Underground Kingdom Comix Fantasy

Matt Greaves, Samuel Hickson, Josh Hicks, Jonny Brokenbrow, Harry Dean Willmott, Matt Simmons and Ethan Llewellyn

Having already covered the genres of crime and horror, the Underground Kingdom clan have turned their attention to Fantasy. The genre that has filled bookshops, charity shops and landfill sites ever since those Lord of the Rings movies came out and George R. R. Martin got his tales of incest and dragons down on paper.

All things mediaeval, pointy eared and questing have become incredibly popular. Of course for every ‘first five seasons of Game of Thrones’ there is a ‘Rings of Power’. But I will watch literally any shit with weird names, cliched farm boy heroes and ethereal babes so I guess it must be working.

The compilation is edited by Blat creator Matt Greaves. If you haven’t read Blat then imagine if John Cooper Clark wrote Eightball, Matt is a stalwart of the new underground comics renaissance that would be sweeping the country if this was a just world that appreciated culture. Assembled within the pages are a range of talents.

The cover by another underground legend Samuel Hickson of Liquid Realms fame, sets the scene as goblin heads roll. Harry Dean Willmott contributes Living Image. Drawing on the spirit of Murun Buchstansangur it is a melancholy tale of weird creatures, predators but also prey. The disturbing conclusion sees a strange kind of self-reflection.

Matt Simmons Fantastein has a different mood entirely. What kind of monster would you unleash if you really could stick together your preferred spare parts to make a new being? Something as unforgettable as the creation in this story. The high-fantasy setting has an epic feel that builds up perfectly to the pay off gag. 

Ethan Llewellyn contributes a skeletal pin up – very purple, I would say that perhaps a bit more variety in the colour palette across the book might be good, it is very purple.

Josh Hicks takes us back to the good old D&D character sheet with stats for a ‘self-employed husk’. A nice opening gag that takes us into Jonny Brokenbrow’s tale of The Wizard, a magus who will do anything for clicks. The grotesque art reflects the horrific and indeed imbecilic torrent of garbage any of us can experience with a bit of hate scrolling in our favourite social media app. 

Alan Moore in his wonderful new volume the Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, positions magic as the art of manipulating your mind to stimulate acts of creation – maybe tik tok et al are anti-magic, manipulating us into self-hatred and alienation? Read UKC – Fantasy and come to your own pretentious conclusions.

Underground Kingdom Comics – Fantasy is funding now on Kickstarter.