The Complete Skizz (2017)

The Complete Skizz (2017)

Authors: Alan Moore / Jim Baikie  | Illustrator: Jim Baikie  |  Page Count: 272

'Everyone was running that night. Some of them were running in the same direction...'

The first Skizz story appeared in Progs 308-330 (1983) of 2000 AD, long before I was a reader. It wasn't until a belated sequel appeared in 1992 that I got a proper introduction to the character.

There are three distinct arcs in Skizz's story, all of which are included in the book. The first is written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Jim Baikie. The second and third are both written and illustrated by Baikie.

The story's beginnings aren't anything special. The benevolent Zhcchz is a Tau Cetian interpreter on his way home when his ship crashes on a blue planet, in a place named Birmingham (incidentally, not too far from Moore's hometown of Northampton). I can't presently think of any other sci-fi books that are set in Birmingham, so in that it's somewhat unusual.

The alien interpreter goes through the usual hide-from-wicked-humans phase before meeting the second protagonist, a young girl named Roxy O'Rourke. It's then that things get more interesting. But like Moore's other great 2000 AD work, The Ballad of Halo Jones, it doesn't happen immediately. It requires you to spend some time with the characters and see the world the way they do before their plight starts to affect and influence your own feelings.

There are a few other notable humans, none of which look like they'd fit comfortably into any kind of textbook comic hero template — unless there exists a textbook on how to best present a social realist character in a sci-fi setting that I'm not aware of — but they still manage to make an impact; one in particular is a high point of the book, perhaps even more than Skizz himself.

I loved how Skizz's interpreting skills were applied to the language used, such as the phonemes in proper nouns and the confusion that arises when idioms are taken literally. His struggling with things that we humans take for granted everyday gave him a real charm.

The second story, Skizz: Alien Cultures, is written and illustrated by Jim Baikie. It's in full colour, whereas the first story was almost completely in B+W. I remember reading Alien Cultures serialised back in the day, in Progs 767-775 (1992), but reading it now as one complete work and with the knowledge needed to better understand the motivations of the key players was a much more rewarding experience. Baikie's style is distinctly different to Moore's, the emotional core of the work is placed differently, for example, but he's faithful to the characters even when speaking through them, and I think I actually enjoyed it more than the first story.

The final story, Skizz: The Gunlords of Omega Ceti, was published originally in Progs 912-927 (1994-95). It's also in full colour, written and illustrated by Baikie, but it isn't quite as good as the two that preceded it. I didn't page-count, but it feels longer and occasionally drawn-out. There's more comical moments, and because comedy is even more subjective than drama it'll be more hit or miss with an audience. Some of it I really enjoyed, whereas parts of it I felt were in need of tightening up. I do like the characters of the Skizz world, though, so I'm glad Baikie got the opportunity to continue the adventures of the extraterrestrial and his long distance friends.

NOTE: the two Baikie solo works are a better fit to this edition's page size, reflective of how the 2000 AD format had changed since Moore's time. The first story has large white borders top and bottom in order to retain the correct formatting. As a bonus, at the back of the book is some background info on the series and a number of 2000 AD covers featuring the titular alien.