Baron Mordant and his ever-eccentric Mordant Music label have taken on Marvel at their own game.

Mordant Music’s schtick is a loveable one – cerebral electronica mixed with a Radiophonic Orchestra crush and big dose of surrealist humour. Their recent output says it all: a collaborative Baron Mordant/Ekoplekz LP, IZOD Days; a second instalment in their essential guide to electronic pioneer Tod Dockstader; and Museum Of Loneliness, a “smeared and spored” collection of readings by storied author/filmmaker Chris Petit.

As The Wire report, Mordant Music have now put out a 24-page comic, titled Hard Shoulder. The project is presumably related to Petit’s 2001 novel The Hard Shoulder, a Thatcher-era thriller about a prisoner returning to society. The A5 comic comes with illustrations from regular Shackleton collaborator Zeke Clough and words from Baron Mordant. The blurb, expressed in the Baron’s less-than-pellucid prose, is below:

Preston via Warrior Square… the inky, stinky ley line… Talbot’ timing liked a clocked and gummed Atari 1040ST… Quink before you think… aspects of obtuse eras dissected by Zeke’s quill prism… daft arms and metabolic mates’ rates… a trundling Baron shits other people’s pants… I don’t know how you got here exactly, but now that you have pleas eread ohm…

Hard Shoulder is limited to 200 copies, and is available to buy via the Mordant Music website, priced at £5.00.