Publisher Dark & Golden’s mission to bring back some of the forgotten gems of UK indie comics has already seen a number of near lost rarities being seen by appreciative new audiences. We have reviewed some of those offerings here at Broken Frontier in recent years including Simon Harrison’s Shuk & Doode and Kevin Woodcock’s It May Never Happen…. The most recent of their 2 x series showcases the work of the legendary Carol Swain (Gast, Invasion of the Mind Sappers), a hugely important name in UK comics who I had the privilege of interviewing on stage way back in 2014 as part of the Comica Festival.
2 x Carol Swain collects a duo of short stories unseen since their original publications, alongside creator introductions and a fascinating interview with Swain which gives intriguing insights into her creative mindset. The first story ‘Eating Out’ (1993) comes from issues #2 and #3 of Volume 2 of her Way Out Strips series. Here, in a two-part entry, friends reminisce about an old army friend on their drive to his New Year’s Eve party before their eventual reunion hints at uneasy truths.
Characteristic of Swain’s work it features characters on the fringes, as the lines between reality and fiction blur, with an added theme of narcotic literature – fiction as a drug – running through its pages. Outsiders stand among outsiders here, seemingly finding very little true companionship in their interactions, with Swain’s customary 9-panel-grid pages and charcoal mark-making giving the whole affair a most suitably dense and claustrophobic aura.
In ‘Looney Tune Life’ (1994) from Way Out Strips Vol. 3 #1 and #2 we meet Anthony, a young man whose name was chosen by his father randomly shooting through a phone book and picking a name near the bullet hole. Anthony is a not very proficient street artist, juggling knives for money in Camden. Set in a period of time when IRA bomb threats were a regular part of living in London it progresses into a story reminding us of our own morbid fascination with our mortality; of how we can become bizarrely transfixed by it rather than grasping at self-preservation.
What’s fascinating here, and what is also touched on in the interview at the back of the comic, is that both strips have an alluring incompleteness about them. As if they’re setting up plotlines and threads for further exploration but are happy to stop abruptly and leave the reader to think about the unseen narrative that sits around the one we see. Vignette character studies that allow us to dip in and out of the lives portrayed on the page and connect with the characters without commitment. Again, those 9-panel pages provide a certain rhythm to Swain’s pacing.
If you haven’t explored the worlds of Carol Swain before then this really is an excellent starter pack for what will, no doubt, be a rich and fruitful journey into her distinct approach to the form.
Carol Swain (W/A) • Dark & Golden, £6.00
Review by Andy Oliver
