Mr X by Paul Rivoche (via Comic Alliance)

Which put me in the mood for more Mr X… so much to choose from…. and the more I look the more I can’t decide. And you must understand here that I’m merely pondering the covers, it would take me too long right now to discuss the insides with you… but just quickly….

Dean Motter’s series began in ’83, featuring the mysterious Mister X, supposedly the architect of Radiant City, the beautiful, brutal, madness inducing setting for the comic. Mister X’s design included elements of psychetecture that went horribly wrong, a utopian paradise became a nightmare city, and X wanders through it, attempting to cure his city and its people.

The interior artwork and story was initially handled by The Hernandez Brothers, then by Motter & a young Seth when Los Bros walked from the comic after a few money issues with Vortex Comics publisher Bill Marks.

My real love of Mister X comes not from that first volume though, but from the memorable second volume, written Jeffrey Morgan with art from Shane Oakley and D’Israeli with inks by Ken Holewczynski.

I loved it, it got me at just the right time, in just the right way. When I’d done that I went back to volume 1, and although the art deco infused stylings are beautiful and the story inspired, the expressionist stark black and white of volume 2 still wins me over.

Dark Horse have recently released two huge hardcover collections of both volumes. For the Hernandex / Motter heavy volume 1 you want the Mister X Archives. But trust me, I’d recommend you give Mister X: Brides Of Mister X & Other Stories a go.

But enough guff from me, one feature of both volumes that consistently amazed were the covers….. and luckily there’s a complete Mister X gallery here. But these are my faves….

(Dean Motter volume 1 issue 2, Seth volume 1 issue 11)

(Steve Sampson volume 2 issue 7, D’Israeli volume 2 issue)

And finally, on this little Mister X nostalgia trip, one of my favourite covers of all time, and the exception that proves the rule as to how awful variant covers are….. Brendan McCarthy’s 4 versions of Volume 2 Issue 1:

Beware! Spoilers abound beyond this point!

Just over a year ago, Brendan sent me an email regarding a possible new series for 2000AD. We’d worked together before on a couple of Dredds, where he’d come up with the plots and I’d done the scripts, and while my stuff was a bit ‘wordy’ – I have a habit of erring on the side of dense, ‘old-school’ verbiage, which isn’t always the right way to go – he obviously liked the way I extrapolated on his ideas enough to bring me in. This time, he was after – I quote – “a new, wacky, totally surreal “Sooner or Later/Hewligan’s Haircut’ type of strip called THE ZAUCER OF ZILK… It will mix the surrealism of 60′s Dr Strange with a ‘Lord of The Rings’ imaginative scope. And with a bit of The Mighty Boosh in there too.”

And attached to the email were these sketches…

Well, obviously, I jumped at the chance. A couple of days later Brendan gave me a phone call in which he gave me the seeds of the plot, including what became these very pages – in fact, the plot for this first episode is pretty much unchanged from his original idea. After that, I was working more to a basic skeleton, mostly extrapolating from Brendan’s sketches but occasionally dropping in my own ideas – like Charognae, the nightmarish spectre of age and decay who’ll be haunting the Zaucer soon enough. Once I had the plot sorted, it went into a back-and-forth process of emails to get any impurities and things that didn’t quite work smelted out of it, and then we moved onto the scripts, which went through a similar to-and-fro process to get them exactly right before they were sent off to Tharg for approval.

Anyway, before I give anything else away, here’s page one:

Rain’s a big part of this. Errol Raine was the figure who caught my imagination first out of all the characters (apart from the Zaucer, of course, sir) and with his four lightnings and four puddles it’s easy to see why. He rains in error. Forgive him.

Raine is the Zaucer’s opposite number – where the big Z is all pop and dash and dazzle and fame and fortune, Raine is wet weather and cold nights, sour luck and ill wind. He came to represent all the bad things in life – depression, despair and failure, the rain that gets in no matter how you try to keep it out. If it’s raining in the strip, you know that Errol Raine’s close by in his exquisite misery, waiting to make things worse.

Our first look at the Zaucer to be. At the time, I was getting into Joe Orton – it didn’t make it into the final product so much, but Peter McEnery’s performance as the young Mister Sloane was in the back of my mind during the back-and-forths with Brendan, and when I came to write the scripts. If you’ve ever seen the film, you’ll know how McEnery’s arrogant sexuality almost drips off the screen, and I tried to trap a portion of that in the Zaucer. I did have to tone down the arrogance a little at first – he was a bit too Sloanish to be sympathetic – but pretty soon we found the proper level.

Meanwhile, in the puddle, strange reflections. More on that as we have it.

