Psycho Gran #2 Reviewed!
Psycho Gran #2 by David Leach Titan Comics
FROM the pages of Oink! to Aces Weekly to its own comic, and now another issue with more senior citizen mayhem for us to peruse... Psycho Gran is back!
Who would have believed that a character that appeared within a British anthology back in the 1980s would still be making us laugh today? Or laugh more actually, for free of its originally proscribed young readership, Psycho Gran is at once an anarchic force of nature and a belly-laughing gross-out best suited for minds older, if not mature.
“Who is this Psycho Gran?” Younger readers cry out and “Why should we care? Oh, you dearest young darlings, sweet media students go check out the “grim up north” angry young men school of writing as transferred to TV for the original Coronation Street and introduce yourself to an old battleaxe called Ena Sharples. Now imagine underground comix legend Robert Crumb had been born in England and brought up on British weeklies like Whizzer & Chips but had also discovered collections of old Giles newspaper strips and to that add some zany influence from the likes of Monty Python and The Goodies performing a grand guignol performance as you saunter down your local high street. Then, you’re starting to get where this strip is coming from, well a little anyway. You see, this nasty nan was the prototype for comedy actress Catherine Tate’s TV creation but with hobnail boots on.
Basically Psycho Gran is a cantankerous old biddy - sometimes but not always deservedly so – who always gets her own way in the end. That this always ends bad for the persons(s) persons, who’ve aggrieved her being the only consistency in a series of short stories lasting an average of the three pages long, with some gorgeous colouring to draw you in.
From cyclists who think they own not only the road but the public highway too onto scout leaders urging their cubs to earn their brownie points by helping old dears across those roads there’s always a set-up and you think you know the direction the plot will go, only there’s not so much as twist in the tale during their concluding panels so much as a firm yank to the knackers!
“Aint’cha lovely!” exclaims our aging heroine as buttons are pressed and a semi-naked youth stirs into life from within his life-size test tube in a Rocky Horror Picture Show scenario being enacted behind drawn curtains one night at Gran’s and then the hideous fun begins…
Much like its creator David Leach, Psycho Gran is loud not subtle. However, also like its creator the strip often reveals an intelligent subtext going on. A parable for our times, Psycho Gran is much like those tablets some of us have to take as we get a little older; in precise doses taken between regular long intervals she’s a potent force that does you the world of good.
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