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The Best of Milligan & McCarthy
One of comics' most fruitful collaborations gets its due in this deluxe collection of hard-to-find gems from Peter Milligan (Hellblazer, X-Statix) and Brendan McCarthy (Judge Dredd, The Zaucer of Zilk)! Collecting twenty years' worth of the pair's finest work from Vanguard Illustrated, Strange Days, 2000 AD, and Vertigo, this beautiful hardcover includes art that has been newly touched up by McCarthy and features original commentary by both creators. There is still nothing else like Freakwave, Paradax!, Skin, and Rogan Gosh, and this volume is both the perfect retrospective for fans and the ideal starting place for new readers!
264 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2013
11 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
About the author
Peter Milligan
1,297 books388 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Peter Milligan is a British writer, best known for his work on X-Force / X-Statix, the X-Men, & the Vertigo series Human Target. He is also a scriptwriter.
He has been writing comics for some time and he has somewhat of a reputation for writing material that is highly outlandish, bizarre and/or absurd.
His highest profile projects to date include a run on X-Men, and his X-Force revamp that relaunched as X-Statix.
Many of Milligan's best works have been from DC Vertigo. These include: The Extremist (4 issues with artist Ted McKeever) The Minx (8 issues with artist Sean Phillips) Face (Prestige one-shot with artist Duncan Fegredo) The Eaters (Prestige one-shot with artist Dean Ormston) Vertigo Pop London (4 issues with artist Philip Bond) Enigma (8 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo) and Girl (3 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo).
Series:
* Human Target
* Greek Street
* X-Force / X-Statix
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Peter Milligan is a British writer, best known for his work on X-Force / X-Statix, the X-Men, & the Vertigo series Human Target. He is also a scriptwriter.
He has been writing comics for some time and he has somewhat of a reputation for writing material that is highly outlandish, bizarre and/or absurd.
His highest profile projects to date include a run on X-Men, and his X-Force revamp that relaunched as X-Statix.
Many of Milligan's best works have been from DC Vertigo. These include: The Extremist (4 issues with artist Ted McKeever) The Minx (8 issues with artist Sean Phillips) Face (Prestige one-shot with artist Duncan Fegredo) The Eaters (Prestige one-shot with artist Dean Ormston) Vertigo Pop London (4 issues with artist Philip Bond) Enigma (8 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo) and Girl (3 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo).
Series:
* Human Target
* Greek Street
* X-Force / X-Statix
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 11, 2014
I've been working through this for awhile now, and although I have some general thoughts on the whole shebang, I don't think those thoughts will illuminate anything you can't read anywhere else -- basically, "this is super cool and no one's heard of it and it influenced everything that's popular and it's super cool."
Instead, I'd rather do a breakdown on what's included, since I haven't seen a definitive list anywhere. This is just a list of "major" works, not including assorted promos, pinups and concept designs also reprinted throughout.
1) PARADAX (Strange Days comics, 1-3) - Paradax is a super-mod, super-80's, uber-hip superhero parody that also sends up pre-gentrified Lower East Side NYC. Paradax is a lazy, attractive hero who finds a magic costume in his taxi cab that lets him walk through walls, and tells his story when Andy Warhol invites him to talk on his late-night show (which I didn't even know was a thing.) Paradax's villain is V.2. Pinhead, a horror with missiles for hands who gets destroyed when he accidentally inhales his dehydrated army of super soldiers. Paradax has a pink-haired girlfriend who doesn't like his costume till she makes him a cool jacket to wear with it. The whole thing is like if David Byrne, Ric Ocasek and Debbie Harry decided to make a comic book together.
2) ROGAN GOSH is so completely insane that I had to review it separately, and it still doesn't make any sense. Basically, it's five dudes trying to achieve enlightment. One of them's a deity, one of them's a deity in training, one's a wanker, one might be Peter Milligan, and one is Rudyard Kipling. Also it's absolutely none of these things, except the Kipling part. Read way too much about it here.
