Existential Ennui: small press

Showing posts with label small press. Show all posts

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Patricia Highsmith's The Man Who Wrote Books in His Head: Signed Inscribed Edition (Eurographica, 1986)

NB: Included in Friday's Forgotten Books, 6/3/15.

Much as I love a beautiful dust jacket (especially a British one dating from, say, the 1950s or the 1960s), sometimes the most extraordinary of books come in the plainest of wrappers. Like this one:

The Man Who Wrote Books in His Head and Other Stories by Patricia Highsmith, published by Eurographica of Helsinki, Finland (or Helsinki, Sweden, as newsreader Harvey Johnson has it in Die Hard), in 1986 as part of their Mystery and Spy Authors in Signed Limited Editions series (number four in that series, to be precise). Printed, as noted in the back of the book, "by Tipografia Nobili, established in Pesaro in 1823, on special Michelangelo paper made at the Magnani Paper Mills in Pescia, Italy" – and suitably and pleasingly thick and rough and deckled that paper is too – it was limited to 350 numbered copies signed by Highsmith, with "20 additional copies printed for the personal use of the author". This is one of those 20 additional copies:

Which Highsmith inscribed to a Catherine Schelbert – who may well be the translator Catherine Schelbert – in March 1990. A handful of copies of the signed and numbered run of The Man Who Wrote Books in His Head can be found on AbeBooks (for upwards of £100) – as can a similar number of Where the Action Is and Other Stories, a second limited edition of Highsmith tales published by Eurographica in 1989 – but I can't see any other copies of the "personal use" run, so this one is quite a rare item, and as such nice addition to my steadily growing collection of signed and inscribed Highsmith books (see here, here, here and here).

The four stories in The Man Who Wrote Books in His Head are taken from the 1979 collection Slowly, Slowly in the Wind, although three, "Something You Have to Live With", "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" itself and "A Curious Suicide", were first published earlier than that, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine ("A Curious Suicide" as "Who Lives, Who Dies?"). The best by far is the title story, in which Highsmith drily demonstrates, using the case of one E. Taylor Cheever, that one needn't go to the bother of actually writing any novels in order to become a celebrated novelist – a finding which, for myself, having attempted on more than one occasion to write a novel only to discover that my talents – if indeed any exist – almost certainly lie elsewhere, is music to the ears.

The other three stories are all very good too, though – the macabre and mildly gruesome "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind", with its wonderfully original method of disposing of a body, in an obvious sort of way, "Something You Have to Live With" and "A Curious Suicide" working a more subtle magic, both dealing with the lingering aftereffects of killing; "A Curious Suicide" in particular comes off like a condensed Highsmith novel, complete with a murderer who gets away with it almost in spite of himself. All of which leads me to suspect that the rest of Slowly, Slowly in the Wind will be well worth reading too – so it's a good job I have a first edition of that collection, which I'll doubtless be blogging about down the line, and adding to the Existential Ennui Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery, where I've deposited The Man Who Wrote Books in His Head (under "Patriciaphernalia"). And I'll be blogging about another signed and inscribed Highsmith book before too long as well – a very special association copy of a Tom Ripley novel, no less.

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Notes from the Small Press 18: John Porcellino's Autobiographical Comics: The Hospital Suite (Drawn and Quarterly, 2014); Graphic Novel Review

I've been following the work of American small and not-so-small press autobiographical comics creator John Porcellino for around ten years now, and trying to for longer than that. I think the first thing of his I heard about was the graphic novel Perfect Example, published by Highwater in 2000. Back then, however, for a Brit, even one living in London (at the time), getting hold of US indie comics and graphic novels wasn't always easy, and so Perfect Example sat on my wants list until 2005, when it was reissued by Drawn and Quarterly. That same year La Mano published Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man, and also around that mid-2000s period, at one of my two visits to San Diego Comic-Con across consecutive years, I scored a few issues of Porcellino's self-published King-Cat Comics and Stories (issues #62–64); and then in 2007 Drawn and Quarterly published the King-Cat Classics collection... Basically, I have a fair few of Porcellino's comics, and I like them a lot, so when I spotted a single copy of his latest graphic novel:

The Hospital Suite (Drawn and Quarterly, 2014; excerpt here), in Dave's Comics in Brighton the other week (having been made aware of it via Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter) I snapped it up. At well over 200 pages I guess you could call it his longest sustained narrative... except, in common with his other comics and collections and graphic novels, it's episodic in nature, comprising three overlapping stories: "The Hospital Suite", "1998" and "True Anxiety", with a small selection of additional related minicomix under "Appendices" in the back. As the graphic novel's overarching title implies, though, what links all these bits, aside from that they, er, interlink a bit (hence "suite"), is the medical theme, namely the various ailments which have plagued Porcellino throughout his life, but especially around the late 1990s.

