Chris Bunting (Comics International)
    Glenn Carter (Silver Bullet Comic Books)
    Will Cooling (Comicsnexus.com)
    Dave Sim ("Cerebrus", Canada)
    SFX Magazine (#120)
    Martin "Biff" Averre (Ace Comics)
    Brett Warnock (Top Shelf Comix)

Review by Chris Bunting (COMICS INTERNATIONAL )
“Ever since hearing SFX declare this as “an excellent new quarterly” I've been meaning to check it out. Focusing on the UK small press and indie scene, you get interviews, articles, retro features and previews … pretty much anything and everything. Some imaginative ways to break up the dense text are required, but it's early days and there's time to work out the design bugs. Could prove a good seller in comic shops, and is worth every penny of its cover price. (CEB) 7. ”

Review by Glenn Carter (SILVERBULLETCOMICBOOKS.COM)
"I've been meaning to mention REDEYE for a while but haven't had the opportunity. REDEYE Magazine is a quarterly comics magazine which has a very strong UK independent scene focus and really pushes some of the comics I've been mentioning in this column. For this reason I think that readers of this column may be interested to try out REDEYE. It features news, previews, rumours, articles and interviews from the dark side of comics, although, the appeal is not limited to indy enthusiasts. There are many features and articles here, which are of interest to anyone with any kind of an interest in comics at all, such as the excellent interviews with Warren Ellis and Ian Gibson (in issue 1). As an added bonus, I am inadvertently in it. Excerpts from some comments I made a while ago and had forgotten about have made it into the pages of issue 1 (The Panel), not that I mind, it just would have been nice to have been told. REDEYE, therefore, offers you the opportunity to read some well researched and written articles about the indy scene AND get some of my wit and wisdom, if you're hungry for more. "

Review by Will Cooling (Comicsnexus.com)
" 'All that's left of the British comics industry is 2000AD.'
That's the regular complaint of British comic book fans as the comic market that even 15 years ago boast a whole raft of comics in variety of age groups and genres. However, post crash and the mainstream British comics' industry is simply 2000AD and Warhammer Monthly , which whilst both are excellent it cannot but be denied that British newsstand comics are in a terrible shape. Of course there are beyond the High Street and corner shop British comics that are created and sold in the Small Press Market i.e. mail order. These are a somewhat unappreciated section of the industry with little publicity given to them in Britain's version of Wizard , Comics International despite many of the titles receiving critical acclaim from those who do read them.

One of the bigger British Small Press publishers is the Accent UK Collective, an Image style consortium that attempts to draw the disparate Small Press Market together and so increase its profile and prestige. One of their numerous projects is REDEYE , a quarterly magazine that is devoted to taking a good long hard look at the British comics industry. Not only does it offer up to date news and previews but it also takes a detailed look at the rich history of British comics, not just the modern post-Pat Mills era but also the earlier era of Eagle and Dan Dare. All these efforts are guided by a zeal to give the reader a detailed and full look at the British comics and get them to see what lies beyond the Nerve Centre.

Of course you the reader are sitting back and thinking "all very noble but what does it read like?" Now the short answer is a resounding "Yes!" but you know me well enough to know that I don't do short answers...

Okay let's start with the tone of the magazine. Well firstly there is an activist spirit running throughout the magazine with a very direct and earnest appeal to get you to dip your toe into the Small Press Market. However, this spirit is restrained in two important and welcome ways. Firstly, the magazine doesn't become a shill for the British Small Press; yes it takes a positive light but its reviews seem fair and balanced (I've got to stop watching Fox News) with their reviews for Future Quake 1 actually being harsh in my opinion. Secondly, unlike the American magazine Comics Journal , REDEYE doesn't let its activism become elitism. Its decidedly non-elitist spirit is shown by the healthy coverage of 2000AD , which as strange as it sounds is the British equivalent of Marvel/DC. This is a joyous celebration of "adult" British comics and all are welcome.
As for the content well we can divide that into three section; news and previews, features and reviews. The news section is excellent with a wide range of news stories written up in an easy and informative manner. What's especially impressive is the fact that every news story is used as an opportunity to introduce readers to the new comic, which is not only good for the comic in question but makes the news item more accessible for the casual reader. The selection of previews is impressive as well with the likes of Warhammer and Solar Wind showing off some of their art. Whilst its true that these previews often feel more like solicitations with the publishers seemingly providing their own blurbs these are on the whole informative and easy to read.

