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Rex Royd
Exciting, experimental and challenging - it's controversial Scottish stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle's first comics work. Join the crazy adventures of superscientist CEO Rex Royd!
From an interview with Frankie "I wanted to try to do something that came from the heart. The state-of-the-art in comics always seemed a bit linear and it seems so unambitious. I wanted to do different sections from an overall story you didn't see all of. I just f****** love comics and I'm keen to develop the whole thing in the least comic book way possible! Rex is complex, but you don't necessarily need to follow everything. I'm not asking the reader to work as much as have an open mind."
Each Rex Royd chapter takes us further into the vivid imagination of stand-up comedian and writer, Frankie Boyle - backed up by stunning, stylish art by Mike Dowling and Budi Setiawan. The action takes place at RexCorp, a corporation where violence is the day job. RexCorp is headed up by superscientist CEO Rex Royd, indestructible Alan Black, and Eve - yes, that Eve. How will they cope against the incalculable power of the extraterrestrial Proteoman? All this plus memory implants, drug-addicted schizophrenics, sex-travelling aliens, Thunder God suicides - and more.
From an interview with Frankie "I wanted to try to do something that came from the heart. The state-of-the-art in comics always seemed a bit linear and it seems so unambitious. I wanted to do different sections from an overall story you didn't see all of. I just f****** love comics and I'm keen to develop the whole thing in the least comic book way possible! Rex is complex, but you don't necessarily need to follow everything. I'm not asking the reader to work as much as have an open mind."
Each Rex Royd chapter takes us further into the vivid imagination of stand-up comedian and writer, Frankie Boyle - backed up by stunning, stylish art by Mike Dowling and Budi Setiawan. The action takes place at RexCorp, a corporation where violence is the day job. RexCorp is headed up by superscientist CEO Rex Royd, indestructible Alan Black, and Eve - yes, that Eve. How will they cope against the incalculable power of the extraterrestrial Proteoman? All this plus memory implants, drug-addicted schizophrenics, sex-travelling aliens, Thunder God suicides - and more.
112 pages, Paperback
Published September 18, 2018
2 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Frankie Boyle
30 books242 followersFrancis Martin Patrick "Frankie" Boyle is a Scottish comedian and writer, well known for his pessimistic, often controversial sense of humour. He was a permanent panellist on Mock the Week for seven series and has made guest appearances on several popular panel shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie to You?, You Have Been Watching, Never Mind the Buzzcocks (as guest host and team captain when Phill Jupitus was unavailable for recording), and Argumental, as well as writing for Jimmy Carr's Distraction and Sean Lock's TV Heaven, Telly Hell.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 26, 2018
The easiest way to describe this is to suggest you pick up a copy of 2000 AD at random and then read the issue as one story.
It doesn't flow, nothing really makes sense but you're having fun reading comics anyway.
It's like falling asleep during a film, missing the middle where all the important exposition happens and then waking up during the final conflict and cheering for the happy ending anyway.
It's like listening to an audiobook on shuffle.
It's like playing poker with the property cards from a monopoly set.
It's like having a hangover and a migraine at the same time.
It's frankly insane and nonsensical but it couldn't be anything else.
I loved Rex Royd in the mildly missed CLiNT and was sad that I never got to see how it all panned out so snapped this up as soon as I saw it on pre order.
I then sat and read it in one sitting.
It's as mental as I remember, if not more so, but I guess I was too dumb back then to see that it not ending didn't really matter nothing ends.
Nothing gets resolved, happy endings don't count anymore. Comics are just soap operas for people who think they are better than TV.
This is a fantastic, it's meta, it's sarcastic, it's not for everybody and doesn't want to be. I love it you'll maybe hate it but neither of us will be right.
I am the dragon
It doesn't flow, nothing really makes sense but you're having fun reading comics anyway.
It's like falling asleep during a film, missing the middle where all the important exposition happens and then waking up during the final conflict and cheering for the happy ending anyway.
It's like listening to an audiobook on shuffle.
It's like playing poker with the property cards from a monopoly set.
It's like having a hangover and a migraine at the same time.
It's frankly insane and nonsensical but it couldn't be anything else.
I loved Rex Royd in the mildly missed CLiNT and was sad that I never got to see how it all panned out so snapped this up as soon as I saw it on pre order.
