal stories of modern comics.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods

Grant Morrison is a Scottish writer most well known for his work in comics where he has written some of the biggest selling titles - Superman, Batman, Justice League and X-Men -from the big two companies. Here in the UK he made his name writing the pop star superhero Zenith (UK / US) for 2000AD.

Over the last three and a bit decades he has amassed both an impressive body of work and a fearsome reputation within his field both for rejuvenating tired old titles and providing innovative new creations of his own.

I remember first reading Morrison when he appeared in 2000AD where the work he was producing immediately marked him out as a writer to watch.  With his move to the US based publishers his output inevitably slewed towards the superhero genre that is those companies' bread and butter.  Happily his take on the spandex botherers was altogether new and he immediately hit the ground running with the post modern hi-jinx of Animal Man (UK / US) and the gloriously strange Doom Patrol (UK / US) which I read in my late teens and early twenties as a newly psychedelicised young fella and which perfectly complemented my other reading of things like Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (UK / US), provided me with my first exposure to David Rudkin's Penda's Fen (UK / US) when he quoted it - “Child be strange, dark, true, impure, and dissonant. Cherish our flame. Our dawn shall come.” - at the end of the 'Brotherhood of Dada / Magic Bus' storyline and which has recently become an enjoyably daft TV show.  Morrison's creator owned work has, for a superhero ambivalent like me, been a source of reliable enjoyment with titles such as WE3 (UK / US), St. Swithin's Day (UK) & the Moorcockian magical anarchists of The Invisibles (UK / US) a series I've returned to again and again over the years.

The documentary below was produced by the Sequart Organisation who also made the Warren Ellis documentary 'Captured Ghosts' and as you'd expect provides a thorough overview of Morrison's life and career with contributions from a cavalcade of comic luminaries and along the way investigates his key work, his parents, his alien abduction and his interests in chaos magic and psychedelics.




..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Trees Vol 2: Two Forests

Warren Ellis (writer)
Jason Howard (artist)
Image Comics

A survivor of the Blindhail Event looks for signs of imminent global disaster among the megaliths and relics of Orkney, while the new mayor of New York plans to extract his revenge for the awful thing that happened the day the Tree landed on Manhattan.

The first volume of Trees was a multinational sort of beast slipping between Europe, China, the Arctic Circle, Africa, and New York as we are introduced to some of the players and the idea of a world where giant, inscrutable alien monoliths have planted themselves in the Earth and then proceeded to not do much of anything except occasionally leak toxic waste.

Volume 2 is considerably less frenetic and for much of it's time tells of only 2  characters; sleazy New York mayor-elect and his attempts to clean house and Dr. Jo Creasy the sole survivor of the whatever it was at Svalbard in the previous volume.

The mayor's story plays out as a more straightforward action piece of political sci-fi filled with camouflage cloth and drone strikes.  The Dr. Creasy story on the other hand rings all manner of Wyrd Britain bells as she is packed off to the Orkney Islands to look for black flowers where she meets an archaeologist and things get very 'Quatermass Conclusion' which to my mind is always a good thing.

As much as I enjoyed the first book it was a little hyperactive for my sedate tastes but this is much more settled set that really opened out the storyworld in all manner of interesting ways and was an absolute joy to read.

Buy it here -  UK  / US

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
 

Trees Vol 1: In Shadow

Warren Ellis (writer)
Jason Howard (artist)
Image Comics

Ten years after they landed. All over the world. And they did nothing, standing on the surface of the Earth like trees, exerting their silent pressure on the world, as if there were no-one here and nothing under foot. Ten years since we learned that there is intelligent life in the universe, but that they did not recognise us as intelligent or alive. Trees looks at a near-future world where life goes on in the shadows of the Trees: in China, where a young painter arrives in the “special cultural zone” of a city under a Tree; in Italy, where a young woman under the menacing protection of a fascist gang meets an old man who wants to teach her terrible skills; and in Svalbard, where a research team is discovering, by accident, that the Trees may not be dormant after all, and the awful threat they truly represent.

Trees tells the stories of human existence after the arrival of extraterrestrials in the form of giant cylindrical 'Trees' that smashed into various points around the globe - including the middle of New York, rural Sicily, the arctic tundra, China -  and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing, except occasionally vent toxic waste.

Now though, many years on we join the stories of several people living in the shadow of the Trees whose lives are being profoundly impacted by their presence; a scientist monitoring a new breed of flowers, a young woman finding the teacher who can help her find her way to owning her own life, ambitious New York and Somali politicians and an artist discovering himself amongst like minded souls in a walled city in China.

As is often the case with Warren's work he begins his story with a focus on world building as seen through the eyes of the protagonists where we're offered a glimpse of who, where and what they are with the rest to be filled in as and when it suits.  I love this people centred approach,  too much science fiction is concerned with the idea over the people and whilst like the rest of you I love a big bold idea - and I think the benignly malevolent Trees are a great idea - it's the stories of the people that are the most interesting.

I'm always excited by a new Ellis book and whilst his Injection books have got me besotted this proved to be prime Warren full of invention and sass and I'm very much looking forward to the next volume.

Buy it here - UK / US

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts

Warren Ellis is an English novelist, comic book writer, screenwriter and occasional columnist.  His work is primarily within the science fiction genre often concerned with transhumanism and the politics of technology and power.

Ellis has written for all the major US comic publishers often on their major characters including X-Men, Fantastic Four, Justice League and John Constantine:Hellblazer and with his Iron Man: Extremis storyline being the basis for the third Iron Man movie - whilst also maintaining a parallel writing strand of his own unique, creator owned projects such as the sci-fi gonzo journalism of Transmetropolitan (Buy it here), the spy-fi shenanigans of Global Frequency (Buy it here) and the - sadly so far unfinished - detective noir of Fell (Buy it here).

