Razorjack
A creator owned project
Published by Titan May 2013
Written, inked and coloured by John Higgins
Deadfall Script & Art by John Higgins
Letters by JP Rutter & Mark McKenzie-Ray
A Glimpse of Summer scripted by Michael Carroll
Art by John Higgins
Letters by JP Rutter
Razorjack was created by John Higgins
John Higgins is known to me primarily through his 2000AD work. He is also famously the Colourist on Watchmen and Batman: The Killing Joke. Similarly with Michael Carroll I first encountered him in the pages of 2000AD where he is now one of the regular Writers on Judge Dredd. Michael also has a successful series of novels not connected to 2000AD, New Heroes.
I help run a Judge Dredd convention called Lawgiver and Michael Carroll has been to both conventions we have held so far. John Higgins was at this year’s convention in Bristol on Bank Holiday Monday 25th of May.
One of the other members of the Organisers Group shared this picture with me, Judge Pal who is in the photo, for a pen picture I wrote about John for the event. The other character is Razorjack, I hadn’t even heard of the character (bad me).
So I contacted Waterstones and they hooked me up with a copy of the hardback. I read this on the way from Leeds to Bristol.
A very interesting read it turned out to be, this version has reworked dialogue by Michael Carroll.
The action starts in another realm, Twist Loop. Some Humans are hunting a child-like being but soon find it has a protector. Twisted Sisters are the servants of the ruler of the realm, The Iron Queen, Razorjack.
Opposing Razorjack is Lady Helen.
Action also takes place in the ‘real world’ or Core Loop where we meet two cops, Frame, a tough no nonsense seasond officer, and Ross, his young female partner. Early on it is clear that these two care about the job but don’t follow orders or procedure.
The police department aspect is the only slightly predictable part of the story – which is no biggie as there are loads of very unexpected parts along the way.
For example would you expect three college kids messing about with fake ‘Magic’ would hit on real Magic… Well ok given we knew there was a megalomania demonic creature in a strange realm that hates Human life maybe we might have expected it. It is these kind of forecast parts of the plot that lead you through a story to enable the surprises. It is deliberate.
The main story has a selection of odd characters that I’d like to know more about – which brings us to the second back up story. Michael Carroll has scripted a story set in Feudal Japan when a Twisted Sister was sent through to kill an ancestor of her enemy.
Art wise the book is brilliant. Characterisation and storytelling is great and the eye is kept busy throughout. Colour and tone are used to give mood to the scenes. The character design is very eye-catching and there is a selection of design sketches, pencils and finished covers at the back of the book.
Michael Carroll has written a Razorjack novel that was recently released on Kindle on 13th June Razorjack: Double-Crossing. I’ll be reading that in July.
Judge-Tutor Semple 