Slaine: The Horned God, v2

[greenmask]

I haven't had a chance to catch up on the double-feature "moments" theme weeks just yet - but I have FAITH that it was excellent, as usual.

Next theme.. first week of September? We'll see.

To make up for my absence, here is a perfect TEAM moment; Pat Mills and Simon Bisley working together. On anything. But in this case, on 2000AD's Slaine: The Horned God. Slaine is, approximately, What If Wolverine Were Gambit in Mythic Ireland? Often, you see his bum.

Jim Lee X-Men comics may have been how my boyfriend wooed me, but this three-volume series on permenant loan was how he kept me. Or how I knew he thought I was a keeper? Trust, man!

Below the cut: Politics, dragon-fighting. Kilts. But basically, first time around, we're here for the art.







I should mention - Slaine's youthful adventures are being transcribed after his death by his "faithful" companion, Ukko. That's the framing device for this three-volume story.

Jump a few pages, and we have some "showing off" -







More coming. Hopefully. I'm on borrowed scanner time.

This is the same Pat Mills as the Pat Mills who wants to bring back British Girls' Comics, btw.

*swoon*

Comments

[slippy]

Slaine is, approximately, What If Wolverine Were Gambit in Mythic Ireland? Often, you see his bum.
How to get me clicking on a cut link, and fast.

And this is gorgeous, I wish I could read it. The speech bubbles stand out kind of oddly, though ... but then I look at the colouring and I'm swayed again.

This is the same Pat Mills as the Pat Mills who wants to bring back British Girls' Comics, btw.
Yes please! But how would that kind of cheesiness translate to today.

[greenmask]

Hahar, it worked! It is true though. Bare bottoms next post.

Yeah, to be fair it WOULD be hard to match speechbubbles to THAT art. Plus this was published in 1990. They're a little jarring, but you get used to them.

I think it would translate to..

..perfection.

[whitesycamore]

I suddenly realised that the true career path I want to follow is writing the new wave of British Girl's Comics.

There would be an ongoing strip called "Fanbelts and Freesias," about the unlikely friendship between a girl who works in a florist shop and an apprentice mechanic! And another one with... something to do with ghost-hunting, and... competitive swimming.

Blimey, this is actually harder than I thought.

[nomadicwriter]

Ooh, this is my first exposure to Bisley's Slaine. Never really cared for his Judge Dredd, I must confess (admittedly, the sort of stories he was working on don't help) but this I like much better.

[greenmask]

I actually haven't seen any of his Dredd! I can understand it not working though; as my sweetie said last week, Bisley is a very honest artist, and really into organics - I can understand that not jibing with Dredd - the covered eyes, the impersonal attitudes, the tight adherence to rules. Slaine is all about.. pragmatic hedonism? Much like Lobo, who Bisley does wonders on.

I'll have to look some up.

[nomadicwriter]

Looking it up, he didn't actually do very much Dredd, as it turns out, just the Batman crossover and some episodes of the spectacularly awful Heavy Metal Dredd. (Non-canonical series of one-shots written for Heavy Metal magazine, which were stupid, unfunny, ultra-violent, full of gore for gore's sake, and generally exactly what people who don't know anything about Dredd imagine Dredd comics are like.) So that's probably rather tainted my impression of Bisley's art. But also I just wasn't keen on the way he tended to draw Dredd very bulky and muscular; I've always liked the fact that Dredd is usually depicted as pretty skinny and generally built like a policeman rather than a superhero.

[mastiff]

Really loved the art in this series, but the third volume looked very rushed; a few great pages, then a lot of simple throw-aways. I got the feeling he was more concerned about the deadline than the quality, which is a shame.

But still one of my favorite mini-series of all time.

[greenmask]

You thought so?? I'll have to look back over it, in my memory it's just as uh-may-zing as this. All the grotesquerie really comes to the fore, right?

Haha, but even if you're on the button - isn't slacked Bisley is still something to write home about, comparatively?!

It's one of the most re-readable trade collections I have, I think.

[angelophile]

Slaine the Horny God is totally one of my favourite comics and, personally, I find it kinda endearing how some panels are executed in incredible, exquisite detail and then another is simply pencils with a quick splash of watercolours over the top. I don't find it distracting, it's more a testament to what Bisley found most interesting about certain pages, obviously spending days on individual panels before suddenly realising the deadline had bitten him on the ass. I'd kinda rather have that wonderful detail for a few panels than uniformity with less love throughout.