And it's quite the list of complaints, including, but not limited to: mysterious stomach pains; repeated bouts of anxiety and depression; obsessive-compulsive behaviour; self-harming; allergies; and lower back problems. By the time I got to the end of "True Anxiety" I felt exhausted by it all, which in a way is apt: as draining as the experience is for the reader, it must have been a hundred times so for Porcellino himself, something he frequently expresses in the narrative. And to compound his despair, half the time the medical professionals he meets haven't a clue what's wrong with him, which makes me wonder whether the American healthcare system and the British NHS are really so different.

The honesty and candidness of Porcellino's account will, I think, speak to anyone who, like me, has had repeated encounters with the healthcare systems of their respective countries. In my case the early part of The Hospital Suite – "The Hospital Suite" itself – brought to mind one memorable stay in hospital in 2010, and even though the outcomes were different – surgery in Porcellino's case, a permanent prescription for Lansoprazole in mine – and I don't share Porcellino's spirituality, the direct, sincere manner by which which he communicates his experiences – his maladies, the treatments for those maladies and how he deals with it all – lends the work a veracity, a universality which can only engender empathy.

Part of why it works, I suspect, is down to how Porcellino's comics look. The naivety of his linework and guilelessness of his storytelling make his comics feel unfiltered, as if he drew them immediately after the events depicted. Which is a method he's deployed for his comics in the past – see the True Anxiety zines at the back of The Hospital Suite – but not, I don't believe, how he drew most of The Hospital Suite; this is new work documenting historical events. Still, that's the illusion he maintains – and anyway I think you can overthink Porcellino's drawing style, which is why I've tried not to dwell on it too much here: his comics look the way they look – uncluttered, sparse, barely delineated – because that's how he draws them.

Which is not to say that they're somehow dashed off, despite initial appearances to the contrary. Porcellino spends a lot of time getting his comics right. It's no easy thing to communicate an idea, convey information or evoke a feeling in so few lines. The simplicity of his style belies the depth of The Hospital Suite. There's an art to Porcellino's artlessness.

Thursday, 24 July 2014

Notes from the Small Press 17: The Battle of Lewes Comic by Peter Cole and Annabel Cole, 2014

If Lewes, the East Sussex town in which I live and work, has a thriving small press comics scene – or any small press comics scene at all for that matter – I must admit it's rather passed me by in the six years since I moved down here from London. That's not to say such a thing doesn't exist; I just haven't seen any evidence of it on sale in any of Lewes' shops. Or should I say almost any evidence; because there is this:

The Battle of Lewes: Showdown at the Windmill, a sixteen-page minicomic written, drawn and published by Peter Cole and coloured by his nonagenarian mother Annabel (Peter is colour blind)... although I'm not sure one man and his mum really constitutes a scene as such. But anyway, initially serialized in local newspaper the Sussex Express, The Battle of Lewes was put together by Peter and his mater as part of the celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Lewes, which took place on 14 May, 1264 – the battle that is, not the celebrations, which have been taking place all this year – and led to the establishment of Britain's first representative parliament. Quite an important event in our island's history, then, as I only learned for the first time when I was reading a flyer for the Medieval Mayhem Festival which took place at the site of the Battle of Lewes, Landport Bottom, at the start of May.

Narrated in flashback by John Bevis, the man who during the battle captured King Henry III's brother Richard – the Earl of Cornwall, German King and "King of the Romans" – the comic is packed with incident and detail in regard to how events unfolded, from troop movements prior to the conflict to the taunts thrown at Richard as he took shelter in the eponymous windmill ("Are you a king or a miller?") to the gory aftermath of the battle. It's a remarkable and seemingly remarkably accurate document; a little wordy in places – one or two of the word balloons have to be seen to be believed – but necessarily so given the limited space, and Peter's charmingly outsider-ish artwork is very much in keeping with the small press comics sensibility – unintentionally, I suspect; according to this Sussex Express article he was inspired by the Eagle, not the small press scene.

