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Brit-Cit Noir - John Smith John Reppion Leah Moore Colin MacNeil Tom Foster

Started by robert_ellis, 21 May, 2016, 02:26:50 PM

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robert_ellis

Just picked up the slim volume "Brit-Cit Noir" from Gosh In Soho. It contains Strange & Darke: New Blood by Smith & MacNeil with outstanding colouring from O'Grady & Cunniffe. John Smith is in a lighter mood than usual and provides a sci-fi remix of The Wicker Man strong on atmosphere. Jehrico Strange has a striking resemblance to Judge Mortis - there are frequent references to his tv show which apparently means no one is troubled by his goat skull head. I'm not sure if he's appeared before and I'd like to find out more about him. He's partnered with a troublesome psi-judge Bekky Darke who has an interesting telepathic tumour which shouts out repressed thoughts. The 40 ish page story is great fun and it's a real shame that no sequel has appeared yet. MacNeil turns in a great art job mixing the occult with nature.
The second part of the book is Storm Warning - a slightly longer tale with a couple of  minor visual links to New Blood. Although low on visual horror the story has a real feeling of menace. The art by Foster combines the design sense of Steve Yeowell with the delicate shading of David Roach. Occasionally panels are either confusing or obscure - but oddly this ramps up the tension. Again atmosphere is key. It seems like together with Lawless currently in the Meg we are seeing a variety of strong interesting female characters break through.
Oddly the cover looks to be a clever paste job of 3 of MacNeil's panels inside. I'd rather they'd gone for the Alex Ronald spectral Meg cover reprinted amongst the bonus material. Overall this is a slight book of amazing quality - and high on originality. Highly recommended.

I, Cosh

Think Strange made a brief appearance in a Devlin Waugh story. Can't remember which one though. Maybe All Hell?
We never really die.

robert_ellis

Maybe he'll appear in that story in the MegaCollection. Thanks for info!

DrJomster

Picked this up in the recent Halloween sale and what a good move that was!

Really wish we could have more of these two little gems. There's a nice couple of references in Storm Warning to Strange and Darke.

They both read very well as a collected story. Maintaining the atmosphere is a lot easier in a single read, rather than picking it up again every month in the Meg. This is especially true for Storm Warning I found.

Anyway, excellent stuff and I really hope we see more from the script, art and lettering droids on these great stories!

Please Tharg, can we have some more?

The hippo has wisdom, respect the hippo.

AlexF

Jericho Strange first appeared in Devlin Waugh: Vile Bodies, a one off sex-heavy episode that really didn't generate as much controversy as it might have, I guess mostly thanks to some tasteful Colin MacNeil art. A shame that it's not included in this collection - sure, it has been reprinted in a couple of Devlin Waugh trades (both the Rebellion one and the Hachette one), but it's pretty stanalone and provides more Strange and more Colin MacNeil, and who doesn't want that?

That said, it doesn't do much to fill in any back story on Jericho Strange himself. He's just in it to guide Devlin around a ship full of fornicating folklore creatures.

I second all calls for more stories from both characters!

TordelBack

Repeating myself as usual, but I discovered Storm Warning mainly through the 50p sale, and I thought it was brilliant.  Tom Foster is a marvel, and it's definitely Moore & Reppion's strongest story to date. I've somehow completely avoided Strange & Dark. Have to remedy that, can never get enough John Smith.

Smith