Scottish Comics Roundup!

Scottish comics writers are doing very well at the minute in America, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison in particular, with the artist Frank Quitely doing just as well. But we lack any home-grown titles that have had similar success. Still, if you want to give Scottish comic work a try, a here are a few titles that are available.

The first comic of note is the free title The Fat Man, an online comic with any profits (which come from where, exactly?) going to charity. New chapters are released on a monthly basis, with Chapter 4 appearing about now, in January. The three previous chapters, which take up 35 pages so far, have started an action adventure tale where our hero, codenamed The Fat Man, has become embroiled in a government conspiracy that seems to involve Nazi time-travellers. Cliched as that may sound, it all whips by at such a pace that you can’t help reading on – though be warned, it's dauntingly confusing to begin with. The plot may well be daft (Why Nazi time travellers? Why always those bleedin’ Nazis? Why not any other political group, just for the novelty factor? Next time why not have, say, the Sandinistas, the sans-culottes or even the Salvation Army!) but it’s still entertaining, AND free AND online, so there’s every reason to check it out.

There’s no particular reason to check out Wasted, a new comic ‘for Today’s Youth Gone Wild [tm]’. It’s an attempt at printing a humorous set of stories, but it comes off like a knock-off version of Viz. I like Viz – that kind of humour is actually hard to do properly, and they consistently do it about as well as it can be done. But in Wasted, each story seems purely about cramming as many bad jokes in as possible, and it's saddening to see the relentless straining after laughs that this produces. For example, they have a strip about the War on Drugs, surely a fertile subject, but it stars a character called ‘Johnny Kunt’. That’s the basic standard of joke. Two other titles: ‘Lust in Space’, and ‘Hell’s Belles: Dawn of the Ned’ give an idea of the low level of ambition here. The art team, which even features Frank Quitely, is clearly talented, but the stories are a waste. Reading through it depressed me after a while, especially since it’s written in part by Alan Grant and John Wagner, two sometimes-great writers who apparently couldn’t be bothered for this title.

Another one of the writers wasted on Wasted is one Curt Sibling, who also provides art for the title. However, Sibling also puts out his own title, Total Fear. This title actually appears excerpted in Wasted, but it conforms to the rest of the content there by being not very good. Total Fear on its own is generally better. Sibling writes that it ‘features no drugs/violence/swearing that seems to be the cheap road to humour these days’ which illustrates the difference. Actually, it does feature some, if not all, of those things, but it unfolds at its own pace and doesn’t strain after cheap laughs at the expense of story. It’s still resolutely nuts, featuring H.P. Lovecraft spoofs and a ridiculous amount of nudity – sample caption: 'The Cute Witch’s Clothes Are Destroyed - In A Manner That Is Not In Any Way Gratuitous' – but this displays a certain self-awareness that makes it all very enjoyable, in a cheap ‘n’ cheerful sort of way.

Total Fear is an underground comic, however, and as such is harder to get hold of than Wasted, and certainly harder to get than The Fat Man (free, online and for a good cause folks)! Still, you can pick up Total Fear, and plenty of other underground comics, at Deadhead Comics if you’re in Edinburgh, and at (the amazing and fantastic) Avalanche Records if you’re in Glasgow. If you are a comics fan, and you’re sick of those Broons and Oor Wullie annuals you got at Christmas, then underground comics may be just the antidote you need. [Keir Hind]