Peter's amateur approach to comics storytelling – not a criticism, by the way; for me his non-professional style is why his comic works – also, I think, betrays his inexperience with the medium. Because splendid though The Battle of Lewes is, Peter's true vocation isn't as a comics creator but as a creator of plastic figurines. Under the company name Replicants and working out of a Lewes shop basement Peter makes unpainted limited edition historical and military figures, with lines devoted to the American Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Wild West and more besides. There's a gallery of some of the figures painted by collectors at the Replicants site, and there's an interview with Peter at Lewes Arts, in which he explains a bit more about what he does.

Friday, 18 July 2014

Eddie Campbell, Phil Elliott and Paul Grist's Lucifer (Trident Comics, Three Issue Miniseries, 1990)

Speaking of Eddie Campbell and the 1980s British small press comics scene – as I was, after a fashion (I was writing, not speaking), earlier in the week – coincidentally I recently retrieved this from a box in the loft:

Lucifer, a three-issue miniseries written by Mr. Campbell, drawn by his small press compatriots Phil Elliott (#1) and Paul Grist (#2–3), and published by short-lived British comics publisher Trident Comics in 1990. As Eddie himself notes on his (sadly dormant) blog, Lucifer was originally conceived for a different short-lived British comics publisher, Harrier Comics (who published lots of other comics by Campbell, Elliott, Grist and other small press stalwarts like Glenn Dakin and John Bagnall), in the late-1980s but the comic didn't get off the ground before Harrier folded. Trident did manage to publish all three issues – and a trade paperback collection – and at some point I evidently bought them – retrospectively, as back issues; I'd largely drifted away from comics by 1990 (I rediscovered them in about 1997/8) – and stowed them in a comic box.

What's interesting to me about the miniseries reading it now is how it could quite easily have been published as a photocopied small press title in the mid-1980s, sitting on the Fast Fiction table at the Westminster Comic Mart alongside all the other such minicomix (at least to my mind). It has the same freewheeling seat-of-the-pants feel as, say, Fast Fiction Presents the Elephant of Surprise, a "jam" minicomic from 1986 which acted as a kind of who's who snapshot of British small press creators in the mid-1980s, among them Eddie Campbell and Phil Elliott. Lucifer taps into that same sort of "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" energy, an approach to storytelling that was almost the hallmark of the British small press scene, or at least felt like it was; whether or not the comics were in fact tightly plotted I couldn't say.

In the case of Lucifer, the story follows the eponymous lead, "the fallen angel of biblical fame", who wears a suit of feathers "symbolic of my former glory". Hospitalised after having been run over in the street, Lucifer gets chatting to the bloke in the next bed along, who, it transpires, has a carbuncle on the end of his nose which is actually the gateway to Hell. Once the carbuncle has been removed in surgery Lucifer steals it and gains access to Hell, where he usurps Satan, assumes control of the Stygian realm and then effects an invasion of Earth, which entails him embarking on a brief career in television.

I'm not sure I've really done the thing justice there; it's about ten times more entertainingly befuddling than that synopsis implies, wending its illogical way to a suitably slapstick fisticuffs finale. Certainly it's a far cry from the rather better known Lucifer comic, the one published by DC/Vertigo from the late-1990s until the mid-2000s, written by Mike Carey and illustrated for the most part by Peter Gross and featuring as its lead the version of Lucifer created by Neil Gaiman – who, oddly enough, popped up not only in the previous Eddie-Campbell-featuring post but the one before that – on the newly published The Art of Neil Gaiman by Eddie's daughter, Hayley Campbell – and the one before that as well – on a signed hardback of Astro City: Confession – back at the start of July. And to further extend the interlinking synchronicity of this month's posts, next I'll be taking a look at a signed graphic novel by the aforementioned Mike Carey and Peter Gross.

Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Hayley Campbell's The Art of Neil Gaiman and Eddie Campbell's How to Be an Artist: Signed First Editions (and a Launch Party)

NB: Linked in this Friday's Forgotten Books roundup, 18/7/14.

Well it would've been remiss of me, I feel, having spent three or four years editing Hayley Campbell's fine illustrated biography The Art of Neil Gaiman – which publishes in the UK this week from The Ilex Press – not to get Hayley to sign and inscribe a copy to me. Which is precisely what I did at the book's launch party at Gosh! Comics in London on Friday:

The cock, by the way, was a request – kind of; Hayley had mentioned to me that she'd drawn one in a friend's copy of the book ("Three pubes per ball," she noted. "Classic") so naturally I demanded she do one for me as well. And a fine specimen it is too.

