To those in the know about British small press (and if you’re reading Bugpowder, then that probably includes you), Redeye doesn’t need that much of an introduction. A cottage industry magazine, which is well produced with each consecutive issue looking increasingly professional, issue 4 doesn’t disappoint.

There’s articles within on Malcy Duff, Ian Edginton and Disraeli, David Hitchcock and Jeremy Dennis to name but a few as well as reports on comics festivals (Copenhagen 2004 and The UK Web and Mini Comix Thing 2005) as well as 7 pages of smallpress reviews. All in, it provides a couple of hours of good reading. There’s some excellent journalism here too. Writers like Matthew Badham seem as conversant in the fan-boy end of the spectrum as he does in the alt-comix arena.

However to those new to British small press or just casually interested, would Redeye stand out as a ‘must buy’ magazine? I’m not so sure. The front cover would have probably put me off had I not been keen to read about the names on the cover. And I feel that’s a bit of a problem. When reviewing Redeye it’s very easy to use words like ‘solid’ or ‘chunky’. And as a reading experience, they’re fitting adjectives, I only wish that the editorial approach would be a little more daring as far as packaging goes.

The previous covers have been pretty samey and boring, usually a pinup style illustration incorporating the Union Jack in some way. Number 4’s no exception, this time it’s David Hitchcock’s turn to drape the flag.
It lends weight to the perception that 'a chick holding a gun' imagery typifies ‘indie’ comics, and that’s as far from the truth as it is boring. Seeing as how the comic has articles on experimental artists like Malcy Duff and hugely original talents like Jeremy Dennis, the editor Baz Renshaw could be commissioning some really amazing cover artwork here instead of peddling the Union Jack gimmick for another issue.

Well my two-pennorth aside, despite it’s lacklustre cover, this is a really great magazine aiming high and delivering at providing a balanced, in-depth tour of UK independent comics. Recommended.

Available from Engine Comics

Franchise-free but genre-hued, Fragments #3’s purposeful delivery of thinly disguised parables challenges the notion that truth is best served through fiction. It’s a personal detective story, sifting through what Dennis Potter describes as “the superfluity of clues”. Involved is “contending with all the shapes and half-shapes, all the memories, all the aspirations of life – how they coalesce, how they contradict each other, how they have to be disentangled as a human act by you yourself; by you, this unique sovereign individual behind all the selves that are being sold things.”

Again, as with previous issues, the pieces in #3 are made symbiotic by creator Christine Harper’s strong authorial presence, but here the autobiographical element heightens as the writer herself features in almost all strips. Despite this, and though the instruction booklet resemblance of previous issues is agreeably replaced by a more cohesive, more organic, more satisfying comic strip presentation, the ‘telling’ remains dominant over the ‘showing’ and hinders one’s involvement, leaving a niggling thirst for greater development of story structure. Ample compensation however is provided by a progressive ability to cartoon and by the fact that here is an author with something to say. Indeed, in Harper’s most accomplished work to date, ‘The Boys’ Club Talk Crap’, a sickly light is cast on male grotesques, and change fuelled by conflict is delivered in a disarming tonal mix of steaming venom and powdered vulnerability.

With high purpose and cathartic intent, Fragments #3 makes no apology for sermonising. Though absent of inventiveness in dealing with adult issues in a gripping way, this comic does have depth and meaning where others have only inventiveness and/or well-worn platitudes. Self-help philosophising of this kind is no commercial venture for the author – no evidence exists of pandering to the masses. But then, with Fragments there is the sense that Christine Harper has little choice in the matter. As Flaubert said, “We do not choose our subjects. They choose us.”

Check ordering details at Chez Chrissie.