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...

Well there's Flo on my left and Mary on my right

Told you I'd been busy...

The last few weeks have been of the travelling variety - this time last week I was in Glasgow, my first ever trip north of the Wall, which was a lot of fun. Couldn't go to Glasgow without meeting up with that chum-of-chums, Mr. Adam Smith (you know, him from Khaki Shorts and so on). Along with himself he brought along fellow member of the Khaki Khollektive, Mr. Rob Miller, and I was given a "tour" of Hope Street Studios, owned by Jamie Grant and the former home of Northern Lightz and Wasted - much original artwork was perused over, from Miller and Smith and also Shug 90 and the indescribable John G. Miller (including an exercise book full of his stuff from when he was still in school, of a Scottish Tijuana Bible-quality, if that can be imagined).

The other Miller (as in Rob), ever generous as always, gave me a few bits as souvenirs, including the hefty tome above. John Miller's stuff really is like nothing else, and there's three big collections of his stuff available from Braw Books - go and seek! Think I've got nearly everything they've published now, whoops. 

Also in my goody bag was The John G. Miller Scrapbook...

As if his comics aren't nuts enough, this is a collection of clippings, ramblings, rantings and imaginary (or not?) newsletters:

"Recommended". 

Finally, from the Miller called Rob, there's this:

Big Moff - Strap On Japan, telling the tale of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton (of Arab Strap fame) on their farewell tour of Japan... If you've any idea what all the references mean, you'll "love" this one:

The whole thing's one of the funniest books I've read in ages, had me giggling all the way back to Merseyside, so it did. As did this attractive looking pub situated opposite Hope Street Studios:

From Hope Street, we trekked across town to the Briggait, home of Wasps Artist's Studios, where we had pizza and beer and met three more Scottish folk and one Canadian. One of them pulled a big pile of papers from a drawer and handed them over for perusal purposes - top of the pile being this nice bit of original Dudley D. Watkins Oor Wullie-based fun:

The rest of the pile (hundreds and hundreds of bits of paper) was all original Frank Quitely stuff - he's a bit of a "big deal" nowadays what with all his X-Men, Batman and Superman shenanigans, but all the stuff we were looking at was from the GOOD kind of comics, including tons and tons of his stuff from Electric Soup - including one of my all-time favourite comic pages (scan from Electric Soup shown here, not the original):

It was only as myself, Miller and Smith were saying our farewells before going our separate ways that they thought to mention that one of the guys we were sitting with was Frank Quitely himself... So at least I didn't show myself up being all "I love your work!" and so on, hey hey!

A couple of weeks BEFORE Glasgow, I found myself working the floor at the Manchester Film & Comic Con, where I first met a Mr. Gary Whitlock (of Acne, Gutter and Adroit fame - my issue of which I shamelessly brought along for him to sign) - from Gary I got one of his new books, Creatures of the Weirdieverse:

From Whitlock's Monkeyhound Studios, it takes its inspiration from Ken Reid's Creepy Creations and World Wide Weirdies, and my current favourite amongst Gary's lot is this one:

Later on in the day, I met Mr. Lew Stringer, who's been in most comics by now. An affable chap, he already knew my name which threw me a bit, and I felt a bit "special" when both Lew and Gary said that they read this blog thing here (hello you two!), so that was a nice chit-chat. From Lew, I got one of his new books, Brickman Begins:

Being a "digest-sized paperback", I can't fit this one under my scanner without wrecking the book, but it's definitely worth "getting" - there's a few new comics in here but it's mostly a compilation of all of Brickman's appearances from 1979-2005, from the pages of such publications as Fantasy Express, After Image, Metamorph and various small-press things, plus guest contributions from the likes of Mike Higgs, Hunt Emerson, Kevin O'Neill, Ian Churchill, Dave Gibbons and so on... I like it muchly, I do.

Whatever you take from this lot, at least it's proof that I HAVE been busy, yes?

An explanation, of sorts...

"Do you have someone who looks after you? Could I see them? Because I need to read your meter..."

