The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

My goodness, hard to believe this is the end of week four of British Comics Month already and time for a quick roundup of new titles to join our growing British Small Press section since last week. This time round we start with four offering from an outfit with the brilliant name of Banal Pig Comics, brought to us by Steven Tillotson and Gareth Brookes. Featuring strips like Retard Dad and Cat Dad (hey, what gives? Parental issues???), Incompetent Shark and of course the Banal Pig himself this clearly isn’t aimed at innocent little kiddywinks. The Jolly Bear and Fun Coconut Summer Special may look like a more genial and child-friendly comic, but again perhaps something best aimed at those of us who enjoy a bit more adult humour (so if you give it to a younger reader and traumatise them, don’t say we didn’t warn you).

Man Man takes a very simple approach, often just stick figures, a bit like the old Hunkin strips, although unlike Hunkin I don’t think Gareth is trying to educate younger readers through the magic of comics. Ralph Kidson also offers readers a title which looks safe from the outside, but once lured inside Giant Clam be prepared to be offended. Well, actually, if you are easily offended you probably shouldn’t prepare, you just shouldn’t pick it up and perhaps go back to reading your comfortable old Bristow strip instead. Actually Ralph didn’t tell me much about this one, except to say it was ‘worse than Micronauts’, so you will have to make of that what you will! Meanwhile Mathew J. Pallett and Iain Grant at Stir Fried Product have a collection of tales in their first issue, which includes the Star Wars parody A New Dope – you can check out examples of their work over on the Stir Fried site.

I was kind of surprised we hadn’t received more Manga titles this week, especially given how incredibly popular Manga has become (not only one of the fastest growing areas of publishing it is also an area of comics which has a lot of appeal to female readers compared to other comics). Then Charlotte Goodacre got in touch with the first couple of volumes of her British Manga, Zaphron, which follows the eponymous heroine in a story of souls which are reincarnated over and over again, with some older souls gaining awareness of this process and with that knowledge, power, while others cannot deal with the idea of a godless universe and only endlessly repeating souls. Charlotte has a good site up detailing the outline of Zaphron’s universe, the main characters and artwork so Manga fans you can motor over to it and have a look before you take the plunge (I’m quite impressed with how much work many of the Indy creators put into their sites and the previews and feature they offer potential readers).

Chronic Fatigue cheerfully offers us some ghoulish delights with a range of horror comics, including one which has picked up a bit of a rep on the Brit Indy comics scene, Mixy, the charming tale of a young lad and his pet rabbit. Okay, a young lad with an undead rabbit and a world rapidly going under to growing numbers of the undead. The original tale from the Mixy comics continues in Our World, where the young protagonist Joe is stranded now without an ally and with a veritable army of the undead. Unusually for an Indy comics CF is also know for his merchandise, with a Joe and Mixy action figure set available too. CF also brings us his even darker, more Gothic-looking Wilderemere series (love those Victorian-style Gothic covers), where a small sea-side town has been altered by the arrival of a strange device, mixing up everything with a dark figure trying to claim power over the town, horrific deities, ghosts and a frightened orphan who may be the only hope to the events unfolding.

Although British Comics Month is almost over it doesn’t mean we won’t be looking to add on more independent UK comics creators of course. This month has given us a very good start, not only to celebrate all sorts of British comics creativity but to draw attention to some of the small press titles many readers (including myself) would not have been aware of and to try and make their work more easily available by also listing them on our webstore. That’s not something that stops with the end of British Comics Month though; we see the new British Small Press section as a work-in-progress and hope to keep adding more creators to the list as well as offering you the latest work from those who have already signed on, so come on UK comics folk – creators drop us a line, readers, have a look at some of the work on offer to you. You can also check the various sites via the links listed under British Small Press on the left hand side of the blog.