Masters of British Comic Art

Masters of British Comic Art by David Roach (2020 Rebellion e-book 388pp)

 

In its physical form this is a large format hardcover book which usually costs well over $100 to purchase. I was fortunate to obtain a .pdf file version of it in a recent Humble Bundle sale and the design and reproduction in that is excellent, it would be a stunning book to actually hold in your hands.

Not too much to this book – The first section is 13 essays about the history of British comics and their history, the personalities, the art styles and so on. Each essay focusses on a particular aspect, from newspaper comics, girl’s comics, adventure series through to the golden age and artists who found fame in fortune in the USA. Each an individual story but taken together it makes a pretty comprehensive history of the art form from a UK perspective.

The second section is a gallery of comic artwork from a selection of artists spanning the years from the 19^th century to contemporary times. In the middle of the gallery section is an additional chapter which brings the history up to date into the 21^st century.

If you have any interest in comics, arts or graphic design this is a fascinating volume. The writing is on point and the art is spectacular.

 

The This

The This by Adam Roberts (2022 Gollancz hardcover 296pp)

 

This recent novel by Adam Roberts is said to be his attempt to bring alive the philosophical thinking of Hegel – as I have limited knowledge of such things that angle pretty much right over my head and whooshed past.

After a sort of experimental opening chapter set in the “Bardo” where an individual seems to have to relive all other human lifetimes, the book settles down to two main story threads to, the first concerns a young man called Rich in a near future London (2026 I think). Rich lives a life of isolation, making money as a freelance writer taking jobs via an app. He has lost many of his friends to a new social media network known as TheThis. Signing up with TheThis involves a surgical procedure where an implant is placed in the roof of your mouth and eventually links up with your brain. Its defenders explain it as “just hands-free Twitter” but it’s becoming clear that it’s more of a dangerous cult. Rich accepts a job to interview and write about an executive at TheThis and from then on, he’s pursued by them, hounded to become a member. Former friends and attractive women come out of the woodwork all trying to get him to join up. He is approached by others opposed to the apparent cult and soon finds himself enlisted as a ‘Trojan Horse’ against them.

The second thread is set decades further into the future. TheThis has turned into a dangerous hive-mind entity and is in open conflict with normal mankind. We are introduced to another young man called Adan. In his world, people have intense relationships with their “Phenes” a cross between a smart phone and a sex-robot. Adan’s Phene experiences a mysterious glitch and it’s used by a stranger to contact him and leave him a cryptic message. Soon Adan falls on hard times and joins the Army to survive. After training he’s sent on dangerous missions against the hive-mind's robot hordes. On one such mission he discovers he may have the key to halting the enemy forces. But can he stop thinking about his Phene long enough save mankind?

There’s also a random George Orwell 1984 pastiche chapter which is interesting but seems a little out of place here.

Even without the philosophy framework this is an interesting novel. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t spend more time with Rich and his pre–Trojan Horse life, I identified more with that character than anyone else in the book. Things are left a little up in the air and I felt some frustration that the ‘good-guys’ didn’t always win but that perhaps is just like real life.

 

JOTT

JOTT by Mary Rose Barrington (2018 Anomalist Books softcover 190pp)

 

JOTT stands for Just One of Those Things, what we might say when something unexplained but apparently minor happens to us in everyday life. In this volume the late Mary Rose Barrington, an accomplished lawyer, researcher and vice-president of the Society for Psychical Research introduces us to the concept of the JOTT and the categories such events have been placed in over the last century as they’ve been reported to the society and the author. The typical event would be something like placing your keys down in a certain location and then being unable to find them again…only for them to return to that place days, months or even years later. This would be classed as a “Come Back”, other categories include “Walkabout” (item found in another location), “Fly-away” (item never seen again) and “Windfall” (an item from unknown origin suddenly appears). Also, baffling is the “Trade-In” where a familiar object disappears and is replaced by a similar but obviously different item. Of course, many of these incidences can probably be explained by memory issues of those involved but there are some truly bizarre events recounted in the case selection which makes up the first part of the book.

In the second part Barrington attempts to create a grand unified framework of paranormal events that might just explain the JOTTs. Unfortunately, she goes about this by a long and tortured route, spending pages and pages explaining the relationship between Psi and science and why researchers often find nothing. Eventually she invokes both the paranormal and religion to make her case and I was less than convinced.

Worth it for the JOTT stories in the first half but probably a bit disappointing overall.