Gobbles?

Here we are now... Part Five (or six or seven or eight or whatever) of the multi-part "look at" the various adult comics that Galaxy Publications "put out" in the late Eighties and early Nineties. And how about that, it's December and we've got to a title with "turkey" in its name. Talking Turkey is what this one is:

This one started in 1991, and lasted for eight issues under the editorship of Ross Gilfillan - and I'll get this bit out of the way first: Talking Turkey has stuffing so far up its own arse that it's more or less inside out. The letters pages are full of the sycophantic drivel that can bring vomit to the mouth, and there's not even all that much original content in there. There's a BIT, obviously, but mostly Talking Turkey is reprints of American underground stuff, translations of European comics and highlights from Knockabout's Crack Editions. But for all of that... I really, really, REALLY like it. Each issue is 48 pages, only one of which (the back cover) is an advert. I'd be all over it if something like this was being printed today - it's best to think of Talking Turkey not as an "original title" in the grand scheme of it all, but as a "best of" in "alternative" (urgh) comics in general... Shall we begin?

Trunks, tails, ears, eyes, tusks, feet, mouths, and wrinkly grey skin

Not the Michael Nesmith film, but another Galaxy/Tristar comic - Elephant Parts is what appeared on the shelves instead of the fifth issue of Brain Damage's third year (1991), hence the odd numbering of its first issue:

Three cheers for Ben Baker for spotting Oink! co-creator Patrick Gallagher on the cover there.

"Incorporating The Damage" it says, but far from it - Elephant Parts is printed on cheaper paper with mostly black-and-white pages (or spot-colouring at best), and it does away with (almost) all the political parts that made Brain Damage that much more "interesting", and instead goes for a more "surreal" tone (so a bit like Gutted, but only slightly). As with most things that set out to be deliberately "weird" it's mostly a disaster, but there's also a few odd bits of genuine "goodness" - read on to find out, if you're up for it...

Robbery with violence

Thus runs the tagline for Blag, and it's a fairly accurate one too - this could possibly be one of the most pen-crunchingly, ridiculously violent Viz-type comics that there is! All seems well on the cover, if not slightly odd, in a "we-are-here-for-you" kind of way:

Your basic information here is that Blag lasted for about a year from August of 1990, it was edited by Craig McDonald, published by Sceptre Marketing, and features several familiar faces we've already met.

And with that... Let the catharsis begin?

Devastated? The Prequel!

Not long after starting the write-up on Gutted, I found out that Gutter was actually the comic that was out BEFORE Gutted, and also from the same company - Humour Publications. That's my explanation for the lack of chronology here. I have no explanation for the amount of time that's passed since the last update here. Just call it an inflammatory lung disease or a broken arm or whatever.

Gutter then. A very similar name to Gutted, but it couldn't be more different to it. Well, it could, but we're only talking about it in terms of rude British comics for the time being. For the sake of documentation, I think we're looking at a start date of around 1990 here - the earliest issue I have is number eight, and that's got 1991 on it, so we'll go with 1990 for now unless I'm corrected.

Carry on reading to see just how "different" it is, if you're interested at all...

Devastated?

Here's a lesson in why setting out to initially do things in a chronological order was a doomed task from the start... As in, I had this "piece" all ready and prepared when I found out that this particular publication is/was the "sequel" to another one. No worries, I'll just have to shift things around a bit and "do" Gutter after this one - which is called Gutted.

Get me and my fancy sample edition

The story goes that there was a comic called Gutter, itself an off-shoot of Zit - same publishers and everything (Humour Publications), and when things weren't going so well there Gutter was shut down and re-launched as Gutted, printed on cheap paper and using spot-colour throughout, and claiming "bizarre humour" as its selling point. Yep, it's rude comics having a go at surrealism, with mixed results.

Before I got hold of any issues of Gutted, I was informed that it was the equivalent of what you'd get if you could staple wank together - an understandable opinion when looking at lazily "random" bits like these:

Yes, that thing that Noel Fielding does nowadays, only on paper. I stand here today to say that despite such rubbish as this, I enjoyed reading the four issues of Gutted that I've acquired so far. I really have! 

