Jim Baikie (1940–2017)

‘Skizz’, first published in 1983 for British comic series 2000AD (originator of Judge Dredd and many other iconic comic figures), is a rather heart-warming tale.

Yet the tale is told without losing an ounce of the dystopianism for which the British are so well known. Set on the Planet Burmy-Gam, it helps to read the text in a Brummy accent to get a real feel for it.

Alan Moore is very good with linguistic clues – his brutal and unhinged government alien hunter is positioned as South show more African with just two carefully placed words at the beginning.

This is a kinder counterpoint to Moore’s ‘V for Vendetta’ and a riposte to Spielberg’s ‘ET’. The British Midlands are presented as brutal and Government as wholly weak or malign but there is good.

The ordinary coppers and state servants are good enough blokes (much as in 'V') but they are obliged to obey cruel orders. The local working class population, if dim, is, however, good hearted.

Although nearly three decades separate this story line and Thatcher’s Britain from today’s riots and economic crisis, you would not think it from the tone.

Today Government would be seen as not fully competent enough to be evil and the police would not get such a good press but the sense of a population coming to terms with the unthinkable could be 2011.

A word is due here for the artist Jim Baikie. Alan Moore is rightly considered a bit of a genius and this often means that his illustrators get put into second position by default.

‘Skizz’, however, is a perfect partnership of word and picture. Baikie illustrates the text from well within the British comic tradition, which is all stark black and white pen and ink contrast.

The panels are constructed almost filmically but with ‘real people’ rather than following the American propensity to give their kids a succession of good and bad ideal types.

Perhaps if a solid TV Director with access to Dr Who level CGI could just follow the instructions and not get too creative, one day this might be the one film that Alan Moore does not have a moan about.

It would simply be a kind and fun film with solid old-fashioned emotional engagement.

‘Skizz’ himself, the alien interpreter who breaks a few rules and finds himself lost on Burmy-Gam, horrified by the ape-creatures, is a wonderful creation, the very type of the ordinary alien bloke.

The story is really one of minor civil servant out of his depth, lost in the jungle and waiting for the local colonial police to come and rescue him. We are just the tribespeople. show less

This volume reprints Oz, as well as a few other short stories (including an early Democracy storyline). Oz isn't my favourite of the long stories and the long, long race section is a bit tedious by the end.

This edition has some problems. It's a thick volume, so quite a lot gets lost in the gutter, making some dialogue unreadable. At this stage 2000AD was printing Dredd with the first two pages in colour, but these have been printed in greyscale here. Quite a lot of detail gets lost in the show more process. Subsequent volumes switch to full-colour printing on better quality paper. show less

A darker, more adult, more English, version of E.T. Fun and I like the art, but nothing Earth-shattering.

Another classic Alan Moore tale from 2000AD. Skizz is the tale of an alien interpreter, who crashes near the outskirts of Birmingham. He is rescued by a local resident who, along with her friends, vows to protect him from the authorities who seem to be hell-bent on capturing and destroying him.