Browner-Knowle Volume 2 Number 3

Black and white

A5 (Digest) format 

56pp

£7.00 GBP

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https://www.paulashleybrownart.com/browner-knowle-volume-2-number-3

A further narrative salvo of  poetic , melancholy stories and observed moments fired over the head of  the UK comic book landscape. 

Tales of memory, grief, loss, hope, discovery, fear, love and late night Columbo re-runs. 

Get issue 3 and continue the fun you never had in this double-sized bumper issue.   And he is not joking about this being a bumper sized issue -although I admittedly misunderstood when he said "Tel, I got a lovely big one to give you!" 

First thing top write on a Christmas Day is that people need to make images available as well as page counts rather than have you warm up the scanner and then thumb  through to count the pages. Who that particular person is I shall not mention as I am a professional. Just need to calm down and think of....something. I dunno. 

 Anyway, considering this is a pro printed book away from the Hell that is print On Demand it looks really good. The solid blacks and cross hatching, etc all come out nice and crisp. Even better it looks as though it was printed on a nice thick premium stock paper.  Also, my scfanner does not do the front cover justice.

The contents page tells you everything you need to know about what you are buying -and the sales mean you better hurry before these are out of print. Anyhoo the contents:

 Untitled

Hauntology

Anne In The Garden At Night

Peter Falk Is....

As If!

Broken English

That Friday Feeling

Remembering A Yesterday

Poptones

Fork In The Road

Through A Small Window A Big Sky

Bread

See, that's what you can come up with if you have a degree in something-or-other. After reading Untitled I was ready for a double bill of The Two Ronnies Christmas Specials. Hauntology got very surrealistic and stepped up the cheer (that's me being very slightly sarcastic). Details in the background could teach a few of the "new generation" of zinesters how to draw a comic strip.

Peter Falk Is can be described as a sad middle aged (I am being generous) man sat watching TV in the dark while eating a Fab ice lolly at 2 a.m.   Come on -we have all been there!

oh gods....Broken English reminds me of a Polish fella who stopped me to ask where a place was as he had an interview there. I spent 40 minutes going him around a trading estate while trying to find out where the place was as the Polish fella had only gotten blank looks as he tried to explain.  Which has nothing to do with Mr Brown's rather bitter sweet story or, for that matter his That Friday Feeling -here is a man in need of some "Uppers" (whatever they are).

Poptones ended with Mr Brown's passport description "a know nothing, ham-fisted sham splashing and slapping acrylic on paper" -he had to write a lot of that in the margin. Methinks Mr Brown needs to be reminded of the great Tony a rather disaffected office clerk who donned his artist's smock, and set to work on work on "Aphrodite at the Waterhole" every evening!

Fork in The Road was thoughtful. My own mind thought of a mince pie and some canned whipped cream.

Joking ( I think) aside the big story in this bumper issue was  Through A Small Window A Big Sky Brown's tour de force.  Don't misunderstand; there is some excellent black and white artwork using some techniques that appear to have been forgotten in the age of "slap it out on the slap top"  (eurgh) but in this 25 pager we see that while "Old Slow Hand" takes his time carrying out his work it is worth the wait.

We have the solid blacks, the line work and the underwater swimming page must have taken ages to complete -and some well drawn and effective backgrounds when Gillian (the feature character) gets to travel abroad.  The ending was quite shocking to me...an happy ending? In a Browner Knowle?!?!?!    Also, after Broken English it is the only strip to use speech balloons.

Overall it was an interesting read for Christmas Day and is, as usual, highly recommended but be quick if you want to get a copy.

Me? I am now off to find something featuring big muscle men  in colourful costumes fighting.