[Webcomic Review] Corporate Skull

Much is made of the vast array of music or fiction that is available for free online – a huge amount of which is available through entirely legal means. Yet there is a corner of the Internet devoted to providing you with good quality comic fare on a regular basis – for absolutely nothing.

Sure, there are the “big hitters” like Mega Tokyo and Questionable Content which have been running for years (since 2000 and 2003 respectively) but there are plenty of other titles available to catch your fancy depending on your chosen genre or favoured artistic style. Corporate Skull is just one of them.

Corporate Skull is the creation of Jamie Smart, the very talented comic artist who in recent years has been behind the Dandy’s classic Desperate Dan strips. The comic tells the story of Alan Buttons, a downtrodden office worker browbeaten by his employment at Curb Pharmaceuticals. A freak workplace accident turns him into the profane drunken antihero better known as Corporate Skull.

If you’ve ever worked in an office environment, or simply come into contact with one, then Corporate Skull may seem all-too-familiar to you. The vacuous young lady, the boorish lad who thinks looking up porn on company time is funny, the resident IT geek – you can find them in most offices throughout the world. Of course, when you hit that point where your life has dwindled away to nothing but a work routine punctuated only by bouts of restless sleep, something has to give. It’s a point Jamie handles with a surprising degree of pathos, considering this is a comic featuring a bloody accident with a photocopier, and a healthy dose of swearing.

This isn’t a comic for kids (though Jamie does plenty of work for youngsters too) and it’s ever so slightly NSFW, but Corporate Skull is a joy to behold in all its graphic splendour. The style is bold and the pages are a good balance of dialogue, narration and art.  Jamie has created a real ‘Everyman’ character in Alan, and things will only get darker and funnier from here on in.

Corporate Skull is only up to page sixteen of issue one, so it won’t take you long at all to catch up to speed – which I recommend you do at your earliest convenience.

All images by Jamie Smart, reproduced with his permission!