A lot can happen in 6 months 15 days which is how old this post is! Enjoy the post but be sure to check out the new stuff too!!
I really love independent comics. The effort that goes in to producing one is extraordinary and often wrongly dismissed and I have a great admiration for people who can get their shit together and actually complete something.
Rol Hirst is a guy who has not only done this but done so several times, his previous series People Just Ain’t No Good stands at five issues (of which I have the set) and now his new series Too Much Sex and Violence has arrived in digital format in my inbox.
Too Much Sex and Violence lives up to its name in part, in that there certainly is violence and sex but I don’t know if there is “too much”. Maybe “just enough” would make a more appropriate title though I imagine it would be less catchy. And really too much is a matter for the reader. I’ve been recently reading The Boys and I’ve read the different Crossed series so I suspect my tolerance is probably quite high.
Which is not to say that this is what the TMS&V team have tried to do, extreme shocking for shocks sake is not the purpose of this book but there is at least one eyeball shooting out of its socket to keep it interesting.
The book is a series of small stories set in Fathomsby which is like an extreme version of Haven set in England. Weird stuff happens there, weird people live there and we’re invited to peek into their weird world. From the angry rage hermit who’s understandable fed up with the local kids brandishing hand guns at his front step to the woman who can see everyone else’s sexual fantasies and several in between. We are treated to eight different artists throughout the book all with distinct styles which serve to break up the stories. I actually get a real 90′s 2000AD vibe from all the different styles but that may just be me imprinting the British origins on the book.
It’s hard for me to judge the book, I know the author and I have a soft spot for independent books. The most important thing about it though is that I’m interested to see where some of these stories are going to go which I guess is the real way to judge a first issue.
Rating: 
You can buy a copy over at Rol’s comic book site at http://rolhirst.co.uk/ it’s only £2.50 for the print copy (check with Rol on outside the UK postage) and £0.99 for the digital copy (which is a great way to dip your toe into Fathomsby). It comes in PDF format but I think I might have a chat about getting it over into CBR format.
Let me know if you do check it out and what you think.
Thanks, Lee!