Kickstarting Comics: ‘The Bogie Man The In-Complete Case Files’ — A Must To Back

Kickstarting right now – Scotland’s favourite crackpot detective is once more loose on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh with The Bogie Man: The In-Complete Case Files!

A labour of love for its creators and a comic adored by so many fans, The Bogie Man is coming back – but there’s still time for you to back this great comic.

Launched in 1989 by creators John Wagner, the late Alan Grant, and artist Robin Smith, The Bogie Man was an immediate hit, critically and commercially – it remains the UK’s highest-selling independent comic – followed by collection in graphic novel form and three further stories, The Manhattan Project (1992), Chinatoon (1993), and Return to Casablanca (2005). It was even made into a BBC comedy-drama movie starring Robbie Coltrane that first aired in 1992.

Sadly, all of those The Bogie Man collections have been out of print for years now – but this Kickstarter takes care of that, bringing a near-complete collection of The Bogie Man for your reading pleasure. It’s near-complete as the decision’s been made to leave out The Manhattan Project, the one tale in colour and reading somewhat dated by now. But it does include the original Bogie Man, Chinatoon, and the never-before-reprinted Return To Casablanca, plus a brand new short story created just for this collection, Key Largs by Wagner and Smith, based on a title dreamt up by late co-creator Grant, who sadly passed away in 2022.

The Bogie Man‘s all about Francis Forbes Clunie, escapee from Greenock’s Spinbinnie Hospital, who suffers from a particularly unusual delusion – he believes he’s Humphrey Bogart, or at least an amalgam of characters played by Bogart and others in classic noir films like The Maltese Falcon.

In his riotous adventures, packed with Wagner & Grant wit and invention, Clunie fabricates his cases as he goes along, with this ‘Bogie’ sucking in the innocents he meets into his bizarre fantasy, leaving mayhem and confusion in his wake.

So, 280+ pages of The Bogie Man are on offer here, along with a host of extras and add-ons, including hardcover versions, original scripts, posters, T-shirts, plus a collection of Robin Smith’s cover roughs.

The reward levels are nice and simple, with a digital edition, trade paperback with a foreword by Gordon Rennie and cover by Robin Smith, hardback featuring a Mike Perkins cover, signed prints by Mike Perkins, scripts by Alan Grant and John Wagner, Bogie Man T-shirt, artwork by both Robin Smith and Mike Perkins, and the chance to appear in the book. All you have to do for that is pledge and “Just send us a couple of photographs,” says Smith, “and you could be personally roughed up or verbally abused by Bogie. As he would say – ‘You know you got it comin’.’”

The Kickstarter for The Bogie Man: The In-Complete Case Files runs until Sunday 9 July.