ARC FESTIVAL! It’s been a while since we gave time to the Underground Kingdom Comix crew so it seems fitting that we give some space to their most recent, bumper-sized anthology as part of our coverage of the upcoming ARC Festival. Each of the collective’s collections work around a specific theme which creators interpret in their own ways. A couple of years back, for example, we looked at the Horror edition. Unsurprisingly, given their name, the work involved leans into a highly underground aesthetic – often uncompromising and, particularly in this case, sometimes transgressive in delivery.
Take their latest compilation of strips in Filth, for example, which is edited by Adam Falp and includes interior work and covers from Falp, Ethan Llewellyn, TS, Matt Simmons, Vincent Bell-Roberston, The Half-Digested Boy, Mat Greaves, Harry Deane Willmott, Struan Sloan, 2026 Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ artist Francis Todd and Olly Telling. Behind a provocative but darkly amusing and self-aware cover by Ethan Llewellyn are eight stories that begin with Filth as a starting point and then take the subject in a variety of different directions.
There’s the voyeuristic and innuendo-laden opener ‘Lovebud’ (above) by Mat Greaves where an unseen narrator looks to get his kicks observing events in the quaint English village of Cockermouth-cum-Hardy. Greaves’ cheerfully cartoonish art belies the slowly building risque tone of the story as twee English tradition is gradually subverted by an explosion of sexual liberation. With a similarly voyeuristic air, Vincent Bell Robertson’s untitled offering is probably the most effective use of the form’s language in a short story that, panel-to-panel, takes us on a journey of observers who are themselves being observed.
TS, aka ThreeSix, gives us a sweaty, groaning, claustrophobic and hallucinogenic story (above) of an intimate encounter at a rave which embodies the underground nature of the book with busy art that feels both defiant and fluid. Struan Sloan’s ‘Mould’ (below) is another standout, a wordless strip of scatological body horror with morphing and entrancingly grotesque visuals that are highly inventive in both their layout and their grim sense of motion and movement.
Make no mistake, much of the material herein is unrepentantly crude and absolutely lives up to the title of the anthology. Which is, of course, the point. And, in that sense, it captures the spirit of the underground comix scene of another era that it is trying to emulate. There’s some excellent use of the possibilities unique to comics herein though as well and, as ever with anthologies, an opportunity to discover some creators who may be new to any given reader to investigate further.
Ethan Llewellyn, Adam Falp, TS, Matt Simmons, Vincent Bell-Roberston, The Half-Digested Boy, Mat Greaves, Harry Deane Willmott, Struan Sloan, Francis Todd and Olly Telling Underground Kingdom Comix, £10.00
Review by Andy Oliver
Underground Kingdom will be tabling at the ARC Festival comics fair on July 11th-12th. For the full details on everything ARC has to offer check out their website here.
