I heard of 'Bulldog' and BAM, of course, for ages, without actually checking out a copy. So this was my first experience of the semi-legendary Jason Cobley's work. (Listen, anyone who lives in Wisbech, and manages to produce anything, let alone a successful comic is to be applauded. I thought I had it bad, coming from Haverhill!)
Behind a superb front (and back) cover lies, I'm sorry to say, a mixed bag. There are a few continued stories here, but, as usual in the small press, no attempt is made to clue new readers into what's going on. Would it really hurt to put a precis at the start of each strip?
As far as I can tell, Jason writes pretty much everything, and he's pretty good across the board. The Bulldog strip itself resembles a bizarro cross between Kamandi and The Avengers, full of humanoid animals (and plants), Captain Winston Bulldog a two fisted rebel fighting the forces of 'Earnest', represented by Tony Blair. The satire is sledgehammer to say the least, but it's tight, readable stuff and the scene where Bulldog meets his evil twin is fun. This section of the strip also has the best art, courtesy of Neill Cameron. It's a shame he didn't do the rest of it, as the experiment of having a different artist each couple of pages works against the story rather than for it.
After this, there are more continued stories (tho' again with no precis!) The Decline of the San Toi Empire has nice fairy tale art, tho' the inking needs work, and a script where most of the characters talk in a faux Glasgow dialect, which I lost patience with very quickly. The Rainbow Orchid has beautiful, so close to Hergé it is Hergé art, and a good script; this is probably the best thing in the magazine. Then there's another Bulldog strip, a one-off with nothing to with the main story, with spectacularly ugly, scratchy artwork, and finally, Mer-Tropolis with hasty, but still pretty good art from Mitzi (responsible for the much better cover image). I preferred the ad for 'her' own comic Pilot actually.
I don't mean to come down hard on BAM, as It's nicely produced (I particularly like the editorial and letters pages) but I was only really mildly impressed with this issue. I'd be happy to try more tho'.
Pete Doreé