Indie comic creator David Robertson has a new comic anthology out now under his Fred Egg Comics imprint.
This Year is a collection of mostly one page stories, offering personal, reflective and observational comic strips that include: pondering whether the children’s game, Ker-Plunk, is a torture device; dusting; getting yourself spotted when your plane has crashed; post boxes with confusing last pick up times; white gold; Scottish Doctor Who actors; A.I.’s influence on the young; that mid festive season feeling of not knowing what day it is; the cost of euthanising family pets; not knowing flags; the problems inherent in library request systems, radio signals travelling indefinitely; and a story of being amazed at a museum animatronic as a kid, and returning to see it as a young man.
In short, along with a free giant colour pin-up, there’s plenty to chew on!
An fiercely idiosyncratic Independent voice in British comics
Always entertaining and frequently thought provoking, David’s independently published anthologies have been a staple of the British comic scene for many years. Regular downthetubes readers will have noted our own enthusiasm for his unique approach to comic storytelling, in our reviews of past releases, including, most recently, For the Record, and You Get What You Get.
While clearly an intensely personal project, musical tastes very much unique to everyone, I noted in my review earlier this year that For the Record, for example, is a project that works well on different levels. Firstly, as a history of musical discovery, and a guide to how the music industry has changed; secondly, it gets you thinking just what your favourite music is, too, David’s choices occasionally resonating, many not – also offering the opportunity to discover sounds you may be unfamiliar with, but his enthusiasm for them might just send you exploring.
I wasn’t alone in my praise: over on Optical Sloth, currently celebrating 25 years in operation, Kevin Bramer declared: “If reading this doesn’t make you nostalgic for some of your favorite music (and, most likely, dig out some older music you haven’t listened to in years), then I’m afraid that you just don’t have any soul in you. Yes, I’d call that highly recommended, wouldn’t you?”
“Whether he is debating the best song of all time, analysing compilation strategies, or sorting through a life’s worth of concert tickets, David’s art captures the invisible magic of sound,” said fellow comic creator Warren Elliott, on his This Just In blog. “ It is a story for anyone who has ever spent too long in a record store or felt their heart skip when the needle finally hits the wax.”
(Warren, by the way, whose work has appeared in a variety of ma, is the architect of the equally strange and bizarre Almost Normal Comics).
“It’s Robertson doing what he does best,” Andy Oliver noted on Broken Frontier. “As I’ve said before, finding something meaningful and universal in life’s smaller moments. For the Record feels like a throwback to old school DIY culture too which could not be more appropriate for this rather sweet collection of wistfully nostalgic memories.”
• This Year is available here from the Fred Egg Comics webshop
• Copies of For the Record are still available here from the Fred Egg Comics webshop
• Fred Egg Comics is online at fredeggcomics.blogspot.co.uk | Webshop | Follow David Robertson on Facebook | Instagram, X: @fredeggcomics
• Read our previous Fred Egg Comics coverage
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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