The below opinions are that of the individuals who have sent them in and do not represent the collective view of the Amateur Comics Guild.
Information: This is a strange duck because the artist and writer will not let there name be known and will simply go just by Grey Publishing. Issue one is only available on Lulu.com. It has a strange but very flashy website at www.greypublishing.com. The comic is black and white.
Review: “CARBON is a comic book magazine with properties designed for a more mature comic reader” or so the description in the introduction says but to be honest the only thing ‘adult’ about it is the ton of swearing and that certainly isn’t done in a ‘mature’ way. Between the mysterious use of no names and cryptic website this does have a feel of pretensions nonsense about it or maybe it’s just me being cynical. Story wise it reads more of a basic introduction to the universe instead of a character lead story. The dialogue is simple and does the job but doesn’t really set my world alight. Besides, you can’t move on a panel without hitting a ton of asterisks hiding swearing and the such like. It’s the artwork that really sells this. Its mostly pencil work with ink here and there to make certain stuff stand out. The pages that shine are the city sections where you get to see almost photorealistic shots of Times Square, which look amazing. Looking into for a bit more information it seems Carbon.1 was released in 2005 and there is no sign of Carbon.2. Which is a shame because the gothic universe of ‘Val-mar prince of the damned’ looks like it may have legs depending on what issue 2 had planned. Yes this comic has its flaws but they are easily looked past, at over £5 for this comic I can’t see it selling a lot but if you get the chance to read it then please do.
Information: Blood Psi is a vampire comic published by Moonface Press and is written by Andy Winter and drawn by Keith Burns.
Review: Okay so here’s the deal with Blood Psi… it’s a Lesbian Vampire story! Now like me your first thought would be that this was wrote by some juvenile writer saying to himself “what’s cool?... oh shit yeah Vamps man… and oh, oh lets make her a Lezza… hot!” and you’d expect a low brow ‘sexipade’ into extreme violence and lesbian action. Well not only would you be wrong but you’d be king of the wrongs! This comic is amazing. Andy Winter who wrote ‘Hero Killers’ has done a cracking job with the characters especially the lead who is handled in a mature and interesting manner and not the typical big breasted, character you’d expect or for that matter the typical type of Vampire you’d expect (Vamps having relations with Humans?!?!?!!). As a one shot story it works great but also can lead to a very interesting series. The artwork is classic black and white line work. Keith does a really good job with the interior art but it doesn’t blow me away. Moonpress have a real hit on their hands with this one and for one I’d like to see more in this series.
Information: The comic book is from Sweden and translated into English. Script by Kjell Emanuelsson, Artwork by Robert Sammelin and both doing the colouring. Availiable to buy from Lulu.com only.
Review: This is a primitive and brutal DIY comic book about the criminals Lucia Bruno, Marian Morrison and Oktan Say and in my humble opinion one of the best small press comics I’ve ever read. Everything is spot on with this comic be it the artwork, script, printing quality and even the size of print they’ve decided to go for. It really has a top draw feel about it. The script itself is about three members of a criminal crew set a good way into the future and feels like an after watershed Firefly (Joss Whedon’s greatest creation). Emanuelsson constructs an excellent script that tells you all you need to know about the characters in the first two pages. The comic has some brilliant comedy scenes slotted into what basically is a violent comic. The art by Sammelin is 100% spot on by far the best I’ve seen in this market by some considerable distance (Ed – obviously excluding any Unico stuff) and you can tell it was a labour of love. I’d highly recommend this to any comic reader and it’s a damn shame that there sees to be no issue 2 on the books to be made.
Information: Dave West and Colin Mathieson at Accent UK comics have always hoped they’d get around to do this anthology. Anyone that knows them knows that robots are their favourite science fiction concept. Bigger than ZOMBIES, ROBOTS was launched at the Bristol Comic Convention 2008. It contains 41 seperate stories from a huge number of writers and artists.
Review: I was one of the lucky ones to buy a copy of this at Bristol for a very nice price of £8. Trust this is a bargain for near enough 200 pages of quality printing. The hard part of doing this review is mentioning everyone’s work, which will be impossible on my ikle Blog so I will just review my favourite comics in here. First up is…
Ned Iudd’s Museum – by Jim Thompson & Shaun Mooney
One of the final comics in the anthology is a marvel of story telling with regards man’s ongoing quest to get machines to do all their shit for them. The comic revolves around Ned Iudd who is a curator at a museum that deals in old robots from years gone by. He narrates a story about how machines became the dominant intelligence on Earth as man passed over more and more responsibilities to the machines. It’s a very dark tale and the artwork by Shaun matches brilliantly to the feel of the story.
Divinity, Existence and Toast – by Benjamin Dickson
This is one of the better comics from an artistic point of view (well more to the style I like should I say). The comic is about a woman who buys a robotic toaster that wakes up one morning to decide that it is in fact God. The humour comes from the relationship of the woman and the ego mad toaster and makes a very enjoyable section in the anthology.
The Creator – by Tony Hitchman & Leonie O’Moore
Not great art wise but a cracking read with an excellent twist at the end.
Made Men – by Jay Eales & Charley Spencer
For some reason this reminds me very much of a Garth Ennis comic. Very dark and violent and with a hero who is a complete bastard but you can’t help but love.
Teruo – by Paul Bowles & Marleen Lowe
A story based on a gangsters’ moll and a Ronin robot samurai that is charged to look after her. Very good artwork with hints of Tim Sale about. The characters are nothing new but you feel for them and especially the lead female character.
Information: Hero Killers is an Eagle Award winning comic book written by Andy Winter and illustrated by Declan Shalvey. It was published by Moonface Press. Hero Killers was voted Favourite British Black and White Comicbook of 2006 at the Eagle Awards at the 2007 Comic Expo in Bristol.
Review: You can’t swing your dick in the small press comics community without slapping your bell against a blog/website/magazine review raving about how amazing Hero Killers is. So I though why the hell not and buy a copy. No way I can be disappointed with this… regrettably I was. Now look I’m not going to sit here and slag it off cause this comic won an Eagle Award for gods sake and those guys look like they know what they are talking about. But I can’t feel like being left cold to this title. The character seem a little two dimensional (no pun intended) and cliché. Serious these guys we’ve seen before in many a film or comic but the stand out character for me is ‘Power Cord’. Yes this guy may look like the lead singer of Nickleback but he had a real presence on the page. Witty banter and an interesting power of being able to derive superpowers from different types of music I was ready to read this guy up and BANG that sucker is dead. The premise of Hero Killers is quite a good one. This evil lass decides to kill off the heroes but starts with the small fry first and making a few dollars while doing it. And God bless her she gets away with the plan as well until a stray sniper bullet misses the intended target and the brown stuff hits about five fans at once. I’m not going to ruin the end for you but it was an excellent reveal. The artwork in this is a bit hit and miss with me to be honest. The first couple of pages just look rushed and Page 5 for some reason turns has the last panel on it’s side. But as you get in the art gets better. My favourite page being Page 12 with the bug zap at the bottom. All in all the pacing and layout of the art is brilliant and it flows really well. So will there be an Issue 2 and more importantly would I read it… the answer is yes.
