The golden ages of British comics are brought to life in this glorious rustle through their back pages by the matey double act of Mark Hibbett and John Dredge, who each week review a specific issue of a classic 1970s title. This moves from old school D.C. Thomson stalwarts such as Dandy, Beano and Topper, to the more anarchic IPC new wave embodied by Whoopee! and Krazy. The riot of wild artwork and puntastic characters including Frankie Stein and Leo Baxendale’s magnificent Sweeney Toddler that followed was akin to moving from music hall to punk, with lashings of junior school surrealism thrown in. The twelve editions so far take us from Jackpot to Cheeky Weekly, as we discover the class-based roots of many strips, with one in which a posh private school and a scruffy comprehensive are merged even being called Class Wars. Umberto Eco gets a mention, as does Trevor Metcalfe’s superhero homage The Amazing Three’s second life by way of Grant Morrison’s Zenith in 2000AD...
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.