comic bits online: Kult Creations: Shokwave 3

Sunday 22 October 2023

Kult Creations: Shokwave 3

SHOKWAVE BOOK 3 is now on sale from this very blog! You'll find it in the bar to your right - just under Shokwave Books 1 and 2! It's £9 (including postage) for UK customers, £12 for European customers and £17 in the rest of the world.

https://shokwavecomic.blogspot.com/

As with the first two books of Shokwave you'll find it's American comic sized, 48 interior pages, both black and white and colour. It contains a quartet of ten page strips plus lots of support material.

Want it in digital to save on postage? See our digital comic blog at: http://kultdigital.blogspot.com

Brand new THE CLOCK STRIKES! (the return of Golden-Age hero the Clock!) Written by John A. Short and illustrated by LONGPIG's own Adam Jakes. This issue the masked hero tangles with femme fatal Trixy Malone and uncovers a plot to corner the drug market in 1936's New York.

The sequel to the 1922 horror movie classic continues with NOSFERATU II. Written by John A. Short and illustrated by HEDREK's David Hitchcock. This issue we meet the cult of Orlok and learn of a plot to make the count live again.

Crazy alien sci-fi chaos in ANNA KEY. Written by John A. Short and illustrated by SWITCHBLADE STORIES' supremo Chris Askham. The newly appointed (and totally unqualified) Sheriff finds herself trying to talk a leaper down from a high ledge. How is this all her fault?!

And our near-future robot rebellion story RESISTORS. Written by John A. Short and illustrated by Eros Comix's Richard Pester. Robot rebel Jez finds herself on an island where they hunt droids for sport.

My first reaction was "Shokwave 3? What happened to number 2??" Actually I did review number two so if you want to see what I had to say about these first two issues (of course you do) the links are below.

For me the first strip of the comic, Resistors, is what made me stop what I was doing (NO! I was drawing so don't be so dirty minded).The layout and design was eye-catching as was the colour work and Pester is getting better at this all the time. The story had action and was fun. A good move having this as the lead strip.

Now The Clock I am still 50-50 on. It seems almost static with characters head talking and what is really distracting is that photos are used for characters and and I end up playing "name the Hollywood actor" which takes the mind off the story. Of course if you are not as ancient as me then you'll spot no one! I can see what Short is doing with the Clock but the character was always pro-active vigilante at a time when the Mid-West/Chicago gangster boom was seen as out of control and some police corrupt. Dillinger being gunned down outside a cinema basically shows how bad things had gotten (look it up -ande, NO, I was not there!).

Nice black and white art.

Then we have Anna Key which has nice colour work and is quite readable, however -talking bloody heads again. Some 22 panels are head/shoulders talking (see the page below -4 panels of talking heads) and this really makes it look boring. Honestly, it is just not how a comic strip should be and it needs more full figure work or figures in scenes -William Ward in the 1940s/1950s produced a ton of strips for Gerald Swan and most were panels with talking heads. Its easier to keep drawing heads and put dialogue in and I've been tempted to do that myself but I realise just how boring that is. This is probably the weakest conbtribution to the comic but if Askham can just stop the heads I reckon this could be far more readable.

You could say that Nosferatu II has talking heads but look at the composition of the scenes and the page below shows how a lone figure walking along can actually make you read the word balloons to see what is going on. The atmospheric shading and washes work well and this really shows how a comic strip should be drawn so why do so many younger artists use just talking heads/shoulders?

Nosferatu II balances the book out. We start with Pester's full colour strip and end with Hitchcocks excellent stylistic work. The Clock is okay but as I wrote it suffers almost the same as Anna Keys with the heads/shoulders.

Now as anyone who has read this blog will know I am a fan of the Kult Creations titles -Reverend Cross, Jungle Princess, etc., so if I seem a bit harsh here it is because I know that Short always puts a lot of effort and pride intro these books. At times, though, an editor-publisher needs to crack the whip albeit nicely over a cup of tea and a slice of Battenburg and that whip cracking does help the artists involved to think more about their panel design and layout and how much better a story is carried if a full figure is used instead of a couple talking heads.

Yes, I am being a pain about talking heads! I would still recommend this title because it is a fun read and Pester and Hitchcock balance and save it. If you want to check out previous Shokwave reviews (all still available and recommended) here are the links.

Shokwave 1