Faint Praise

A review of 'New British Comics Volume 3' from the Forbidden Planet blog.


"Next strip of enjoyable note is Matthew Craig and Richard Johnson’s “Here Comes The Neighbourhood“. Craig’s comics (Hondle, Trixie Biker et al) are well enjoyed round these parts with their typical mix of nicely done characters and a big dollop of cheer – sometimes wrapped in sadness or melancholy perhaps, but they’re a celebration of humanity for the most part.

But not here. Neighbourhood is a comedy sure, but it’s a scathing and dark one, attacking today’s mass media, celeb obsessed cultural vacuum where someone as worthless to the gene pool as Kerry Katona makes a fortune simply by being alive, stupid and always available for interview.

Taking Big Brother and it’s ilk as a starting point, Neighbourhood simply takes it a little further. If everything is televised, and if your life is just a gameshow, open to the whims of the public, how bad do you want to play? In ten pages, Craig delivers a dark, funny, scarily believable tale with a nicely sketched out cast of diverse characters. Most enjoyable, and the art by Johnson is rather nice as well. Rough in places, but there’s a lot of promise of these pages, a real improvement on his previous work in the other Matthew Craig written series; the Brummy super-saga Bostin’ Heroes."


That's about right, I think. It is better than the Bostin' Heroes I did, some of which makes me squirm, and it is rough in places. If I could remove the roughness maybe I'll be onto something. Thing is, I often know the roughness is there and don't do anything about it, whether through cack-handedness, idleness or deadlines, and then they're the bits I berate myself about.

I'm still very much learning to find a style, I think. The more I do, the less I like what I've done before.Still: there's always the next one, and I shall make the next one better.

I hope.

Music on Monday: Go South, Young Man

I've been banging on about Danny Schmidt to anyone who'd listen for some time now. Oddly, as you can see from the sumptuous auditorium in which he is here performing, he doesn't yet seem to have eclipsed Bob Dylan in the public consciousness. This even despite having the full weight of the internet juggernaut that is Baboonery behind him. Baffling.

I love 'Southland Street.' It's essentially a 'Little Musgrave' for industrial America, and is a demonstration of everything Mr Schmidt does so brilliantly.

He carries off a hat well, too.

You Sank My Reverend Green!

A Fistful of Dollar

Wendell Hicks: a man with a mission.

(Click to enlarge, or you can see it in excitingly serial form here.)



(The book was nearly by Gideon Hupp, or Gallup Hoff.)

That's My Glove? Prove It.

I was sketching out this today:


And Laura said "you've a thing about people putting on black gloves." She's right; I've got this up on my wall, a test sketch I did:


It just speaks of sinister intent. I wondered why and about five minutes ago it came to me: it's Jack Palance's glove.

Neighbours

Some samples from the strip, Here Comes the Neighbourhood, written by Matthew Craig, which made it into the New British Comics Vol. 3 collection. I've updated my website with some more samples. If you want to see the whole thing you'll have to buy it.

Wendell? Gee.

While sitting behind my table at Warkworth Art and Craft fair yesterday I had ample opportunity to rough out a comic strip and sketch out the central character.

This is Wendell Hicks. He is a man with a mission. What he and that are will be revealed in a two-pager shortly.