Marvellous

This was drawn in the summer for a charity auction. I have no idea if it sold, let alone for how much.

If anyone wants to have a go at colouring it -- I am rubbish at colouring -- then feel free!

Rocket Review

Marvel UK's Transformers comic is known for -- among other things -- Simon Furman writing a toy advert like it was a proper story with proper characters, Geoff Senior's amazing art, and the introduction of Death's Head yes? Although it was called Transformers it was more or less an anthology title; the first third was a reprint of part of a US Transformers comic -- the British version came out each week so they had to split the stories to avoid catching up with the monthly US title -- the middle section was a home-grown story, and the last third was a reprint from elsewhere. In the early days of the comic the UK and US stories took turns in the first half and the reprint made up the second half but that's not relevant to my point, if indeed I have one.

In that second-slash-third slot we'd see all sorts of stuff. The comic was sold as a tie-in to a line of science fiction robot toys so the reprint tended to tick at least one of those boxes and we'd get bumf like Inhumanoids and Robotix, but we'd also get Barry Windsor-Smith's beautiful Machine Man mini series and Hercules: Prince of Power in which Herc slept with alien women, rode horses through space and got Galactus so drunk he took off his helmet. For years I thought this was what Hercules was like all the time.

I think Strikeforce: Morituri was in there too but that may have been in Marvel UK's Thundercats comic. Either way it was a bit grim for kids, that one.

What was in there was Rocket Raccoon, a bizarre mix of Saturday morning cartoon, cosmic science fiction, and what can only be described as horror; this image stayed with me for years.

Thank you, Mike Mignola.

That series has always been a favourite of mine; many years ago there was a magazine called Comics International and this magazine had a message board and on that message board some posters proposed a new Avengers team. I suggested that Rocket Raccoon be included and then drew this when we decided on the full line-up

What is Rocket standing on? No idea.

It's been a funny few years as this somewhat obscure character has risen in prominence, reappearing in comics decades after his first appearance, popping up in video games and TV shows and even appearing in a summer blockbuster film that I'm so excited about I may just scream.

Oh and he's got a new ongoing comic all to himself too.

It's written and drawn by Skottie Young, who is a bit of a genius with the pens and brushes. I first encountered his work during Marvel's somewhat wobbly Mangaverse event back in the dim and distant early days of the 21st Century and I've followed him on and off ever since. His art is bold and full of character and movement -- what I would call -- "cartoony" in my more naïve reviewing days -- and is a perfect fit for a bouncy, kinetic character like Rocket. Young's lines are more loose and scratchy here than in some of his previous work and I'm reminded a little of Doug Tennapel's Earthworm Jim; that's no bad thing.

I would be happy enough with one of my favourite comic artists drawing one of my favourite comic characters but Young also does a good job with the writing. This isn't dense or ground-breaking science fiction like Brandon Graham's Prophet but it is fast and funny; the characters have distinctive personalities -- as may be expected, Rocket himself comes over as the most defined -- and Young manages to sketch out a broad setting and set the main plot in motion all in the first issue. As a result it's light and breezy but I'm not expecting anything else from the character; the Rocket Raccoon and Groot mini series from a couple of years ago slapped on multiple layers of angst and tried to make the character Very Serious™ and it all seemed a bit misjudged. Young's approach seems much more true to Rocket's swashbuckling origins.

Rocket Raccoon #1 looks brilliant and is fun to read. It's not Safe Area Goražde but if you want that then you can always read Safe Area Goražde; and I recommend doing so if you want hard-hitting comics journalism about modern European war zones. If you want a talking raccoon flying through space blowing stuff up with plasma pistols then Rocket Raccoon is for you. Except...

I don't know if Bill Mantlo is getting anything from this series. I doubt it as he doesn't even get a "Special thanks" credit, let alone a "Created by" and that's a bit crappy because even if he did create the character for Marvel he still created the character. So if you buy and enjoy Rocket Raccoon #1 then please consider a donation to Mantlo's continued medical care because without him the comic wouldn't exist. Thank you.

Guarding the Galaxy (and Bill Mantlo)

When I first read the adventures of Rocket Raccoon as a back-up strip in Marvel UK's Transformers I had no inkling that I'd one day see him on the big screen. To say that I am excited would be an understatement of galactic -- ho ho -- proportions.

I also had no idea how the comics industry treated those who work in it, or how freelance artists and writers in the United States are in real trouble if they are injured or become ill. This isn't the place or time to go into that but I will be going to see Guardians of the Galaxy -- if it's half as good as the trailer makes it look, I will be seeing it many times -- but I will also be donating the price of the ticket -- or tickets -- towards Bill Mantlo's continued medical care.

I wouldn't presume to say that anyone reading this should do the same, but if you want to, you can do so by clicking the button below.

Top Ten Comic Characters 2009 Edition

I'm not sure I've seen ten new films this year, I've barely read more than a couple of new books, and I don't know enough about music to write about it without embarrassing myself, so I'm just going to pinch an idea from Rol and just do my ten favourite comic characters. So, in no particular order (except alphabetical):

1. The Avengers: Immediately I cheat by chucking in a team. Oh well. I suspect that my first superhero comic was an Avengers title, as I've been hooked since I was a youngster. It's not even a particular lineup or era I like, but the team itself. Even though they live in a mansion and have a butler, there's something a bit more down to earth and approachable about the Avengers than their godlike DC counterparts (who don't have a butler, but look down on us all from their space station). Perhaps it's their open door policy, which allows Spider-Man villain the Sandman to fight alongside Captain America and Thor (I have a great idea for a Sandman Avengers story which will never see the light of day, alas). Or the fluctuating power levels, so you can have Thor and Iron Man in the team one month, then Firestar and Triathlon the other. One of my great regrets was dropping the title, after the franchise bloated, got mired in crossover hell, and came under the creative control of a writer who doesn't have the first idea on how to write the team.

