Bryan Talbot’s Brain Storm Comics Collects His Long Out Of Print Underground Work This August

Bryan Talbot‘s earliest material, including his Chester P. Hackenbush stories, gets a long overdue reprint from About Comics in August 2024.

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The earliest work of one of Britain’s finest comic makers, before Luther Arkwright and all that was to follow, has been out of print for much of the time since it was first published in the mid-1970s. There was a collection of much of the work in 1999, but that volume itself has been unavailable for some time.

So it’s been 24 years since we were able to see the earliest published works of Talbot, author and artist of Luther Arkwright, Tale Of One Bad Rat, Alice In Sunderland, Grandville, Dotter Of Her Father’s Eyes, and much more. Thankfully, all that’s changing in August this year as About Comics is republished Brainstorm!

These tales all appeared in the seminal British underground comics, Brainstorm Comix, published by Alchemy Publications as six issues from 1975-1978. Alongside Talbot, it featured another of Britain’s finest comic makers, Hunt Emerson, as well as Paul Stubbs and Mal Burns, who edited and contributed. In truth, most of Brainstorm Comix was Talbot, indeed there was an early appearance of a prototype Luther Arkwright in a short by Bryan.

According to publisher Lee Harris, the inspiration for Brainstorm Comix even existing came when a young Talbot brought along the first chapter of his Chester P. Hackenbush, the Psychedelic Alchemist. BrainStorm! collects all three of those Chester P Hackenbush stories; plus ‘Ace Wimslow‘, a noir tale of a hardboiled music journo; the pothead strip Smokey Bears, and plenty of short stories.

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Here’s the About Comix PR for you…

“Back before he became a respected high-profile graphic novelist, earning his way into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame and being featured on the BBC through such diverse works as The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, and the Grandville books, Bryan Talbot launched his comics career as an underground artist. He produced the lead serial about Psychedelic Alchemist Chester P. Hackenbush for Brain Storm Comix, as well as various short pieces. Now these works, which have not seen print during this century, are coming back in the About Comics edition of BrainStorm!, available for preorder in the current volume of the Diamond Comics Previews catalog to arrive in comic shops in August (and then coming to Amazon and other sites a month after that.)

In the four-page introduction (updated somewhat from the 1999 edition of this material) Bryan explains how he got his chance to start drawing comix from the one of the suppliers for the White Rabbit headshop he worked at in his college days. The work proved time-intensive but an education by doing, and led him down the path he still follows today.

In addition to the Hackenbush material (which was inspiration for the character “Chester” in Swamp Thing), the book includes a noir story of hardboiled rock reporter Ace Wimslow, Talbot’s pothead strip “Smokey Bears”, and more. The large 8.5 inch by 11 inch size displays the art well, with Talbot often bringing the same level of detail that he famously brought to later work, while keeping a freer, loose hand that fits the counterculture material.”

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So, mark your diaries – August 2024, to get hold of some of the earliest comics published from a legend of British comics – Brainstorm!

The 108 page paperback includes a four-page introduction by Talbot, updated from his 1999 edition of this collection, and will be available in August 2024.