Category: Best of British

Posted on

The Perishers Spectacolour


By Maurice Dodd & Dennis Collins (Mirror Books)
ISBN: 0-85939-169-8 (album PB)

I plug these little chaps – and the wonderful feature they starred in – every few years because the work is wonderful and quintessentially British. I so wish they were still around to take aim at today’s governments, autocrats, too-common people and general discommodiousness as well as helping us accommodate the impending end of the world with a smile…

Although written almost entirely by Maurice Dodd throughout its 48-year history, the buried National Treasure that is The Perishers almost began life in 1957 when artist Dennis Collins and writer Bill Witham (who went on to huge success with uniquely innocent everyman Useless Eustace) batted around an idea with cartoon editor Bill Herbert. Some daily exploits tribulations, ruminations and misadventures of a bunch of typical kids (circa the latter half of the 20th century at least) were first published in the Manchester edition of The Daily Mirror in February 1958. However, after only a few frankly mediocre months the wacky adventures of Maisie & Marlon were withdrawn and retooled.

Jack-of-all-trades, budding artist and advertising whiz-kid Maurice Dodd was then taken aside by his service comrade and drinking buddy Herbert (they had been paratroopers together) and offered a go at revising the strip. The freelance designer jumped at the chance to reinvent the characters for what would become a meandering but beautifully illustrated, all-ages feature simply stuffed with untapped potential.

Drawing on his own life (he would describe it as “shamelessly pilfering”), Dodd improvised a plethora of new characters – animal and human (although with this strip distinctions are loose and hard to defend). He also rescued and rehabilitated an early 1958 casualty of the original set-up in the unkempt and ill-maintained person of laconic orphan/philosophical dilettante Wellington. This bewildered and bemused overly-anxious symbol of the post-war era was a street urchin living on his wits but still attending school and enduring all the daily trials and indignities of British youth…

Relaunched in October 1959 (Happy 65th, lads, lasses, loons and assorted mildlife!) in London and national editions, revamped strip The Perishers quickly caught on, becoming a morning mainstay for generations of Brits (and assorted colonies), by blending slapstick and surreal comedy with naive charm. At its best it was a miniaturised modern romance melodrama liberally laced with sardonic cultural commentary – apparently and retroactively – set in the South London Borough of Croynge (an amalgam of Croydon and Penge) but still looking like any post-industrial northern city familiar to generations of kids…

Here Maisie loves Marlon, Marlon loves fashion and “inventing”, Wellington loves sausages and Boot, Boot loves sausages and more sausages but is caught in an autocratic duty of care for the little kid who cooks and cleans for him.

Particularly rewarding was a continuing and wonderfully twisted faux misperception of contemporary politics and the burgeoning influence of advertising and commercial media. From the start The Perishers was superbly illustrated, conjuring in a few judicious lines and cannily applied grey tones a communal urban wonderland we all knew as kids: a familiar if not ubiquitous post-war melange of shops and streets, building sites and overpasses, alleys and parks and fields where we could get on with our adventures and no adults could interfere or spoil the fun. The unsavoury old git in me still hungers in absentia on behalf of the youth of today who will never experience such freedom without being labelled “neglected”, “at risk” or possibly just “feral”…

The primary protagonists are Wellington and his old English Sheepdog Boot (actually the mutt is only “sort of a dog…” since the wily, chancer/shaggy raconteur considers himself a Manorial Milord “sufferin’ under the curse of a Gypsy Wench”). They are ably unsupported by the formidable Maisie, a thoroughly modern miss torn between the fashionable self-delusion that the boy of her dreams feels likewise… and sweets. This frail flower has an unsurpassed capacity for greed and inspirational violence, but it vies with a tremendous unslaked passion for the aforementioned Marlon, whom she thinks is what she wants. And sweets. But really the Romance. With sweets.

