Awix's Glittering Casket of Noteworthy Pop-Cultural Ephemera
Created | Updated Feb 17, 2005
Compliments for Fishing
Hello everyone, and welcome to Awix's Glittering Casket of Noteworthy Pop-Cultural Ephemera, a new semi-regular feature in which I shall be sharing a few (hopefully diverting) words regarding whatever piece of multimedia junk has caught my eye recently: TV, books, music, who knows - maybe even the odd film. All in the wordy and self-satisfied style with which some of you may be familiar.
This week's subject is the 2000AD Extreme Edition No 7, reprinting a selection of early strips from the legendary British comic. Since the title changed hands a few years ago 2000AD's new owners have been diligent in exploiting both the comic's brand and its' heritage, and the Extreme Editions are a part of this, consisting of reprinted material distinguished enough to be of interest but not quite commercial enough to justify the full graphic novel treatment.
EE No 7 reprints the entirety of Flesh Book 2, which originally came out in late 1978 and early 1979. The original Flesh was, to my mind, one of the most memorable of the early 2000AD strips, coupling a winning concept (time-travelling cowboys ranch dinosaurs to feed the 23rd century's appetite for real meat) with some wonderfully graphic violence. Flesh 2 isn't quite in the same iconic league, but it's not without its moments.
Where the original series followed the horrific demise of the Trans-Time Corporation's outpost in the Cretaceous era, the sequel pops back a hundred million years or so to examine their Triassic operation, which essentially revolves around catching prehistoric waterlife by the trawlerful and converting it into fish fingers for the folks back home. There are inevitably problems with the local wildlife eviscerating and devouring sub crews and workers on the processing rigs, but all is pretty much going to plan. This changes, however, when the appearance of an unscheduled time shuttle heralds the arrival of Claw Carver, a survivor from the previous series. Carver is the anti-hero of the story, a vicious psychotic solely motivated by his desire to get back to his own time with a load of stolen gold he just happens to have laid his hand on. That's 'hand', singular, of course: the other having been lost in a fight with a deinonynchus1, whose talon he now wears in its place.
But to be honest the story of Flesh 2 isn't up to much at all. While Book 1 was written by the twisted and evil comics legend Pat Mills, this second helping was scribed by the rather obscure Geoffrey Miller, whose plotting leaves a bit to be desired. The story rambles and repeats itself rather too frequently, and there's a loooong list of plot contrivances (amnesia, gold going walkies, an attack by giant amphibious scorpions) that Miller resorts to just to keep it motoring along. Other than Claw and the repellent manager of the fishing operation, Grose (yep, this is subtle stuff), the characters are very one-dimensional. This even extends to the putative hero, Peters, who's not much more than a cardboard cutout. One gets the strong impression this was written as it went along, with close attention paid to elements of the original Flesh - most notably the main dino-villain this time round, Big Hungry the nothosaur, who's a less interesting knock-off of Old One Eye, the tyrannosaur matriarch from Book 1 (and who proved such a hit her various offspring went on to feature in other strips like Judge Dredd, ABC Warriors, and Nemesis the Warlock).
However hackneyed the plotting and dialogue may be, the rest of the writing does have a certain freewheeling visceral energy about it (a sample introductory panel: 'Lungs bursting - muscles straining. Hunger gnaws at his inside... hunger that burns... hunger that eats away at his tiny brain! Hunger for FLESH') which is well matched to the artwork, really the biggest reason why Flesh Book 2 is such a treat.
The first twelve episodes of Flesh 2 were illustrated by the great Italian comics artist Massimo Belardinelli, a 2000AD regular for the first decade or so of its existence. Belardinelli's work is best described as a mixture of delicate elegance and bizarre grotesquery, an amalgam he put to good use in strips like Ace Trucking Co., Meltdown Man, and the first couple of years worth of Slaine (when once asked where he got his inspiration for his monsters, the maestro was in no doubt: 'My frequent indigestions' was his reply). This is a story that really gives Belardinelli scope to do his thing: big panels (often full- and double-page spreads) he can fill with exquisitely detailed and peculiar machines and creatures. Flesh's signature element, the violence, is something he really gets his teeth into (sorry) - in episode one we're treated to a rig worker being decapitated by a tanystropheus (a tactfully positioned AAAARRGH! protects the delicate reader from the worst of it) and several dinosaur fights, and this is before the story proper even kicks off. He's also responsible for some great covers, including the notorious issue 93 - accompanying caption: 'NO! Please let me drown BEFORE the GIANT SCORPIONS get to me!'
Alas, the concluding two episodes of this story were drawn by Carlos Pino, very much a lesser talent, with the result that Flesh 2 fizzles out a bit. But it's fun while it lasts and worth savouring as a memoir of a different time. There certainly isn't a publication on the market these days which is quite so brazen about inserting such subversive and extreme material into the brains of the very young (alas, even 2000AD itself currently pitches to a much older age group, and seems rather more concerned with style than substance). If you live in the UK and have a young relative, you could do worse than push them in the direction of this particular magazine. You will probably live to regret it, but your little one will certainly be a more interesting person as a result.
NB - EE 7 also contains a reprint of Beyond Our Kenny, a Judge Dredd strip from the 90s - not actually bad, but mainly there to fill some space and advertise a forthcoming story in the Dredd Megazine.
