Mount a Rescue by David Robertson.

This book sees the very welcome return of David Robertson’s comics anthology books, with writing by David and art also by the author but featuring several other artists. Mount A Rescue is a bumper Summer Special packed full of exciting features from the Dundonian Harvey Pekar. As ever we have autobiographical content alongside short fictional comics, reflections on pop culture. There are even a few dad jokes.

One of the most interesting pieces in the book deals with the author’s love of the classic movie Blade Runner. This strip entitled ‘Los Angeles, November 2019’ examines how the things we love can be great influences on our lives, but also how our own perspective on them changes over time. Blade Runner is set in 2019, which is now our past. It has had multiple re-edited releases and book, movie and comic versions all of which bring something to the story. 

Some Philip K. Dick type ideas are also spun out of this strip with the story Coming of Age bringing together four separate comic pages under one title and a loose theme relating to human consciousness and the soul. Although speaking of ageing and mortality I did struggle to read the quite small text in the tale Based on a True Story.

The highlight of the book for me is a wonderful three panel strip which is a tribute to two pop culture behemoths – Star Wars and Alan Henderson’s magnificent Penned Guin strip. Multi-layered meta-textuality. 

Another stand out strip is a travelogue story of a trip to India. Having undertaken a similar trip not long ago I could identify with the strong impressions made…noise, heat, poverty, traffic. A great touch is another strip also about this trip but written by Miles Robertson (aged 11.)

Covid Britain is not missed out in this book. I loved the one page strips some featuring heroes like the posties, fittingly right up there with Magnum P.I. We even have some of the real life dilemmas of lockdown…what do you do when you are walking around and the NHS clap starts?

The changing art style makes for an interesting break and helps us move between the different types of story being told. There are some impressive contributions from artists including Emma Oosterhouse, Olivia Hicks and Norrie Millar. Clio D’s art on The Six Ages of Homer was clean, simple and effective and Zu Dominiak brings a touch of grotesque fun to a trashy tale of recycling.

There is a lot of reading in the 70 odd pages in this bumper-fun holiday special. Get your copy now and you will be picking sand out of the pages for years to come.

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You can get your copy of Mount A Rescue from the author’s website 

Check out David’s blog or find him on Twitter.

Writer and artist credits: Writer: David Robertson. Artist: David Robertson, with 18 short stories drawn respectively by Clio D, Zu Dominiak, Damon Herd, Olivia Hicks, Rebecca Horner, Vedis Huldudottir, Asuna Ikeshima, Paddy Johnston, Marc KC, Tim Kelly, Francesca Mancuso, Norrie Millar, Emma, Oosterhouse, Neil Paterson, Ludi Price, Mike Sedakat, Veddabredda, Pam Wye, and Cherish York.