Cool, suave and debonair are just three of the many, many words Marlon doesn’t know the meaning of, but lots of girls at school fancy him anyway. If he grows up, he wants to be a brain surgeon or a bloke wot goes down sewers in great big gumboots…

Being on his own and fiercely independent, Wellington capitalises on every opportunity to support himself with sordid scavenging and shoddy schemes – usually involving selling poorly constructed carts and buggies to Marlon who has far more money than sense. To be honest, Marlon has more noses than sense…

Maisie is a shy beautiful maiden waiting for her true beloved to sweep her off her feet – and if he doesn’t, she gives him a thorough bashing up and nicks his sweets. Other unreasonable regulars include Baby Grumplin’ – Maisie’s toddler brother and a diabolical force of nature; Plain Jane – a girl who asks too many questions; and dapper Fiscal Yere: smugly complacent go-getting son of a millionaire and another occasional sucker for Wellington’s automotive in-expertise. Kids like him are what made today’s world what it is…

On the equally esoteric anthropomorphic animal front, extremely erudite Boot often contends with stroppy ducks, militant squirrels, socialist revolutionaries Fred the Beetle and his long-suffering wife Ethel, South Asian bloodhound/journalist B.H. Calcutta (Failed) and over-the-hill canine lady of leisure Tatty Oldbit (The Sailor’s Friend), militant teutonic tortoise Adolf Kilroy and a nicotine-addicted caterpillar who stunted his growth through old dog-ends and became Fred’s inseparable comrade/doctrinal competitor in the struggle against capitalistic and canine oppression. This little Trot is also an implacable rival for any food or other societal detritus the Bolshevistic bug might find…

Utterly English, fabulously fantastical and resoundingly working-class, the strip generated 30 collections between 1963-1990, 4 Big Little Books, 5 novels and 2 annuals as well as an audio record and – in 1979 – an immensely successful animated TV series. That last was the spark for this carefully curated album released in the same year to tie-in with the toned-down-for-TV frolics reprinting colourized strip and extended running gag sequences bunched into chapters for your delectation.

We start off gently with ‘Boot Rules – OK’ as Wellington struggles to keep them whilst the dog contributes nothing other than sardonic criticism, acts as straight man to the other bestial extroverts at large in the streets and plans his eventual takeover of the planet… once he overcomes that cursed lack of thumbs…

‘Car Sales’ delivers 16 strips on the eternal war between Wellington and Maise as the former seeks to foist off a succession of shoddy homemade soapbox vehicles on a lad whose real purpose in life is buying sweets for his ladylove. If only Marlon could be made to remember that…

The well-heeled simpleton has needs and desires of his own, primarily becoming a ‘Brain Surgeon’ – even though this section proves why that will never be so – and is followed by a sampling of bargain basement Antichrist Baby Grumplin’ turning the streets and houses upside down hunting for his latest appalling pet ‘The Tigerworm’ and encompassing asides with his young sibling “the New Baby” because ‘It’s Spring Again’, before back in the Wild Kingdoms ‘Tatty Makes Trouble’ for Boot and B.H. Calcutta (Failed).

Wellington’s best pal then faces ‘The Nazi Invasion’ as Adolf Kilroy acts like his totalitarian preincarnation and annexes Boot’s bowl and despatches an Axis of insects to occupy all the best food sources…

Total war is averted by the advent of protracted human manoeuvres intended to accomplish ‘Boot’s Bath’ and rapidly escalating to riots in the streets exacerbated by Maisie’s latest campaign to become ‘May Queen’: again deploying hulking harridan Beryl Bogey (the class “black belt, cross country netball champion”) to canvass votes with extreme menace…

For sheer carnage and chaos only one thing beats Baby Grumplin’ on his ‘Space Hopper’ and that’s what happens here when attempts by the infernal infant’s elders to confiscate said bouncing balloon lead to Boot being trapped on it and boinging about like a blockbuster blobby bomb. Largely unharmed, he soon retreats to a place of canine recuperation only to find his doggy brethren all seeking to pinch his objet d’amour in ‘A Bone to Pick’…

Because it was the past and we just didn’t value juvenile life as much as now, nobody thought anything amiss at a dog and four kids under ten going on an annual camping trip to the seaside: free for a fortnight from all adult supervision (oh, such innocent times!). Here ‘On Holiday’ sees the queasy quartet and Boot romping in the surf at their regular beach resort: playing tricks, scoring points indulging in mockery and even trying a ‘Swimming Lesson’ (for Boot), as well as indulging in the yearly habit of terrorising the denizens of a rockpool.