My copy of The Art of Neil Gaiman was just one among many that Hayley signed at the launch; Gosh! photographer Mauricio Molizane de Souza took some pictures of Hayley in action:

and of the crowd in general:

No idea who that gesticulating idiot in the flowery shirt in the background is, but partially hidden behind Hayley is Amazing15's Martin Stiff, who designed the book (the other half of Amazing15, Marcus Scudamore, can be seen far left looking faintly suicidal at having to listen to the aforementioned flowery-shirted idiot), while talking to Hayley is Pádraig Ó Méalóid, who gave notes on Hayley's manuscript, and to his right erstwhile Ilex commissioning editor Tim Pilcher, whose idea the book was. Also at the launch were these folk:

On the right Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote the foreword to the book, and in the middle Hayley's dad, cartoonist Eddie Campbell, whose collaboration with Neil Gaiman, The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains – a performance of which I caught at the Barbican the Friday before (Hayley did a brief Q&A onstage with her dad and Neil at the end) – features in the book. I've mentioned Eddie in passing on Existential Ennui once or twice before; he's one of the most important cartoonists this country has produced (although he emigrated to Australia thirty years ago), indeed one of the most important to ever have worked in the medium. He's probably best known for From Hell, his collaboration with Alan Moore, but his own comics are as good and in many cases even better, drawing on his own life (literally) to create a beguiling mix of autobiography and philosophy. My favorite of his works is How to Be an Artist (The King Canute crowd runs it a close second), which was originally serialized in the anthology comic Dee Vee in the late-1990s and then collected and expanded into this edition:

which was published under Eddie's own eponymous imprint in 2001. It's a rich, wry, affecting take on how a person might choose to become an artist – in this case a comics one – commit to live as an artist and try to make a living as an artist (or not, as the case may be) and how fate has a habit of intervening in all of those things when you least expect it. But more than that it's an evocation of a particular time and scene, one that I still recall vividly and with great fondness: the British comics scene of the 1980s and early 1990s, especially the bit that grew out of the Fast Fiction/Escape small press scene, which Eddie was a part of. I first encountered Eddie's work in various small press anthologies – not least Fast Fiction and Escape – in the mid-1980s (when I was in my mid-teens) bought from the Fast Fiction table at the Westminster Comic Mart, and that formative aspect of his career weaves through the narrative of How to Be an Artist, for me lending the enterprise an additional sentimental appeal.

Anyway, knowing that Eddie was going to be at the launch party for Hayley's book I took along my copy of How to Be an Artist in the hope that Eddie might sign it. In the event he did more than that:

He drew a portrait of himself as well, opposite the similar portrait of a much younger Eddie Campbell on the facing page. It perhaps doesn't have quite the same impact as Hayley's cock, but I shall treasure it equally.

Gosh! Comics launch photos © Mauricio Molizane de Souza.

Friday, 10 January 2014

Notes from the Small Press 16: Sky in Stereo #2 by Mardou (Yam Books, 2013)

I'm briefly reviving my Notes from the Small Press series (the last instalment was over a year ago; whether the series will continue beyond this point remains to be seen) because this popped through my letterbox on New Year's Eve:

The second issue of Mardou's semi-autobiographical comic Sky in Stereo, kindly sent by Mardou herself. I reviewed the first issue, which Mardou self-published, in 2012, but since then the series has been picked up by a US small press publisher, Yam Books, who issued #2 mid-last year. It received positive reviews from Chris Mautner at Robot 6 and Andy Oliver at Broken Frontier and others, so there's little point in my reviewing it as well, especially since I'm so late to the party; but I like Mardou's work a lot – I've been following it (and her) for getting on for ten years now – and Sky in Stereo is developing into the best thing she's done, and so here, for what they're worth, are a few notes and thoughts on this second issue.

I was struck by individual panels this time round, and found myself dwelling on some of them – partly because of the confidence of the line and how they work as lovely little pieces of art and text, but also the truth of them, or what seemed to me to be the truth of them.

These small moments, almost narrative asides, are, I think, a big part of why Sky in Stereo is so good. In a formal or structural sense they're not intrinsic to the story, and yet they make the story. They add depth to the character of Iris – Mardou's fictional stand-in – but not in a conscious or overly considered way; they simply speak to the truth of being seventeen and awkward and uncertain in Manchester in 1993.

