Those fans of Strip for Me with very long memories and paper copies with low numbers may remember the short reviews that I used to run on the inside back cover of each issue.  The idea at the time, which I now recognise as hopelessly ambitious, was for these capsule reviews to build up into a sort of Halliwell’s or Maltin’s guide to comic books, a guide which did not, and still does not exist.  I kept it up for a good long while, and eventually had a few hundred of these reviews all typed up and waiting for a home when a single computer crash wiped out the file that I was keeping them in and I found myself unable to summon the energy to start the whole process over from scratch.  I thought it was gone for good and consigned it to my pile of abandoned projects, along with the great Dundonian novel I was always going to finish, and the autobiography of Jesus.

But that’s not the end of the story.

A few weeks ago, I found an earlier version of that lost file.  It didn’t contain half the reviews that I had completed, unfortunately, but there were still almost three hundred little chunks of outdated opinions in there.   It was odd to see what I was reading and enjoying a decade ago, but I found myself chuckling as often as cringing at my younger self’s words, so I figure, what the hell.

I have started a little blog to run them in, called I Read Your Comic.  It will be updated every day until I run out of reviews, and there’ll be a nice Amazon link to let you buy the books, if you care to.  After I run out… who knows?  Maybe I’ll keep it up. Until then you can run on over and see what I once thought. There’s already a couple of week’s worth of reviews for you to enjoy, so get on over there!

Or rather, what’s gone up over at I Read Your Comic.

Mr Punch – “…startling and inventive…”

Lout Rampage! – “…there is much to treasure within.”

Kill Your Boyfriend – “…guaranteed to offend more conservative readers.”

Joe’s Bar – “…breathtaking…”

It’s Dark in London – “Smart, literary-minded…”

Hicksville – “…introspective book of small triumphs and regrets…”

Gregory – “All together: “Ub! Ub! Ub!””

More every day this week.

By which I mean, what has gone up over at I Read Your Comic over the last week.

Fires – “Images are guaranteed to stay with the reader.”

Enigma – “Fegredo’s scratchy art gets better as book goes on, and is pretty good to begin with.”

Daredevil: Marked For Death – “Standard super-heroic fare…”

Clerks – “See the first film instead, then quit.”

Batman: Manbat – “…never quite gels, despite abundance of ideas and imagery.”

Atmospherics – “…effective little shocker…”

JLA: New World Order – “Extremely lightweight and vastly enjoyable…”

Not much in the way of a theme this week at I Read Your Comic, unless you count the two radically different takes on the Pilot of the Future that the weekend has brought. Next week, things should look a little more cohesive.

Heart of Empire – “…sharp and satirical”

I Never Liked You – “Thoroughly compelling.”

Like a Velvet Glove Cast In Iron – “Incredible, indescribable”

Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis – “…punctuated by moments of genuine eerieness”

Space Dog – “Sweet, wordless story”

Dan Dare, Pilot of The Future – The Man from Nowhere Volume One – “Sterling science fiction adventure”

Dare – “…capturing the crumbling grandeur of futurist architecture.”

This week on I Read Your Comic we have a bunch of nice anthologies and two books by the marvellous Evan Dorkin. Next week, we have yet more things – be sure and join us for that!

A1 Book 1 -”a virtual who’s who of comic talent”

A1 Book 2 – “even better than the first”

A1 Book 3 – “keeps up the high standard”

The Best of Negative Burn Year One – “little in the way of memorable work”

The Best of Negative Burn Year Two – “an improvement in contributions if not cohesion or common theme”

Dork: Who’s Laughing Now? – “Rewards re-reading”

Dork Volume 2: Circling the Drain – “the hit rate is high, and Dorkin is peerless at what he does”