From the pages of Silver Bullet Comicbooks: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/fool/115066916380250.htm

” I was even happier to see a new issue from the Monkeys with Machineguns. Following on from last year’s excellent #0, we are now presented with a fully fledged issue #1. I have no idea why last year’s wasn’t #1, and this year’s isn’t #2 – it may be something to do with counting on your fingers when you lack opposable thumbs.

Who cares? It’s another rollicking good read.

Those of you who read my review of the last issue might remember that every issue of this menacingly monochrome anthology is intended to have a theme. The theme this year is “Making Deals with Devils”, and we are presented with four tales with radically different takes on this Faustian idea.

The scripts have all oozed from the pen of writer (and Fool’s Errand poster) Chris Lynch, who has lost none of the unnerving ability to mess with your head he exhibited in the previous issue. His first tale, Left Behind is illustrated in starkly contrasting black and white by Stu.Art (who can also be found occasionally on the Fool’s Errand boards) and is somewhat reminiscent of the old Roald Dhal Tales of the Unexpected. A man sits alone in the flat he used to share with his girlfriend. He came home three days ago to find her and half her stuff gone. Everything else was packed in boxes and he hasn’t seen her since.

Where has she gone? How will he find her? And how come she didn’t take the cat?

I’m a cat person. This one made me shiver…

The second story, Thirty Pieces, made me laugh. A London Cabbie stops to help a bedraggled man in the street. A man who, it turns out, is being pursued by all manner of demonic hordes. A man who tries to pay using Roman silver coins. Yeah, OK, so it’s a simple set up, but it’s amusingly told with a dry wit and a sly smile. And I’m sure I’ve been in that bloke’s cab y’know. This is the only story not illustrated by Stu.Art’s high contrast brush, and Mark Smith’s softer more organic shading suits the style of the story perfectly – an object lesson in the art and importance of matching script to art style. I can think of a few editors who could do to learn such good judgement.

The third story will be familiar to anyone who ever had to buy a house, and the final tale is a beautifully macabre prose tale in the tradition of Edgar Allen Poe.

The whole shebang is a masterpiece of monkey business – a striking simian success, a perfection of primate prose. I love it. I read my copy sitting outside in the dark of night with a beer to hand and The Mission on my mp3 player. An owl flew over my head somewhere in the middle of Thirty Pieces – something that never happens when I read Stephen King. Could more proof of the power of this comic be required?