I treated myself recently to Grounding, the first imprint from Awen Press, which is based in Creetown, Scotland. It’s a new press, set up by Helen Moss, an artist and engraver who is venturing into letterpress printing. The story behind Awen Press is on the home page of the website.
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I was in Forbidden Planet with my husband last summer. He was looking for a couple of indie comics and I was idly browsing the shelves of trade paperbacks. The cover of the first collected volume of Ice Cream Man caught my eye. I picked it up and read the first few pages of the first chapter. I liked it enough to take a chance on it. I haven’t read a comic series since I finished The Sixth Gun and thought that Ice Cream Man might be a series I could get into.
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After finishing Volume 8 of The Sixth Gun, I couldn’t wait to complete the series, so jumped straight into Volume 9 on New Year’s Day. The final volume brings together the three concluding chapters in this epic, marshalling all the forces with an interest in The Six together for the final battle.
The Six are an ancient force, forged in the early history of mankind. They have taken many forms, and have been used to end and recreate the world many times. Over the centuries, they have evolved, becoming near sentient, able to manipulate their bearers to ensure that, with each remaking of the world, they remain active within it. But their existence is the cause of wars, enmity, power struggles and misery for those caught at the edges of conflict. In Volume 9, Drake Sinclair and Becky Montcrief have set themselves the task of remaking the world without The Six in it. But first they must stop the Grey Witch, Griselda, from remaking the world in her image.
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It has been a while since I last read a volume of The Sixth Gun. September 2017, in fact. I needed to skim through my review of Volume 7 to remind myself of what had happened. Quite a lot, as it turned out.
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I spent some time catching up on comic books from my To Read pile recently. I read Tales of Woodsman Pete with Full Particulars by Lilli Carré, and Hunter & Painter and Baking with Kafka, both by Tom Gauld. I bought the first two in a small bookshop in Bristol a good few years ago. The second is a book plate limited edition that I bought from Gosh! Comics.
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Read 24-25/09/2017
Rating 4 stars
It has been 9 months since I last read a volume in the Sixth Gun comic series. Volume 6 moved the story on, following Becky Montcrief on a journey through the Winding Path where she learnt a few things about the Six and Drake Sinclair’s relationship to them.
In Volume 7, Becky returns to her travelling companions Drake, Gord Cantrell, Kirby Hale, Asher Cobb, and the Native American scouts Nidawi and Nahuel. The seven make their way back to Brimstone, where Becky and Drake’s tense allyship began.
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Read 28/06/2017
Rating: 3 stars
There’s a war raging across the universe, started by hostility between the winged inhabitants of the planet Landfall and the horned residents of its satellite Wreath. To prevent the destruction of their planets, both sides have outsourced the war, so now it is fought everywhere else but Landfall and Wreath.
I borrowed the first five trades of the comic book series Saga from a friend a while ago. Every time I’ve published a review in the interim, he’s been disappointed that it hasn’t been about Saga. We met up recently and I felt bad about not having read it yet, so I brought it up the list. My husband was out on a work do, and the football had replaced Coronation Street, so I binge read all five in one evening. Continue reading
Read 17/12/2016
Rating: 4 stars
Becky Montcrief takes centre stage in trade volume 6 of The Sixth Gun series. The group reunited at the end of volume 5, with Drake and Becky physically affected by their run in with the Wendigo. Volume 6 begins with Missy Hume gathering malevolent forces to draw the five guns in Drake and Becky’s control to them.
Meanwhile, Becky, Drake, Gord, Kirby and Asher are taken by a pair of Native American scouts to their camp, where Becky collapses and sets off on the Ghost Dance of the book’s title.
She travels through parallel realities, witnessing various outcomes that depend on who has control of all six guns. What she sees, experiences and learns change her irreparably.
During Becky’s wanderings, Missy Hume’s demonic helpers attempt to kill her, but the scouts Nidawi and Nahuel draw on supernatural powers to fight them in the real world.
The plot is less involved in this volume, but it kept me gripped all the same. There are only three more volumes in the series, and it’s starting to feel like the narrative is beginning to wind up to a climax.
Read 13/11/2016
Rating: 4 stars
I love Tom Gauld’s cartoons when they appear in The Guardian, so I was excited when his graphic novel Mooncop came out.
It’s a salutary tale about brave new horizons, failed experiments, the death of community, and hope for the future.
Across its 94 pages, we follow the last police officer on the moon. He has a 100% crime solution rate. There aren’t many people left on this lunar outpost of the earth, though, so no crime happens.
Gauld’s illustrations are beautiful in their simplicity and the sparse dialogue punctuates moments of reflection captured in views of the moon’s surface, starscapes and views of the earth.
It’s a melancholy tale with a wry humour and closes with a glimmer of hope for the future. As a distraction from everything going on here on earth right now, it was a touching read.
Read 22/09/2016-25/09/2016
Rating: 3 stars
Read for The Reader’s Room Olympic Challenge
Normally, a trade of a comic series would only take me a day, maybe a day and a half to read. I was surprised when it took me four days to plough through the first trade of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Why didn’t I like it more? Why did I find it tiresome? Continue reading
What I Think About When I Think About Reading 