I then sat and read it in one sitting.
It's as mental as I remember, if not more so, but I guess I was too dumb back then to see that it not ending didn't really matter nothing ends.
Nothing gets resolved, happy endings don't count anymore. Comics are just soap operas for people who think they are better than TV.
This is a fantastic, it's meta, it's sarcastic, it's not for everybody and doesn't want to be. I love it you'll maybe hate it but neither of us will be right.
I am the dragon
January 17, 2019
I'm not sure what I just read.
I wasn't surprised by the "God raping Eve" scene, but I was surprised by the lack of narrative. It took me about half way through the comics to understand it wasn't me who couldn't follow but that it was on purpose. After that I could enjoy it a bit more. Sometimes the craziness worked for me, other times I was bored. I didn't enjoy the artwork but I don't think any other style would have worked for what I think (?) he was trying to do.
I wasn't surprised by the "God raping Eve" scene, but I was surprised by the lack of narrative. It took me about half way through the comics to understand it wasn't me who couldn't follow but that it was on purpose. After that I could enjoy it a bit more. Sometimes the craziness worked for me, other times I was bored. I didn't enjoy the artwork but I don't think any other style would have worked for what I think (?) he was trying to do.
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March 23, 2024I hadn't thought of Frankie Boyle's foray into comics in years, probably not since shortly after seeing the panels from the first installment where the protagonist is told by his father that unlike all the other kids, he was conceived through sodomy. Which seemed about what we expected from a feature in Mark Millar's magazine Clint, a publication where the best one can say is that when so many comics are doomed despite being brilliant, at least this one was doomed and terrible. But then I saw an interview recently with Rufus Hound where his comics taste seemed pretty solid otherwise, and he was praising this as a lost gem. And after all, if Millar himself has become ever more of an irritant since, Boyle is a much more valuable presence than the generic edgelord he used to be, while Mike Dowling - whose first professional comics work this was - has matured into quite the artist. Plus, and this was the clincher, I saw it for two quid in a sale.
As such, it gives me little pleasure to report that for the most part this is exactly the puerile slog that early page had us expecting all those years ago. Hound, and Boyle's own introduction, make much of the idea that it's supposed to feel like when you were a kid and would end up with random issues of a comic out of sequence, fractured glimpses of an incomplete story, and that's not a bad idea, at least when a Grant Morrison or Alan Moore attempts it - but doing it first time out is running before you can walk, and means what this more feels like is choppy, lazy storytelling. Which is to say, quite Millar. That's most blatant in the idea that what happened to Christopher Reeve was the echo of a terrible fate visited on another world's Superman, something I found horribly affecting in Wanted - but not enough so for a retread here to hit me as anything more than tired. As for the Bilderberg party where our rulers are all lizards, engaged in an orgy of rape and anthropophagy - it's a scene I can imagine Boyle incorporating into a comedy routine along the way to somewhere else, and pulling it off, but here it's only wearying. There are occasional amusing lines, though fewer than I would have expected, and the final chapter may be blatantly 'borrowing' from Moore and Morrison, but does have a central concept which suggests Boyle might have another, much better comic in him one day. This, on the other hand, would have been better left forgotten.
As such, it gives me little pleasure to report that for the most part this is exactly the puerile slog that early page had us expecting all those years ago. Hound, and Boyle's own introduction, make much of the idea that it's supposed to feel like when you were a kid and would end up with random issues of a comic out of sequence, fractured glimpses of an incomplete story, and that's not a bad idea, at least when a Grant Morrison or Alan Moore attempts it - but doing it first time out is running before you can walk, and means what this more feels like is choppy, lazy storytelling. Which is to say, quite Millar. That's most blatant in the idea that what happened to Christopher Reeve was the echo of a terrible fate visited on another world's Superman, something I found horribly affecting in Wanted - but not enough so for a retread here to hit me as anything more than tired. As for the Bilderberg party where our rulers are all lizards, engaged in an orgy of rape and anthropophagy - it's a scene I can imagine Boyle incorporating into a comedy routine along the way to somewhere else, and pulling it off, but here it's only wearying. There are occasional amusing lines, though fewer than I would have expected, and the final chapter may be blatantly 'borrowing' from Moore and Morrison, but does have a central concept which suggests Boyle might have another, much better comic in him one day. This, on the other hand, would have been better left forgotten.