3) ELECTRICK HOAX is a cool little project -- it's one of M&M's earliest (if not the earliest) collaborations, so the pages are boiling over with art and text exploding and fighting for room. For some reason only about a third of the original 24 strips are collected here, which is a shame -- it's no more coherent for reading the full set, but the art is too amazing to have been cherrypicked. This borrows heavily from Burroughs' Nova Express, with Thought Police and a main character named the Subliminal Kid, and funnels all the drug-centric paranoia of that original work through early Thatcherism, 70's punk, and post-apocalyptic sci-fi. A complete collection of the EH strips can be found at DJ Food.
4) FREAKWAVE (Vanguard Illustrated 1, Strange Days 1-3) If there's one book here that can be called Coolest Thing You Never Knew Existed, it's this. The world's first post-apocalyptic surfing story, FW draws heavily from The Road Warrior, and spits out a product with the production value of Waterworld and the tone of Surf Nazis Must Die!. As with Electric Hoax, the real crime here is that the first of the series' two arcs is only partially collected -- unbelievable, as they contain some of McCarthy's absolute best pen-and-ink work. The second arc is reprinted in full, and demonstrates the absolutely huge jump forward in M&M's style and narrative concerns during this period. After the first series ends in an explosive but traditionally pulpy cliffhanger, the second story puts its surfers inside giant bionic heads that float over an endless toxic ocean. The narrative (or lack thereof) is a meditation on Eastern philosophy and funereal rituals, carrying on the original concept's innovative character design, but little else. The art itself is a mixture of paints, montage and image manipulation, fully five years before Dave McKean acted like all that was his idea.
5) PARADAX: THE IDIOT PEOPLE - Paradax returns in a story that seems to have handed Grant Morrison the entire concept for Doom Patrol in about ten pages of comics. Paradax has to stop a mad scientist who's created an alternate reality version of himself that plans to destroy New York and/or drive its people insane, and who has a host of weird lackeys to help him do it.
6) RUDCLIFFE & WILLIAMS - Some of the side characters from Freakwave show up in a strange story about British wealth and class in the post-apocalypse.
7) MIRKIN THE MYSTIC - M&M's favorite creation, according to the text, but in practice it's one of the weakest entries. Mirkin is a foppish alien/magician who travels through different dimensions and realities, generally being a snob. Explores a lot of the collection's common themes in a style that seems (successfully) designed to be aggravating.
8) SUMMER OF LOVE - The next few stories start to remind me that if there's one reason Peter Milligan never became Grant Morrison, it's because he shifts modes so completely when trying out different genres that he often loses his author's "signature." Such is the case in this little piece, an unapologetically sappy romance that happens to have a mutant man-fish in the middle of it.
9) THE HOLLOW CIRCUS - Absolutely not the strongest work in here, THC deserves praise similar to SoL because it's a horror story without a wink, and without any kind of exploitationesque streak that lets us in on the joke. It's simply grim and unpleasant, with emotive visuals but not much else.
10) SOONER OR LATER - Another large project that's been abridged here, this originally ran as an ongoing series for 30 episodes in 2000AD, although only five or so are included here. Unlike some of the other truncated works, this isn't as much of a loss -- it's the fairly simple story of a working-class Brit thrown down a metaphysical rabbit hole (in this case, a convenient time-travel wormhole) into a pretty standard Orwellian nightmare of the future. It's funny but not incredibly interesting, other than in the way it lays out the creative team's political concerns more overtly than any of their other works.
11) SKIN - A pretty nasty piece of work, that has only been slightly softened by time and hype. The story of a thalidomide skinhead who is not pitiable and in fact just runs around doing terrible things, Skin takes M&M's interest in the unflinchingly macabre about as far as it can go, and then dumps it in a ditch to rot.
...Then some assorted covers and pinups, before M&M chime in unceremoniously on the last page, saying "And that's it."
Having got through the whole thing, I can safely say it's worth the price of admission, even though some of the team's best material is missing. There are enough complete books and hard-to-find items in this collection that the price tag pays for itself in terms of what you'd have to put together in back issues, and it's about the highest compliment I can give that this volume turned me into an amateur bibliophile as I tracked the rest of the pair's output across the interwebs just to complete the picture.
This isn't really a volume designed for newbies, but in a way I'm a little disappointed that this wasn't marketed to anyone aside from hardcore fans. It's a great retrospective, and highlights the goldmine of material these two churned out over less than ten years. It's important work, frankly -- not to mention freaking awwwwesome.
