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Underground > Comic Books >

POUNDED: Wood, Rolston, Oni, punk rock!

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:14 / 03.01.02

How good does this look?

quote:Oni Press is pleased to announce POUNDED, a three-issue, monthly miniseries from acclaimed writer Brian Wood (GENERATION X, CHANNEL ZERO) and fan favourite artist Steve Rolston (QUEEN & COUNTRY). This all-new tale of broken hearts and busted heads follows hardcore wannabe and art school dropout Heavy Parker as he’s forced to confront Missy, his pissed off ex, and the stone cold reality she brings with her.

“Pounded is my stab at the kind of exploitation fiction British authors like Richard Allen and Stewart Home created with their youth cult novels, while incorporating the hilariously bitter, spot-on social commentary I enjoy so much in Peter Bagge's Hate comics,” Wood said in an Oni release. “It¹s a dark, funny, ultra-violent romp through a small town’s underground”

...

Set in Rolston’s home town of Vancouver, Pounded is a world filled with trust-fund babies and armchair revolutionaries, punks too soft to be hardcore and too old to be living the lives they live. Heavy rules this scene as a benevolent dictator. He sings lead in a local hardcore band. He puts out 'zines and pseudo-revolutionary material, and flypost propaganda about town. It’s good to be king. Or at least it is until Missy, Heavy’s ex-girlfriend, returns to town with a bunch of hardcore New York City punks in tow, bent on teaching Heavy a lesson.

More info here and artwork here (someone's been at the Philip Bond juice, and that's not a bad thing). Funny, I didn't care for Steve Rolston's art on Queen & Country at all, but the preview images for this are damn tasty... And of course, I'm there for anything Brian Wood writes these days.

This looks like exactly the kind of comic we need more of. And it's out in April.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

14:11 / 03.01.02

Sounds pretty good.

I'd say Philip Bond and Jim Mahfood, but that's just me.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:16 / 03.01.02

Yeah, there's some Mahfood in there as well. It's all good. Say, what's Mahfood up to at the moment?

15:14 / 03.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Flyboy:
Say, what's Mahfood up to at the moment?

<rot>Well, he just finished illustrating "Ultimate Marvel Team-Up" #9 & I read something about a gritty, Iceberg Slim-style mini-sereis coming up sometime in the future.</threadrot>

Matthew Fluxington

15:18 / 03.01.02

I'll buy that. It looks like the kind of thing I would enjoy, and Kali is correct, the art does look like a pleasant synthesis of Bond and Mahood, which is good news for me.

How much if Oni paying you, Fly?

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

15:39 / 03.01.02

<drooling in utter adoration>

Mahfood......

16:18 / 03.01.02

<also drooling in utter adoration>

I think Oni scientists have secretly been studying my personality in order to create a comic book perfectly suited to my needs.

I mean, well, YEAH!, basically.
If this had no story whatsoever and was drawn by a monkey I'd still love it.

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: Rizla Year Zero ]

22:52 / 03.01.02

I gotta diss here- Wood is shite- the Channel Zero I saw was the least interesting bits of Invisibles and Adbusters.

also mahfood- that bit with the spice girls except they deal drugs, skate, do graff, hang out with rastas . . .

hernandez + clowes + them have been doing this shit for years, but they don't have to make it MTV.

SecretlyClarkKent

01:57 / 04.01.02

I've been looking forward to 'Pounded' for awhile... ever since I caught the sunday comics over at Onipress.com. I used to hold a grudge [with no history] for Oni, but they kind of sucked me in with Hopeless Savages. My one worry with Pounded is that strip work for Oni tends to come out differently than the actual book when it's released. Hopeless Savages and Blue Monday are pretty good examples... obviously, strips and books are going to be different, but this really stood out to me, here. Oh, well... I'll be picking up 'Pounded', anyway... now to find out more about that soundtrack...