January 9, 2026
I hope you can take this whole thing as it's meant. Y'know it's not supposed to make narrative sense. It's supposed to make poetic sense. So take this for example--I was going to have Rex, before he evacuated, fire a bullet through a little hole in time.
The bullet was a little metaphor for art--the culture is dead now and maybe any art these days is just aimed at the teenagers of the future. But actually, what Rex does is--He actually fires those bullets into a fictional sub reality. So maybe it's more that art is just made to chime with other art, collaborates with itself, y'know? This idea of geniuses creating entirely original work--it's some great white men bullsh*t I think.
Everything you do together is a radical act.
I have often wondered what it would be like to be in Frankie Boyle's head and now I know! This is a utterly bizarre offering that takes aim at the superhero genre.
Originally serialised in CLiNT Magazine, Boyle has written the story to be small snapshots of a wider narrative which the reader isn't privy to.
Completely brutal in places, outrageously controversial in others, it is very much what you would expect from a comedian who is known for pushing boundaries.
I couldn't quite get into it, which might well be the point, and this only gets 2 3/4 stars.
The bullet was a little metaphor for art--the culture is dead now and maybe any art these days is just aimed at the teenagers of the future. But actually, what Rex does is--He actually fires those bullets into a fictional sub reality. So maybe it's more that art is just made to chime with other art, collaborates with itself, y'know? This idea of geniuses creating entirely original work--it's some great white men bullsh*t I think.
Everything you do together is a radical act.
I have often wondered what it would be like to be in Frankie Boyle's head and now I know! This is a utterly bizarre offering that takes aim at the superhero genre.
Originally serialised in CLiNT Magazine, Boyle has written the story to be small snapshots of a wider narrative which the reader isn't privy to.
Completely brutal in places, outrageously controversial in others, it is very much what you would expect from a comedian who is known for pushing boundaries.
I couldn't quite get into it, which might well be the point, and this only gets 2 3/4 stars.
September 20, 2018
Very rarely do comics or tv shows get the chance to wrap up loose ends--and you hope it's worth the wait.
Rex Royd was the best part of Mark Millar's "CLINT Magazine" initiative. It was edge-lordy, but in a good way. Taking a piss out of the superhero genre--as well as faith towards figures like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc. Rex Royd is "The Renaissance Man of Madness"--it's basically if Lex Luthor was less subtle in his dickery. He's just often fighting bigger dicks (i.e. Superman, The Bilderberg Group, God, etc.)
This is pure Heavy Metal/2000AD comics--not long for this world. These comics pushed reality (meta), morality and good taste in the brief interlude. It's Mark Millar's "Wanted" meets Garth Ennis' "The Pro" which I traditionally wouldn't be a fan of--but good stuff.
Rex Royd was the best part of Mark Millar's "CLINT Magazine" initiative. It was edge-lordy, but in a good way. Taking a piss out of the superhero genre--as well as faith towards figures like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc. Rex Royd is "The Renaissance Man of Madness"--it's basically if Lex Luthor was less subtle in his dickery. He's just often fighting bigger dicks (i.e. Superman, The Bilderberg Group, God, etc.)
This is pure Heavy Metal/2000AD comics--not long for this world. These comics pushed reality (meta), morality and good taste in the brief interlude. It's Mark Millar's "Wanted" meets Garth Ennis' "The Pro" which I traditionally wouldn't be a fan of--but good stuff.
December 2, 2025
I randomly bought this a few months ago but I am familiar with the comedian writer Frankie Boyle. When he first became known as a comedian I really wasn't too much of a fan, he seemed to crude or offensive for the sake of it. Over time though I do think his comedy and other work since and he himself has changed, become more considered, nuanced. In this short comic series it is clearly a work written by Boyle- it is at times provocative and challenging yet humorous but also attempts to make good use of the comicbook format to entertain and ask questions about stories and comicbook readers.
You may enjoy it if you are a fan of Preacher or Watchmen.
You may enjoy it if you are a fan of Preacher or Watchmen.
January 11, 2026
Comedian Frankie Boyle's first foray into comics. Being from the U.S, I had no idea who he was but the comic looked interesting. It's definitely got some Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis elements in it and like Mark Millar (who produced this originally in a UK anthology title of his), it's disjointed, leaving one to fill in the gaps. It's about Rex Royd who is some supersmart CEO who hates superheroes and wants to take them out and the ones in here aren't worth keeping around anyway. Anyway, this has its moments. It also sometimes left me going "Huh?"
