The "annual" is a British comics tradition, in which a beloved comic like the Beano produces an end-of-the-year gift book full of puzzles, short stories, artwork, games, comics, and suchlike.
The Scarfolk Annual is a facsimile of a notional annual produced for the blighted children of Scarfolk, distressed and scuffed to give it the appearance of a discarded library book that's been discovered in a charity shop bin (an introduction informs the reader that this is just what's happened, and that, moreover, the erstwhile owner disappeared under mysterious circumstances).
The Annual is a showcase for the brilliance of Scarfolk, which uses the iconography of the Thatcher-era authoritarian malaise to skewer Thatcher's ideological descendants, who combine cruelty and clownishness with barely disguised racism and eugenics as they drive the country towards catastrophe while serving the ultra-rich, punishing the poor for the sin of poverty, and use racism to cement a thoroughly despicable coalition of the hereditarily posh, sociopathic financiers, and terrified, small-minded Little Englanders.
As with all of Littler's work, the Annual presents itself as a deceptively simple satire, but rewards close attention as the fine details and hidden gags add texture and depth.
This is Littler at the top of his Scarfolk form -- an unpredictably wonderful, brilliant piece of political satire.
The Scarfolk Annual [Richard Littler/William Collins]
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