Broken Frontier

Coming this January, The Phoenix is a new U.K. comics venture that joins those last great survivors of the British weekly children’s comic, The Beano and The Dandy, in trying to recapture the ethos of the glory days of those publications on these shores. Broken Frontier takes a look inside the pages of the special #0 preview issue of The Phoenix to see what we can expect from this new anthology title…

A couple of years back, between 2008 and 2009, a bold and near year-long experiment in reinvigorating the classic Brit weekly comic was embarked on. The DFC was a subscription-based comic book featuring a number of strips created by some of the cream of the crop of the industry in dear old Blighty, alongside high profile writers like Philip Pullman of the His Dark Materials trilogy fame.

While The DFC eventually succumbed to the harsh realities of the kids market, much of the same team behind that fondly-regarded title have taken time to re-group and re-strategise. The Phoenix is the result of that re-thinking; a weekly with a double aim of providing not just engaging serialised strip stories but playing its part in improving literacy standards among younger readers.

A few weeks back, in conjunction with supermarket chain Waitrose, The Phoenix offered a special preview issue #0, giving a taster of its tone and content before the official debut in early January; a kind of upscale ashcan to entice potential subscribers and readers. The first thing that is readily apparent from flicking through this sampler is how many echoes of the past there are in The Phoenix. It embodies that tradition of British anthologies that combined both more serious adventure strips with more humorously based characters; classic ‘60s and ‘70s comics like Buster spring to mind here as spiritual predecessors of what The Phoenix is attempting to achieve in format.

Added to this, the pretext of a number of anthropomorphised animal characters posing as the editorial team hearkens back to the days of Tharg, StarLord and Big E; all fictional editors of classic Brit weeklies. It’s a device that creates a sense of interaction between the readership and the comic and, dare I say it, a feeling of community. I’m also reminded of characters like Cheeky, Buster and a whole host of DC Thomson stablemates in this regard.

Building that relationship between audience and publication, and that sense of belonging, was long a staple approach of British comics in years past. Whether one’s playground allegiances were Whizz-kid or Chip-ite from Whizzer and Chips, or you were a member of any of the various incarnations of The Beano and The Dandy’s fan clubs, that social extension of the reading experience itself was always a big part of our comics heritage. It’s pleasing to see The Phoenix embracing that tradition with editorial characters like Tabs Inkspot and Chops Piggerton.

However, while The Phoenix may take readers of a certain age back to childhood memories of newsagents packed with similarly structured anthology books, there is a modern sensibility to the title that ensures it still has a forward-looking feel. The Phoenix is neither simply rehashing the past, nor being cosily nostalgic in a self-indulgent way. With an accompanying website that acts as an effective supplement to the reading experience, and features that play around with the traditional comic strip format (Lorenzo Etherington’s inventive comic strip/puzzle page The Dangerous Adventures of Von Doogan or the Where’s Wally-style shenanigans of Patrice Aggs’s Blimpville/What Will Happen Next?! spread), the signs are that The Phoenix will project a very distinctive identity of its own.

Looking to the featured comic strips, the lead in the preview issue is Daniel Hartwell and Neill Cameron’s The Pirates of Pangaea. Mixing nautical rogues with a lost island that is home to a population of dinosaurs is a combination of two genres that fascinate kids. This is the sort of strip that makes me feel somewhat ignobly jealous of the young minds that may be reading it through ten-year-old eyes. Neill Cameron, creator of the acclaimed Mo-Bot High, provides clear, striking visuals and from this brief scene-setter this looks to be a storyline that will immediately capture the target audience’s fancy. Also from Cameron's fertile mind is How to Make Awesome Comics which fuses Scott McCloud-style narration with instructional, humorous hi-jinks.

Above: The Pirates of Pangaea, Star Cat and Long Gone Don all debut in the preview issue of The Phoenix

James Turner, the gent behind the madcap Super Animal Adventure Squad from The DFC Library, makes his mark on The Phoenix with the exploits of the crew of the half spaceship, half feline Star Cat. Turner’s strip is unashamedly and gloriously ridiculous, employing those same slapstick sight gags and surreal humour that are fast becoming his trademark. The Etherington Brothers, creators whose work has found great favour here on BF in the past, provide Long Gone Don featuring a schoolboy who finds himself trapped in a fantasy world. From the double-page spread on offer here I suspect we will be embarking on some of those wild flights of imagination that the brothers have been so renowned for in the pages of Baggage and Monkey Nuts.

Ben Haggarty, the writer of The DFC’s Mezolith (the collection of which was included as a must-read in Paul Gravett’s 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die) provides a complete story, The Apprentice, that employs that folk-tale style he employs so competently, while Adam Murphy’s irreverent Corpse Talk – featuring interviews with long-dead historical figures – finds a unique and witty way to disseminate biographical information to The Phoenix’s younger demographic. And The Dandy mover and shaker Jamie Smart presents a prologue to Bunny Vs. Monkey which looks set to utilise that classic adversarial set-up of so many past British comic strips with Smart’s usual, lively and frenetic pacing. With a whole host of upcoming characters from the likes of Kate Brown, Gary Northfield, Ricardo Tangle, Simone Lia and Chris Riddell, the future looks bright indeed.

On the strength of this opening salvo there’s good reason to be very optimistic about what The Phoenix has to offer in 2012. We’re all aware of the harsh realities for print magazines in the current marketplace, but The Phoenix takes the best of Brit comics traditions while maintaining its own idiosyncratic voice. If you’re looking for a last-minute Christmas present for a younger reader that acts as an entry point into the world of comics then a subscription to The Phoenix would be a perfect holiday gift.

The Phoenix launches on January 7th. It’s available from selected retailers or by subscription here. Find out more about the comic on The Phoenix website.