Instead, I'd rather do a breakdown on what's included, since I haven't seen a definitive list anywhere. This is just a list of "major" works, not including assorted promos, pinups and concept designs also reprinted throughout.
1) PARADAX (Strange Days comics, 1-3) - Paradax is a super-mod, super-80's, uber-hip superhero parody that also sends up pre-gentrified Lower East Side NYC. Paradax is a lazy, attractive hero who finds a magic costume in his taxi cab that lets him walk through walls, and tells his story when Andy Warhol invites him to talk on his late-night show (which I didn't even know was a thing.) Paradax's villain is V.2. Pinhead, a horror with missiles for hands who gets destroyed when he accidentally inhales his dehydrated army of super soldiers. Paradax has a pink-haired girlfriend who doesn't like his costume till she makes him a cool jacket to wear with it. The whole thing is like if David Byrne, Ric Ocasek and Debbie Harry decided to make a comic book together.
2) ROGAN GOSH is so completely insane that I had to review it separately, and it still doesn't make any sense. Basically, it's five dudes trying to achieve enlightment. One of them's a deity, one of them's a deity in training, one's a wanker, one might be Peter Milligan, and one is Rudyard Kipling. Also it's absolutely none of these things, except the Kipling part. Read way too much about it here.
3) ELECTRICK HOAX is a cool little project -- it's one of M&M's earliest (if not the earliest) collaborations, so the pages are boiling over with art and text exploding and fighting for room. For some reason only about a third of the original 24 strips are collected here, which is a shame -- it's no more coherent for reading the full set, but the art is too amazing to have been cherrypicked. This borrows heavily from Burroughs' Nova Express, with Thought Police and a main character named the Subliminal Kid, and funnels all the drug-centric paranoia of that original work through early Thatcherism, 70's punk, and post-apocalyptic sci-fi. A complete collection of the EH strips can be found at DJ Food.
4) FREAKWAVE (Vanguard Illustrated 1, Strange Days 1-3) If there's one book here that can be called Coolest Thing You Never Knew Existed, it's this. The world's first post-apocalyptic surfing story, FW draws heavily from The Road Warrior, and spits out a product with the production value of Waterworld and the tone of Surf Nazis Must Die!. As with Electric Hoax, the real crime here is that the first of the series' two arcs is only partially collected -- unbelievable, as they contain some of McCarthy's absolute best pen-and-ink work. The second arc is reprinted in full, and demonstrates the absolutely huge jump forward in M&M's style and narrative concerns during this period. After the first series ends in an explosive but traditionally pulpy cliffhanger, the second story puts its surfers inside giant bionic heads that float over an endless toxic ocean. The narrative (or lack thereof) is a meditation on Eastern philosophy and funereal rituals, carrying on the original concept's innovative character design, but little else. The art itself is a mixture of paints, montage and image manipulation, fully five years before Dave McKean acted like all that was his idea.
5) PARADAX: THE IDIOT PEOPLE - Paradax returns in a story that seems to have handed Grant Morrison the entire concept for Doom Patrol in about ten pages of comics. Paradax has to stop a mad scientist who's created an alternate reality version of himself that plans to destroy New York and/or drive its people insane, and who has a host of weird lackeys to help him do it.
6) RUDCLIFFE & WILLIAMS - Some of the side characters from Freakwave show up in a strange story about British wealth and class in the post-apocalypse.
7) MIRKIN THE MYSTIC - M&M's favorite creation, according to the text, but in practice it's one of the weakest entries. Mirkin is a foppish alien/magician who travels through different dimensions and realities, generally being a snob. Explores a lot of the collection's common themes in a style that seems (successfully) designed to be aggravating.
8) SUMMER OF LOVE - The next few stories start to remind me that if there's one reason Peter Milligan never became Grant Morrison, it's because he shifts modes so completely when trying out different genres that he often loses his author's "signature." Such is the case in this little piece, an unapologetically sappy romance that happens to have a mutant man-fish in the middle of it.
