I’ve had a lot of time between the end of the NeoText Review and the formation of this charming little beauty you see before you. Thankfully, there is no shortage of comics in the world and I have the following three things: a credit card, a worryingly supportive partner, and access to eBay. So, during the “break” between June 2022 and right now, I read what can only be described as a shitload of Atomeka Press’ A1 anthologies.

If you’ve not had the pleasure of reading these funny little collections, A1 was a graphic novel anthology series thought up by the wonderful minds of British artist Garry Leach and editor/publisher Dave Elliott during the late 1980s. Many of the stories in the series were one-offs, others some showcasing characters that had seen publication elsewhere  – such as Mr. Monster, Flaming Carrot, Mr. X, Deadface, the Bojeffries Saga, The Actress and the Bishop, Axel Pressbutton, et al – in entirely new stories specially created for these anthologies.

What sticks out even more than any of the stories individually, though (many of which I could continue to name with exhaustive enthusiasm for the entire project) was the ability of the A1 editors to find the most talented creators out there – people who had made names for themselves, including Philip Bond, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Steve Parkhouse, Glenn Fabry, Dave McKean, Shaky Kane, Garth Ennis, Steve Moore (as Pedro Henry), Phil Winslade, and many more – and tell them to throw whatever they wanted to do at the wall to see what sticks.

The trust level of being able to say, “You are very good at your job and I want to see what you can do because of that” is one that is sometimes left behind in comics now, but it’s also something that created what is arguably one of the best collections of comics shorts in comics history. (Anything that musters up Cheeky Wee Budgie Boy can receive this honor, obviously, but good luck trying, anyone new wanting to take that crown for themselves.)

My point is: A1, under the hands and heads of Elliott and Leach, was a place for hiring talented people and letting them do what they wanted without standing in their way of being funny, smart, creative, astonishingly talented weirdos… and that is exactly what I want The Gutter Review to be as well. 

There’s an editorial page in the first Epic Comics A1 issue in 1992, where Kevin Eastman – of co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and also of Tundra Publishing fame – writes: “Just about 99% of the time I feel like this entire medium is going to hell in a wash bucket. But alas, that feeling I suppose has been shared by just about every person in the ‘business’ since it became a business. I guess they did, as we do, live for that 0.1% that keeps the excitement, the growth, the cutting edge feeling in balance with the never ending frustration level. That’s what keeps us all going […] Dave knows what he likes and knows how to work with talent, to help them bring out what they can and want to do best – to all our good fortune. With the combined talent of all who worked so hard to bring this long awaited collection to us, our future is bright indeed.”

And that’s it. That’s what I’ve been rereading for three months now, and mulling over; the idea that weird and funny and casualness and intelligence and fun can co-exist in spaces and provide something important to people without the confines of what everyone expects. 

I spent a good portion of the start of my career writing pieces that didn’t suit me – a time-honored tradition of any journalist, reporter, or pop culture writer in general – because my interests were labeled as “too niche” or not built for a “broader audience”. Fair play, really, but what is also fair play is that the idea that opinions and interpretations of art – especially those pertaining to pop culture – aren’t meant to be for everybody, and that’s okay. For that matter, if it’s not initially for someone then maybe exposure to it could be cool or interesting enough that it just might become for them! Through our own interests do we extend a welcome mat that says “Wanna talk about cool shit?”, and, with this, pop culture lives on.

With this sentiment falling somewhat by the wayside at many paying websites, where do the talented weird go with their big ideas worth being paid for? Where are you reminded that carefully crafted opinions on things that are very specifically you, when well argued and posed in clever ways, are valuable? 

Well…hopefully here.

There’s a passage in 2012’s book-length, curated interview Eisner/Miller between (shocker) Will Eisner and Frank Miller wherein Miller posits that there has never been a better time for discussing old comics because the internet has made it so that nothing is impossible to find anymore. 

It’s a statement that holds water regardless of how you, personally, might feel about Miller’s body of work. Our individual consumption of pop culture and the ways in which we interact with it shifts over time. That time can be a few weeks or a half a century, but in a writing age where “who can get their opinion in first” reigns supreme, the space in which we get to look back on the things we imbibe are made all of the more valuable. 

The ways in which we interact with media of all time frames and ages, the emotions they provoke at any age, are some of the key points of what make stories last for us, even if no one else remembers them. Any subject that can be revisited and talked about with a passion and excitement is worth more than its weight in gold, no matter how good or bad it might objectively be. Our ability to talk about these things, to bring them back to life for a new audience through only our excitement alone, is the one way the pop culture — even the dustiest back corners of a comic shop or remaining video store — will survive through history, no matter what format changes, storage implosions, or other apocalyptic event stands in front of us.

In many ways, the aim of this new venture in The Gutter Review is to take that time we’ve had to think about the things we love and harness it – offering personal, bespoke perspectives on things that have largely been lost to time, or perhaps have only been approached from one direction previously. After all, for every comic that exists on the shelves and every movie that plays in a theater and every creator on that thing you love, there were countless before that have been long left behind. All of these earlier creators, earlier stories, “matter”; all of it builds up, in some hippie-dippie cosmic way to the new, brilliant thing you see being announced every week – for better or for worse.

I hope to see this site become a destination for finding something new, or finding new ways to read and watch the things you might already know about. I hope to expand what we do outside of the site and be able to soon offer comics reading clubs to schools in my local area; aiding the idea that comics and literacy go hand-in-hand. I hope that people who pour themselves into how they view pop culture and its history feel appreciated and compensated for their perspectives. I hope, I hope, I hope.

We will be starting things off by posting twice a week on Tuesday and Thursdays. (Except this week, where we’re launching on a Sunday because it’s my birthday and I get to be silly about that; the next post will be on Thursday, as we settle into the new routine.) I’ll be writing roughly half of the site’s output in the short term through the end of the year, both because I can’t manage to shut up and for reasons of budget – we’re now a fledgling non-profit after all. In fact, we’re a non-profit that you can contribute to on a tax-deductible basis and directly help with our mission and/or bring on even more wonderful writers! You know. If you’re interested in that sort of thing. 

In the short term, we have writers including Sam Moore, Ritesh Babu, Keith Roysdon, Sara Century, Charles Murphy, and others working on pieces; and we’re always looking for more. Tom Shapira will be kicking things off later this week with a great piece about Marvel’s various Deathloks and how the character models society’s changing view of transhumanism over the decades. I’m really excited about what we’ve got coming up, and just as excited about everything The Gutter Review can do that I haven’t even thought about yet.

This is a site, and a project beyond the site, that I’ve been working on for a long time and dreaming about for even longer. I just really like comics and really like movies, and really like people who like those things, too. I can’t wait to get started. Let’s make the 0.1% worth it.

Chloe Maveal
Editor-In-Chief of The Gutter Review