Ellis has occasionally turned his hand to other projects producing two novels - the joyously bonkers treasure hunt Crooked Little Vein (Buy it here) and the crime thriller Gun Machine (Buy it here), and a novella, the near future techno thriller Normal (Buy it here) - as well as writing the Netflix animated series Castlevania.

Whilst having worked for the majority of his career (so far) for the US comic industry much of his writing - particularly in recent years - is infused with the history and heritage of British science fiction and horror as can be seen in the John Wyndham-esque post apocalyptic FreakAngels (Buy it here) and the Nigel Kneale inspired  Injection (Buy it here) and Trees (Buy it here) - the former of which is populated with characters riffing on classic (wyrd) British characters such as Bernard Quatermass, Doctor Who, Thomas Carnacki, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond.

Below is the 'Captured Ghosts' documentary produced in 2010 by the Sequart Organisation, who have also produced documentaries on Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman.    It features contributions from fans and colleagues such as writers Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison and Matt Fraction, artist Ben Templesmith, director Joss Whedon, actress Helen Mirren, comedian Patton Oswalt and pornographic actress and writer Stoya and offers a fascinating insight into the life and work of an author who has not only consistently produced some of the most intriguing, exciting, funny and just downright enthralling work it has been Wyrd Britain's pleasure to have read but who has used - and continues to do so - his various platforms to champion and support the work of writers, artists and musicians (myself included - here & here) and I am glad to be able return the favour as his is one of the most distinctive voices working in science fiction today and regardless of what he says at the end the documentary he is that good and he keeps on getting better.

Warren's always fascinating daily(ish) blog, 'Morning, Computer', can be found here and you can subscribe to his weekly 'Orbital Operations' newsletter here.



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Injection (vol.3)

Warren Ellis (writer)
Declan Shalvey (artist)
Jordie Bellaire (colours)
Image Comics

An archaeological dig in Cornwall has gone very wrong, very quickly. And Maria Kilbride has her hands full already, as the effects of the Injection begin to dig in. So Brigid Roth, her old comrade from the CCCU, gets hired to go to a stone circle in the middle of a moor, under a granite tor, to find out why a ritual murder might have torn a hole in the world. What is the Cold House?

The first two volumes of this series quickly established themselves as being amongst my favourite books.  Taking it's inspiration from various Wyrd Britain faves such as Quatermass, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Thomas Carnacki and Doctor Who it certainly rings all our bells.

After the Maria Kilbride (Quatermass) and the Viv Headland (Sherlock) stories of the first two volumes for this third one Irish computer type Brigid Roth does her Doctor Who thing and goes visiting a stone circle in Cornwall that has both a dead body and Maria's attention.  Upon her unorthodox arrival Brigid finds the circle to be very interesting indeed and there's a mysterious old professor with two students who seem suspiciously like henchmen hanging around.  When things inevitably go wrong it does so with almost apocalyptic effect.

As ever Warren has crafted a witty, immersive and downright exciting tale this time melding modern and ancient technologies in the manner of the best Nigel Kneale scripts.  There's a little bit of 'The Stone Tape' in there along with some 'Quatermass Conclusion' and a tiny smattering of Kneale's short story 'Minuke'.

The art team are on fire here particularly on the latter parts of the book when things start to kick off - just check out that image to the left there - although I did wonder why a newly unearthed stone circle would be so grassy.

As I said earlier, by the end of book 1 this was already a favourite and the two subsequent volumes have confirmed and strengthened this opinion and I'm only sorry that with only two books left in the series we are now past the halfway mark.

Buy it here - Injection Volume 3

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Injection (vol.2)

Warren Ellis (writer)
Declan Shalvey (artist)
Jordie Bellaire (colours)
Image Comics

Consulting detective Vivek Headland tackles a case involving a stolen ghost, but when human deli meat causes him to call for help the details of his investigation reveal a new battleground between humanity and The Injection.

In the first Injection collection we briefly met the various folks who made up the 'Cultural Cross-Contamination Unit' in the run-up to doing something, if not necessarily bad then definitely ill-conceived.  we also meet them some years down the line having had time to experience the repercussions of their actions and to know that the new surge of activity is a very bad thing.

Warren Ellis

Concentrating for the most part on Professor Maria Kilbride and 'cunning-man' Robin Morei volume one was a thoroughly Quatermassy experience filled with British folk legends, crusading scientists and embittered magicians - all the things that make Wyrd Britain feel all warm inside.  This time we're across the Atlantic and in the company of consulting detective Vivek Headland for an entirely Sherlockian ride as Headland is hired by a high flying financier to investigate the disappearance of a photograph containing the ghost of his mistress.  Into the mix are thrown a European esoteric militia called 'Rubedo' who want something the financier has - and it isn't his photo.

Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire
(photo by Pat Loika)

At first Headland seems a cold sort of chap but over the course of the story we get to see the humanity in him and with the arrival of the other two ex-CCCU members we get to see the love he has for his friends and just how much values them.  Of those other two ex-colleagues, Simeon and Brigid, they are very much supporting cast here but there is a big, beautiful splash page - massive kudos to the art team here who are strong throughout but here they excel - that tells us, in no uncertain terms, down which Wyrd Britain road we'll be travelling next - happily it's my favourite.

So, two volumes in with hopefully many more to come and this is already the book I look forward to the most each year.  I do love it when Warren gets stuck into an idea and starts to take his time to wander around, grows his world and allow each of his characters space to do their thing in their own way.  It's something so few writers, especially in comics, take the time to do and it's one of the things that makes his work just so damn good.

Buy it here: Injection Volume 2