Girl

Girl #1-3

Story Peter Milligan ~ Art Duncan Fegredo

Valhallahan
Seemingly ages ago (don't expect me to be specific - I drink), I picked up a stack of old Vertigo from Oxfam in Crouch End, which has a great Comics and Graphic Novel selection - good for leftfield gems like Crisis back issues, and a tonne of Hellblazer (though I haven’t been in quite some time, so don’t quote me). Among these ramshackle pamphlets was the first issue of Girl, by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo. I hadn't heard of the series before, but I'll generally give anything by Milligan a try, he's a 2000AD alumnus, a regular contributor to Crisis and one of the early pioneers of the Vertigo imprint, not to mention X-Force/X-Statix. Strangely for a writer of his calibre there are a lot of series by him which seem to have fallen by the wayside, Enigma, The Extremist, Minx... All still unreleased as trades for whatever reasons; they've only just started releasing his legendary Shade: The Changing Man run. But I digress... Suffices to say it took me a fucking age to find all three issues, a quest which ended on the faraway shores of a land called Norwich (OK, it doesn't have shores, but fuck you, this is my story).

Girl throws us into the shitty life of Simone, who lives in a shitty flat in a shitty tower block in a shitty Bollockstown estate, with her shitty family. Simone is not loving life; her monosyllabic parents are at best oblivious, at worst abusive, she's got no friends and she's scared of boys. Even the kids in the lift take the piss out of her.

Things start looking up for Simone when she meets Polly an almost painful reflection of what her life could be like, had she been given all the right breaks. Polly takes Simone under her wing and shows her how to drink, dance, let loose and generally grab life by the balls, so to speak. The trouble is, there's a very strong possibility that Polly is entirely fictional, and our heroine may have gone more than a little bit mental. What adds to this possibilty is the fact that a lot of tragic accidents are befalling the various people in Simone's life, people, if she's honest, Simone is not sad to see the back of...

This is a vibrant, if slightly nihilistic shotgun blast of a story, about breaking the shackles of the mundane society upon which we are thrust into by any means necessary. A satyrical, cynically hillarious... blah, blah, blah... one more paragraph... it's just really fucking good. Go find it!

Four and a bit homicidal split personalities out of a possible five.

What I got and Why (Slight Return)

Valhallahan

I went to see friends in Norwich this weekend and between bars, managed to try out the local comic shop; Abstract Sprocket. It’s a small but perfectly formed shop with a good mix of Trades, Back Issues and New Releases. Not much other Merch, apart from a few nice T shirts. There was a wall of Manga too, but it’s not really my bag. Here’s what I got:

DV8: Gods and Monsters #2 - I was a big fan of DV8 in the late 90s and this revamp has me intrigued. I haven’t read any Wildstorm in years, so I don’t know what the deal is with continuity, is there any? Are we meant to be wondering why half these characters are alive and together again, or do we just accept it as an entirely new thing? Also worth noting that Brian Wood’s inability to write a likeable character works perfectly here. The cover is probably my favourite of the month. Tattoo-Worthy.

The Marvels Project #8 (of 8) - I’ve enjoyed this series, so in a way it’s a shame to see it go, but in other ways it was a pretty pointless re-treading of old ground with a few cool additions. To end it with Pearl Harbour seemed pretty arbitrary to me, but I’ll stop complaining because I did enjoy it (the series, not Pearl Harbour - That was well shit).

Girl #3 – This is an old Vertigo Verite series by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo that I’ve been trying to track down for about two years. I’d literally tried every comic shop in London and the outskirts to no avail (Found #1 in Oxfam, Crouch End, and #2 in Orbital), I’d have looked online, but where’s the fun in that? Anyway, this is an excellent series about a strange young woman and her crappy life. Also, she may or may not be a serial killer.