Finally, finally, here we go. Part two of the extended "look at" the various adult comics put out by Galaxy/Tristar Publications during the late Eighties/early Nineties. Only... Fifteen months after the first part. 2015 was a busy year, what more can I say? And so on. Anyway, back in 1989, Galaxy Publications (of Fiesta fame) decided to have a crack at the Viz-like-comic market, initially with Brain Damage (see part one), a smart, politically-charged thing filled with quality stuff from the likes of Borin Van Loon, Hunt Emerson, Kevin Woodcock, the mysterious "Lucian", and several dozen more. At the same time, they also put out Gas, a more blatantly obvious Viz clone (but with the same editor as Brain Damage - "Big" Bill Hampton). Initially dodgy and not-all-that-good, by its demise in 1991 Gas had evolved into something fairly special - and that's what's getting looked at here today. Hang onto your bandwidths, there's over a hundred-and-fifty scans on this one...

Serious Biznezz

"Mini Comix"... Know anything about those? I didn't until a few years ago, when I got a close-to-900-page anthology of the things (this one). Small press stuff (which is always fun to investigate), on a TINY scale. Cheap, too (mostly). Got a couple of issues of one such article in the post a couple of weeks ago, No Funnies by Jason Walter (of Augusta, Georgia stock). He also emailed them to me as well, which is just as well - getting good scans of these wouldn't be any fun at all (how apt!):

The actual size of the thing is one sheet of A4, folded in half three times then stapled (so about 4.5" x 2.8")... I'm wittering about the size a lot here, it's all about what you do with it (or so I'm told) - plenty to behold within!

The contents are odd, intelligent and fast-moving - witness the career of the Pubescent Godlike Ninja Ducks:

The Hellish literary analysis of 2 Dawgs In Hades Discuss James Joyce:

The heroic adventures of The Amazing Cat Hand:

And the ongoing obsession with space whales:

No Funnies - they're fun, cheerful and cheap. Find Jason on Facebook and for $1.98 he'll send you two issues in an envelope (that's in American money, same price for anywhere in the world). It's this "anyone can do it" thing that I love and it makes me hate myself for not doing it too, instead of just reading and writing about them (although that's enough fun in itself as well). I've got a few Biro pens and a pack of paper and plenty of free time, why not?

Repeat procrastination until the End Times...

Belated Bowie 'Bituary

Well if that's not a terrific way to start the new year, I don't know what is, bah... It's been a LONG time since the death of a musician has affected the world in such a way, so it only seems right that Mr. Jones be remembered in these quarters too - and with thanks going to Mr. Ben Baker for the suggestion, we return once more to Zig and Zag's Zogazine, from the second issue dated November 1994 (the scratch 'n' sniff issue) - this highly referential and gag-filled number from Kev Sutherland and John Moore...

Count the references!

For more Bowie-based comic-stuff, have a look at Mr. Baker's write-up on the whole Bowie/Viz connection here and here.

Festivities at the Old Piano Factory

Since 1976, Leo Baxendale's first Willy The Kid Book has gone mostly unchallenged as being amongst the funniest books ever written, and I say that completely without hyperbole. Filled with trained goldfish, vampire cows, plenty of Daleks, a family of Loch Mess Monsters, a Nazi witch, progressive attitudes toward racism, leering snowmen, hidden cunts, demonic bus drivers, a dwindling zoo staff, anally-violated elephants, King Kong, flying teeth, and enough background jokes to keep you reading and re-reading for years... It really ought to be a staple part of ANYONE's bookshelf.

And of course, it being an annual, there's a Christmassy story in it too - a proper "festive spirit" one too - presented below for all to see. Enjoy the festivities if you're of the sort that likes to do that kind of thing...

Them's the vagaries

Two whole years ago I started a "thing" that involved looking at some of my favourite annuals from over the years (because it was December, and annuals are "traditionally" given/received at Christmas). Like most things in life, I didn't get anywhere near finishing it, but 'tis the season and all that so here's another entry. One from my ninth Christmas now, it's Zig and Zag: The Killer Official Annual from Outer Space!

