Comics - Paperbacks and Inkstains

Steve Taylor-Bryant realises a comic book collection is a lot more than the sum of its parts as he reads Paperbacks and Inkstains from Madius Comics...

You can’t better perfection. There’s no point in trying. Those of you familiar with my reviews of the Papercuts and Inkstains comics from our mad, insane pals at Madius Comics know how much I loved them. Since they were perfect I had no clue as to why they threw a Kickstarter together to collect the issues into a book, why didn’t people just print the issues on an inkjet and staple them together like I had? Anyhow they launched the crowdfunder and like a sucker I saw something bright and shiny, in this case a bright orange t-shirt, and invested in something no one needed. Except, it turns out not only do you need the collected Papercuts and Inkstains, it proves that perfection can indeed be bettered.

I’ll be honest, I love black and white in comics. There’s something old school, a bit non risk with non coloured pages and a lot of beauty can be found in charcoal effect images. This was outstanding in every issue of Papercuts and Inkstains so my main issue with the collection I just invested my children’s college fund in was that something I’d fallen in love with was now going to be poorly coloured and not work in print form. How wrong a person can be! The book not only enhances the incredible storytelling with its splash of colour, seriously The Prophets of Doom in Technicolor is something to behold, it also shows that Madius, a relatively small and new company, will not cut corners. Stunning is not strong enough language to truly explain the physical quality of every printed page. We knew the guys could write a story, we knew the artists could draw, we even knew that underneath his clumsy and rather ill educated exterior Rob Jones was a demon letterer. What we didn’t know until now is how much they put in to finding quality companies to work with. The actual product is put together by Rich Hardiman and the guys over at Comic Printing UK (@ComicPrintingUK on Twitter) and honestly I firmly believe they could give anything you buy from the big two a run for their money. It’s such an exquisite and beautiful book that has no printing flaws,and trust me I looked, that actually made me feel that perhaps I didn’t deserve to own it for the price I bought it for. You can also be undeserving by buying a copy HERE...

Read all Steve's Papercuts and Inkstains reviews 

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Image - Madius Comics (Art by Mike Smith/Colours by Alexa Renee)