Headpress has been instrumental in shedding light on some of the more obscure outposts of the comics world for a while now, with features on Antonio Ghura, Skywald comics, and Maxon Crumb to name but a few. This title is the second in Headpress publishing outfit Critical Vision's 'comix history' list, entitled 'Primal-spinal'; the first is Stephen Sennitt's 'Ghastly Horror', a history of horror comics. The subject matter covered here, Sennitt's excellence as a writer notwithstanding, makes this volume if anything even more of a must read than the first - while the story of American underground comics is familiar to anyone with more than a passing interest, most aren't even aware that Britain had an underground comics scene, strips in OZ and IT notwithstanding.

So does this book redress the balance? Well - yes and no. To its credit it's profusely illustrated, with high reproduction quality and material from a wide range of sources. Huxley hasn't shirked on the research, either - he uncovers some unlikely gems, and has a strong sense of comics history both in the UK and overseas. The book's also extremely readable and interesting throughout - I tore through it in a couple of sittings on the tube, enjoying the raised eyebrows of my fellow commuters as they perused the back cover, featuring as it does a healthy dose of tits & ass in full cheesy SF style. The girl's even holding a gun with the sound effect 'splurt' coming out of it, which wins points for sheer gumption in my book.

But the study's not without problems. The first is that the content's a little thin on the ground. OK, so British underground comics were never as important or prolific as their US counterparts, and the British undergrounds did reprint a lot of US material - but there's still too much of a US focus here, not much of which will surprise the reader. A focus on French and other continental comics is more relevant and interesting - the chasm between the way in which comics are viewed here and their perception from our nearest Continental neighbours is vast, although Huxley does point out that the French scene isn't as blameless as might be supposed.

The second problem is that the book only covers the period from 1966-1982. This means no Savoy (although their Elric adaptations had already begun to be published by then); no Eddie Campbell; none of the Slab'o'Concrete comics or other recent small press efforts. I appreciate that a limit must be set on the research period for a work of this type - but 1982 is almost 20 years ago now, and it's difficult to put a lot of this material, and indeed Huxley's conclusions, in perspective when so much has happened since. If the focus were purely on British comics from the period, this would be less of a problem - but as it is there's a certain amount of extraneous material which I'd certainly like to have seen replaced with more up-to-date content. Huxley mentions some comics outside of the range of his writing - the Viz success story is certainly more a late 80s and early 90s phenomenon - but these hints of what might have been are ultimately frustrating to the reader.

Finally, Huxley's an academic. This means that while his research is thorough, his tone is dry and some of his concerns irritatingly PC. As the final sentence of his conclusion he can only bring himself to muster the following level of enthusiasm:

'These comics can stand on their own; they display a range of qualities which include unpredictability, energy or shock value at their worst, and at their best they are comics of genuine quality.'

Woo-hoo! There's a sense in which the author appears to be writing for an academic audience, or more specifically students new to the world of comics - and it takes some of the fun out of it. I started to yearn for a balls-to-the-wall Jim Goad approach; anything to show that the author had opinions and a sense of humour to go with the energy of the subject matter.

But I'm being critical principally because this is a great idea for a book, and I just would have liked to see more done with it. It's still an essential read for anyone interested in comics, and I hope that the limited scope merely points to another volume to follow.