Written by Alan Davidson and drawn by Phil Gascoine, Fran of the Floods is a compelling tale of Britain experiencing unrelenting torrential rainfall that results in devastating floods across the nation. Our heroine, Fran, becomes separated from her family and friends and the story reveals her harrowing ordeals as she tries to survive in an increasingly harsh environment.
Like most comic stories of the era, Alan Davidson's scripts are tightly written with great clarity of storytelling. There's none of the glib banter and confusing narrative that sometimes burdens comic scripts today. These stories were written as three page chapters and every panel had to count, and every episode had to deliver the goods. As you'd expect from girls' comics of the time, it's emotionally charged stuff that engages the readers. Phil Gascoine's artwork is basic, no-frills stuff, but it's very skilled stuff and actually shows what a master of figure work and facial expressions he was.
Reproduction of the strips is excellent, - remarkable when you consider they're scanned from 40 year old comics. To round off the book, there's a gallery of Jinty covers that spotlighted the strip, in full colour.
I hope this book sells well enough for Rebellion to continue with more reprints from Jinty, - and remember there's a brand new Tammy and Jinty Special coming out on 27th June!
Fran of the Floods is published on 21st March. Here's the PR and a preview of chapter one...
• CREATIVE TEAM: Alan Davidson (w) Phil Gasgoine (a)
• RELEASE DATE: 21st March 2019 (UK)
• PAPERBACK, 113 pages
• PRICE: £12.99 (UK)
• ISBN: 9781781086728
• DIAMOND: JAN192057
This book couldn't be more relevant if it tried - it comes from the pages of the legendary Jinty and is ideal for youngsters and nostalgists alike. Due to increased climate change the sun melts the ice caps, causing an onslaught of never ending rain. As Fran Scott's town begins to disappear underwater and, after losing her parents in the chaos, she decides to seek out her sister June in Scotland. But as society begins to crumble around her, Fran must overcome a vast array of dangers, including disease, wild animals, marauding gangs of vicious thugs and most bizarre of all, the self-proclaimed King of Glasgow!
Available in print from: 2000 AD webshop, book stores, Amazon, and comic book stores via Diamond
Available in digital from: 2000 AD webshop & apps for iPad, Android and Windows 10
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3 comments:
The blurb says climate change, the headmistress says the sun has "flickered" temporarily hotter... I wonder if the writer understood the science. But how can the headmistress understand it if the writer doesn't...
The nearest we have to this from the sun is that sunspots, which come and go on an 11 year cycle, make the sun hotter (counter intuitively) as seen from here.
One of the reasons I read Blimey is to get alerted to stuff like this I'd otherwise never hear of. I ordered the Black Max TPB after reading here that it was coming out.
That's good to know. I'll still be plugging the Treasury of British Comics books even though I'm cutting back on other posts/reviews. I'll be posting a preview of the Cor!! Buster Special in a week or two.
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