1 out of 5

I read about Dead Meat in a “Where are they now?” type article series in 2000 AD. It sounded rather maligned; it was one of writer Michael Cook’s few credits in the book (before moving on to some other properties and elsewhere, like Sonic and Aliens), and Armoured Gideon artist Simon Jacob seemed to go on hiatus for quite a bit afterwards. But the riff on 90s pseudo-environmentalism – vegetarians gone extreme, with food mass production leading to spoiled meats and a spoiled planet and meat eating outlawed, enforced by the “P.U.L.S.E.” agency – and (according to the article’s examples and description) a stream of woefully bad puns, plus an ongoing gag of lead P.U.L.S.E. agent ‘Raam,’ an anthropomorphic ram, naturally, breaking through walls and doors… well, this felt right up my alley: a clunky, forgotten classic.

Clunky, yes, but unfortunately I think the forgottenness is earned. It’s hard to say exactly who the culprit is, here, as I don’t necessarily think the script, moment-to-moment, is bad, and the concepts high-leveled by Cook are solid enough, which makes me want to lean on the art… but Jacob’s Gideon credit throws me off, as that’s well regarded. So I’m going to just cast the net wide: I don’t think much of Dead Meat was thought through beyond its gist and surface level gags (witness the sudden dump of background lore that starts the second series), leading to a near complete lack of character, and stories that are somewhat embarrassing seat-of-the-pants in their machinations. And then this hastiness was paired with an expressive artist who combos Emond’s absurd characterizations with an Anthony Williams-esque cartoonishness, which totally makes editorial sense (if that’s how the pairing was made), but Jacobs can’t seem to get on the level of the pantomime tone of the book, nor find the timing for Cook’s slapstick. What should be zany is just… flat, with way too much text (and distracting double a’s for the goat-speak that should’ve either been underlined more or ditched – the minimal commitment ends up feeling purposeless and annoys the eye), no real consistency or much logic to the Judge Dredd-adjacent behaviors of Raam, placeless world building that’s set in London only by default, inconsistent character art, and never one door smash that lands the joke.

Man. I’d say there’s potential, but it really does read like pages of an elevator pitch; a demo that keeps being reexplained. So instead of trying to dig out and dust off what I don’t think is there, it’s understandably lain dormant.

Quality Comics collected both arcs in a three issue (American sized) mini, bundled with a single page Future Shock that I’ll credit is, at least, exactly in line with Dead Meat – the art feels poorly synced to the text, and it also falls flat.