THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! Martin Simpson (NORD) describes his new comics venture Rasp as something that will appeal to those who appreciate Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Sherlock Holmes, Bladerunner, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, George Orwell’s 1984 or V for Vendetta. That’s quite the list of cultural inspirations. Yet, on the face of this first issue’s brooding and tense narrative, what might have initially seemed like an ambitious array of influences to live up to becomes an entirely fitting list of references.
In Rasp Book 1 we are introduced to the world of The City, a place where nihilism rules supreme, where life has been stripped back to the practical and the necessary, and where the one price needed for citizenship is simply your freedom. Our guide to this place is Detective Agent Fritz Rasp, a Needleman in employ of the agency who ruthlessly ensure order is maintained in this dystopian future where the workforce are subject to the control of the city. An encounter with a rogue, escaped worker in the rundown area of the Spindles, though, is about to change Rasp’s formerly emotionless execution of his duties forever, as the “soulless” operative may just be about to rediscover his humanity…
Simpson’s angular, intense visual style, of course, is a most appropriate one for such a noir-ish narrative foray. The dreary cityscape surroundings and its retro-future aesthetic do, indeed, lend themselves to a blending of Metropolis and Bladerunner. But in terms of visual storytelling it’s Simpson’s considered and atmospheric page layouts that really take Rasp to the next level. One key moment, for example, where a double-page spread becomes an explosion of fractured panels and imagery to illustrate Rasp’s disorientation and confusion is quite magnificent in composition.
Rasp Book 1 is an intriguing and hook-filled opening chapter that takes familiar sci-fi standards but crafts something all of its own out of them. Whether this is ultimately a story of hope and redemption or one about the crushing boot of authoritarianism remains to be seen. But in this first instalment Simpson gives us an opening chapter that does everything right in setting up a new series.
Martin Simpson (W/A) • Self-published, £15.00
Review by Andy Oliver
Martin Simpson will be at Table E5 in the Comixology Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2025 runs from November 1oth-16th with the convention weekend taking place on the 15th-16th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2025 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster by Ng Yin Shian