I did wonder if that specific milieu was why the comic worked for me; I'm older than Mardou – or should I say Iris – but only by about five years or so, and I was at college in Manchester close to when Sky in Stereo is set. But there were jolts of recognition for me even beyond those similarities of background: watching telly during an acid trip and seeing actors "leave holes in the scenery behind them"; a mention of the rotating lands atop Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree and how you could get stuck in them if you weren't careful; a glimpse of a Teenage Fanclub Bandwagonesque poster on a bedroom wall. Those points of reference and scenes, plus positive response from American reviewers (and publishers), suggests to me a resonance far beyond those of us who happened to be in Manchester in the early 1990s.

Something I was chuffed to see was that my review of #1 has been excerpted on the back cover of #2, although that particular bit of my review does make me sound insufferably pompous.

(Then again, you could probably pick numerous other parts of numerous other reviews of mine and reach the same conclusion.)

Lastly, in a meeting of minds between two of my favourite comics creators (and people), my friend Martin Eden – he of Spandex and The O Men fame – did a nice piece of Sky in Stereo fan art, which Mardou posted on her LiveJournal at the end of last year, and which I'm reposting above.

Monday, 26 November 2012

Notes from the Small Press 15: Spandex #7, by Martin Eden; Mini-Comic Review

In the two years I've been posting these intermittent small press comics missives, the name of one comics creator in particular has remained conspicuous by its absence: Martin Eden. Martin's been a leading light in the British small press scene for over a decade, first with his epic superhero soap opera The O Men, more recently with his gay superhero saga Spandex; but more than that, for twelve years he's been one of my closest friends – which is why, quite frankly, it's an outrage that it's taken me this long to get round to featuring him.

I haven't ignored him completely, mind: I wrote about the publicity storm surrounding Spandex's launch in 2009, and I've mentioned the comic a couple of times since – plus I reviewed this year's splendid Titan Books hardback collection of the first three issues of Spandex. Still, an appearance in Notes from the Small Press is not only long overdue but, I have little doubt, eagerly awaited by Martin himself (ahem), so the recent publication of the seventh issue of Spandex strikes me as the perfect opportunity to right a wrong.

That said, if you haven't yet read Spandex, this issue is a perfectly ridiculous place to start, seeing as it's the culmination of over two years' worth of plots and subplots, with questions answered, motivations revealed and, ultimately, lives lost. The confidence of Martin's artwork and storytelling, however, is plain for all to see: clean lines, bold blocks of colour, and a tale that moves from clever fight scene to quiet character moment to explosive climax with admirable aplomb. By this point in the story the cast has become so extensive as to be verging on the unwieldy, but Martin still finds space for individual character moments (some very touching), the tying up of character arcs, and even a discussion between team leader (and cross-dresser) Liberty and Spandex stalwart Prowler on the potential ramifications of God being a lesbian.

That's actually something of a spoiler if you haven't got this far in the series, an audacious twist which provided the cliffhanger at the end of Spandex #6 and prompts a number of philosophical debates and metaphysical excursions in this issue, perhaps the best of which being a two-page sequence illustrating Martin's notion of heaven: cherry blossom falling onto a tiny, floating island where one is reunited with one's soul mate. But if that makes Spandex #7 sound a bit highfalutin, fear not: the comic's innate sense of fun is never far from the fore, whether it be a disgraceful misappropriation of the "Fastball Special" or indeed a special guest appearance by Wolverine himself, telling Liberty in no uncertain terms what she can do with her invitation to join the team.

In "Little Notes from Martin" at the back, Mart is at pains to point out that this isn't, in fact, the final issue of the series; there's another one to come, a Spandex Special, due in the second half of 2013. But Spandex #7 does mark the end of this particular storyline, and so Martin has included not only a bonus mini-comic, Spandex Black and White, featuring interpretations of the team by small press stars like Paul Rainey, Grant Springford and Graham Pearce, but one of ten different badges as well (mine sports a picture of Pussy).

Spandex #7 is available to order for £3.20 for UK readers and $7.00 for US ones (both those prices including postage and packing) from the official Spandex website, along with all six previous issues. I can't recommend them highly enough – and I'm not just saying that because Martin and I are mates. Well, not entirely...

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Notes from the Small Press 14: Planet 4, a Monitor Story by Chris Reynolds (Mauretania Comics, 2012)

While we're all waiting, breath appropriately bated (ahem), for the next instalment in the Great Tom Ripley Reread, let's have a Notes from the Small Press, and a return to a creator who featured very early on in this intermittent series on small press comics: Chris Reynolds.

