Illuminations
(UK Comics Fanzine) July/August 1997Strangehaven
By Gary Spencer MillidgeReview by Steve Pay
Have you ever been on holiday?
Have you ever been on holiday to somewhere that seems so idyllic that you never want to come back to the real world? Alex Hunter has, only he doesn't have a choice. He can't get out of Strangehaven, no matter how he tries.
Alex Hunter; the protagonist of Strangehaven arrived in the village one dark and stormy night, and swerving to avoid the beautiful woman who appeared in the road, swerved and ran his car into a tree. Since then he's been living in the village, finding a job, and making at least one unsuccessful attempt to escape back to his "real" life in Essex.
Strangehaven is a self-published quarterly title that emanates from the Essex delta, not too far from my own home, which was reason enough to pick it up. It is set in Devon, where summer holidays spent with relatives lend the scenery and village scenes a strange sense of déjà vu for me. Gary Spencer Millidge, the man responsible, gave a very interesting talk at AceCon about self-publishing that finally encourages me to buy the book.
And what a strange village Strangehaven turns out to be. Alex's immediate predecessor as primary school teacher disappeared under what seem to have been mysterious circumstances, though nobody in the village talks about it. In the lodge there meets a bizarre collection of costumed men who call themselves the Knights of the Golden Light. The local headmaster, Peter Jones, appears to run them. The village bobby collects and individually labels body parts of the villagers, even down to fingernails…
The list is endless, but that's just the incredible people of Strangehaven. There's also the normal ones, like Janey Jones, who has fallen very much in love with Alex. There's Suzie Tang, who is having an affair with Peter Webb, and it's not entirely obvious whether his wife knows or not. There's Ronnie, the local post-woman who is desperately trying to seduce Adam, who thinks that he is a fish-like alien from the planet Nimoi…
Ah, back to the weirdness again. You can never get far from it in Strangehaven, because it runs through the village like the air all the characters breath. There are so many questions raised by the first five issues of the title that you don't know where to start. Are The Knights of the Golden Light just harmless cranks, or are they as dangerous as Peter Jones implied when threatening Megaron in the village pub? And what about Megaron, the Amazonian half-breed shaman, just what is his interest in Jeremy, Janey's sister? And what are the limits of his power? Where does Hitchcock the cat go at night when he visits that fish-tank, which is so immaculately kept?
Strangehaven is a joy, an absolute belter of a read there had me hooked from the first issue. Beneath the Coronation Street soap is a deep vein of weirdness that melts in Eastenders again, without warning and without a care. Like all good comics you can't pigeonhole it, and you really shouldn't want to. Visually and linguistically literate to the highest degree. I really can't recommend it highly enough. What I do particularly like about the title is the way in which visual imagery is employed to link scenes rather than clumsy dialogue and exposition. Not since Watchmen has anybody so consciously used visuals to link ideas and themes rather words. I like that. Comics are a visual medium after all.
But be warned. Once you've entered the village of Strangehaven you may not ever be able to leave. And believe me once you've read all five back issues you won't be able to wait for the next one. Gary used the by-line about his book being an English Twin Peaks but is far subtler than that, drawing on much more English influences such as The Avengers. (You know the ones where Steed and Mrs Peel used to go to those odd little villages that always seemed just a little too normal). The Prisoner (obviously) and a host of others. Buy a copy today. You owe it to yourself and you owe it to comics to encourage the ones that come along like Strangehaven and strike like lightning. They never happen twice.
Oh, one thing I forget. There's a car wreck in the river, and a body in the fish-tank. The two may, or may not, be connected. I hope it's a long time before we find out the answer to any of these questions because I want to stay in Strangehaven for a long, long time.©1997 Steve Pay/Martin Averre
If you've read any notable pieces concerning Strangehaven that may have escaped our attention and does not appear here, we'd like to hear about them! E-mail us at webmonkey@millidge.com