Now settled firmly into an annual publication schedule, Ugly Mug #8 lives up to its tagline of “an industrial strength comics compendium” with another bumper collection of comic strips and illustration from some true veteran heavyweights of the early days of the UK self-publishing scene. This edition has the most memorable covers of the series to date from the one-of-a-kind mind of John Bagnall. Indeed, Bagnall contributes both front and back cover illustrations with his wonderfully angular visuals giving us images that convey scenes of eerie urban industrialisation and melancholic childhood; a contrast that nonetheless embodies the eccentricity and wistfulness that go hand-in-hand in Bagnall’s work (once again a note to any publisher reading this: someone needs to compile Bagnall’s decades of comics work into a collection for posterity!).
What’s always entertaining in the pages of Ugly Mug is that sensation that you never quite know what you’re going to find between its covers, and you might not even fully comprehend everything you read therein. Issue #8 comes from a smaller pool of creators than usual but it’s as enticingly idiosyncratic and, occasionally, as delightfully baffling as ever. The ever present hosts of The House of Harley, for example, open events with ‘Sounds of the Underground’, a strip that isn’t quite abstract but leans in that direction with its strange stream-of-consciousness tour of a subterranean society. One that throws ideas at us without worrying about the restricting confines of narrative or clarity. I rather liked this one.
Ed Pinsent
The esteemed Ed Pinsent makes multiple contributions but his ‘RSD Lang, Record Collector’ story is the standout comic of the anthology as the titular protagonist builds his business on travelling back in time to obtain copies of a rare album to sell on in the present at extravagant prices to his customer. Paradoxes and temporal disaster obviously ensue in this bizarre tale of chronal farce. Pinsent’s retro-indie stylings and crammed, high-energy pages ensure the story moves at a jaunty and witty pace.
Denny Derbyshire
Denny Derbyshire’s ‘Bearskin’ gives us the kind of surreal fable that asks the reader just to immerse themselves in its thematic weirdness and go with the narrative flow, while the transgressive grotesqueness of Julian Geek’s ‘Jungle Ruck’ – all throbbing crudeness and explicit defiance – echoes back to another era of underground comix work. Punctuating the issue, the House of Harley’s ‘Mark E. Smith, Music Teacher’ strips keenly recast The Fall’s frontman in an unlikely mentor role, with a Viz-style level of parody.
Julian Geek
Ugly Mug continues to occupy a space in our indie scene that no other small press anthology series comes close to visiting. An unrepentant oddity, it’s that very outsider ambience that makes it such a continued draw in the UK self-publishing world.
House of Harley, John Bagnall, Ed Pinsent, Denny Derbyshire, Julian Geek, Albert Monteiro (W/A) • House of Harley, £8.95
Review by Andy Oliver