You'll have to excuse the image quality here - all my scanner settings got reset after Windows 10 was installed, and I've only just figured them out again AFTER I'd scanned in this lot, so... apologies for that? Still worth a gander though.

Progressive Political Pornography

It's been out a while now, this one - almost everyone else has reviewed it already, and I've had it for a couple of months too. Only just read it today though, and it'd make sense to get the last of 2014's posts off the bottom of the page before 2016 stumbles upon the world... So here's a review of John A. Short's Octobriana: The Underground History.

Fascinating stuff, this is. For those that don't know, Octobriana is a public domain character, first getting the world's attention with Octobriana and the Russian Underground, "by" Petr Sadecky, in 1971. This book purported to tell of a mono-browed superheroine that represented the spirit of Communism, created by members of the PPP ("Progressive Political Pornography"), an underground publishing group on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The twenty or so pages worth of comics within the book were smuggled over to the West, and over the years (continuing to the present day) the "public domain" status of the character meant she appeared in dozens upon dozens of comics all over the place.

In actuality, it was all bollocks. Petr Sadecky was a pathological liar and a shameless capitalist who ripped off his artist friends, putting them in a lot of trouble in the process. The story behind the whole thing is an interesting one, and Mr. Short tells it all here - a story dating back to 1924, that takes in Soviet art house cinema, palaeontology, David Bowie, a pin-up artist, Goldie Hawn, Billy Idol, a brain tumour, Colonel-General Rodimtsev, Coca-Cola, Pussy Riot, The Shend, Bryan Talbot, investigative journalism, Trina Robbins, plenty of lawsuits and so much more. I usually take a few days to read a book, but did this in one sitting - as I say, fascinating stuff!

There's a detailed bibliography of all the known comic appearances of Octobriana, with fine analysis of most of them. A synopsis of the Octobriana stories that Short himself has been writing for the last twenty years, stuff about her film appearances, webcomic cameos, the lot. "Exhaustive" as they say. There's a new 34-page comic in there as well, written by Short and drawn by Gabrielle Noble (Noble's stuff has previously been featured on this blog, with the stuff done for Wasted). Personally I think the book works better without this bit - when reviewing all the various takes on Octobriana throughout the book, all her physical details are analysed and compared to the "original" comics, yet Noble presents her as just another blonde-haired red-lipsticked type. Public domain, free interpretation and all that, but still, double standards? Small criticism - there's much to enjoy here, I've learnt a lot anyway. Whilst reading it, I was thinking to myself - "Why not just put the original comics in the book, seeing as they're public domain?", but the answer to that lies in the story.

A few new pictures of Octobriana are in here too, by Lew Stringer, Vincent Danks, Neil Edwards and the ever-dependable Hunt Emerson:

Picture taken from his Facebook page - didn't want to wreck my book's spine fitting it under the scanner, see.

Diamond Distribution apparently aren't interested in this book, so it's probably going to be hard to find... Best bet is to order it from John directly, from his Kult Kreations blog. Worth the £9.99 asking price, certainly. You won't find a more comprehensive look at this cult heroine than this one...

Because this is the blog that loves to give (in a sense), below you'll find the one Octobriana thing that I have in my possession - that is, her 1992 appearance alongside Cherry Poptart, by Larry Welz and Dan Fogel. According to Short's book, this is the one that aesthetically is most faithful to the original comics, so that's nice. At the end of it is Larry's summation of the history of Octobriana, written (naively and fairly sweetly) before the "truth" about the whole thing came to be known on a wider scale.  If you've no idea what Welz's Cherry comics are like, be warned that they're very graphic, but still a lot of fun. In other words, if you're at work, surrounded by impressionable types, under eighteen, Puritanical, or otherwise not interested in that sort of thing, stop reading now! You'll probably be okay until the eleventh page (or the sixth, depending on your sensibilities) but still, fair warning and all that.