DFC Friday – Issue 37

It’s Friday, so it’s DFC day. The red and yellow envelope was waiting for us as we got back from school. Well, neither Molly or I may not really like the strip, but that’s one impressive cover featuring Spider Moon (keep wanting to write Sailor Moon!) which starts it’s second run in the comic this week.

The other notable newbie / returnee is Gary Northfield‘s really great Lil’ Cutie. (And have you all picked up your copies of his ace Derek The Sheep?) Molly very happy to see it back. Molly had a quick look at it before rushing out of the door for a snowball fight (as great as the DFC may be – there’s no way it’s going to win over the prospect of a snowball fight – quite right as well). She thought Vern & Lettuce looked “pretty” again with the gorgeous salmon pink colours and that was about it.

I’ve read it though while she’s been outside and it’s business as usual, which is no bad thing where business as usual is excellence through most of the pages. Elsewhere in the comic we have more Frontier (which is still suffering from the problem of too little per page – but still entertaining despite that) and another 5 pages of Mirabilis, which appears to be slowing slightly and as it does the art looks a little less polished, a little more rushed. Still keen to see the collection to read it in one go, but hope the quality holds up to the end. Vern & Lettuce, Sausage & Carrots, Bodkin & The Bear, Super Animal Detective Squad all highly enjoyable.

And there’s a little preview of a new strip beginning next week: Spectrum Black. Looks lovely and has the required “lots of stuff on each page” factor that seems to be essential for the serious adventure strips to really work. More on that next week.

But in the meantime – get off and subscribe!

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog: Gareth Brookes’ Non-Comics

Latest review at the FPI blog:

The mini comics of Gareth Brookes.

“Beneath it’s hand-stencilled cover, The Smell Of The Wild starts off looking rather worryingly like perfectly nature poetry. Thank god that this doesn’t continue.”

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog – Necessary Monsters

Latest review at the FPI blog:

Necessary Monsters by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey & Sean Azzopardi

“Spy Horror Thrills galore with more than a touch of the magical thrown in. James Bond with Hellblazer characters perhaps. This is Necessary Monsters; a fantastic and fantastical series from Goodbrey and Azzopardi that manages to be an all-out, ballsy, cliché-ridden horror thriller and still be bloody great at the same time.”

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Massacre For Boys – Walking Wounded

Massacre For Boys Presents: Walking Wounded

By Chris Denton & Steven Denton.

(Walking Wounded issue 1. Does exactly what it says on the cover. Art by Steven Denton)

Time for a little old fashioned boys own adventure here. It’s nothing cerebral, nothing challenging. It’s a comic equivalent of a good war movie. Think of the fun of Where Eagles Dare or Guns Of Naverone and you’ve got the tone of Walking Wounded just right. Fun, fast entertaining but not too strenuous a read. There’s a dash of black humour but whether the Walking Wounded platoon are defending an island from Nazi Zombie hoards or helping future French prime ministers defeat superpowered Nazis it’s all out action all the way through both issues.

(Walking Wounded issue 2. Art by Steven Denton.)

With the art Steven Denton is working very hard, sometimes too hard and the panels can have a little too much detailing. But at times he pulls off a good Chris Weston impression and his art does improve greatly even across these two issues. Some of his more recent work sees his art getting more and more refined, so, like much small press first steps I’ll give Steven the benefit of the doubt here. Most importantly he’s able to lay a page out well and lets the action flow nicely.

Walking Wounded isn’t breaking any new ground, but it’s not trying to. It’s simply a fun, entertaining little war adventure and there’s still a place in todays comics for that.

Walking Wounded is currently up to issue 2, available from the publishers and from the FPI webstore. Issue 3 and the anthology Massacre For Boys In Colour is in the works. The Denton Brothers have also had a Holt Bros strip in Judge Dredd Megazine #261.

Massacre For Boys online: Massacre For Boys website, Massacre For Boys blog.

DFC Day – Friday? Saturday?

