Tripwire #7
(UK Comics Fanzine) Oct-Nov 1997On The Shelf
Reviews by Joel MeadowsStrangehaven: Arcadia, by Gary Spencer Millidge. Strangehaven is one of the new breed of British Indie comics: the production values are very high and the look is that of a professional comic publisher, unlike the output of the small press. Strangehaven is a comic that's been feted by luminaries like Cerebus's Dave Sim, who provides the introduction here, and even managed to garner creator Millidge a feature in The Telegraph about his work. In terms of plot, Alex Hunter takes a trip in his sports car down to Devon to get away for a while, crashes and ends up in a bizarre Devonian village, Strangehaven. His attempts to leave prove fruitless and so we are witness to a place where a Mason-like cult, The Knights of the Golden Light, an exiled South American Indian, Megaron, and an alien, Adam, all thrive. The pace is very slow and this wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that he's taken four years to publish 9 issues (sic). In his introduction, Sim takes issue with people comparing Strangehaven with The Prisoner but it is such an obvious influence. Granted, The Prisoner was very much a product of the sixties and a great deal of it looks dated and deliberately obscure now but there are still similarities: Hunter's inability to escape the village, scenes that exist simply to pique the reader's interest and a cast of oddities. Millidge must use a lot of photoreference and this leads to some of the characters looking very posed and more than a little staged at times. My feeling towards Strangehaven is ambivalent: sometimes he carries off things nicely, like some of the character interaction, especially between Megaron and Jeremy, but other occasions logic is sacrificed on the altar of enigma. I, for the most part, like Strangehaven but feel that its ambitions overwhelm its execution: Millidge is a passable but not particularly original artist and the slow unwinding of the story has become annoying. If he wants to capitalise on its early success, he needs to increase the title's frequency. As such, Strangehaven is an oddly shaped mystery with some obvious frames of reference and a few well-chosen scenes.
©1998 Joel Meadows
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