THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! Fraser Geesin and Laurie Rowan’s Pricks is one of the funniest comics you will be lucky to read at this year’s Thought Bubble. With #5 debuting in print at Thought Bubble this weekend we’re squeezing in a quick preview of it along with the press release details that will tell you everything you need to know about its scathing skewering of the patriarchy. And if you want to investigate further our reviews of the previous four issues can be found here. (Word of explanation that there have been both title changes and renumbering approaches since it originally debuted as Purple Hate Balloon!)
Pricks #5
The latest episode in the Pricks series by Fraser Geesin and Laurie Rowan will debut at Thought Bubble in Harrogate this weekend on the Mindless Ones table, B30-31 in the 2000AD hall. The digital version can be downloaded now from Frasergeesin.com with the physical version available from the 17th of November.
Comedy writer and Viz contributor Fraser Geesin started this project with animator and director Laurie Rowan with 2021’s Purple Hate Balloon. The characters demanded more of their awful existence and so the series was born. Pricks follows the misfortunes of Roger and Darren, two white, middle aged men in a somewhat surreal alternative version of Worthing. This parody of the patriarchy has been described as “Some of the very best and the most cutting satire I have ever reviewed” by Andy Oliver and “every bit as routinely abhorrent as the modern world. What a miracle, then, that it’s also the funniest comic of the year.” by David Alison.
With issue 5, the action ramps up as Roger makes a life-changing decision based on this alternative reality’s version of a feature film; screened in portrait and lasting four and-a-half minutes. Meanwhile Darren, naked and mutated by a local leak of Gammon Radiation from a Willy Wonka style meat processing factory lies comatose from exposure to relaxing shower gel whilst his reputation and life is further destroyed. Will he somehow be awoken by an invigorating shower gel in time to escape death? You’ll have to read Pricks #5 to find out!
Fraser Geesin and the Mindless Ones are at Table B30-31 in the 2000 AD 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
