Clint 1

THEY DON’T KNOW WHERE TO STICK IT, CAPTAIN!

After one of the more effective plugging campaigns in decades, Clint, the adult anthology touted as a comics event akin to the Eagle and 2000AD launches, has been unleashed into British newsagents and supermarkets.

Who are confused as buggery about it.

The market penetration’s decent, but the staff of said stores, unfamiliar with the product and bemused by its packaging, have racked it in a haphazard manner sure to bewilder and thwart potential punters. Variously, I’ve seen it with ‘lads’ mags’ like Loaded; with media mags; with the actual comics, like Beano; with more up-market men’s fare such as Esquire; and in a calamitous misread of the intended customer base, beside Gay Times and Attitude.

So anybody who’s caught the media ripple, become curious, and seeks it out in a civilian venue… well, good luck with that!

The cover design also baffles. It strives to not look like a comic, though carrying the apologetic disclaimer, ‘Contains Comics’. With the Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl movie pic, it could be a film mag, but… who the hell is that between them? If you’re going to trade on someone’s notoriety for sales purposes, best to use a photo of the celeb that’s recognized by the general public, not one resembling a ginger member of the David Bellamy Emergency Squad.

The main reason for purchasing is the premiere of Kick-Ass 2, serialized in Clint prior to its US release.  Guttermouthed jailbait Hit-Girl is now assisting our feckless hero in forming a ‘super-team’; deplorable, but irresistible, it gives you just not quite enough at eight pages, teasing and disappointing.

The opposite problem applies to two of the other entries, Turf (Aliens as vampires in 1920’s gangsterland) and Nemesis (What if Batman was a really evil fucker?), each of which reprints the entire first issue of their respective series. Given the extremely leisurely pace at which the parent books are oozing out, perhaps subdividing the chapters would have been more prudent, otherwise by the third Clint,  they’re going to have nothing to reprint! That being said, both series benefit from the larger size, Turf in particular actually being readable; in the original US format, the myriad word balloons swamped what’s probably some of Tommy Lee Edwards’  finest art to date.

The remaining new comics quotient is taken up by Frankie Boyle’s Rex Royd, and I’m far from alone in saying a resounding “Huh?” when confronted by this… no, I don’t know what the hell it is. A bunch of word balloons are attached seemingly at random to pictures of bloody violence which appears to be some sort of anti-supes anti-hero, but… It doesn’t actually make sense. The lack of clarity is, I think, supposed to be enigmatic, but it’s just irritating. Oh, and there’s Huw Edwards’ Space Oddities: The Diner, a pointless piddle-out lacking the imagination of the average Future-Shock.

That’s it for the comics; the text features are almost a parody of Lads’ Mag fare, with ‘Hot Mums’, ‘Charles Manson’s Celebrity Death List’, ‘Secret Diary of a Celebrity Pot-Head’,  a Jimmy Carr interview, and a profile of the guy who voice-overs Tom Cruise in China. No, seriously.

Granted that I’m not the intended punter for this package, I’m still having trouble seeing who the target victim is. It’s not without merits, but they’re mostly secondhand.  There’s too little of the main selling point, Kick Ass 2, to satisfy, the other new comics are borderline competent at best, and the text features are desperate padding. It’s got attitude in abundance; but right now it’s got no coherent voice.