9) THE HOLLOW CIRCUS - Absolutely not the strongest work in here, THC deserves praise similar to SoL because it's a horror story without a wink, and without any kind of exploitationesque streak that lets us in on the joke. It's simply grim and unpleasant, with emotive visuals but not much else.
10) SOONER OR LATER - Another large project that's been abridged here, this originally ran as an ongoing series for 30 episodes in 2000AD, although only five or so are included here. Unlike some of the other truncated works, this isn't as much of a loss -- it's the fairly simple story of a working-class Brit thrown down a metaphysical rabbit hole (in this case, a convenient time-travel wormhole) into a pretty standard Orwellian nightmare of the future. It's funny but not incredibly interesting, other than in the way it lays out the creative team's political concerns more overtly than any of their other works.
11) SKIN - A pretty nasty piece of work, that has only been slightly softened by time and hype. The story of a thalidomide skinhead who is not pitiable and in fact just runs around doing terrible things, Skin takes M&M's interest in the unflinchingly macabre about as far as it can go, and then dumps it in a ditch to rot.
...Then some assorted covers and pinups, before M&M chime in unceremoniously on the last page, saying "And that's it."
Having got through the whole thing, I can safely say it's worth the price of admission, even though some of the team's best material is missing. There are enough complete books and hard-to-find items in this collection that the price tag pays for itself in terms of what you'd have to put together in back issues, and it's about the highest compliment I can give that this volume turned me into an amateur bibliophile as I tracked the rest of the pair's output across the interwebs just to complete the picture.
This isn't really a volume designed for newbies, but in a way I'm a little disappointed that this wasn't marketed to anyone aside from hardcore fans. It's a great retrospective, and highlights the goldmine of material these two churned out over less than ten years. It's important work, frankly -- not to mention freaking awwwwesome.
June 21, 2014
This handsome compendium is worth seeking out for ROGAN GOSH alone, a 60 page masterpiece that's otherwise hard to find. The other pieces are a bit hit-and-miss, but mostly weird and charming and unlike anything else you'll run across. Or in the case of SKIN, violent and harrowing and quietly empathetic. Everything is suffused with the feel of England in the bleak 1980s, but Milligan and McCarthy approach each story from a fresh angle. Incredible range those guys had, really.
September 21, 2013
The Best of Milligan and McCarthy is one of the most exciting collections of comics to come out in quite some time. It’s just a treasure trove of riches. First of all, it’s a nicely-designed deluxe edition in a tall but coffee-table-worthy 8 ¼” x 12 ¼” size. I refuse to call it “oversized” simply because McCarthy’s art is so powerful and detailed and deeply absorbing that I wish it was even bigger. It’s just beautiful to look at and, if anything, it should be printed large enough to swallow the reader whole. But if the artwork doesn’t suck you in, Milligan’s irreverent and/or surreal stories will do the trick.
Presentation-wise, this book blows away the previous paperback editions of both Rogan Gosh and Skin (which are hard-to-find anyway). The book would be worth it for Rogan Gosh alone, which stands as the duo’s dazzling and mind-bending tour de force. But, as if that weren’t enough, this is also the first time that their long out-of-print and somewhat legendary ’80s output has been collected at all. I’ve been a fan of both creators for years and yet this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on strips like Paradax, Freakwave, Mirkin the Mystic, Electric Hoax (originally published in the music magazine Sounds 35 years ago), and the haunting Hollow Circus. The commentary from the creators is insightful, as well. Not only does it provide clues to the deeper meanings and contexts of these works, but it also gives us a glimpse at the personalities and creator dynamics at play.
British comics in the ’80s seem to have sprung from a unique cultural hotbed of influences. The rebellious spirit of ’60s American underground comics hopped the Pond and rose to the growing threat of Thatcher-era Conservatism while melding a punk-rock sneer and taking-the-piss attitude with art school sensibilities and new imaginative possibilities. Brilliant and innovative writers and artists were able to rail against the status quo and freely express themselves in the “low-brow” medium of comics, leading to a revolution in the industry (if not in the streets). Milligan and McCarthy (along with their more famous contemporaries like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, et al.) helped lead that charge and, with this book, they’re finally getting their due.
