CLiNT #2 cover image

The second issue of CLiNT, the Mark Millar-edited, Titan-published comics and entertainment magazine, has arrived.  Perhaps, it was a case of first-issue jitters, because CLiNT #2 is much better than the first issue, which was pretty good, anyway.

Millar has described CLiNT as a “boys comic” in the tradition of 2000AD (among others), and the selection of comics in this magazine makes it well worth its cover price.  Why didn’t someone think of this before?  [Actually, Fantagraphics Books tried something similar to this, at least from an alt-comix perspective, with Honk! among others.]

As with the first issue, CLiNT #2 includes Millar’s own Kick-Ass 2 (drawn by John Romita, Jr.) and Nemesis (drawn Steve McNiven), but also the first chapter of American Jesus (drawn by Peter Gross).  I think Nemesis (which Marvel Comics publishes as a miniseries through its ICON imprint) is fantastic.  A supervillain who targets authority: I’m all for it; too bad Nemesis isn’t African-American.  There’s only enough of American Jesus to whet the appetite, but I would like to see where Millar is going with this – social commentary or sacrilege.  It’s the same with Kick-Ass 2, only enough to tease, but this story is as lovely and deranged as ever.

Not all the comics are by Millar.  Writer Jonathan Ross and artist Tommy Lee Edwards’ Prohibition era-NYC-set, vampire, alien, gangster comic, Turf, continues.  The description of the series should not be a turn off because, for some reason, this is a really good weird horror/crime comic.  I still don’t know what is going on with Rex Royd by Frankie Boyle, Jim Muir, and Michael Dowling, which seems to be a masala of Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, and Brian Bendis post-modern superhero ideas.

The rest of the magazine is a collection of feature articles, profiles, and interviews.  The cover feature is an interview/article about one of my all-time favorite screen couples, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.  The article, “Accidental Heroes,” chronicles real-like Kick-Ass types, and “When Stunts Go Bad” discusses incidents in which people were hurt or killed during the making of movies.  And there’s even more, because, while I was highly skeptical about this venture, I like CLiNT and wish there were more like it.

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www.CLiNTMAG.com