Semiotic Cohesion # 1

South African multi-artist comic with a bizarre shark obsession to the fore. Colour on front and back. Front cover : an underwater aeroplane appears doomed to enter a black abyss surrounded by rows of sharp teeth. Back cover : a typical "The Man" character, green money bags around his feet, blood dripping from his hands, laughingly questions a shark's ability to seriously challenge his almightiness.
All names seem new to me, though I wonder if I've encountered freelance illustrator Jesse Breytenbach (http://scribble.com/dek/Jesse.htm)'s work before : the strip Creationism is presented here with its three chapters spread throughout the issue. It's pretty much silent save for a night-time domestic argument heard through the curtained open window of a woman attempting to read. She picks up wool and needles and, soundtracked by the voices, fashions the skin of a strange, repellent figure. In later episodes, we see her gathering a number of such skins from her wardrobe, stuffing them, then public transport-journeying to a gift shop where a transaction's made with its owner. A pair of the artefacts get sold after she leaves, winding up on the mantelpiece of a stranger's home, the strip's only snippet of dialogue (aside from the aforementioned row) coming when the purchaser and her boyfriend greet one another. I really liked the general wordlessness of Creationism and the clever device of stitched-edged frames during the knitting process - in those panels, we're shown eight stages in the figure's development. And there's a nice use of solid blacks; horizontal lines, which denote how the curtains' cloth falls; crosshatching, for the feel of a jacketless hardback's cloth cover; tiny dots, for an armchair's texture; black patches and thin horizontal streaks for the wooden wardrobe's grain; and a literal glow of pride as the objects' creator leaves the gift store well rewarded for her industry. In the final frame, the mirror above the fireplace reflects the buyer and her fella as if standing next to the pair of figures upon their mantel. I'd say that these twelve pages alone make this collection worth the entry fee.
Simon Tamblyn and Tom McNally's Executive Toy has a young longish-haired chap being bawled out by his irate boss, a Mr. B. Prescott. A big "Genetech"-marked crate arrives, and is opened by Prescott to reveal a specially designed subhuman upon which he can take out his pent-up aggression. Samantha holds his calls as he removes his jacket and delivers numerous punches. The longhair returns - to find his superior unexpectedly sunny-dispositioned and apologetic.
McNally's suburbia-set Soggy : A Ninja Story is excellent too : "RONCH-RONCH-RONCH" goes the becostumed ninja, enjoying his Somerfield breakfast cereal. A sudden hail of blades smashes through his kitchen window, ripping his roller blind and knocking over his mug. He battles with his adversaries, then takes on a dragon before returning to his spoiled cereal ("SQUSH SQUSH SQUSH"). A depressing experience, leading to his standing atop a precipice and plunging a sword deep into his stomach. The all-action contrasts wonderfully well with the banal, the everyday : the spice rack; the kid's drawing magnet-pinned to the fridge; the front garden with its little bird house; the car parked in the driveway opposite; and a rubber duck, visible through the bathroom's half-open door.
Dom Sable's six-pager consists of thirty individual sheets laid out three or four per page. It's been drawn on leaves torn from books, and sometimes text shows through from behind - or else Dom's incorporated printed words and inked inscriptions rather than bothering to find completely blank pages to use instead. Andrzej Nowicki's compelling Haiti looks just as distinctive, being made of twelve half-page frames, each with a sparse caption and an ornamental border - it's perhaps possessed of a similar strangeness to that of Ed Pinsent's work. Sebastian Borckenhagen and Serkis & Bent complete the contributors roll call for this generally fine first issue.

Received : 7th June 2006.
Size : A4. 44pp inc. cover.
Price : £3.50.
Email address : terome@bastard.co.za.
Web address : http://www.bastard.co.za.