The "proper" first issue

Conceived and written mostly by Ged Backland and Shaun Taft (previously featured here within the pages of Igor), and lasting for... Maybe seven or eight issues? Beginning in 1992 anyway, and the only source I've found so far says it lasted for "about" eight issues, so that'll do for now. Let's have a peek at what else constitutes "bizarre humour", shall we?

Erk!

Oops, and suddenly it's October. I was planning one more "rude" comic, then a clever segue sort of thing into some seasonal "spooky" stuff... If I get my arse into gear, it COULD still happen, but something presented itself this morning (or yesterday?) that couldn't be left languishing on the hard drive. It's this thing here:

An unpublished comic from Fleetway! Not the kind of thing any sensible comic-enjoyer should ignore, certainly not. According to a Mr. McScotty of the Comics UK forums, this was a mock-up of sorts, tried out on the kids of several Glasgow primary schools, around 1991-ish. It never went any further than that, but ask and you shall receive...

Over to Lew Stringer:

Oh No!! was the brainchild of cartoonists Dave King and Ian Ellery (hence the alias 'Ellery King') who had met with Fleetway to discuss packaging a new humour comic for them. Fleetway okayed the idea and Dave and Ian put together a 32 page dummy issue with contributions from many other creators including myself. 

Fleetway printed a very small run of the comic (perhaps about 200, I forget) and did some market research at schools. The reactions were very positive indeed. Oh No!! was totally different to any children's comic of the time. It had no house style, no adherence to formula, and was closer in style to Oink! but without the rude bits or pig theme. The fact that it did have its own identity is one thing that the kids liked. (For example, when asked to put the comic on top of other comics they thought were similar, the kids created a new space for it.) 

Everything was looking good. Dave and Ian even booked a hotel for us to have a pre-launch get together with all the other creators. Fleetway were keen to do this new comic. The mood at the pre-launch was very optimistic. 

And then things went pear-shaped. A change of management (I think this is when Egmont took over, - not 100% sure) suddenly put the project on hold. And it never happened. Not attributing any blame. It just wasn't the sort of comic the new owners wanted to do. They wanted licensed properties, not creator-owned new characters. 

It came so close though...

If copies are in circulation they must be the ones given to the school for market research or contributor's copies. It was never distributed to shops or to anyone outside of Fleetway & the research team. 

And now, just under a year after I first enquired about this oddity, along comes someone by the name of Alfie. He kindly scanned in his entire dummy copy for the folk of the forums to take a gander at, and now he's only gone and sent me some super-high-quality scans of it all. And here it is!

More Beano things

Typical, isn't it? I spend weeks looking through all my stuff for amusing alternative takes on the Beano, spend an evening posting them all up here, then two days later a couple more turn up. Not to worry though, because here they are. And they're both (sort of) the fault of Kev F. Sutherland.

Back in the early 1990s, Mr. Sutherland ran a comic called UT. One of the "regular things" about the comic (and one which may ultimately've led to its demise) was the back cover being an upside-down parody of another comic or magazine, such as Hello!, Shoot or, in this case, The Beano. And a fairly convincing knock-up it is, too:

That particular cover leads into a typically surreal (and VERY un-Beano-ish) episode of Funny Bunnies by Phil Baber. Just for the fun of it all, here it is:

The next item is also from a Kev Sutherland product (and POSSIBLY drawn by him too). It's from the first issue of Zig and Zag's Zogazine, a comic based on that puppet duo (obviously), with each issue following a loose theme. For the first issue, that theme was comics, and one of the features is this nice spread, titled Zig and Zag's Wacky World of Comics. Not only does it feature a Beano spoof, it also satirizes The Dandy, The Topper, 2000AD, Action Comics, The Fantastic Four, Eagle, The Amazing Spider-Man and even Viz!

Click on it to read it "properly", of course. 

Oh, and now that I've done this, logic dictates I'll find more takes on the  Beano within the week.