Presentation-wise, this book blows away the previous paperback editions of both Rogan Gosh and Skin (which are hard-to-find anyway). The book would be worth it for Rogan Gosh alone, which stands as the duo’s dazzling and mind-bending tour de force. But, as if that weren’t enough, this is also the first time that their long out-of-print and somewhat legendary ’80s output has been collected at all. I’ve been a fan of both creators for years and yet this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on strips like Paradax, Freakwave, Mirkin the Mystic, Electric Hoax (originally published in the music magazine Sounds 35 years ago), and the haunting Hollow Circus. The commentary from the creators is insightful, as well. Not only does it provide clues to the deeper meanings and contexts of these works, but it also gives us a glimpse at the personalities and creator dynamics at play.
British comics in the ’80s seem to have sprung from a unique cultural hotbed of influences. The rebellious spirit of ’60s American underground comics hopped the Pond and rose to the growing threat of Thatcher-era Conservatism while melding a punk-rock sneer and taking-the-piss attitude with art school sensibilities and new imaginative possibilities. Brilliant and innovative writers and artists were able to rail against the status quo and freely express themselves in the “low-brow” medium of comics, leading to a revolution in the industry (if not in the streets). Milligan and McCarthy (along with their more famous contemporaries like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, et al.) helped lead that charge and, with this book, they’re finally getting their due.
April 24, 2024
I had read Skin and Rogan Gosh before the rest was new to me. Unfortunately it's basically snippets of stories which wasn't very exciting to read. Mostly it shows how great McCarthy was as a cartoonist. Milligan is reacting to current events which I'm not very familiar with - the British 80s/90s scene.
Paradax seems like something Milligan perfected with Shade The Changing Man. FREAKWAVE is a pretty cool Mad Max on the ocean a decade before Waterworld.
Skin was great on a re-read. Rogan Gosh was just as confusing as I remember.
Paradax seems like something Milligan perfected with Shade The Changing Man. FREAKWAVE is a pretty cool Mad Max on the ocean a decade before Waterworld.
Skin was great on a re-read. Rogan Gosh was just as confusing as I remember.
May 9, 2022
4 1/2 stars.
January 8, 2019
An eclectic mix of work, with Rogan Gosh as a clear stand-out. Shame about the terrible binding. I was very careful with the book because I'd heard the binding was bad, and even so, a chunk of pages have pulled away from the binding and are threatening to fall out. After one read through.
5 stars for Rogan Gosh.
3-4 stars for the other stories.
1 star for the cheap and awful binding.
5 stars for Rogan Gosh.
3-4 stars for the other stories.
1 star for the cheap and awful binding.
February 21, 2014
There was nothing like the mind-blowing Burroughs-filtered psychedelia of Freakwave when it came out in the 80s. And Skin is a comic you don't forget. Ever.
So happy to see this beautifully produced collection. There's so much detail in McCarthy's art, you need the larger reproductions do it justice.
So happy to see this beautifully produced collection. There's so much detail in McCarthy's art, you need the larger reproductions do it justice.
January 15, 2019
Almost perfect! Excellent psychedelic, post-modern comics reprinted in a lovely format...
The good: This book collects some very difficult to track down work that hasn't been in print for 20+ years. This is a well-deserved collection. Peter Milligan's writing in the collection veers between post-modernism and LSD-infused meta-surrealism that reads like the ghost of James Joyce got molested by William S. Burroughs. I love it.
OH MY GOD, THE ART! Brendan McCarthy is a genius. Or insane... At any rate, his artwork is obsessively rendered, gorgeously colored tapestries composed with schizophrenic, post-punk aesthetics mashed with 80's comics pop-culture. The range of his artistic style(s) is awe-inspiring, really. Compare the look of Rogan Gosh, inspired by tripping on acid while looking at Indian comics, with the style of Skin (a collaboration with artist Carol Swain) - raw, brutish, garish pastels and jarring compositions... all in service of the style of the stories. It is all gorgeous. My personal favorite strip in the book is Freakwave - an absolutely baffling meta-narrative told with water-logged decadent purple prose and drawn in a richly-hued, visionary illustration style. I have no idea what happens in the story, but I love it.
