This one finally reached the top of my 'to read list' and its absolutely wonderful.
Robert Ellis' opening post perfectly sums it up really. The fact that they re-locate Spidey to a downtrodden British town makes the series work even better than its obvious source material. I mean its not shy in how clearly it rips off Spidey, but it all the more down to earth and 'real' by putting such a fantastical hero into such a gritty location. It has none of the glitz of Spidey's New York - the lack of shiny dynamic super villians really underlines this and it just a rip roaring romp of a story.
It a real masterclass in efficency as well. Tom Tully, Mike Western and Eric Bradbury (how are art duties handles after the first few episodes when you can tell, this is Western and now its Bradbury I'm not quite sure how they shared duties? Is Bradbury inking Western... vice versa... I can't work it out) keep the story charging along at such a brisk pace, yet it somehow avoids feeling too rushed.
And while the characters are panto cliche's that also strangely works in the strips favour. Characters we've seen in so many strips about downtrodden kids are all here, and all serve to elevate the wonder The Leopard - to make the adventures feel real, while entirely in context of the time it was created in.
I adore this book, can't wait to read volume 2 and I'm a little sad we've not seen a volume 3. Hopefully its still planned somewhere down the line and the series has done well enough to justify continuing as I really do want more, more MORE.
Just brilliant 70s British nonsense.
