Vinyl Underground’s like a fireworks display. Big and flashy yet ultimately pants.
This new Vertigo series is set in modern London where a bunch of occult detectives solve murders that the regular bobbies are stumped with. That sounds like a premise with vague promise at least. However writer Si Spenser makes do with perverted stereotypes of tossers where real characters should be.
I can see Spenser's pitch now: "It's Hellblazer meets the Bill with no trousers on! Cor blimey!"
The main character is called Morrison Shepherd ,who seems to be a riff on George Best ,who somehow gets a criminology degree whilst in jail for drug offences. Sure. His partners include a mortician assistant who doubles as a porn star and a fellow called Perv who seems to be a sex offender for lack of a better description.
For some reason these wanks hide out in an old Subway station and act as subversive crime fighters wherever a strange murder is to be found.
The main crux of the first issue, in and around the waffle that stands as creating a background for all the shite is the ritual murder of a black boy whose body was fished out of the Thames. Using real crimes is one thing but lifting them wholesale from reality and placing them into a story featuring a character who is a kiddie fiddler is just a bit much.
For this issue’s dubious inspiration click here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4541603.stm. I’m not usually bothered by such matters but this shite left a bad taste in my mouth.
Si Spenser, you are a twat. But from a television writer that was amongst the crew of Bad Girls what do we expect? Cheap, tacky and exploiting a real life situation. Hell, that's ITV all over.
Vinyl Underground has the dubious pleasure of being the worst first issue of anything I’ve ever read.
Oh, the artwork is rubbish aswell.
A new low for Vertigo since the abysmal Deadman.
What the fuck are those guys taking?
http://dccomics.com/comics/?cm=8241
