This Wednesday, April 1st, (no this is not a gag!) Egmont UK publish their first brand new comic in years as Crazy Comics! is released as a supplement to this week's Toxic magazine.
Crazy Comics! is a glossy 16 page full colour humour publication featuring nine brand new comic strips. It's a special one-off comic, but readers get the chance to vote online for their favourite. The winning strip will then return in a future edition of Toxic.
Contents of the comic are:
Count Von Poo by Jamie Smart
Zombie Nation by Luke Paton & Laura Howell
Spooks in Space by Paul H. Birch & Steve Harrison
Bovver Baby by John Freeman & Paul J Palmer
The Hoaxers by David Hailwood & Paul Harrison-Davies
WereWilf by Paul H Birch, Shane Oakley & John Erasmus
The Clump by Lew Stringer
Bad Robots by John Freeman & Paul Harrison-Davies
Simon Spectacular by Luke Paton & Stuart Arrowsmith.
The comedy in Crazy Comics! is, like its parent comic mag Toxic, a little ribald and even scatological in a few places, but the emphasis is on the "crazy" rather than toilet humour. With contributors ranging from long-established pros (eg: old fogeys like me) to newer talents, the styles are a mixed bag. Refreshingly there's no house style to the artwork so it's a lively mix.
In these credit crunching budget cutting times the issue of Toxic that Crazy Comics! comes with has less pages than usual, and none of its own regular strips (Team Toxic, Rex, and Robin Hoodie are all rested for one issue). However the 16 page comic supplement compensates for that.
Whilst there are no current plans to continue Crazy Comics! beyond this initial "free gift" edition it'll be interesting to see how the readers react, and which strip comes top of their polls.
Toxic No.137, bagged with Crazy Comics!, is on sale April 1st priced £2.99 from all good newsagents and supermarkets. (And I must emphasize again, this is not an April Fool's gag like my blog about Apollo comic last year.) Although Toxic is usually published fortnightly, this special issue will be on sale for three weeks, but don't delay, - support British comics and buy it!
After reading your blog I bought the latest issue of Toxic and thought the Crazy Comics insert was very interesting. The strips, including your's, have great eye appeal and the subject matter (zombies etc,)sure to appeal to kids today. Nice colours too.
ReplyDeleteNow, if only Crazy could be incorporated fully into Toxic on a more permanent basis - and for it to lose the restrictive and unecessary plastic bagging and 'free' gifts - then today's kids just might have a great all-round comic/mag to look forward to each week.
It will be interesting to see what the Toxic readership thinks of Crazy in general - not just their favourite strip.
Have you any more news on future Crazy Comics, Lew?