A hefty volume lurks behind the surprising William Stout cover on this volume of A1. With this many pages, it's only natural that there'd be a balance of good with bad. What is surprising, though, is the distinction this book holds in having quite possibly the worst Neil Gaiman story I've ever read (in years of reading Gaiman), 'Cover Story.' It's illustrated by one of my favourite comic artists, Kelley Jones, but is just so corny and dull it can't be saved. There's more Bojeffries goodness from Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse and another strange chapter of Bricktop from Glenn Fabry (with Chris Smith). Nick Abadzis puts in a touching tale with 'The Boy Who Defied Gravity,' and David Lloyd beautifully paints the Ramsey Campbell story 'The Proxy.' The good parts of the book only throw the weaker bits into sharper contrast, so perhaps Bambos Georgiou's Elvistein story's not as bad as it seems. Maybe the inexplicable teaming of Bill Mumy and Miguel Ferrer with Steve Leialoha on 'Trypto the Acid-Dog' isn't just stupid. But maybe they are.
This one has Milligan and Ewins so I am interested.
The 3-eyed JFK city-head from Milligan and McCarthy is like Rabelaisian acid-honey. The Story Freakwave from the two-issue flop 'Strange Days' is to me, probably the single most important piece of Comic art until Miller and Darrow's Hard Boiled.. but I don't read this stuff. I'm sort of glad I don't. This looks like Crack on the page. My eyes are orgasming..
The story is introduced ala Creepy etc by a post-apocalyptic mutant african (or some kind of tribalismo) jester with a weird little clone of himself as his bladder stick.
There's a gay 18th cent. fop Head Captain whose city-head is a giant mad-hatter head! Too much. Skeleton faced mickey mouses etc.. This is way before Juxtapoz.. The fop captain's first mate is a guy in a bunny costume!