Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, High Priestess, indie Comics, The Gee Bees

Mac's Books Reviewed: High Priestess #1, The Gee Bees Present: The Grand Tour TPB

Published Wed, 12 Aug 2015 18:00:36 -0500

by Hannah Means Shannon

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By Olly MacNamee.

A monthly review spotlighting the best titles the UK indie press has to offer.

High Priestess No.1 (Damn Dirty Comics) and The Gee Bees Present: The Grand Tour Issues 1-6/tpb (UK Comics)

High Priestess

Writer: Rees Finlay

Artist: Mitchell Doig and Shunaid Sawyers (Epilogue)

Cover: Emiliano Gorrea

A dark comic, and not just because its set in Coventry (sorry, Coventry), the first issue of High Priestess introduces us to the titular character and offers the reader just enough mystery to keep us guessing. Why has this would-be hero been chosen to be resurrected and work on the side of the angels? Who are the lead villainous outfit, The Disciples, really working with, given the religious iconography and language spattered throughout this all-colour comic? And, what mysteries does her past hold that her supervising angel, Gabriel, does not want her to know about?

High Priestess is a macabre mix of both the super heroic and the supernatural in a tale that may have a street-level panorama, but clearly has larger ramifications in the age-old war against the powers of evil and The Lord of the Flies. Children have gone missing and violence seems to be the order of the day as the little old city of Coventry in the UK is overrun by crime on a scale that would even make the Costa Nostra blush.

Rees Finlay, the writer and creator, introduces us to a strong, super powered female protagonist in the shape of foul-mouthed Holly Peters, The titular High Priestess, who acts nothing like her namesake would suggest as she tackles her first of many missions. Her language is picked up on by her cigarette-smoking sidekick, the angel Gabrielle, sent to keep tabs on her and instruct her in the ways of the Lord's master plan, one assumes. Reminiscent of the angels in Kevin Smith's film, Dogma, Gabe is a laid back kinda guy who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty when push comes to shove, while still maintaining an all too human vulnerability. He is not the omnipotent, omnipresent supernatural force one would imagine and, as a result, he seems to know as much as Holly, thus keeping the element of mystery necessary. There are no easy answers to be had and like any good crime-fighter, both need to follow the clues to smoke out the main antagonists.

In all the darkness, there are the odd welcome wisecracks too. As well as warning our hero against blasphemy, Gabriel has his own vices too and is more than happy to take a cigarette break before once more taking up the calling of the Lord. The officers, McMahon and Moore, have suspiciously familiar names for anyone who read classic 2000AD and a nice touch too. Part Constantine/Hellblazer and equal part superhero high-jinx (she even has her own 'Shazam' empowering battle cry that calls forth heavenly powers which she uses to clean up the mean streets of Coventry), High Priestess is a welcome addition to a growing group of strong female superheroes we are seeing emerging through a real need and a real desire to introduce more diversity into comics. Finlay and his gang offer an intriguing new character into the world and with more questions than answers offered in this first issue, it leaves the reader guessing, and that's not a bad thing.

Look out for High Priestess at your local comic book shop or on the Damn Dirty Comics website. Failing that, if you're in Birmingham on September 5^th, get your copy from the man himself at ICE.

The Gee Bees Present: The Grand Tour

Writer: Stephen Quirke

Artist: Kel Winser

Collecting together the six issues of this web comic as one trade paperback for the first time, The Gee Bees Presents: The Grand Tour gives us a new look at a very British genre of international espionage, spies and intrigue that in this instance spans the ages thanks to our hero, Gideon Black, being a dab hand at time-travel. A point, however, that can be sometimes lost on the reader as Black and his assistant, Katrina, travel the globe and the past on the back of their time-twisting motorbike at breakneck pace, but with little indication at times as to the era they are battling their age-old nemesis, Maximilian, initially given to the reader.

Even they are unsure at times. For instance, they arrive in Paris in the third installment, but it is not revealed until the very end that we are witnessing the 1968 Paris Riots, used by their age-old arch-enemy as 'The perfect cover for the crime of the century'. It's a good idea, albeit much mined before now, to make use of historical events that are revealed to be more than they seem upon first glance. But then, this is a story of time travelling and so using such tropes is to be expected. It's what one does with this narrative convention that counts in this post-modernist age we find ourselves living in. And, when it works, it works well and to the strengths of the story being told.

I found myself knowingly smiling during Black's decent on America at seemingly different times throughout the 20^th century, wherein he knowingly communicates with the likes of Lovecraft – where he is about to scare the Providence based writer with a crude Hallowe'en outfit, insinuating that it was none other than our 'too cool for school' hero, Black, who inspired Lovecraft on the path to creating a particular kind of horror – as well as the likes of Stephen King and even Ernest Hemmingway. Scenes like these, as well as the inclusion of an additional prose section at the end of the book that reveals the history of The Foundation and Maximilian's links to its past as a series of journal entries, work the best and give the comic series breadth and heart.

Quirke creates a universe that has huge potential for future stories, and further mysteries to be revealed yet. I wanted to know more about The Foundation, their history and particularly the road travelled by Maximilian that sees him transformed from lowly servant in the 1500's to would-be alchemical conqueror of the world. But, it is to the writer's credit that he only gives us a peek behind the curtain. Why reveal too much at once when there is the little matter of stopping a diabolical despot in the making to attend to?

As we follow the laconic Gideon Black and his partner, Katrina, on his mission to stop Maximilian and his army of Grotesques looking for specific magical artifacts from across time, we meet other Gideon Blacks (surely, the Gee Bees the tpb's title suggests) and other Katrinas too. Clearly not a coincidence as Black would believe, or is encouraged to believe, but certainly the planting of a seed I imagine the writer, Steven B Quirke, will return to in time to explore further. Like a good James Bond story, the different locations and characters are what gives it an epic, exotic scale. To include time-travel as well creates an infinite canvas on which to play on. Quirke, and artist, Kel Winser, do well not to reveal all at once and leave enough mystery to want me to know more. This, as the art by Winser would suggest, is a comic in its infancy with plenty of growth to come I hope, whether as further web-baes adventures or as a comicbook.

The Gee Bees is a small comic with grand designs and succeeds in creating an expansive history of the shadowy time-travelling organization, The Foundation, which is ripe for further exploration further down the line, should the writer, Steven D Quirke wish. A decent introductory story that fleshes out some characters more than others, but as an interesting hybrid of both the spy genre and the sci-fi world of time travelling, this is an oft-times intelligent comic that does well to convincingly mix the two genres and create in Gideon Black a smart-talking spy more in the vein of Austin Powers than 007.

The Gee Bees Present: The Grand Tour can still be read as a web comic here, or as a trade paperback at conventions such as the forthcoming ICE convention in Birmingham where both Quirke and Finlay (High Priestess) will be attending. Say hi from me.

That's my recommendations for this month.

Be seeing you.

Olly MacNamee teaches English and Media, for his sins, in a school somewhere in Birmingham. Some days, even he doesn't know where it is. Follow him on twitter @ollymacnamee or read about his exploits at olly.macnamee@blogspot.co.uk. Or don't. You can also read his articles fairly frequently at www.bleedingcool.com too.

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