Back in 2010, Chris, you might dimly recall, kindly granted me permission to reproduce one of his Monitor stories for the second Notes from the Small Press: "Monitor's Human Reward". As I said at the time, "Monitor's Human Reward" is my favourite ever comics short story, but I struggled to articulate why exactly that was – because the thing about Chris's comics is, although I often find them deeply affecting, pinpointing their peculiar appeal is tricky. They're elliptical, elusive things, characterized by a wistful sense of loss or longing, an evocation of solitude and introspection. This is especially true of the Monitor tales, and it's certainly true of Chris's latest Monitor comic, Planet 4, available for $2.99/£1.95 from Smashwords, Amazon and other e-retailers.

Told in a one-panel-per-page form, Planet 4 follows Monitor as he returns to the eponymous world where he once lived, revisiting old haunts and reflecting on his feelings about the place now. It's ostensibly a science fiction tale – Chris himself describes it as "meditative science fiction" – but the SF trappings, as mysterious and intriguing as they are, aren't where its appeal lies: anyone who's ever gone back to a town or city in which they once resided will recognise the plaintive emotions the story evokes. But Planet 4 isn't just about the past: it's about the future, and change, and lives not lived, epitomized by a twin planet which hoves into view, unannounced, halfway through, like one of the lands at the top of Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree – a place of "maybes" and "might-have-dones".

Friday, 27 July 2012

Notes from the Small Press 13: First, by Tom Gauld and Simone Lia (Cabanon Press, 2001)

NB: Featured as one of this week's Friday's Forgotten Books.

In the wake of yesterday's signed copy of British cartoonist Tom Gauld's graphic novel Goliath, let's take another short break from the signed editions to spend a moment or three on Gauld's debut self-published comic, presented as part of my intermittent Notes from the Small Press series:

First was Gauld and fellow cartoonist Simone Lia's first foray into the world of small press comics, published under their own Cabanon Press imprint in 2001. At the time, the two friends were still studying at the Royal College of Art in London, and both have gone on to bigger things – Gauld with his regular work for The Guardian newspaper and books for Buenaventura Press and Drawn & Quarterly, Lia with the graphic novels Fluffy and Please God! Find Me a Husband for Jonathan Cape. But First was the, well, first glimpse of their particular, peculiar talents, and as such proved instructive as to what was to come.

Lia's main contribution to First is an eight-page story (untitled, like all the stories in the comic) about a woman who develops "road leg" – basically her left leg turns into a road – featuring a walk-on cameo by a talking table lamp who appears earlier in the comic. It's as odd as it sounds, but infused with a wiggly charm which would serve her well in the later Fluffy. Other than that, her remaining pages are all single illustrations, snapshots from what look to be longer works, although ones which possibly only exist in her imagination. Gauld's strips alternate between the goings-on at a remote castle keep – these would become the comic Guardians of the Kingdom later in 2001 – and the adventures – or lack thereof – of two astronauts travelling to the Moon. His signature style is already firmly established even at this early stage in his career: fantastical situations punctured by mundane banter and punctuated by stretches of stillness.

As beguling as Gauld and Lia's cartoons in First are, however, what really made the thing stand out from the majority of British small press comics of the era – at least for me – were its production values. Professionally printed and bound in a minimalist rough card cover, First was a cut above much of the photocopied mini-comix fare to be found on the shelves of London's Gosh Comics (which is where I'm pretty sure I bought my copy) – a comic that was clearly, and correctly, pleased with and proud of itself. In a way, the blunt anti-humour of Gauld's strips in particular, but also Lia's to a degree, were quite at odds with the look feel of the comic overall. A comic as well-produced as this would typically be published by Americans, its interiors containing the kind of opaque art comix seen in, say, Kramers Ergot (which Gauld would in fact begin contributing to as of the 2005 fifth volume, sticking out – in a good way – like a sore thumb).

If anything, however, Gauld and Lia probably owe more to British daily newspaper strips and cartoons (and maybe American ones; Gary Larson springs to mind in Gauld's case), or perhaps even scabrous humour title Viz, than they do to alt. or art comix. Theirs is a sensibility more in tune with Monty Python's Flying Circus or Spike Milligan: gags that aren't really gags; jokes whose punchlines never come. In other words, very silly, and very, very British.

First was followed, surprisingly enough, by Second in 2002, the two comics then being collected by Bloomsbury in 2003 as – wait for it – Both. Gauld and Lia continued pumping out fun little mini-comix through Cabanon Press over the following eight years, although latterly other commitments have meant that Cabanon has gone on hiatus. But First provides a peek at two talented cartoonists at a formative stage in their career, and over a decade on from publication still stands as an intriguing and rewarding comic in its own right.