So yeah, Mark Millar’s new magazine CLiNT came out this week, via early release at Forbidden Planet courtesy of Titan Publishing. Bit of a lengthy review, this one, but I feel it’s warranted.
It’s a brave move from Millar/Titan; I can’t remember the last successful launch of an anthology comic in the UK. 2000AD’s continued existence shows that there IS a market for regular serialised comic books in this country but beyond the American format X-Men and Batman reprints currently on the shelves, there’s no real outlet for NEW material currently.
What’s really noticeable about CLiNT is that fact that most of, the material is reprints. That and the fact it’s £3.99. :-/
Issue 1 gives us the following: 8 pages of Kick-Ass 2, before it gets printed in the US by Marvel. The entire first issue of Jonathan Ross' and Tommy Lee Edwards’ Turf clocking in at 26 pages, 11 pages of the Frankie Boyle-penned Rex Royd and 23 pages of Millar’s recent project Nemesis. Including covers, the magazine clocks in at 100 pages. Now I would imagine that they’re aiming this at people who don’t necessarily buy the American editions of the books reprinted within, so that’s a fair whack of funnybook for your hard earned 3.99. Ads are kept down to 10 pages total too, only appearing between strips, rather than in the midst of them. It's a nice touch and one which I really appreciated.
The strips themselves are a mixed bag. The much touted Kick-Ass 2 is painfully short giving you two amusing but short scenes. John Romita Jr’s art is typically good, less crosshatching than he’s been using recently, so it looks a little cleaner. The colouring is muted, retaining the real world feel of the previous volume, but has gone a little overboard with the Photoshop textures. The story segues nicely from the end of the previous volume and could very easily have been a follow-on issue, rather than the new series. One criticism I would level at it, is that there is no “Previously, on Kick-Ass…” so if you haven’t read the first volume or seen the movie, you’re going to be pretty confused. The Kick-Ass 2 strip is clearly the big hook for the magazine, with the strip getting published here several months ahead of an American release.
I previously commented on Turf in one of my weekly review columns so here’s the Cliff Notes version: Nice art, but obscured by overly wordy & excessive amounts of dialogue. Nothing ground-breaking in the story but an ambitious mash-up of Prohibition-era period drama, horror and sci-fi. Without the famous writer attached, I doubt it would have done particularly well. As of now, only 2 issues of Turf have been published. If CLiNT is going to stick to it’s schedule of every 4 weeks, expect Turf to get a reduced page count, or skipped entirely while they wait for the material to get published in America.
Rex Royd reads very much like a 2000AD story. The art is similar to, but nowhere near as good as, John McCrea of DC’s The Demon & Hitman fame. A corporate heavy realizes he is in fact the real CEO and had asked to have his real identity concealed so he could enjoy being normal for a while. By the end of the strip, this has been turned on it’s head and did pique my curiosity enough to consider buying the next issue. Not bad Mr Boyle. I don’t like your comedy but your comic is better than Wossy’s so far.
The last major strip is Millar’s other movie-treatment cash cow Nemesis. Ugh, I really can’t describe how much I dislike this stuff. Steve McNiven turns in arguably his worst work in years, Millar pumps another attempt to hit Hollywood gold with a few quips in an effort to make this seem like a comic, rather than a licensing bid. McNiven can produce crisper, art than this, look at Marvel's Civil War to see what I mean. Here's his work looks drab, maybe that's more down to the colorist, but I didn't get the dynamism form his art that I did when he drew Civil War. All in? A waste of pages. In case you’ve been lucky enough to miss any of Nemesis so far, here is the premise: What if Batman was a villain? Oh and wore white. How revolutionary, the bad guy is wearing white. See what he did there? Reversing your expectations? Spare me…
There’s a short strip featuring a redneck, desert dweller fighting a zombie ninja and struggling to have his friends believe him. By that point I think I was losing interest. Not sure if it was a one-off or to be continued.
The remainder of the magazine features an interview with Jimmy Carr (Good) and a short Q&A with Christopher Mintz-Plasse who played Red Mist in the Kick-Ass movie (Bad). There’s an article on Charles Manson’s Celebrity to-do list (Creepy) and the revelation that English Language films use voice actors when they’re dubbed in different languages (So?). The last two points I’ll cover are what made me feel this was really little more than a vanity project for Millar and his friends: Deeply Moral babes showed a rather overly made-up Oxfam worker in her civvies, while reading “Top Ten TV Mums” was like listening in on teenage boys sniggering on the bus. What age group is this aimed at? the comics are usually labelled mature readers while the features swing between the puerile and the informative, if irrelevant.
I’d love for the format to take off and be a success, but based on the content of the first issue, I don’t feel there’s anywhere near enough to get people hooked long-term. They can’t string Kick-Ass 2 out forever, surely?… By all means, give the first issue a try. As I said, there are a lot of story pages in there, a smattering of articles and you might enjoy the stories if you've not read comics in a while.
