(House of Harley; 2021)
An eye-popping volume that marks the return (after three decades) of UGLY MUG, an anthology series put out by the London based House of Harley. The gist is comic strips from the British underground, over twenty of which are collected here. That House of Harley was serious in its aims is evidenced by the fact that they included work by Ed Pinsent, one of the major names of the indie comic strip scene, as well as the equally auspicious likes of John Bagnall, Savage Pencil, Denny Derbyshire and House of Harley’s own studio.
An eye-popping volume that marks the return (after three decades) of UGLY MUG…
Pinsent contributes “Organic Matter,” in which we learn why it’s not a good idea to create an “auxiliary brain”—even if you, like the story’s protagonist, are in need of some extra brain power. He also provides “New Statue in the Museum,” about the tortured inner life of a museum statue (whose final thoughts are “I need help…But I have no mouth to cry out”), and a portion of his “Wilby Wilberforce” saga (collected in the Eibonvale anthology MAGIC MIRROR).
Bagnall offers up two half-page “Father Gilderoy Investigates” narratives, in which a crime-fighting priest is constantly distracted from his official duties by worldly pleasures. Savage Pencil provides “Snak,” depicting a toothy creature devouring another (taken from an online series called, appropriately enough, ANIMALS EATING OTHER ANIMALS), while Derbyshire’s contribution is “Postcards From Another Place,” depicting a number of otherworldly images accomplished with what look like ballpoint pen doodles on lined paper—and so takes the primitivistic aesthetic of most of the rest of the book to new heights.
Most of the rest of the artwork here is from the Harley studio. There’s “A Glimpse Behind the Scenes At The House of Harley Studio,” revealing that the place is run with the help of exotic ink pigments, zombie ashes and the staked heads of former employees, “prominently displayed to inspire fear and creativity forevermore…” “Count Dracula’s Great Secret” is a witty riff on Eurotrash cinema of the 1970s involving a vampire-friendly freezer-coffin, and “How to make your own Golden Flavoured Syrup” shows us how to release the “essential golden oils” from bars of gold, but warns that doing so may have the unintended side-effect of attracting giant ants.
“Harvey’s S-S-S-Secret: A Half-Remembered Tale” is about the legendary New York actor Harvey Keitel and his real-life stutter, incorporated into an account of his attempts at overcoming the affliction through acting. Featured are several artistic renderings of stills from many of Keitel’s more famous films (including the penis-bearing bit from BAD LIEUTENANT). It’s all revealed to be a pep talk given by a creepy woman with no eyes (they being covered by featureless shades) to a young man with a starburst atop his head.
This is, all in all, an irresistible compendium of non-mainstream comic strip goodness. The contents run the gamut from rational to surreal, silly to sophisticated, amusing to offensive; UGLY MUG 5 is, in short, eminently representative of the state of the art in modern-day underground comix.