As to the 'Hernandez/Clowes' remark... who gives a fuck who did it first, as long as it's good. So far, I haven't heard anyone say 'Oh, my god... Pounded's the first of it's kind...' The 'so-and-so did it first' argument is thrown around so much [one of the real reasons I originally gave up on punk], and that remark leaves so little room for new people to do anything. Which sucks for me, I guess...

-Jared

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:36 / 04.01.02

What on earth do Clowes and Hernandez (two quite different creators anyway) have in common with either Brian Wood or Jim Mahfood? Unless by "this shit" you mean "comics that aren't spandex crap so let's lump 'em all together".

Similarly, Channel Zero only bears the most basic passing resemblance to The Invisibles in terms of themes, and surely part of the appeal in CZ is the art: something that couldn't always be said about The Invisibles...

07:36 / 04.01.02

'food and rolston go waaaay back, so it's not surprising they have such similar styles at all.

No star here laces

07:36 / 04.01.02

Actually, thing I noticed was how Paul Pope those colours are - all the shades of blue and deep red backgrounds. But then I would say that.

's a PP world...

07:36 / 04.01.02

yeah, the colours are nice. though being oni, it'll be b&w inside, which is a shame. i think rolston works much better in colour.

The Damned Yankee

01:34 / 05.01.02

Them fuzzy slippers were made to kick ass!

16:09 / 07.01.02

Is there a way to subscribe to this stuff online?

19:33 / 08.01.02

quote:Originally posted by grant:
Is there a way to subscribe to this stuff online?

I don't think so, but you can check The Master List for a shop near you. BTW, it bears mentioning that there are already 4 free comics online on Oni Press' Sunday Comics page.

"I'd want a range life.... If I weren't so puuuunk...."

00:01 / 09.01.02

It looks pretty. It makes me miss "Deadenders".

02:11 / 12.01.02

Rolston does have a Phillip Bond thing going. For those interested, there will be a soundtrack to go along the series: http://www.comicon.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000577.html

And check out Brian Wood being punched by Rolston's girlfriend on the book cover.

[ 12-01-2002: Message edited by: Vortex09 ]

22:10 / 06.02.02

"Oni Announces Bands on 'Pounded' Soundtrack"

03:11 / 03.04.02

Just letting y'all know that issue #1 is finally in the shops. The artist, Steve Rolston, has links to some reviews on his site. Kinda cool to see Jim Mahfood represented (the girlfriend is wearing a Smoke Dog t-shirt & there's a cameo of 'food doing bong hits at Heavy's after-gig party). Anybody else pick htis up?

No star here laces

07:57 / 03.04.02

Yes.
But I also ranted for 15 minutes about how cool it was that you could see a copy of the "R.Crumb and the cheap suit serenaders" record in the Ghostworld movie so that just makes you as much of a sad fuck as me.

I thought the story was fun, but they completely took the teeth out of the satire by making Heavy so rich and so obvious an asshole. I thought it would be a far more vicious deconstruction of that asinine punk thing than it is - the book is clearly telegraphing the premise that the "real" punks are going to appear in, oo, maybe the next issue when it would've been much more interesting for them to never show up at all...

Anyway, it's fun. I like the art, although it isn't as stylish as any of the people it's been compared to (i.e Mahfood, Bond) it has a very nice flow and energy to it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:30 / 03.03.05

So... did anyone enjoy this? I got the 3-part set for 60p last weekend, and found it pretty disappointing.

14:41 / 03.03.05

There was a follow-up thread addressing the series itself... consensus seems to be that it started pretty strong and then collapsed into triteness.

I never finished it, myself: I read the first two, and thought they were ... okay ... but the savage reviews levelled at #3 warned me off.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:31 / 03.03.05

I'm mildly ashamed.

18:35 / 03.03.05

Now, had Heavy beaten on Diana Krall with a baseball bat, the ending of POUNDED would've been the greatest moment in the history of comics.

19:25 / 03.03.05

I didn't buy pounded (read my then-housemate's copy) but bought Couscous Express for cheapness and was also disappointed...