Now, the bad: This book is not complete! I guess I shouldn't be disappointed by this... but, still, I was surprised to see the earlier chapters of Freakwave were truncated or left out entirely. I really wanted to read those! The strip Sooner or Later is also missing several chapters. These omissions, in continuing narratives, stand out as poor decisions... the book would have been about 30 pages longer. I've sought out the remaining chapters of Freakwave, just to be a completist, and they aren't the best work, but they do add to the overall narrative (as confusing as it is). The book does contain all of the Paradax stories, Mirkin the Mystic, the full Rogan Gosh and Skin graphic novels, as well as several short stories and parts of other serials.
Comments: While the collection is amazing, the editorial choices are incomplete and a little puzzling. Skin particularly stands out... the art style (done by Carol Swain with Brendan McCarthy) and the story are less 'trippy' and much darker in tone than the rest of the book. Also, as it is still available in an affordable GN, I'd have preferred to have the editors just include excerpts, maybe some info about collaborating with Carol Swain, and then devote the space to the complete Freakwave strip, and a few others left out. That is my opinion, but, I stick by it.
The book itself is stunning. The size (the book is tall - about 25% larger than standard comic size) is great for the detailed art. The printing is very nice. The paper is high quality. I like that it is a hardcover. I was particularly impressed with the scale of the book for the price. It looks nice on my coffee table. Yes, you should buy this book.
The good: This book collects some very difficult to track down work that hasn't been in print for 20+ years. This is a well-deserved collection. Peter Milligan's writing in the collection veers between post-modernism and LSD-infused meta-surrealism that reads like the ghost of James Joyce got molested by William S. Burroughs. I love it.
OH MY GOD, THE ART! Brendan McCarthy is a genius. Or insane... At any rate, his artwork is obsessively rendered, gorgeously colored tapestries composed with schizophrenic, post-punk aesthetics mashed with 80's comics pop-culture. The range of his artistic style(s) is awe-inspiring, really. Compare the look of Rogan Gosh, inspired by tripping on acid while looking at Indian comics, with the style of Skin (a collaboration with artist Carol Swain) - raw, brutish, garish pastels and jarring compositions... all in service of the style of the stories. It is all gorgeous. My personal favorite strip in the book is Freakwave - an absolutely baffling meta-narrative told with water-logged decadent purple prose and drawn in a richly-hued, visionary illustration style. I have no idea what happens in the story, but I love it.
Now, the bad: This book is not complete! I guess I shouldn't be disappointed by this... but, still, I was surprised to see the earlier chapters of Freakwave were truncated or left out entirely. I really wanted to read those! The strip Sooner or Later is also missing several chapters. These omissions, in continuing narratives, stand out as poor decisions... the book would have been about 30 pages longer. I've sought out the remaining chapters of Freakwave, just to be a completist, and they aren't the best work, but they do add to the overall narrative (as confusing as it is). The book does contain all of the Paradax stories, Mirkin the Mystic, the full Rogan Gosh and Skin graphic novels, as well as several short stories and parts of other serials.
Comments: While the collection is amazing, the editorial choices are incomplete and a little puzzling. Skin particularly stands out... the art style (done by Carol Swain with Brendan McCarthy) and the story are less 'trippy' and much darker in tone than the rest of the book. Also, as it is still available in an affordable GN, I'd have preferred to have the editors just include excerpts, maybe some info about collaborating with Carol Swain, and then devote the space to the complete Freakwave strip, and a few others left out. That is my opinion, but, I stick by it.
The book itself is stunning. The size (the book is tall - about 25% larger than standard comic size) is great for the detailed art. The printing is very nice. The paper is high quality. I like that it is a hardcover. I was particularly impressed with the scale of the book for the price. It looks nice on my coffee table. Yes, you should buy this book.
March 23, 2019
Madness. Sheer and utter madness.
I must admit that before MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, I hadn’t even heard of Brendan McCarthy, which is a damn inexcusable shame. But to be fair, the work of Milligan & McCarthy hasn’t really been part of the dialogue in comix culture. Not even when it comes to talking about the impactful indie work that fell outside of the mainstream; you never hear their work cited alongside that of Frank Miller’s SIN CITY (which, before the 2005 film release was only really known in pretty small circles throughout the 1990’s) or Eddie Campbell’s ALEC or Dave Sim’s CEREBUS. But that silence is in no way reflective of the duo’s influence.
