THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH! 10 YEARS OF THE BF SIX TO WATCH! Over the years there have staples of Thought Bubble debut books that have come to represent certain eras of UK small press publishing. The latest issue of Cox and Riordan’s Hitsville UK for example. Or a new edition of Dan White’s Cindy & Biscuit. In recent years that honour has gone to Joe Stone and Matthew Dooley’s flipbook comics of which we have had Split and Splat and now, after a one-year hiatus, they return to with Sport.
If you’re unfamiliar with the presentational style then these comics are not a collaboration in the traditional sense of a creative partnership. Instead the duo each have their own half of the issue to present a short story or multiples thereof. Read one artist’s section, turn it around, and you’ll find another cover on the other side to begin with the second creator’s interpretations of the theme. To date they have been witty and inventive takes on the given subject matter; playful engagements with the themes from two masters of the tools of the form.
Sport, perhaps, sounds a more conventional title than previous ones, and while the teasing irreverence is still there it’s perhaps not quite as pronounced as in previous anthologies. Dooley’s half comprises of one entire ‘Origin Story’ focussing on a boyhood love for football team Liverpool FC which is all the more appealing for the fact that its air of wistful nostalgia could be applied to any number of moments of childhood discovery.
In this case it’s a copy of The Football Book 1970 which acts as the trigger for the young Dooley’s imagination, with its intangible accounts of forgotten sporting heroes and the early days of competitive European football. Dooley imbues the proceedings with such a wonderful feeling of childhood innocence – footballers morphing into heroes from classical antiquity – and an enjoyable line in self-deprecation (“The first time I met my partner I apparently went on at length about Hungarian football. As improbable as it may seem, she agreed to see me again”) that you don’t even need to have any clue as to who Ian Rush is to get something from this piece of autobio.
Stone, meanwhile, provides three shorts in his part of the book. First off mascot basketball Bouncer tells us about the history of the sport with Stone disseminating information in a fun slapstick way as the kinetic character is bounced around panels and pages. In ‘Joe Stone’s Top 5 Sports Movies’ he gives us illustrated mini reviews of films like Space Jam and Moneyball. Witty and appealingly narrated it’s still in a more serious mode than Stone’s final offering on the Boring Olympics.
This is vintage dry humour Stone material as we view such sports as competitive sock sorting, endurance sitting down, queueing, and my personal favourite – watching Dances with Wolves. It is all paced in a fittingly sedate manner, adding to the comedy value, and there’s one particular punchline moment that is just sublime in its delivery. Another hit from this unlikely double act and a Thought Bubble must-buy this November.
Joe Stone & Matthew Dooley (W/A) • Self-published
Visit Joe Stone’s site and store here.
Visit Matthew Dooley’s online store here.
Review by Andy Oliver
Joe Stone & Matthew Dooley will be at Table C29 in the Travelling Man Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
Art by Rocío Arreola Mendoza