February 7, 2019
Mental. Frankie Boyle needs help.
Great drawings / illustrations though.
Great drawings / illustrations though.
September 25, 2020
It makes sense as seen as a whole, it's very rich and daring. Good job Frankie.
September 3, 2022
Disjointed and hard to follow but very Frankie Boyle!
July 20, 2024
There's barely a narrative, nothing flows, it makes no sense like every second page is missing. Which apparently was by design, OK then...
September 24, 2025
It's a bit all over the place at times, but worth a go - and you even get a little look behind Frankie's creative curtain (thankfully metaphorically not phallically).
March 10, 2024
In the introduction, Frankie Boyle mentions this comic series being driven by the concept of stories making poetic, if not narrative, sense. Additionally, he wanted to invoke that feeling of picking up a comic halfway through a run and, despite knowing you've missed a huge chunk of context, enjoying it nonetheless.
Does it work? Not really.
As someone who first picked up comics about 15 years right in the middle of a huge story without any context (Marvel's Dark Reign, I am in the UK, we are a bit behind the US) and completely understand the appeal of being thrown in the deep end, I just don't think this pulls it off effectively.
I would like to state that I am a massive Frankie Boyle fan (despite his controversies) and there are parts of this that genuinely made me laugh out loud and, as much as I love the justification for this series existence, I just don't think it stuck the landing.
For me, the large appeal of being chucked into a huge universe with no context, is that you KNOW the context does exist you just haven't explored it yet. When you dive into the middle of a massive Marvel event, the huge, catastrophic catalyst, and prior relationships/events are all right there for you to seek out and enjoy. If you're confused, or there is a particular avenue of the story you want to explore, you can. This has none of that.
I think a concept like this could work, but with such a tiny page count, and such ambitions, I think it was destined to fail. I could see someone like Grant Morrison pulling this off but, and absolutely no offense to Frankie Boyle here, he isn't Grant Morrison.
I would love to see Frankie return to the world of comics as I think he clearly has a love for the craft, and his humour suits the medium really, really well. This one just wasn't for me.
Does it work? Not really.
As someone who first picked up comics about 15 years right in the middle of a huge story without any context (Marvel's Dark Reign, I am in the UK, we are a bit behind the US) and completely understand the appeal of being thrown in the deep end, I just don't think this pulls it off effectively.
I would like to state that I am a massive Frankie Boyle fan (despite his controversies) and there are parts of this that genuinely made me laugh out loud and, as much as I love the justification for this series existence, I just don't think it stuck the landing.
For me, the large appeal of being chucked into a huge universe with no context, is that you KNOW the context does exist you just haven't explored it yet. When you dive into the middle of a massive Marvel event, the huge, catastrophic catalyst, and prior relationships/events are all right there for you to seek out and enjoy. If you're confused, or there is a particular avenue of the story you want to explore, you can. This has none of that.
I think a concept like this could work, but with such a tiny page count, and such ambitions, I think it was destined to fail. I could see someone like Grant Morrison pulling this off but, and absolutely no offense to Frankie Boyle here, he isn't Grant Morrison.
I would love to see Frankie return to the world of comics as I think he clearly has a love for the craft, and his humour suits the medium really, really well. This one just wasn't for me.
September 16, 2019
Well worth a wee read this book, pulling together, and finishing off the comic strip that Frankie Boyle was writing in Mark Millar's CLiNT magazine a couple of years ago. Amongst a couple of hundred pages of mentalness there are some moments of existential angst, some appalling bad taste and a few vaguely familiar characters dispatched effortlessly.
The art work of Mike Dowling in the early chapters is noteworthy too, as it adds to the whole psychedelic nonsense.
When are you ever again going to read a book that has God murdered on one page whilst he is in flagrante and later on, the authorial god-figure wandering through Kelvingrove Park at the Glasgow Mela?
The art work of Mike Dowling in the early chapters is noteworthy too, as it adds to the whole psychedelic nonsense.
When are you ever again going to read a book that has God murdered on one page whilst he is in flagrante and later on, the authorial god-figure wandering through Kelvingrove Park at the Glasgow Mela?
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews