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DUMBASS COMICS #3
by Neill Cameron
(£2.00 from Neill Cameron / 70 Godstow Road/ Wolvercote, Oxford / 0X2 8NY/ ENGLAND. Web:
planetdumbass.co.uk)
Review by Steve Keeter
The cover warns you right away: "contain bad words," (and there's that title too, after all) – and there's a full-page advertisement in which writer/artist/editor Neill Cameron mocks his own comic for "the blend of gratuitous swearing and semi-competent derivative art." And, one might note, the lettercol demonstrates that some of the readers really like what Neill is doing. So right away it is clear that we have a comic that some people will love and some people will hate. Well, I will say that the artwork is pretty good, with some very nice dramatic layouts, good use of solid blacks, and the artist is particularly adept at facial expressions (you can see the pain, you can see the laughter, you can see the rage and consternation in various character's faces). But the "gratuitous swearing" is indeed just that, and overdone certainly beyond the point of being merely annoying, which ultimately is very sad. Because you have here a creator with the raw talent to produce something very special in terms of creative, artistic, and even relevant comics, and he chooses instead to fill every panel with an excess of really vulgar language, detracting attention from the fine artwork, and relegating it to secondary status behind the constant barrage of obscenities. And then there is the obvious attack on religion – and particularly the Catholic Church – in a way that is offensive to even non-Catholics such as myself, by stereotypically portraying those within the church as extreme fanatics and then giving us ninja-nuns in suggestive costumes and such dialogue as "for some crimes there can be no forgiveness" (certainly untrue, in the context of what Christians actually believe). The end result is that one leaves this comic wondering – why? Why waste such obvious talent throwing around obscenities and attacking such obviously easy targets (to a certain group mindset) as the Pope (the revelation that the Pope of the future is "the world's first one-eyed, half-blind, amputee immigrant lesbian Pope" is neither funny nor in any way clever, artistic, or imaginative). My own initial thought upon completing this painful read was – wow, what a shame. But, as I said, some people will love it, and to each his own.
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