THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2026! When I spoke to small press creator Nessie Mooo here at Broken Frontier earlier this year about Deathmetal, their comics collaboration with Mouette, they said of it: “Deathmetal started as an observation by me and fellow comic artist Mouette that there doesn’t seem to be very many artists in our weird, alternative, manga and furry adjacent subculture in the UK making comics. The idea of setting some fantastical story about magical girls and spirits and monsters somewhere uncomfortably local – Leicester – just seemed so exciting!”
Some may remember I also reviewed Nessie Mooo’s Laika back in July, a very different take on the story of the doomed Russian space dog that had a distinctive tactile method of presentation. Deathmetal is a very different narrative exercise. Set in a version of Leicestershire with one foot in our world and one foot in a far stranger one it follows the exploits of officially licensed magical girl, Maudie Pollard, whose position means she has to police the border between our reality and the spirit realm of Doggerland.
Written by Mooo and Mouette, with art by the former, Deathmetal Chapter One is more prologue than anything else but it more than does its job in setting up the premise of the series, its conflicts, and its world. In this opener we get a tour of the mystical environment Maudie operates in, meet magical companion Wolsey, and see her get in a scrape with a TV license inspector. The latter perfectly summing up the neat juxtaposition of the extraordinary and the mundane that Deathmetal presents us with. There’s also what the first issue blurb describes as an unfortunate mix-up with a lasagna. It lives up to its billing.
Themes of existential gloom and discovering one’s sexuality also sit at the heart of this first chapter, as well as exploring ideas of connections to our environment. Embodying the premise, the art emphasises both suburban decay and the fantastical, a tough contrast to pull off but Deathmetal manages just that. The mark as to whether the first issue of a serial comic succeeds often revolves around it setting up enough questions to keep the reader coming back for answers. Deathmetal Chapter One certainly ticks that box.
Nessie Mooo & Mouette (W), Nessie Mooo (A) • Self-published
Review by Andy Oliver
Nessie Mooo and Mouette are at Table E25b in the Redshirt Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2026 runs from November 9th-15th with the convention weekend taking place on the 14th-15th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2026 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster art by Núria Tamarit
