A hugely ambitious first issue from Mardou and Fortenski couple/collaborators . The full colour cover and A4 size lend a sense of magazine-like substance to the strips inside. The artwork is also quite assured and adds to the general feeling of quality. Unusually backgrounds seem to receive the attention they deserve instead of the usual blank space behind the characters there is an attempt to create a proper environment around them - something I'm all in favour of.
The writing is pretty good with a mix of whimsy, polemic and autobiography. The central and most interesting feature is a strip done in the "Fighting Fantasy"/Choose Your Own Adventure style of "if you do X then read panel Y". The plot revolves around navigating three "pre-adults" through a night on the town and the related comedown on Sunday morning. The concept is pretty inspired and unusual but the execution is also pretty funny as well.
The rest of the strips are all perfectly serviceable but ironically suffer from a poor use of panels and layout that exaggerates the static art-style to an unflattering degree. A few of the strips could have done with a harsh editor's hand paring them back and insisting that each one do more to advance the narrative. This combined with some dull grid layouts makes for boring reading at times with the conclusion obvious far too long before the final panel. At least this is merely a technical point; rather the more serious is the lack of empathy or warmth in the writing...
On the surface the scripting is quite good, assured and clear, underneath though there is little heart or depth to the material. Nothing really to say, no observation beyond the trite or the scornful. You can of course go a long way with sarcasm and a sneer but Stiro is far too mild in tone to pull that style off. It doesn't matter in a single issue but it would be dull to read another in a similar vein. The writing should strive to delve a little bit deeper into the world around it rather than simply adopting an affected disinterest.
Overall then a pretty good first issue and a pleasing read. The overall impression though is of huge ambition that still needs some hard graft to bring the work up to the intent.
Robert Rees

I haven't read the first two issues in this series so I wasn't sure what I'd got. I read it through. Nice card front cover, full colour retro. Contents clearly drawn, six strips, various lengths. Back cover collage, full colour again. So I thought I'd have a look at the stiroville web page. There I found an appreciation: "The willful imperspicuity of the layered nonsense, nonsequitorial dialogue and brash puerility; all mere epithelium to shield the reader from the damning critique coruscating beneath the surface of every frame". Which explains everything.
This comic features stories about someone leaving the circus, an evening down the pub, an attack on Tokyo by the last of the giant sea badgers, another evening down the pub on a first date, analagous stoats and ferrets and the imminent collapse of modern society brought about by its inherent contradictions.
The cover says that Stiro 3 is for older girls and boys only. This is presumeably because they will need to have their cultural studies textbooks with them to interpret the knowing references cunningly slipped into the naïve artistic framework. But are these really there? Are there comments about the role of women, or the revolutionary spirit of the underclass? Or does youth hold the hope for society's future in its hands? And what of animal rights? There are lots of animals in this comic - I counted seven plus a wolf boy. You begin to wonder if this is bluff or double bluff. And the website didn't help. It's interesting but is it true? Are these real biographies? Or is it all made up? Just a dream.
Who knows? As for this as a comic, it needs your attention, it's worth a look, and if it prompts a thought or two that proves it, doesn't it? Or does it? Oh shut up!
Maurice Wakeham