About a year ago, I listened to an interview with Neil Gaiman for the British Library podcast focused primarily on the RAMAYANA and Gaiman’s involvement in adapting it for DreamWorks. When asked if he had a particular style in mind when working on the various [never-produced] treatments, Gaiman was quick to point out Brendan McCarthy’s work on ROGAN GOSH, which Gaiman describes as being birthed from Brendan’s “Road to Damascus moment, where he ran into a pile of comics in India, and just went ‘I love this, there’s art stuff here that I’ve never seen in the West,’ and started doing stuff and playing with it.” He also goes on to describe ROGAN GOSH as “one of the most interesting moments of fusion between Indian and British and American comix culture.”
Naturally, I immediately looked into getting my hands on some ROGAN GOSH and discovered that it was reprinted in the pages of an over-sized hardcover titled THE BEST OF MILLIGAN & MCCARTHY published by Dark Horse Books in 2013 and retailing for only $24.99 (down to $7.19 as I type this). Although a horrendously produced edition (pages are actually falling out in less than a year since purchasing it), I’m still happy to have gotten my hands on it because it has been blowing my mind ever since. Not least because of the work itself, but because it simultaneously exposes a very vital almost secret history of comix lost to… I dunno,an obsession with the founding of Image Comics and the less than negligible work its founders produced? If there was ever a demented, revolutionary punk rock duo in comix, Milligan & McCarthy definitely fit the bill.
Continue reading: https://ganzeer.reviews/post/18043811...
I must admit that before MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, I hadn’t even heard of Brendan McCarthy, which is a damn inexcusable shame. But to be fair, the work of Milligan & McCarthy hasn’t really been part of the dialogue in comix culture. Not even when it comes to talking about the impactful indie work that fell outside of the mainstream; you never hear their work cited alongside that of Frank Miller’s SIN CITY (which, before the 2005 film release was only really known in pretty small circles throughout the 1990’s) or Eddie Campbell’s ALEC or Dave Sim’s CEREBUS. But that silence is in no way reflective of the duo’s influence.
About a year ago, I listened to an interview with Neil Gaiman for the British Library podcast focused primarily on the RAMAYANA and Gaiman’s involvement in adapting it for DreamWorks. When asked if he had a particular style in mind when working on the various [never-produced] treatments, Gaiman was quick to point out Brendan McCarthy’s work on ROGAN GOSH, which Gaiman describes as being birthed from Brendan’s “Road to Damascus moment, where he ran into a pile of comics in India, and just went ‘I love this, there’s art stuff here that I’ve never seen in the West,’ and started doing stuff and playing with it.” He also goes on to describe ROGAN GOSH as “one of the most interesting moments of fusion between Indian and British and American comix culture.”
Naturally, I immediately looked into getting my hands on some ROGAN GOSH and discovered that it was reprinted in the pages of an over-sized hardcover titled THE BEST OF MILLIGAN & MCCARTHY published by Dark Horse Books in 2013 and retailing for only $24.99 (down to $7.19 as I type this). Although a horrendously produced edition (pages are actually falling out in less than a year since purchasing it), I’m still happy to have gotten my hands on it because it has been blowing my mind ever since. Not least because of the work itself, but because it simultaneously exposes a very vital almost secret history of comix lost to… I dunno,an obsession with the founding of Image Comics and the less than negligible work its founders produced? If there was ever a demented, revolutionary punk rock duo in comix, Milligan & McCarthy definitely fit the bill.
Continue reading: https://ganzeer.reviews/post/18043811...
August 6, 2018
I think this is a book best to read in small installments. Read all the Paradax parts, then go on to read something else, then read Rogan Gosh, then go on to read something else, etc. The cumulative effect is to see a writer and artist in their fixations and obsessions, and while it's all entertaining, a little goes a long way.
I first discovered Milligan's work when I picked up Shade, the Changing Man during its Vertigo run and this book shows those same ideas and percolations bubbling up throughout. There's even an enormous JFK head floating through one storyline.