The features are even better with the mix between 2000AD and Small Press, Past and Present coverage coming to the fore. The 2000AD coverage is excellent with very good interviews with Frazer Irving and David Lloyd. These are buttressed with a superb retrospective of the 2000AD career of David Gibbons by Walther Dragonbuckle, which blows out of the water almost every other article I've ever read in a comics' specialist magazine, with an authoritative and comprehensive look at the development of Gibbons' style and his approach to comic art. Slightly less successful is a slightly po-faced opinion piece by Chris Atkins which seems to ignore the comedic tone of Cliff Robinson's nude cover for Judge Dredd Megazine 213 and also seems to bear some grudge against 2000AD simply because its managed to survive when so many haven't...strange.

The Small Press coverage is where the magazine excels with a superb interview with Bulldog Adventure Monthly publisher, creator and writer Jason Cobley that achieves the difficult feat of not only introducing the various incarnations of the comic and its star Winston Bulldog to a wider audience but also allowing the interviewee time to breathe and so allow the reader to properly assess him. It sounds extremely interesting and the Diamond solicited mini-series that's in the work will be on my pull list when it comes out. There are also interviews with the editors of Tall Tales ' Daniel Silverton and Alex ArbabZadeh and Strange Embrace's creator David Hine both of which offer an interesting look into their respective comics. Also welcome is the Frontline Small Press Catalogue that with its mix of art previews and review quotes makes up for the lack of a comprehensive listings section. However the star of the whole magazine has to be Mike Burrows fantastic first part to his retrospective of the Pilot of the Future, Dan Dare (the British comics icon of the 1950s) that is a fascinating look into the genesis of one of the most enduring characters in British comics' history. Of particular interest is the look at the role the Christian sub-text in the character's success with the original version of the character having been a military vicar. There are plenty more interesting facts like that in what is a thrilling article that will have you reaching for those gorgeous looking Titan Dan Dare collections...I wish I had money...(goes into a corner and cries).

Finally there are the reviews, which are okay. [Actually] that's a bit unfair, you see they follow the Comics International format of doing short paragraph reviews (a la Fourth Rail) so as to fit as many of them in as possible. Personally I've always preferred the type of reviews carried by the likes of Ninth Art, The X-Axis and ourselves that adopt a more essay style approach to reviewing a title, especially when I'm deciding whether to try a new title. Obviously it may not be possible due to space and time constraints but I think it would push the review sections up to the heights of the rest of the magazine. That said the reviewers get more room to write than in CI and it shows with some of them (especially Leon Hewitt's on Future Quake 1) offering an impressively comprehensive overview. The inclusion of each comic's web address is a clever and welcome touch that further confirms this magazine as a vital resource tool for those wanting to learn more about the British Small Press Market.

This is an excellent magazine packed full of content with great interviews, articles and news coverage. Whilst the design is unflashy, it does the job and avoids any stupid mistakes like 2000AD sometimes does with their text features where the background colour makes the text almost impossible to read (I HATE THAT!). Even though this current issue is over four months old it is still a must read if only for the historical articles on Dan Dare and David Gibbons and I'm sure REDEYE 3 that continues the Dan Dare article and profiles Brian Bolland will be just as good!

Final Word: Learn more about the fast growing British Small Press Market with this authoritative, comprehensive and above all enjoyable magazine."

Review by Dave Sim ("CEREBUS", Canada)
“You are a very busy fellow, indeed. Reading your editorial for the first issue of REDEYE , I think it safe to say that we're all in the same boat in the small press and have been for some time and probably will be for some time to come. There is an awful-seeming impenetrability to the comic-book field from the small press end of things that seems pretty well permanent. Even after twenty-six years and three hundred issues- most of them at or darned near to on schedule- Cerebus is still no closer to the core of the field than it was when it began. A major stumbling block is the sheer cacophony of voices—-hundreds of self-publishing hatchlings all squawking for their little bit of earthworm. This, it seems to me, is no small problem. The squawking in itself is a major direct market irritant. If you don't support my book I'll keep running my fingernails down this chalkboard is not the most persuasive form of marketing known to man. It seems to me that one of the blessings from the retail standpoint with companies from the size of Drawn & Quarterly to the size of DC is that the squawking is kept in-house. No one actually hears the hatchlings. It's the company's job to feed them. The tip of the iceberg is the work itself and no one has to see any other part of it.

