The Magic of Comics

You will recall that I was recently in Nottingham. This town is blessed with Page 45, the UK’s greatest comics shop, so we went there and bought some comics. My beloved bought Bigfoot’s autobiography. Sadly, she has no blog of her own and so cannot tell you about it, but I thought it was pretty funny. I picked up the first of those Strangehaven books, written and drawn by Gary Spencer Millidge. My homie Wood likes this title. The book treads a kind of British fantasy road, with signposts to things like Children of the Stones, The Prisoner, The Wicker Man, or Twin Peaks (this last not actually British, obv.). Following an accident, the main character finds himself stuck in the rural locality of Strangehaven, with events conspiring to make it hard for him to leave. Stuff happens. As the first book, it’s all a bit introductory.

But what do I think of it? Well, in some ways I thought it was a bit meh, a kind of witches cauldron of random weirdo events with no obvious sense of there being any overall narrative sense to it. On the other hand, I devoured the book, greatly enjoying it while reading it, and am very keen to acquire the second volume. So I reckon that despite the urgings of my intellect, at some bestial level this book greatly appeals to me.

In retrospect - I'm really selling this comic short, it's a bag of fun. If I wasn't such a slackass I would have bought and read all the subsequent issues by now.

The other book I bought was The Birthday Riots by one Nabiel Kanan. I bought this because I stumbled across a copy of it last time I was in the shop. It’s about this guy who is involved in a campaign by some independent to become mayor of London. Meanwhile his schoolgirl daughter is becoming more politicised by the increasing racism towards Gypsies (Roma or Travellers, or both, I don’t think they are clearly defined). This book and the writer have things going for it, but overall it’s not that good. Politics is central to the book, but the author does not present it in any way credibly. The idea that now, or in the near future, the itinerant communities of England will in any sense present the kind of force that can stage monster riots in central London is frankly laughable. The ability of a candidate to suddenly leap from third place to front-runner by saying “We really need to do something about transport in London” is also a bit unrealistic. Likewise, the depiction of the gypsy folk in the story seems a bit half-baked, with the author just inventing a major aspect of their culture as a plot device.

The sexual politics are a bit strange too. The mayoral candidate brings a woman onto his election team. She is quite attractive. Her very presence indicates that the candidate is a sell-out.

So what’s good about the book? Well, I liked the art and aspects of the characterisation, and it has nice moments to it, but overall the political stuff is a bit suckass.