COOL BRITTANIA IS OUT OF BOUNDS
The Vinyl Underground is a serviceable rehash of early 90s Vertigo themes in gentrified contemporary London.
originally published on the Multiply page of Sputnik Fantastic, February 2010
I feel like I’ve read Si Spencer and Simon Gane’s The Vinyl Underground before, at least during its five-part opening arc, collected in Vol 1, Watching The Detectives. And you know what? It doesn’t matter – I thoroughly enjoyed it, just the same!
The basic premise is like The Invisibles crossed with Torchwood. A motley group of subcultural misfits come together in a disused Tube (subway) station, beneath London’s magical streets, to investigate the paranormal crimes that ordinary cops don’t have the resources or knowledge to solve.
Let me get one thing out of the way, early on: the characters are total ciphers, patched together from every conceivable aspect of British urban mythology. There’s the bad-ass footballer’s son with connections to the mob, whose Pete Doherty-like public image belies a sensitive side (and residual mommy issues). There’s a feisty, tough urban shaman of African descent, who’s in tune with London’s mythical psychogeography. There’s a reckless bisexual pervert who can talk with the dead. You probably get the idea, by now...
This is formula late 90s Vertigo stuff, right down to the plots about undead Russian hookers, aristocratic cults, African black magic, and Guy Ritchie-esque gangsters. As somebody who picked up on The Invisibles in college, I’m just happy to get a fix of more of the same kind of esoteric urban adventures.
Artist Simon Gane has been accused of being a Philip Bond imitator, a charge that’s not entirely inaccurate. (Though I personally think Gane’s style recalls Warren Pleece circa Deadenders a bit more.) It’s the same kind of approach that Bond and Pleece employ so well: using very bright, cartoonish designs to realize often macabre storylines. It’s not terribly distinctive, but I don’t think it’s fair to say Gane is an outright copycat.
This isn’t ground-breaking stuff, by any means. However, I do think it’s a subject that’s been in limited supply, in recent years, at least in American comics. I’d definitely recommend it for today’s high school-age readers who may be new to the genre. Likewise, it will probably be a worthwhile read, for those who liked the quirky superheroics of X-Statix, Global Frequency, or Morrison-era Doom Patrol.