I like the creepiness of these pages – Raine’s really quite Satanic here, offering his temptations. One bite and your soul is gone… who knows what terrible things Raine’s sinister magic could do to a human body if let out of its bottle? And who’s to say we won’t see the full foulness of it for ourselves in just a few short weeks? I couldn’t possibly comment.

The ‘sweet hearts’ were Brendan’s idea, another bit of detail relayed during that original phone call. It makes for some great imagery – the one glowing packet in that dreary monotone shop. Nobody does pop and pzazz quite like Brendan, but there’s a qlippothic other side to that in that nobody does murk and drear and awfulness quite like him as well, something I tried to exploit where possible. The Zaucer Of Zilk ended up going quite deep into those contrasts – as a wiser man than I once said, it’s a yin-yang kinda thing-thang…

More creepiness as Raine passes by like a ghost ship in the night. Four lightnings, four puddles.

Meanwhile, more fun with the Sweet Hearts. Are there some mystery messages being conveyed there? Hints of the future to come? I’ve said too much.

And at the turn of the page, we burst out of this rainy prologue…

And get into the real story. Crissymouth and Spantalex form the Zaucer’s entourage – one a rough chum from his days in the orphanage, the other a hovering presence sent by his betters to teach him the joys of etiquette. But you’ll be seeing more of them as the series goes on. Meanwhile, this is the Zaucer as he truly is – can you believe that in an early draft I wanted him naked in this panel? That would have probably been too much of a good thing.

And on that note, we’ll leave it for a while. Hopefully this commentary will have whetted your appetite enough that you pick up a physical or digital copy – 2000 AD is, for now, the only place where this scrotnig saga will be available. I’ll be back in a few weeks with a look at some… fancy pants.

Electric Hoax (from Sounds 1978, by Milligan and McCarthy):

Dr. Cypher from Cipher Magazine (1980)

The excellent DC/Vertigo series Scalped by Jason Aaron reached the landmark 50th issue this week and as part of the celebrations for reaching this milestone the great Brendan  McCarthy was asked by Jason to contribute a page – the magnificent result (which to me is hinting at Ghost Riders in the Sky, after at least 3 tabs of acid) can be seen above. Bren also tells me that he’s started working on a new strip for 2000 AD, the Zaucer of Zilk, which sees him working together with the very fine Al Ewing, who Matt B has flagged up to us more than once as someone to be watching (and Matt knows his 2000 AD – you can see his interview with Al here). Bren describes it as “Sooner Or Later meets The Wizard of Oz by way of The Mighty Boosh… A great big dollop of British comics surrealism.” Oh yeah, liking the sound of that…

Brendan McCarthy kindly shares some gorgeous artwork with us, including Imaginary Story (as if they aren’t all imaginary, as Brendan commented) set in the Silver Age of Superman (above) and U-Babe 3, a  “great underwater adventure!” (below):

But much as I enjoyed these I have to say I think this one is the piece de resistance, which Bren describes as “Doctor Doom — plotted by Steve Ditko, pencilled by Barry Windsor-Smith and inked by Mike Royer.” I describe simply as bloody fabulous comics artwork. Feast your tired eyeballs on this and give thanks:

If you loved these then check out Brendan’s site for more visual treasures to lavish your photons upon, and if you have a bit of pocket money to spare then the Albert Moy comics art site is selling some of these and other works by other creators. (all art in this post by and (c) Brendan McCarthy)

From the FuckyeahGrantMorrison Tumblr. Originally published on The Strangeness Of Brendan McCarthy fansite where Brenden had this to say:

“I found this DOOM PATROL script the other day that I had doodled all over, from Grant Morrison… It was an episode that Grant wrote for me to draw back in 1991/92 or thereabouts: I asked for an old style DC ‘imaginary story’ with Danny The Street as the central character. But by the time the script turned up, I had to do a film so I couldn’t draw it and I think eventually, we all sorta forgot about it… It would be fun to draw it up after all these years and release it as a VERTIGO ANOMALY one shot.”

Yes, that would be bloody brilliant. Draw it Brendan, draw it!

(Bruce Timm gorgeousness from the very, very worth bookmarking Grantbridge Street Tumbler)

(Christopher Jones does a whole Doctor Who / Bill & Ted mashup. Via Mark Kardwell.)

(Charley Brown and Snoopy by Boulet. Via Drawn)

(Brendan McCarthy’s Dredd – always a favourite; I always loved the way McCarthy did his own unique version of Dredd’s helmet. Art from 1988 2000AD Annual. Via 2000ADonline)

(Scott Pilgrim customised Munnys by Keith Trent Renick. Via Buzzfeed/Albotas)

(2000 AD Prog 1713, cover by D’Israeli, after McCarthy; Dredd and 2000 AD (c) Rebellion)