I'm starting this thread for posting reviews of the new Rebellion TPBs - from boarders, comic mags or online review sites.
I'll start the ball rolling with this brief mention of Necronauts, from James Sime at Comic Book Resources:
Necronauts
Before there was the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there were the "Necronauts"? or at least that's the story I was told at a party at San Diego Comic Con. Supposedly the script and several pages of this book floated around the British comic industry without a publisher for years, and were maybe even given to Mister Moore himself. Once League of Extraordinary Gentlemen became a hit, publishers noticed the similarities between the concepts and the Necronauts were quickly scooped up and ran in British super-anthology 2000ad.
Is the story true? I don't know and frankly, I don't care.
What I do care about is that "Necronauts" is a great read with a cool concept and it has stunning artwork by Frazer Irving. You just can't do much better than that. In my book anytime Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Fort and H.P. Lovecraft band together to fight monstrous terrors of this world and on the astral plane you've got a great read. "Necronauts" is perfect for all students of the otherworldly, and also for anyone who just likes good comics.
Link: The Comic Pimp
Well, Gordon has this whole LEXG argument sewed up pretty tightly. You want evidence, he's got evidence.
Still not read it actually, but hey, one day. Along with Button Man, one of those series I've missed or ignored and look forward to reading.
Continuing with the reviews, Ninth Art on Hewligan's Haircut (I know this was posted earlier, but I might as well add it to this thread)
Link: Ninth Art: Hewligan's Haircut
...and another Necronauts review:
Link: The Alien Online: Necronauts
One final Necronauts review, this time from Silver Bullet:
Link: Silver Bullet Comicbooks: Necronauts
Theres a rather nice Kim Newman quote about Necronauts on the Amazon page as well.
Kim Newman, Author, Anno Dracula et al
"An unsettling, provocative secret history - playful, gruesome, mind-expanding and weirdly convincing."
And who is that reviewer in North London...
Good point though, sorry if you've said it before Gordon, but any reason you don't mention the Lovecraft penned Houdini Pyramid story? To obvious? or not bothered? or not enough space?
Worth a flashback I'd have thought.
>>Good point though, sorry if you've said it before Gordon, but any reason you don't mention the Lovecraft penned Houdini Pyramid story? To obvious? or not bothered? or not enough space?
I did mention it, in some dialogue between Houdini and Lovecraft, to establish the fact that there was a previous connection between them, but it was out edited out for reasons of not being 'rocket fuel' enough, apparently.
One of the things I wanted to show was that Houdini, Conan Doyle and Lovecraft really were all linked together, and I wasn't just pulling characters out of my arse to make up a League of Extraordinary Real-Life Old Duffers. Unfortunately, I never could find anything to connect Charles Fort with them, so just hypothesised that a collector of the strange and uncanny like Houdini would probably have been at least aware of Fort's work.
Hmmm... necronauts doesn't seem to me like a rocket fuel story (not that I've read it yet, can't have my prejudices infected by reality) being all horror and darkness. Interesting to know it was in there though, cheers.
I think Fort's a pretty appropriate character really. You can imagine any of the other three at least knowing of him.
I suppose the strip as it bubbles up into peoples consciousnesses is probably going to get lodged between LEXG and Fort. Unfair I know.
All the reviews seem very good however!
>>Hmmm... necronauts doesn't seem to me like a rocket fuel story
It wasn't. In fact, I think it broke or ignored just about every one of the points of rocket fuel formula of that time, and was the subject of several writer-editor disagreements, IIRC.
Yeah but Fort is a load of badly written tosh that doesn?t really make great use of its charcater and setting (and apologies to Fraiser if he's reading this, because believe me I don?t think the art is the problem).
Still, I supoose poor old Chrales doesn't get much a look in dialogue-wise in Necronauts so its nice that Fort gives him an opportunity to speachify about the unknown and such...
Thanks for the shout-out!
There's a new 'Button Man' GN review over at the excellent Ninth art site.
Link: Ninth Art - Button Man GN
Alas, no TPB reviews from the 2000AD Review site. No money for them and don't seem to be on the "review copy" list. (bah).
Having said that, if you want an in-depth review of Dredd/Aliens, you could always start here and keep going through the issues (click on "next review"):
http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/reviews/2002/prog2003review.shtml
Link: 2000AD Review