What can one say about the work and influence of the late Kevin O’Neill that has not been said before? As a child growing up during the Golden Age of 2000 AD his art had a spellbinding quality to it – intricate, grotesque, weirdly angular and packing every page to the point of bursting with its peculiar, defiant and unapologetically uncompromising otherworldliness. In short, it was quite unlike anything I had ever seen before, or anything I would ever see again. I count myself extremely fortunate to have been there at the beginning of O’Neill’s extraordinary career and to have eagerly devoured each early strip as it was published. That his style was somehow considered so trangressive at the time that it was censured by as anachronistic a body as the Comics Code Authority only added to the magic.
With O’Neill’s passing in 2022 comics, of course, lost a visionary genius. Earlier this year, though, Knockabout and Gosh! Comics announced one final, previously unpublished project from O’Neill – Silent Pictures, a two-volume slipcase edition of his books Feartreland and The Balaclava Kid. Two wordless stories with extensive forewords from frequent collaborator Alan Moore. O’Neill, of course, needs no additional testament to his brilliance but Silent Pictures acts as one last celebration of a truly unique talent.
Those Moore introductions give added context to the creation of these two books amidst the wider reality of O’Neill’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Some of the Feartreland essay from Moore details the circumstances of its creation, from both observational and speculative viewpoints (originally this was meant as a captioned story but Moore has his own thoughts on whether that was O’Neill’s final intention.) Feartreland is a romp in the pantomime tradition where we follow the son of panto character Dick Whittington and his cat as he journeys through a bizarre meta universe bursting with references to the traditions of that theatrical form.
It’s a fictional reality where those standards are obvious to the reader but not necessarily to the characters themselves. Pantomime horses seemingly unaware of the two humans within their costume and the gender non-conforming idea of the principal boy a simple given. It’s a journey of double-page spreads and one-page panels full of crocodile villains, underwater kingdoms and genies. It’s full of chaotic energy and frantic, furious action. More an escapist stream-of-consciousness than a narrative. And it’s replete with background puns and visual gags (Humpty Dumpty farting is an especially amusing one.)
In his intro to the second volume, The Balaclava Kid, Moore looks at the autobiographical nature of this story, birthed from O’Neill’s childhood in 1950s bomb-damaged London. It’s a tale that sees the young Kevin fleeing bullying and social deprivation in his waking world and escaping in his sleeping hours to a Wild West-style landscape of pop cultural references and cartoonish fun. It’s not simply full of fun, animated escapades. It’s also emotionally layered, finishing on one of the most poignant final sequences you will ever read in the medium.
Silent Pictures is an essential purchase not just for fans of O’Neill but for anyone who values the possibilities and unique properties of the form. But then you didn’t need me to tell you that. Buy it online from Gosh! Comics here where the set also features as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations.
Kevin O’Neill (W/A) • Knockabout, £30.00
Review by Andy Oliver
