It's all lies - 1973

My interest in this 1973 comic stems from an entry in the Mick McMahon stripography (compiled by Patrick Brown) in The Panelhoue issue #4 (March-July 1996) which has as its first entry...

1976 (or earlier?)

Jeff Gint, private detective in 'It's all lies' 

The British Library records 6 issues of the comic 'It's all lies' from 1973. This is the same as is recorded in 'Nasty tales' by David Huxley. So, I'm going to go for that too.

It's all lies, issue #1, 1973

It's all lies, issue #2, 1973

rear cover

It's all lies, issue #3, 1973

It's all lies, issue #4, 1973

It's all lies, issue #5, 1973 - cover art by John Hurford

It's all lies, issue #6, 1973 - cover at by John Bolton

Thanks to Victor Marsillo (check out his great Facebook group "British Underground Comix") I have a contents listing for It's all lies

It's All Lies #1: Matthew Freeth, Jonathan Gems, Antonio Ghura, John Hurford, Justin Ward 

#2: Matthew Freeth, Jonathan Gems, John Hurford, Justin Ward 

#3: Matthew Freeth, Antonio Ghura, John Hurford, Alan Moore (script), Steve Parkhouse, Justin Ward 

#4: Matthew Freeth, Heath, John Hurford, McMahon, Justin Ward #5: Matthew Freeth, Jonathan Gems, Antonio Ghura, John Hurford, McMahon, Justin Ward 

#6: John Bolton, Robert Crumb, Matthew Freeth, Antonio Ghura, Steve Parkhouse, Justin Ward

Interesting to see Steve Parkhouse's name in there - but that's for another day. And Alan Moore as well.

Anyway, it's clear from the listing that "McMahon" is credited as appearing in issues 4 and 5. It doesn't say "Mick McMahon" in the issues just "McMahon".

Victor then sent me this more detailed description of the "McMahon" credited strips...

so, in #4, there's a 6-page strip entitled: Geoffrey Gimp - Special Agent in Nothing for Something. And in #5, there's a 4-page strip entitled: Geoffrey Gimp - Special Agent: Hell-Hound.

Ok, so that's not quite "Jeff Gint" but I can easily see how the names could have been confused.

Victor then sent me these interior pages from It's all lies - in the first image you can see a signature on the bin lid. Even if thse were drawn in 1973 that's still 4 years before 2000AD is published so that gives someone's art style a long time to develop. So, the question is, does these look like really early Mick McMahon artwork to you?

At the Mick McMahon signing at Forbidden Planet yesterday (Saturday 10th December 2022) Eamonn Clarke asked Mick about the strip and whether or not he'd drawn it. Mick confirmed that he HAD drawn it and he was happy to see the strip again - even though he thought the strip was completely terrible!