Bomblizzard Vol 1

I got this from a girl (Nikki Stu) who’s done some pretty fantastic video game inspired collage art (one of her pieces is in a book of Darkstalkers artwork put out by Udon), but I was surprised to discover that it also has comics by Isy Morgenmuffel and Steve Larder (Rumlad)! I didn’t expect to see comics from some punk rock activisty people in the same book as video game people. (It turns out Steve went to school with Nikki).

The theme of this issue is winter, and there’s some pretty neat stuff in here. Isy’s comic is about a boat trip to the Canary Islands (and then returning home to be lonely in dreary Britain). Isy’s comics are really good, even if her panel to panel story telling is sometimes a bit iffy. (I’m of the belief that if you need arrows to tell the reader what panel to read next you’re not laying out your pages properly. Though since I haven’t made any comics at all, what do I know?)

Nikki’s comic is about a weird owl creature hunting some magical winter spirits. I really liked the way the winter spirits were drawn, but the owl creature has a pretty complicated design that is a bit hard to understand in black and white. I’d love to see a colour version of it though.

Steve’s bit is less a comic and more illustrated text, though admittedly Steve is never really big on drawing things like panel borders to begin with. It’s about him going to Austria to visit a friend and being incredibly cold. And yes Steve, people from actual cold countries do laugh at the UK’s inability to deal with winter.

Nich Angell’s comic was a cute one about people attacking a weather satellite to make proper winter weather actually happen. I think Nich’s art is also very video game influenced, and it’ll be interested to see how his style evolves as he grows as an artist.

There’re a number of other comics and pieces of art in here, and the “worst” one is still pretty good. I can’t wait until the next issue.



(Art from Nikki Stu's comic.)