THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! I have made no secret of my belief that community groups in the form of creative collectives are an absolutely vital part of the comics ecosystem in the UK. The Leeds Comics Collective is one such entity whose first anthology Cryptids of Leeds was a lot of fun last year, and who those of us on the Small Press Day organising team got to interact with over the summer when they put on an amazing SPD event for local artists in Leeds this year.
Their latest anthology offering is Mixtape of Mystery which, as the title suggests, has a musical theme to its contents. Once again it’s a welcome mixture of styles and approaches to the page with work ranging from the enthusiastic but rougher to the highly accomplished. And, as ever with anthologies, I am going to pick out just a small number of strips that particularly appealed to me. My favourites, of course, may not be your favourites and vice versa.
Mixtape of Mystery kicks off with Matt Walker’s ‘Drum Solo’, a wittily cartooned punchline-led one-pager about a renowned drummer’s life and afterlife. It will come as no surprise that Anna Readman’s short ‘MCMLXIX’ (above) is the highlight of the issue, a bleak reflection on a year of musical milestones that also leads up to a culminating visual gag. Readman’s densely packed panels ensuring the reader will want to dwell on their intricately detailed interiors for an inordinate amount of time.
‘Devil’s Night Out (Not That One)’ (above) by writer Kevin Haworth and artist Yaya Just takes us to a supernatural intrusion at an arena gig. The plot is slight but fun, and Just is another artist herein whose pages are incredibly busy, really capturing the frenzied environment of the story. In direct contrast, and emphasising that any genre goes in these pages, Bethan J’s ‘The Highs and Lows of Compact Discs’ (below) is an engagingly light-hearted look at physical media that ends with the reader wanting far more of its observational humour.
I very much liked what Beardedhorse did with ‘On Repeat’, using the physicality of an overplayed cassette tape as the panels and pacing of the strip. And, finally, a mention of course for this year’s Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ artist Cara Brown who gives us a time-travelling mix tape in ‘Future Tape’ with eerie consequences for a young band. Brown continues to impress with her ability to jump across genres and this story is no different.
Comics like this are worth supporting not simply for their entertainment value but also because of the platform they provide for new and emerging talent. Respect to the Leeds Comics Collective team for continuing to ensure this opportunity exists.
James Lawrence, Jack Fallows, James Patricks, Ivy Rae Robinson, Maria Radulescu, N Hui, Doctor Simpo, Andre Allsopp, Matthew Hopwood, Rob Luckett, Dan Pollard, P.D. Marshall, Kevin Haworth, Yaya Just, Flo Woolley, Bethan J, Eleanor Sikorski, James Grimshaw, Molly Pukes, Ashwath Page, Adam Snaith, Aiden Cosmo, Beardedhorse, Adrien Bryter, Holly Pullen, Cara Brown, Seren Deacon, Frank Deacon • Leeds Comics Collective, £5.99
Review by Andy Oliver
Leeds Comics Collective will be at Table G13 in the Bubbleboy 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
