Preview: Darkness Descends For The Grande Vamp Dandy In ‘Devlin Waugh: The Reckoning’

Out on 14th March, 2000 AD‘s wonderfully OTT Brit vamp gets a little of what’s coming to him in Devlin Waugh: The Reckoning.

 

Outrageous, dangerous, debonair, shocking, spectacular, Devlin Waugh’s always been a magnificently strange series at 2000 AD. But when you’ve spent a long life lived extremely well, as the Vatican’s premier paranormal exorcist investigator (and vampire), ascended to the heights of debauchery and decadence, and your best friend is a demonic dildo called Titivillus, it’s going to be a long way down when it all goes wrong.

And here’s where it all goes wrong.

Here’s where Waugh gets his reckoning.

 

Since Aleš Kot has taken over the reigns of Devlin’s adventures, together with the fabulous artistic stylings of both Patrick Goddard and especially Mike Dowling, it’s been a bizarre, confounding, wonderfully shocking and always very darkly comedic descent into the worlds of the demonic and the debauched.

And sure, it’s got all the over-the-top stuff associated with Devlin, it’s packed with Kot throwing Devlin into every nasty situation he can think of, but it’s so much more than that, as Kot takes Devlin and his pals into far, far darker territory and the whole storyline is all the better for it.

It all kicks off in The Wolves of St Vitus, where Devlin and Titi are off doing a little tourism in Prague at St Vitus’ Cathedral and Devlin and Titi are having a little bit of a disagreement:

‘God, the way you ignore me, sometimes I question if we’re even friends…’
‘Well, technically speaking, I am not your friend, dear demon.’
‘Affection moves in strange ways.’
‘So do epileptics.’

And bang, we’re into it. Kot has such a way of making these very strange things seem so completely normal and commonplace, all because of the easygoing conversational tone of his characters. The whole book is full of this sort of sparkling dialogue, with Devlin and Titi bickering and sparring their way into hell.

After a little trouble with sacrificial teens in St Vitus, it’s onto the wonderfully titled ‘When I was a Young Demon (I did a bad, bad thing)’ wherein we open with Devlin (and Titi) at the clap docs that soon descends into chaos involving Imps, a Brit-Cit Judge Holden (looking not unlike a certain buffoon-ish ex-Prime Minister of these Isles) looking for ‘all the sperm one man can carry,’ a ritual to bring back the “Ancient One,” and Devlin beginning to make enquiries about Titi’s true motives.

Oh, and this…

 

Yes. Exactly. That’s Kot at his most Devlin.

We next meet the pair at a rather tense dinner party in ‘A Question of Trust‘, where the conversation turns to just what is Hell really like and ends with an agreement for Titi to take human form after a little grave-robbing for a nice fresh corpse (“Wouldn’t be the first time I had to procure one…”) and an art installation. Not to mention more of Devlin’s enquiries after Titi’s true nature and a sneaking suspicion on the part of both Devlin and us readers that things are nothing like they seem here.

 

The Lord of Lies begins with another cracker of a Kot gag, with Devlin and Titi discussing the rather pungent odour coming from Titi’s new (recently deceased) human body:

‘But perhaps I could recommend a perfume? Something with a bit of smoke and leather, yes, but also a dash of ambergris…’
‘Isn’t that whale bile?’
‘And incredibly expensive. But I know a lad who knows a whale… it’s a secrete, you could say.’

Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, Aleš Kot, he’ll be here all week, tip your waitress and try the veal.

But still, damn funny.

Anyhow, it’s Devlin off to the therapist. Well, sort of. Again, truths are told, Titi’s name keeps coming up. And the therapy session… it doesn’t go all that well…

 

All of which brings us to the meat of this piece, The Reckoning, wherein Devlin puts into play his plan and where things go, quite literally, to hell.

Titi goes back to his dildoic form, Devlin’s favourite Spanish soccer team of insanely good-looking young men find themselves in hell to play the game of their lives, Titi ends up on trial, also in hell, and Devlin makes a deal with the Lord of Lies.

 

I could say more, but honestly, that’s one you need to find out for yourself.

It’s so wonderful constructed by Kot, the machinations all really come together in this collected form, read in one deliciously wrong go, where all the connections are so perfectly made, all the pieces moving into place, everything masterminded by Kot to form one perfectly hellish tale.

And the art. Oh, the art. Goddard contributes the two opening chapters and they are quite wonderful things. But it’s Mike Dowling’s show really. His compositions are stunning, his characters beautifully grotesque, his pages flow so perfectly, his line is quite delicious, he manages to bring absolute beauty into the pages, whether it’s a tower block or the environs of Hell he’s drawing.

But of course, you can see all that from the art here in this preview.

 

Oh, and one more thing before we head into the preview for this one. I couldn’t really work it into the narrative of the preview but… it’s simply too good not to just lever in here.

This is still a page that makes me giggle so much. Every single time I see it…

 

Devlin Waugh: The Reckoning

Written by Aleš Kot, art by Mike Dowling and Patrick Goddard, letters by, cover by Alex Ronald. Colours by Mike Dowling, Pippa Bowland, Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse, Simon Bowland,

Originally serialised in Judge Dredd Megazine #422 (‘The Wolves of St Vitus’), #423 (‘When I Was a Young Demon [I did a bad, bad thing’]), #430 (A Question of Trust), 431 (The Lord of Lies), and #432-#438 (The Reckoning)

Published by 2000 AD on 14th March 2023