2. Death's Head: It's difficult to explain the appeal of this character to anyone who didn't read Marvel UK's Transformers. I think it's because you've got a property which, like many of those cartoon/toy tie-ins of the 80's, split the characters into sharp delineations of good and evil. Then you've got this character coming in who cares not a jot for any of that, and just wants to get paid. Certainly this was unique in a kids' comic, and I can't think of many characters in "grown up" comics with a similar outlook. It helped that he was written well, with a humourous edge not often seen in the parent title, and he had a great character design. I was shocked and surprised to see him return recently, in the pages of S.W.O.R.D. of all places.

3. Doctor Doom: I like the theatrical chaos of the Joker, but for me, Doom is the greatest comic villain. Partly it's due to the great design (I once heard a rumour that the reason George Lucas gave Marvel the Star Wars comics rights was because they pointed out to him the visual similarities between Darth Vader and Doom), and it's partly to do with the pompous dialogue. The main thing I like about Doom is that he doesn't really see himself as a villain. He's a victim of circumstance, the most brilliant genius of his time, but the Accursed Richards always gets in the way. The best thing is that Doom may actually be right; Reed is no saint, and if their positions were reversed, things wouldn't be so different, I suspect.

4. Edward Hyde: As seen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this is the best version of the Hulk ever written.

5. Invincible: What if Superman's alter-ego was Peter Parker? That's essentially what we've got with this character. So we're not dealing with a hugely original concept, but it's all about the writing, which captures that clash of real life and superheroing which made the after-high-school-but-before-Clones era of Spider-Man so compelling.

6. Nextwave:. Another cheat, but it's Christmas, so tough. This team's title got cancelled because no one was buying it, since apparently most comics fans lack both a sense of humour, and the understanding that Lee and Kirby did stuff like this all the time, and if it's good enough for them, it's damned well good enough for modern Marvel. You've got an ex-Avenger with an superiority complex, an ultra-violent English monster hunter, a drunken Machine Man, a jailbait X-Man and a superhero with a name so profane Captain America beat him up because of it. All of them are on the run after stealing what is essentially a TARDIS from a suicidal Nick Fury. Great stuff, crushed by the disapproval of abhuman cretins who couldn't deal with it being in the same "continuity" as a multi-part crossover about Iron Man and Captain America punching each other. Idiots.

7. Rocket Raccoon: The star of a bizarre minor Marvel miniseries of the early 1980's, a strange blend of horror and Saturday morning cartoon loosely based on a Beatles song and drawn by a pre-Hellboy Mike Mignola. I normally don't have much time for the anthropomorphic animal thing (I can't get into Usagi Yojimbo, for example, even though I know it's good), but there's something compelling about a 50's Buck Rogers style space hero with rocket boots and ray guns who just happens to be a raccoon. He's recently returned as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I'm dreading his demise in some inane cosmic crossover.

8. Scott Pilgrim: He's a brilliant hand-to-hand fighter, and the ladies love him, but he's also a bit of a loser, living in a bedsit with only borrowed possessions, and he seems to have an odd kind of social autism where he fails to comprehend basic concepts. So another example of the Peter Parker archetype then. It would have been so easy to make Scott unfailingly cool and brilliant, and I love that he's just a bit rubbish sometimes.

9. Spider-Man: I don't have quite the attachment Rol does to Spidey, but it's close. I grew up reading his adventures, mainly from Marvel UK reprints, and Marvel got it dead right with this character. The balance of real-life and superheroics is spot on, and Spidey actually grew up and developed in a way superhero characters rarely do, which makes it all the more annoying that Marvel scuppered all that and turned the clock back for no reason at all. I still love Spidey, but Marvel make it so bloody hard.

10. Thor: I love the one-upmanship of the concept, of topping DC's strongest man alive by wheeling out a god. I like the silly Olde English dialogue, that he's a hero who can pull off a beard, and that he gets drunk at the end of a successful adventure purely for fun and celebration, and not because of socially relevant storytelling. He also works really well as an Avenger (see above), in particular during the Kurt Busiek era, when the writer would save Thor for the big climax, invariably giving him the hero shot. All this is set against the grand backdrop of Norse myth, complete with doom-laden prophecy and familial back-stabbing.

10a. Beta Ray Bill: As 10, but a yellow alien horse.

Raccoons and Mind Flayers

I celebrated my promotion by buying myself a copy of Blood Bowl, since it's perhaps my favourite board game ever. I was never any good at the painting of miniatures, but I'm going to give it another go as I assemble a dark elf team for the game. If the painting isn't too incompetent, I'll post the results here. I might post the results anyway, just for a laugh.

In other news, I've completed another in my increasingly-infrequent series of character profiles for Comics Bulletin, this time focusing on Rocket Raccoon, one of Marvel's best but most underrated characters. I have jotted down some ideas for my next article in this series, and fans of my acerbic approach will be pleased to know that the next victim is one of Marvel's most ill-conceived and cretinous characters (not Dark Speedball), so I'll be pulling no punches.

Finally, I've done some art for a magazine called Fight On!. It's a magazine for fans of the Dungeons & Dragons game, something I haven't had much involvement with since I was about twelve, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to draw dinosaur riding barbarians, fungoid bone sorcerers and octopus-headed spacemen. It's completely unpaid, but it was great fun to do, and I hope to be a regular contributor, perhaps doing some kind of comic strip for them if we can work out the logistics.