Lord Horror #13

Script by David Britton. Art by John Coulthart and Kris Guidio. Cover: The Inimitable Miss M.

A Savoy Akathartic Production.

52pp.

Reverbstorm 6 — The Razor Kings on Mars.

'Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall'

- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

The narrative divides into five intertwining strands: flying apes swoop from thunderclouds to accompany a Mystery Train on its way to Torenbürgen with an unspecified cargo; Lord Horror gives a hate-filled radio broadcast before stepping out to play a Pain Sonata on the Thanatonium Death Machine; Jessie Matthews sings Perfidia; James Joyce wanders through Picasso's Vollard Suite, accompanied by a song from Finnegans Wake and, in a central section, the Lord and his Lady explore the permutations of their sexual relationship.

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Deeper into Modernism as James Joyce journeys through Picasso's engravings to the tune of The Ballad Of Perse O'Reilly. Jessie dances to a backdrop of intense visual cut-ups, flashing back and forth along the narrative lines. Kris Guidio returns in this issue to provide a procession of erotic tableaux, Lord Horror demonstrates the usefulness of the human corpse (if you have the right equipment) and we finally discover what lies beyond the outskirts of Torenbürgen.

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"Mr Britton asks us to stare into the sun with him. Some of us do and, after winding our way through the tortuous labyrinth of western philosophy, rhetoric, political, artistic and scientific theory expounded in the text, we finally confront the minotaur at the centre, crouched atop a pile of human skulls and recognise ourselves with a sudden jarring shock." - D M MITCHELL, Rapid Eye 2 (1995 edition)

"Savoy flay and mock the cherished values of the Disestablishment... If it be admitted that this is a genuinely vicious body of work, it is at least one which attempts real violations or real contemporary norms, and not just the usual tepid pantomimes of rebellion... Coulthart's dark, clogged artwork is superb... The sheer darkness of Savoy's anti-heroes is true to humanity and to history in a way which other recent work fails to be." - ANDY ROBERTSON, Interzone

"A rollercoaster ride to the end of our collective night, a delirious, erotic and unbridled display of literary savagery and artistic terrorism." - D M MITCHELL, Rapid Eye 2 (1995 edition)

"I have not seen in many a long series of months — or years — the kind of continued dedication to the punctilious and meticulous pen and ink work put on board by your artist. It's a striking example of the need to create and the desire to shock the sensibilities of an audience with a phantasmic subject linked to a febrile and phantasmagorical talent." - BURNE HOGARTH

"There is no clear-cut political code or ethical interpretation, because Savoy is leading us, as usual, into frighteningly unfamiliar territory... yet (in Reverbstorm) there is a strong misleading and dangerous element now present in the seductive form of rock'n'roll." - D M MITCHELL, Rapid Eye 2 (1995 edition)