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Underground > Comic Books >

The Best Of ... Jamie Delano

The Timaximus, The!

22:53 / 18.11.06

In the Outlaw Nation thread, I posted:
Would someone with more to say care to start a "The Best Of ... Jamie Delano" thread?

Then Our Lady is Now Rather Wet posted:
Dude, the 'New Topic' button is right there at the top of the page...

Alright then, I will.

I liked Outlaw Nation enough to wonder what other Delano works I should check out. What else is worth it? Rather, what else is worth it and collected and in print?

Looking at his website's bibliography, a lot of the Vertigo one-shots and minis shouldn't be too tough to pick up, but, assuming I like what I find there, what about Animal Man and Hellblazer?

23:02 / 18.11.06

Personally, Delano's Hellblazer is some of my favorite, period.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

23:12 / 18.11.06

I hold the opposite opinon. Delano's Hellblazer and Animal Man are lower points of both books. Delano's got an ugly habit of cramming clunky social commentary into his books that (in my opinion, obviously) is well-intentioned but always comes across really ham-handed.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:46 / 18.11.06

I loved his Hellblazer, and there was a Vertigo one-shot based on a true case about a couple of goths who got mixed up with the American far right ("Hell Eternal") which I also rather liked- I've seen it online for a few quid, and keep meaning to pick it up again.

02:28 / 19.11.06

I really liked his and Davis' follow-up to Alan Moore's Captain Britain. It kept that wonder and surprise of the comics of yesteryear. Well done, that. And cheap -that trade.

lord nuneaton savage

13:06 / 19.11.06

I met him once and he was lovely and very encouraging.

There you go. He's nice. Counts for something, right?

13:39 / 19.11.06

I'd second the Captain Britain stuff he did, it really continues the good work that Moore started, and has some wonderful moments in it (his Betsy Braddock/Psylock is about the only good presentation of this character), all beautifully short and snappy and well drawn.

Doesn't show up on UK amazon, but US has it here;

Delano's Captain Britain

I'd highly recommend it.

He's hellblazer stuff was okay, a bit, as said above, obsessed with socialism - look a homeless story, look a John and the crusty travellers story, look a story about the dole etc etc. It's okay, good Ridgeway art, but hasn't dated well.

13:45 / 19.11.06

yeah the cap brit stuff's good - the 'coming in for a cup of tea?' episode sticks out as a favourite - other than thatt ry going for the collection of early nightraven one-pagers, in fact any of his nigtraven stuff with david loyd's worth a look.

those aside, he is frequently arse though.

15:14 / 19.11.06

At the time, I really enjoyed his single issue Hellblazer story he did directly after Ennis's first run -issue 86-odd- the one with the Sean Phillips artwork.

15:31 / 19.11.06

i picked up a run of delano animal men recently, but never really got round to reading them because they're plagued by quite astonishingly tedious art, bordering on ugly, which appears to have been inked with an elephant's willy and coloured by a blind dog.

from what little i did read, the above comments about slightly clunky social commentary ring true, though to be fair, i may well have got that from the letters pages; i'll have to give them a good read before i comment.

in terms of the writing, i got the impression that delano was a leeeetle bit fond of his own voice. i suppose the whole thing just comes off as a little bit dated, at first glance.

yawn - thing's buddy

10:37 / 21.11.06

I wil always have a special place in my four-colour heart for the first 20 episode of Hellblazer.

particularly number 3, 10 and 11.

and the whole raft of issues where constantine hung out with travellers are powerfully evocative of eighties britain too....worth checking.

Janean Patience

12:13 / 21.11.06

I've bigged up Delano's Hellblazer on another thread somewhere, but briefly: the Family Man arc in the 20s is really good, the Sean Phillips past/present/future introspection piece afterwards is better, and The Horrorist with David Lloyd is peerless.

2020 Visions is a lot of fun as a series, though it follows a curve downwards. First three issues, about a depraved old man in New York, drawn by Quitely; excellent. Next three about his estranged PI daughter in Florida, drawn by Warren Pleece; really, really good. Next three about her ugly reject son in the wide-open West, drawn by James Romberger; really good. Final three with his handsome twin brother and a group of feminist rebels in California, drawn by Steve Pugh; rubbish.

It's the ultimate Jamie Delano series, with all his strengths and weaknesses displayed at length. If you've ever wondered "What's that mate of Alan Moore from the Northampton Arts Labs like?" this is the best way to find out. The art is lovely and it's collected, albeit without colour, and it's a rare peak in the undistinguished and small world of sci-fi comics.

Animal Man had its moments and some great Steve Pugh art in Jamie's opening storyline, but the best bits were never properly followed up and the worst were filled with passionate intensity. I always fancied World Without End, more sci-fi with painted art by John Higgins, but I don't think I ever saw an issue, then or since.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:49 / 21.11.06

I only ever read the first World Without End, but I seem to remember it being really quite mental.

The Timaximus, The!

01:38 / 22.11.06

Slightly off the subject, but why is Delano the only guy bringing his out-of-print creator-owned books to other publishers? Is it a peculiarity of his contracts, or do the Milligans/DeMattieses/Seagles not care/can't afford to/etc.? (Err, Rick Veitch also does it, but I was thinking of Vertigo folks).

21:44 / 22.11.06

I actually enjoy Delano's Batman/Manbat thing, 'cause Bats is either a total stuffy asshole, or the ecoterroristy gal is... but, no, everyone in that story's an ass. It's like an asshole diamond rotating to show of its shiny, highly polished facets of assholity.

Such an unBatmanlike Bats must be deliberate, yes? Or was that an eighties project I've moved a decade up, and thereby entirely the fake uberrepressed Brucie-baby?

21:54 / 22.11.06

I do love '20/20 Visions' quite a bit, including the art-progression, but was it meant to run longer, or did it stick to a plan?

I appreciate that Delano never seems to be trying to hide or downplay his personal perspective on the world, through politics, sex, whatever. After all, when you get down to it, if you really believe that "this is how it is," then you have to, if representing the world as "this is how it would be," extrapolate from those initials knowings into the story at hand. Anything else is a form of lying, which, being fiction, is fine and dandy and all, but it's kinda insidious when someone tries to sucker you over to their side of the fence, with a facade, y'know? An honest preacher, or something, that Jamie Delano.

Oh, and the yuppie demons and the deathjog of early 'Hellblazer' were damned entertaining. Everyone who says elsewise is wrong.

22:20 / 22.11.06

I seem to recall some quite cool Nightraven stuff with David Lloyd. Good noir crime strips but i can't remember now whether it was Lloyds fantastic art that made it. The fact that any storyline or writing has escaped me makes me think that. But i do like a lot of his stuff that has been mentioned above. I think how he carried on Captain Britain after Alan Moore, for a few strips at least, was really quite seamless in ways that no other writer has managed to do. I'm thinking the Tea and Sympaphy story and the one with the homeless guy.

08:17 / 23.11.06

Cap vs Slaymaster post Betsy become Captain er UK? or something - that was one of the best stories along with those mentioned. Cap Britain was a bad mother in that one.