Happy Birthday, 2000AD! from artist and fan Ant Mercer

Name: Ant Mercer

Blog or web site: Merkerwork.co.uk or http://merkerwork.blogspot.com/

Currently working on:

Various freelancing projects, currently animated videos for the corporate websites and drawing in exchange for money.

First memory of 2000AD?

1985 (maybe?) On the return leg of the school run: an old school friend hands me a copy of 2000AD to shock me out of my Whizzer and Chips childhood. It’s prog four-hundred-and-something, where Nosferatu the spider-alien is storming it around Mega-city one biting citizens and draining their innards – superb. Horrific. Brilliant. I spent the rest of the night drawing spider-aliens.

Managed to talk my Mum into getting an order placed at the newsagents, weekly progs supplemented by the monthly collections. So really it’s her fault that her attic is full of 2000AD’s.

Favourite Character or Story?

Bad Company, Nemesis, Strontium Dog.... Zenith. Favourite story is probably “Judge Death Lives” – caused me to have the most vivid apocalyptic nightmare I’ve ever had.

What do you like most about the 2000AD?

The crazy-bubbles that come out of a Krool’s eye, the fact that it genuinely took me 25 years to realise that “Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein” was a pun, a good old 80’s Fabry warp-spasm, and “Gaze into the fist of Dredd” (the greatest comic panel ever drawn.)

If you worked on 2000AD, do you have an anecdote you'd like to share about your experience of Tharg and his minions?

Not worked on 2000AD, but I did once give Bryan Talbot a cigarette

• This post is one in a series of tributes to 2000AD to mark its 35th birthday on 26th February 2012. More about 2000AD at www.2000adonline.com 

2000AD © Rebellion

 

Review Round Up: Pasties, Khaki Shorts and Thief Takers!

Over the past couple of months several indie press folk have sent us comics for review and I have to apologize for being slow at publishing reviews of them. downthetubes remains a site created in spare time between paid work (offers always welcome) and I've got behind with this aspect of the site. The good news is that David Hailwood has now stepped up the plate to be our small press/indie press Reviews Editor, and if you want a plug here, please send your comics to the address below. (But make sure you continue to send us press information to the usual e-mail address, thanks)

Premable over, let's cut to the comment, firstly for Rob Jackson's joyous Pasty Anthology, a 28-page black and white title with colour cover dedicated to the Cornish-created pastry delicacy that you can fill with anything (purportedly the reason why the devil never crossed the Tamar river, by the way). Combining the talents of Matt Badham, Jim Medway,
Steve Butler, Francesca Cassavetti, Dave Hughes, Ant Mercer and of course, Rob himself, this is a fun title, evidenced from the outset by its Planet of the Apes-inspired cover. Favourite elements? Hard to choose, but Steve Butler's twist in the tale 'Keeping Fit' and Francesca's 'Chewing Gum' are in there, but some of the grotesque eating habits displayed in Rob's own 'Shortcrusts #2' don't just make for strong comic strip, they'd look great on t-shirts, perhaps.

Another anthology title, Khaki Shorts #20, has also been winking at me from the corner of my desk for a while: Glasgow's longest running small-press comic offers another fantastic assembly of talent that includes Neil Bratchpiece ('Apocalypse Now & Then', featuring Amazilian, the most anatomically incorrect woman in comics, ever, surely), loads of Rob Miller's 'Star Trudge', 'The Wildebeests' by Shug and much more. Khaki Shorts is simply bursting with the kind of frenetic energy that some pro titles used to have: personally I think some strips would benefit from a larger page size rather than the A5 format ('Dollyforce 2020', in particular), but with a cover price of just £1 one pound, who's complaining?

Finally for this round up, there's Storm Comics two issue mini series Thief Taker General, which we frist plugged back in (gulp) June (see news story). Writer-artist Michael Crouch has worked hard on this true-life story adaptation, telling the story of two legends of 18th century London, Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard. It's an impressive piece of work, with some qualification.

Of the two issues, the first features the better art (but I'm not keen on the cover) but #2 seems, well, rushed, somehow, as if Michael was setting himself a challenge of getting the book out to a self-imposed deadline. There is better composition and storytelling in Issue 1, although in some establishing panels his wonderful attention to detail and careful recreation of 18th century life sometimes distracts from the central characters in a panel. Script-wise, the second issue also seems a trifle muddied: I have to confess I lost track of who was who, although the three-page set piece of Jack Sheppard's esacpe from prison is a visual gem.

Thief Taker is good with plenty of promise and I think Michael has the makings of a fine talent, properly tempered by stronger storytelling and better figure work (this is what all editors say, but it's true). With the huge number of 'historical comics' on the market in the pro sector, there should be no shortage of work for a honed talent.

• If you have a small press or indie title you would like us to review, send them to David Hailwood, Flat 5, The Saltings, Bognor Regis, West Sussex P021 2RJ. Press information should still be sent by e-mail to the usual downthetubes e-mail address, thanks.


• For a measly £2.50 (PayPal accepted), free postage in the UK, you can buy Pasty Anthology from Rob's web site at www.robjacksoncomics.com. Rob's blog includes sample Pages and more info: www.robjacksoncomics.blogspot.com

• Khaki Shorts #20 is on sale from Avalanche Records, the Arches Cafe and Bar, Ychai Ovna, Play it Again Sam in Glasgow and Deadhead Comics in Edinburgh. More info and ordering: www.myspace.com/khakishorts.


• All three Storm Comics titles - the scifi tale After Life and Thief Taker General #1 and #2 - can be bought in one fell swoop for £8.00 inc. p&p, a saving of £1.25, from the Storm Comics web site at www.stormcomics.com.

Pasties Are Better Than Comics

Oh all right, that's not really true, but you'd be hard pressed to find more enthusiasm for the pastry-based food, created by the Cornish and whose reputation is frequently ruined by bakeries across the UK who simply have no idea how to make one*, than in Rob Jackson's fun new comic anthology devoted to them.

Celebrating this lunch time staple of Cornish miners, students and many others, indie British creator Rob Jackson has just launched the 28-page The Pasty Anthology, which features contributions from downthetubes contributor and new Dad Matt Badham, Jim Medway,
Steve Butler, Francesca Cassavetti, Dave Hughes, Ant Mercer and of course, Rob himself.

The Pasty Anthology available from Rob's web site, priced only £2.50 (PayPal accepted), free postage in the UK.

"I mentioned a random idea on my blog for a Pasty based story ('The Story of Greggs' – which was a Viz-style story, thinking of those pages in Viz every so often that are called things like ‘The Story of Honey’ or ‘How We Get Milk’)," explains Rob of the anthology's origins. "Dave Hughes was very keen and started drawing pages for it so I thought I’d better actually make it."

Rob admits it's a pretty off-the-wall theme for a comic, "but everyone likes pasties. I was happily surprised at how all the artists have gone for very different takes on the vague theme.

Rob tells us he hopes his fans and newcomers to his work and the other creators will enjoy the title, which he's been working on since February. "It's very funny," he enthuses, "and has lots of very diverse stories."

Despite creating a Pasty Anthology, Rob admits he's never made one of his own. "Cheese and onion is my favourite, or Greggs Vegetable pasty," he admits, "but Dave Hughes did masses of research for his two stories (which are very funny). He's like a method actor in his diligent research!"

• Buy The Pasty Anthology via www.robjacksoncomics.com

• Sample Pages and more info on Rob's blog: www.robjacksoncomics.blogspot.com

* (I once gave a proper Cornish pasty recipe to the now defunct bakery chain Birketts, which had a shop on the Lancaster University campus, but it did no good, they never produced a decent one).