TURBO JONES

released 10 JaNUarY Publisher rebellion

Writer Barrie Tomlinson Artists Ian Kennedy, Vanyo, Keith Page

Wildcat arrived at the tail-end of the UK SF comics boom in 1989 and only lasted 12 issues, but it had a great conceit: an anthology comic whose four strips – Turbo Jones, Joe Alien, Kitten Magee and Loner – were different strands of the same story, about a group of colonists escaping the destruction of Earth. Each strip followed one of the senior officers as they explored a continent on their potential new planet. Sadly this collection doesn’t give you a full flavour of the concept, as its brief is to collect just the Turbo Jones strips.

It’s pretty gung-ho space adventure fare, as Jones (who says “My friends call me Turbo!”, though he never explains why) gets caught up in a war. The plotting and dialogue can be artless, yet Cam Kennedy’s inventive artwork is always a joy (his dinosaur tanks are wonderful) and there’s enough eccentricity in Barrie Tomlinson’s storylines to lift it above the mundane, such as the moment when the head of an alien war council says, “A Terrosauron? Will the Minister of Electro-Cerebral Technology give his views on that?” But Wildcat’s other strips were even madder, so let’s hope for further collections featuring Joe Alien and his detachable brain, and Kitten Magee’s precious “lifedust”, which was definitely not cocaine. Eddie Robson