The small press tends to be too much like the homeless. You know you should help but there's so darn many of them. Who knows where to begin and, once begun, who knows where to stop. I try to remind my own readers waiting in line for autographs at SPACE that there are few places on the face of the earth where you can do more good with a twenty-dollar bill than the small press area of a con or a Small Press Event itself. Likewise with a letter. The average business type, just with the length of e-mail he would ordinarily send about a pedestrian matter can get a small presser to make it that next painstaking quarter mile through the hatchling wasteland.

Of course one of the major splits between Jeff Smith and myself was his dislike of the “let everyone in” approach that I favoured. I think self-publishing in and of itself is worthwhile, good discipline, a great learning experience and a lot of fun, to boot. The “can the person make a living at this?” comes in a distant second place in my mind. That's partly up to them and partly up to the free market, in my view. Time will tell. At the same time, I'm not a complete purist about my own viewpoint. When I was doing Cerebus Previews in the back of the book, I certainly picked and chose the best that was on offer (in my eyes). I didn't start publishing squarebound monthly issues containing everything that had arrived in my mailbox the previous month. Even in the case of REDEYE , I really haven't got time to read everything that you sent, but I did read the Terry Moore interview. I mean, there you go. That's a kind of elitism. I didn't even know who Jason Cobley is and here's someone who's been self-publishing for twenty years. And probably Jason Cobley has never heard of me.

I don't know what the answer is, but it might well lie in the direction of somehow democratically advancing a single individual in a given time period of say six months or a year. Let's take the UK, because it's a very small environment. What if you formed a pool of all the hatchlings and take a vote to find out what the most popular self-published book is at present. Most popular in the view of all of the other self-publishers. And what if everyone agreed to do a promotion for that book in their own books, to push that book to their local retailers and, however else, contribute to this one person or team's book volunteer to do some guest inking or a guest cover if that individual likes your own stuff? If it doesn't work, well, fine it doesn't work. But at least you've created the King of the Hatchlings for a Year. If it does work, then you have an idea of how it might work for someone else. One book a year, getting a leg up from all his mates. Of course, I think you would have to have an understanding that this would only be for self-publishing. There is definitely a danger of everyone pooling their resources and giving someone a leg up straight into DC. Which, to me, would defeat the purpose, but I'm well aware that this is one of those areas where everyone starts shuffling their feet and looking uncomfortable and Dave Sim gets blamed for being (what's a nice word for it?) inflexible. My own view is that you would have to bring a level of purity to it if you hoped to start the ball rolling, but I'm well aware that for most people DC (and Hollywood let's not forget all the Hellboy and Ghost World wannabe's out there) are considered Paradise whereas they have always seemed more like hell to me. Or maybe you make that the consensus view that you build the structure around. “One of us is getting out of here and going to DC or Hollywood.” And that's what everyone votes on and then collectively supports.

Anyway, since everything in the field seems to happen in excruciating slow motion, there's always going to be plenty of time to talk all these things to death. Speaking of which, sure, I'd be glad to do an interview. I tend (as you can see here) to rather exhaust any given subject, so maybe it would be better to do it one question at a time. That way you can just stop sending questions once the allotted space has been filled.

Anyway, thanks again for the voluminous package and best of luck losing all that takeaway weight, mate.”

Review by SFX Magazine (#120)
“Excellent overview of the UK/Irish comic scene. Impressively hefty, this is a vital read if you're interested in the small press community. Lots of news, comic festival reports and an interview with co-creator David Lloyd."

Review by Martin "Biff" Averre (ACE COMICS )
“My recommendation for #1 went down very well and #2 is now out. Once again it is chock full of reviews of UK small press titles, interviews with top name creators, David Lloyd for one, well written articles, one on Dan Dare another about David Hine, preview art from new releases and even an article by Biff Averre whoever he is!

The eclectic world of small press is a world worth visiting, for the energy and fun that emanates from them if nothing else and this most excellent magazine is your must have guide. This issue is 10 pages bigger than #1 and comes in at a respectable 66 A4 black and white pages. I cannot recommend this magazine too highly. A Biff 10/10.”

Review by Brett Warnock (TOP SHELF COMIX )
“REDEYE [2] has landed! It came today, and it looks fabulous. Thanks so much. Also, REALLY enjoyed your self-publishing guide a great deal as well. Nicely done. Not all of the other comics were my cup of tea, but I thought the theme issues were very cool. You cats are moving at an excellent learning curve. ”