Tim Boxell

Commies from Mars was an anthology series, with each issue presenting the work of several of the contributing artists and writers in short pieces rooted in the deranged imaginings of Tim Boxell. The original covers were color, but all the interior art is in black and white. Color thumbnails of the original covers are on the back cover of this volume, which collects all four issues, plus a little additional material.

The early issues in this compendium are mostly satires of paranoid fantasy with Cold War tropes. They look positively rational compared to our 21st-century "terrorist" fear-mongering (pegged so early and accurately by Gilliam's Brazil). As the series progressed, surreal elements came increasingly to the fore, and the focus toward the end was on interplanetary sex.

This book is firmly in the "underground comix" tradition, and is likely to appeal to the "sense of correct politics and good taste" of only strong-minded consumers of bulldada and infraculture.… (mer)