Review by Win Wiacek
Here’s an intriguing piece of comics history that also highlights the talents of one of the UK’s most gifted illustrators. Angus McKie came out of the same Northern do-it-yourself-publishing and underground scene that gave us Bryan Talbot, Hunt Emerson, Alan Craddock and many others. He studied graphic design in the 1970s before eventually painting book covers and illustrations whilst producing intriguing strip work for various experimental comics as an extremely adept and adventurous colour artist whose tool of choice was the airbrush. He has a predilection for science fiction.
His most notable success was the selling of his seminal fantasy saga ‘So Beautiful, So Dangerous’ to the American adult fantasy magazine Heavy Metal, although he had previously contributed many tales to the original French parent publication Metal Hurlant. ‘So Beautiful, So Dangerous’ became one of the strips adapted into the 1981 animated Heavy Metal movie.
This slim, full-colour and exceptionally readable tome is still readily available for discerning adults despite pre-dating the barcode era, and features a spiffy selection of gloriously tongue-in cheek yarns. Beginning the spectacle is a political fable concocted with the assistance of Dave Huxley and Alan Craddock. ‘Wurtham View 2000’ is a creepy big science tale examining the possible ramifications of a workable time-scanning television camera, and is followed by the sequel ‘Face of the Past’, which reveals its most probable uses, human nature being what it is!
More broadly comedic are the stylish gag strips ‘Tales of the Zen Masters: Nothing Exists’ and ‘Tales of the Sufi Masters’, whilst McKie displays his flair for the dramatic by working with William Shakespeare on ‘The King and I’ (that would be Lear, in case you’re wondering). ‘The Appointment’ is an effective reinterpretation of the W. Somerset Maugham work Appointment in Samarra, and Craddock again assists on the sci fi gladiatorial spoof ‘Superhero’.
‘The Spirit of 67’ is a barbed and wacky reminiscence of past times that leads to a time travel tribulation, whilst the sorry fate of two second-rate wannabe rock stars is scathingly described in ‘The Legend of the Magic Tone Box’ (written by Mike Feeney). The book ends with an extended satirical story of a misguided gang of radical anarchists with a big idea but not much of a clue in ‘Power to the People’.
McKie’s career path has taken him far from his comics roots to extensive work in the video games field, but these little gems show an admirable disrespect for authority coupled to a highly accessible style of graphic narrative. While we’re all waiting for his next masterpiece why not track down this little gem and do a bit of time travelling of your very own?
