Written, Illustrated and Lettered by Dean Beattie
“A big, shady, International pharmaceutical company has been testing experimental drugs on the general public. Of course, the general public know nothing about these tests – and are unwittingly filling themselves with all kinds of exotic treatments and medicines.
Random Trials focuses on a collection of characters who have had ‘bad reactions’ to one of the experimental drugs – and follows their quest to bring down the pharmaceutical company whilst doing their best to avoid ‘accidentally’ killing people…”
The Story: The unfortunate victims of the dabblings of this shady pharmaceutical company have begun to reveal themselves and their mutations and powers. Often freakish in nature we see a man who produces little white people from his guts, a grandmother with psychic powers, an invulnerable fat lady who gets more powerful the more crap food she eats and a man with superhuman strength and fiery eyes. But, what is that noise coming from upstairs…..’
It is a little bit blue and quite violent so not for younger readers? (Who am I kidding… teenagers would love this!)
The Preview: Random Trials issue 3 is the brilliantly twisted and anarchic brainchild of writer and artist Dean Beattie. The newest installment in the series is getting let loose on the comic buying public at this year’s Thought Bubble Festival over the weekend of the 14th – 15th of November this year.
Easily one of the best indie books out there, Issue Three surpassed my expectations a short way into its pages. It’s an absolute joy to read in every single aspect. The art is individual in style, to say the least, yet crisp and easy to read. The dialogue is a combination of the real world verbals in an extraordinary world setting. It is this contrast of the weird and jokey that make you warm to every single character whether hero or villain (and those you ain’t that sure about, maybe?).
This installment amps up the action once again and we get some stunning set pieces full of gunfire, flying glass and car chases.
I know I keep saying this, but Random Trials #3 also has one of the best last pages ever! (Do not skip to the last page readers! Listen… what did I say?!)
It also stuffs into its ample pages some great pin ups (by Christian Wildgoose, Ray Andre Haddock, Brandon Palas and Graham Clark) and there’s an alternate cover by John McCrea, no less.
Trust me. You need to get on this!
I’ve added just one more example (as below) to see what you’ll be getting!
• You can find Dean and all the issues of this series at www.deanbeattie.com or on Twitter @deanbeattie
• Find more about John McCrea at www.johnmccrea.com or follow him on Twitter @mccreaman
• Pop along to Thought Bubble by buying tickets here http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/information/tickets/
Many thanks for reading.
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Antony Esmond is a comic reviewer and writer – his hips don’t lie.
Categories: British Comics, Featured News, Reviews