Oh well, late but still here. Yesterday (Friday) was DFC day at Bruton mansions where the red and yellow envelope drops through the door and I have to wait until Molly gets home and rips it open, then reads it before I get my hands on it.

Issue 35. No time to break the whole thing down. But another, as always, good issue.

Cover by Wilbur Dawburn, really playing with the logo. The DFC has let it’s covers be altered more and more as it goes on, a plus point for them not being on the local newsagent’s shelves with the children’s comics I suppose. Wilbur’s strip Bodkin and the Bear is a genuinely funny one and has very quickly become a favourite as the tale of our stupid Minstrel and his all too cunning Bear moves forward.

Okay, out of time, but the othe laugh out loud moment? Fish Head Steve with this great mock ad leading into the strip, brilliant:

Propaganda @ FPI blog – two reviews of Francesca Cassavetti

A revised post of Francesca’s The Most Natural Thing In The World collection and a review of a couple of her great mini-comics.

The Most Natural Thing In The World
Mini Comics

“As I’ve come to expect from Cassavetti, all three are lovely, gentle, well observed pieces with her open and relaxed cartooning flowing from panel to panel.”

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog: Ninja Bunny (the return)

Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence

Review of the webcomic at the FPI blog.

“It’s still small, it’s still a thing of beauty, it’s still perfectly formed and it’s still a great little bit of fun. But if you take a trip over to Philip Spence’s Ninja Bunny website you’ll find it’s become something far more ornate, detailed and colourful entirely.”

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog – Unmasked by Martin Simpson

Unmasked by Martin Simpson.

Review at the FPI blog.

“This mix of sculpture, photography, computers and art is very much what McKean was all about several years ago. But everyone has influences, and early work is where to show them off. What matters here, much more than his influences, is how very well Martin uses those influences to show off his own work.”

It’s DFC Friday …. DFC Issue 34

Friday came and went I’m afraid in a bit of a blur, so DFC Friday becomes DFC Saturday.

But the The DFC issue 34 is out with Jason Cobley and Andrew Wildman’s Frontier gracing the cover. Inside they’re being menaced by a devious gang of werewolves in Weird Wild West. Getting better as it goes this one is, although it does suffer slightly from John Blake syndrome with each episode being not quite long enough to get enough story in. I’m beginning to think this may be down to the artist; Andrew Wildman likes big panels, which means we only get 21 panels across 4 pages. It looks nice, but maybe smaller panels to get more story in would serve it better?

New this issue is the slightly strange Wilbur Dawbarn’s Bodkin and the Bear, a 2 page “funny one” that had Molly and I smiling when the inept medieval minstrel gets captured by the bear. It’s only strange because the art looks different from the usual funny strip style. It’s more rough and angular, but funny is funny, so it’s passed the Molly test which is good enough for me.

Also this issue: Super Animal Adventure Squad by James Turner; Dave Shelton’s Good Dog, Bad Dog; Simone Lia’s ever funny Sausage and Carrots and more Lazarus Lemming. Sarah McIntyre’s Vern & Lettuce is still the high point for Molly though and this week we get to see an Underground ghost station and meet Vern’s ghostly Grandad leading Vern to utter the great lines: “Am I also doomed to spend an eternity chasing dead moles?”

As before, the two strips Molly doesn’t read are the two highlights. Ben Haggarty and Adam Brockbank’s Mezolith just looks gorgeous and reads as though Haggarty was in the room reading it to you. And then there’s Mirabilis. This time round we get to see a devious old wizard’s escape from Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane, our hero gets filled in on what’s going on a little more; seems the green comet’s trail across the sky happens every thousand years or so and always brings with it miraculous events. Camelot, the Arabian Nights, Hercules, Odysseus and the Mahabarata. What it has in store this time we shall wait impatiently for.

More next week. Maybe even on the Friday this time.

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog: The Wolfmen

Latest review at the FPI blog:

The Wolfmen by Dave West and Andy Bloor

“But of course, given the title and the blurbs and the whole tone of the book, you knew exactly what was coming from the very first time you saw the gang, if not before.”