Starslayer - Torin, S.A.M. and Tamara

Next weekend I'm going to London Super Comic Con. The main draw for me is Mike Grell, one of the most underrated artists in comic books and probably my favourite artist after George Perez. In all honesty, Grell might be a better pure artist than Perez at least in terms of realism - he was one of the first guys in comics after Neal Adams to go for a realistic style.

Grell's probably best known for stuff like 'Green Arrow', 'Jon Sable Freelance', 'Shamans Tears' and his stint on 'Iron Man' but his magnus opus was probably DC's 'Warlord' series. I loved 'Warlord' but my introduction to Grell came via 'Starslayer', a series created by Mike and published by Pacific and then First Comics. It's about a Celtic warrior called Torin Mac Quillon who's zapped into the far future at the time of his death and goes on a bunch on adventures on a pirate spaceship called The Jolly Roger with hot scientist Tamara and mechanical monkey S.A.M.

The title's notable for launching a load of properties which would become much more well known than 'Starslayer' itself, like 'Groo The Wanderer', 'Grimjack' and 'The Rocketeer' but the main story was loads of fun, at least while Grell was handling both art and story, and well worth picking up.

Dunno whether I'm going to just give Mike this pic when I see him or ask him to autograph it for me and keep it. I'll see how I feel on the day.