On to Gutsville, a six-issue miniseries from Image.  I have no idea what it's about, but the creative team of Simon Spurrier and Frazer Irving emanate from 2000AD, and the cover declares "Seditionists will be Digested", which is good enough for me.

Thoughtfully, even though it's only issue #1, the inside front cover explains the premise, and it turns out I've heard of this one after all.  It's gloriously absurd.  It's about a city inside a giant sea monster.  The sea monster swallowed a boat 157 years ago, you see.  But so big is the sea monster that it has its own eco-system, and the survivors have set up their own society.

You've got give them credit for audacity.  And plainly, this is a concept that calls for more than the normal quota of suspension of disbelief.

Reasonably enough, the survivors have become a bit religious.  As good Christians, they've figured out the whole Jonah connection, and have decided that their community is being tested by God.  Some day, if they're sufficiently devout, God will deliver them in the "great regurgitation".  Meanwhile, there's a serial killer on the loose, and a bunch of iconoclastic rebels have got it into their heads that it might be a nice idea to induce regurgitation by more direct, physical means.  (Doesn't sound like that good an idea to me, but then we are talking about a world in which fully fledged cities can exist in giant stomachs.)

Frazer Irving also illustrated Seven Soldiers: Klarion, which had a rather similar theme of a hidden, underground puritan society.  Here, he seems to be taking a more detailed and pseudo-realistic approach.  Spurrier likewise seems to be interested in making up stomach-specific slang and dialect for his characters to speak.  I'm not sure it really works; it's obviously a whopping great metaphor, and if I'm being honest, hacking through the Gutsville dialect is a bit of a distracting slog.  Besides, you're never really going to get me to believe in something quite this absurd.

It's such a bizarre idea for a series that I want to like it, and it's certainly dense with content.  On the other hand, with the exception of the lead character, the cast seem rather sketchy in personality terms, and I can't say I'm really drawn into the plot.  But there's a lot here to consider.  It calls for some re-reading.  Not an ideal book to be reviewing today, frankly.

I'll give it the benefit of the doubt - it doesn't quite grab me, but it does intrigue me.  I suspect there's more to it, on repeated readings.

Rating: B

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