The most unusual piece from the rest is the controversial piece they had called "Skin" about a skinhead thalidomide baby grown to late teen/adult age (hard to say for sure). Strange and disturbing, more so for the time in which it was written.
There's something to the idea that Milligan is sort of the John the Baptist to the flowering of alternative superhero comics that mostly launched in Britain the 80s, whereas Alan Moore was the Jesus (and Judas eventually?), but his influence is underappreciated and this volume is a good step in righting that reputation.
I first discovered Milligan's work when I picked up Shade, the Changing Man during its Vertigo run and this book shows those same ideas and percolations bubbling up throughout. There's even an enormous JFK head floating through one storyline.
The most unusual piece from the rest is the controversial piece they had called "Skin" about a skinhead thalidomide baby grown to late teen/adult age (hard to say for sure). Strange and disturbing, more so for the time in which it was written.
There's something to the idea that Milligan is sort of the John the Baptist to the flowering of alternative superhero comics that mostly launched in Britain the 80s, whereas Alan Moore was the Jesus (and Judas eventually?), but his influence is underappreciated and this volume is a good step in righting that reputation.
February 25, 2018
Psychedelic, punk rock, and imaginative as all hell, Peter Milligan and Brenden McCarthy are incredible duos like Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore for the underground and outcast scene.
July 24, 2023
amazing
Wonderful, dark, creepy, and joyous. Out of many coming titles of the ‘80s, this is absolutely precious to me. Brilliant.
Wonderful, dark, creepy, and joyous. Out of many coming titles of the ‘80s, this is absolutely precious to me. Brilliant.
December 22, 2024
Milligana začínat objevovat až teď a dost mi sedl. Trochu se bojím, že v mainstream komiksu tolik nevynikne, ale chci vyzkoušet.
Read
February 22, 2021Wow, I had no idea that Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy’s comics were so influential. Lots of ideas and styles have been adopted by other creators, especially Grant Morrison and the like. Fourth-wall breaking, literary insertions, non-linear storytelling, surrealism, and more. The Paradax stories draw a direct line to Morrison’s Zenith and Doom Patrol.
Some of them, especially Rogan Gosh, are insane and incomprehensible, but I admire the imagination and audacity of these stories (a few don’t quite make sense because they are abridged). Skin is perhaps the most straightforward story, and also one of the best; it's blunt, brutal, and entirely memorable. McCarthy’s art is outstanding throughout, especially the black and white comics where his ink work is front and center. The commentary by both gentlemen is also illuminating. Overall, a nicely assembled compilation that showcases a fascinating little piece of comics history. These comics are not for everyone but if you like the experimental they are definitely worth a look.
Some of them, especially Rogan Gosh, are insane and incomprehensible, but I admire the imagination and audacity of these stories (a few don’t quite make sense because they are abridged). Skin is perhaps the most straightforward story, and also one of the best; it's blunt, brutal, and entirely memorable. McCarthy’s art is outstanding throughout, especially the black and white comics where his ink work is front and center. The commentary by both gentlemen is also illuminating. Overall, a nicely assembled compilation that showcases a fascinating little piece of comics history. These comics are not for everyone but if you like the experimental they are definitely worth a look.
December 19, 2016
Undoubtedly innovative and influential. Just not as well-written as I would have liked.
July 30, 2016
Very interesting collection of rare (at least in the US) works by Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. I'm not sure if I really connected with most of the stories in the collection (a lot of it isn't really interested in being linear or lucid storytelling anyway), but it is well worth checking out for two massively creative individuals that had a big effect on comics. I especially enjoyed the Paradax stories, Skin, and the Summer of Love strips. Also awesome is the size of this book, making it all the easier to let McCarthy's mind-blowing art wash over you!
February 25, 2014
I think cos i'm a huge morrison fan i look at this compared to it and the story telling isn't as clean, but it has great ideas. Obviously influenced morrison's work. I think freakwave and skin were my favourite writing and the art is amazing throughout, i think mccarthy is actually my favourite artist- so adept at fusing realistic elements into psychadelic or surreal shots and maintaining a sense of composition. Great book!
March 9, 2014
The weirdest fucking thing I've ever read.
April 1, 2016
Fresh as all hell.
October 21, 2015
Skin is something else.
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