Alternative Visions
Alternative Visions |
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Page 11 of 29  'Red Hot Jazz' (1983). Art/script: Savage Pencil. This unsung creator's (deceptively) spontaneous technique reflected his punk influences, and was an inspiration to countless other alternative cartoonists. Finally, the foreign strips included less familiar names, and drew especially from avant-garde work in France. Creators included: Serge Clerc, a humorist in the 'clear-line' tradition of Herge; Jean-Claude Gotting, master of atmospheric romantic psychodramas; Alex Varenne, who used delicately-rendered cityscapes as a background to rather obvious gags; and the pairing of Edmond Baudoin and Claude Gendrot, responsible for a strip about the dark side to sexual obsession. The Escape one-shots were every bit as interesting as their Raw counterparts, although were rarely as expensively produced. The early ones especially were rough-and-ready, but made up for it with charm and energy. They included Phil Laskey's Night of the Busted Nose (1984), about love and punch-ups in a northern town, and Alec (1984), a brilliant semi-autobiographical account of bedsit life by Eddie Campbell. Later, Gravett and Stanbury followed Spiegelman and Mouly's example by courting more mainstream publishers, and subsequent one-shots were published by Titan Books. These were much more professional-looking productions, and included Violent Cases (1988) by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, who were soon to make big names for themselves in mainstream American comics; Joe's Bar (1988) by the South American pairing of Jose Munoz and Carlos Sampayo and London's Dark (1989) by James Robinson. During the course of its existence, Escape went from a small A5 size to a larger square-bound magazine format, and eventually obtained a measure of news-stand distribution. It would be as influential in Britain as Raw was in the US, though sales were never impressive: it was eventually cancelled in 1990. Nevertheless it succeeded in being the most progressive British comic to be seen since the underground.  Cover Escape (1986). Art: Daniel Torres. The Spanish creator provided this cover for an issue devoted to comics from his homeland.  'Cover Girl' (1985). Art/script: Carel Moiseiwitsch.  Page from Primitif (1986). Art/script: Ed Pinsent. The strip was a very popular Escape regular: a personal take on the spiritual nature of so-called primitive culture. |