REVIEWS


Escape Magazine (1983-1989):
A review by The Comics Journal #210


In The Comics Journal #210 (1999) Bart Beaty identified ‘Ten Worthy Translation Projects’. Bart explained in his introduction to his column Euro-Comics For Beginners: “The editors of this magazine chose as the theme of this issue to count down a list of the Top 100 comic books of the past century, with the caveat that the work had to have originally appeared in English. No translations. It falls to me, therefore, to fill in that gap and suggest some of the choices that might have been included in the larger list.”

This now-defunct London-based anthology remains one of the most sorely missed comics of all time not simply because of its tremendous track record of translating European comics but simply because it was always so good in so many ways. But yes, those European comics certainly helped set it apart.

Typically Escape featured a comibination of new or translated comics, interviews, profiles and feature articles many of which covered some aspect of comics in Europe. The sixth issue, for example, has a spotlight on comics in Italy, while the ninth featured comics in Spain.

European contributors were a veritable who’s who of 1980s best and brightest: Jacques Tardi, Serge Clerc, Jean-Claude Götting, Mariscal, Daniel Torres, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Joost Swarte. Hell, they even had a cover by Beb Deum (#14)!

If marks had to be taken away from Escape, it would be for the fact that often the stories were too short, although even then one must be quick to point out the presence of a 20-page Muñoz and Sampayo story in the tenth issue.

All that and you get the best of the British new wave of the 1980s (Carol Swain, Ed Pinsent, Eddie Campbell) thrown in to boot? Oh, how I still miss Escape...