Phil Vaughan - Crisis in Comics
03/07/2020 13:00 Room 1 #crichp
Crisis was launched by Fleetway Publications as a fortnightly on the 17th September 1988. The comic was devised and edited by Steve MacManus, and was cleverly hyped by PR Consultant Igor Goldkind as a political and socially aware publication. This entailed the use of a stable of 2000AD stalwarts that included Pat Mills, Carlos Ezquerra, John Smith and Jim Baikie in its original line up. Third World War was the most political story, and Pat Mills scripts were an inspired insight into 1980’s issues, projected into the very near future. New Statesmen was Smith and Baikie’s loose take on Watchmen, filtered through the US political system, with trademark Smith weirdness and poetic narration. The tone of these strips was fairly contrasting, with Third World War being much more grounded in the real world. As time went on the comic looked at other issues, such as the troubles in Northern Ireland. The editorial team also courted controversy with strips such as The New Adventures of Hitler and the hyped, but never published, Skin. Even issue 39’s Amnesty International issue was not without critics. This paper will look at the evolution of Crisis and ask if the experiment ever really worked.