Every summer, the kids would encounter and endure sun, surf and the crabs who worship the uncannily canine ‘The Eyeballs in the Sky’ which perennially manifested in their isolated “Pooliverse”, auguring mayhem, madness and an unceasing procession of prophets, pundits and pestilential conmen crabs, before the real world would intrude again.

After reluctantly and hilariously ‘Striking Camp’, more time is happily wasted mucking about with an ‘I Speak Your Weight’ machine before finally staggering back to ‘Home, Sweet Home’, only to find the current campaign to remember a day of national importance has kicked off in ‘Happy Birthday, Wellington’ with the usual lukewarm loot results accounted for until ‘But on Monday…’ proves both boy and dog should be careful what they wish for, if what they wish for is a skateboard. Apparently there’s no brakes or steering wheel and they are magnetic if you’re riding a spacehopper coming the other way…

The manic buffoonery then concludes with short bursts of lunacy and largesse in strips all embracing a spirit of ‘Merry Christmas’…

Dennis Collins magnificently and hilariously illustrated the strip until his retirement in 1983, after which Dodd himself took up the pens and brushes. Eventually artist Bill Melvin took over the art chores whilst Dodd scripted until his death in 2006. Once the backlog of material was exhausted The Perishers finished on June 10th of that year. Soon after, The Mirror began reprinting classic sequences to the general approval of everyone, so perhaps it’s not too much to hope that eventually all those classic collections will be available to all…

Quite frankly, it’s what we need and what I deserve…
© 1973 Daily Mirror Newspapers Limited/Film Fair. © Mirror Books Ltd 1979.

Posted on

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 – 10th Anniversary Edition


By John Wagner, Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Peter Harris, Malcolm Shaw, Charles Herring, Gerry Finlay-Day, Robert Flynn, Joe Collins, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon, Ian Gibson, Massimo Belardinelli, Ron Turner, John Cooper, Bill Ward, Brian Bolland & various (Rebellion/REBCA)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-332-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Britain’s last great comic icon can be described as a combination of the other two, combining the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the terrifying anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s the longest-lasting adventure character in our rather meagre comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he kicked off in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD – and now that The Dandy’s gone, veterans Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan might one day be overtaken in the comedy stakes too…

However, with at least 52 2000AD episodes a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and The Metro), Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections, some rather appalling franchised foreign comic book spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print.

Judicial Review: Dredd and dystopian ultra-metropolis Mega-City One – originally posited as 21st century New York – were formulated by a very talented committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others, with major contributions from legendary writer John Wagner who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own name and several pseudonyms.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated law enforcer dubbed a Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper, more efficient and frequently crazier than humans, where jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom is at epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away from mental meltdown. Judges are peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate…

Dredd’s world is a polluted and precarious Future (In)Tense, with all key analogues for successful sci fi (as ever a social looking-glass for the times it’s created in) situated and sharply attuned to a Cold War Consumer Civilisation. The ravaged planet is split into political camps with post-nuclear holocaust America locked in a slow death-struggle with Sov Judges of the old Eastern Communist blocs. Eastern lawmen are militaristic, oppressive and totalitarian – and that’s by the US Judges’ standards – so just imagine what they’re actually like. Judges are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realised is the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

Such was not the case when the super-cop debuted in 2000AD Prog (that’s issue number to you) #2 on March 5th 1977. He was stuck at the back of the new weekly comic in a tale finally scripted – after much intensive re-hashing – by Peter Harris and illustrated by Mike McMahon & Carlos Ezquerra. The blazing, humourless, no-nonsense (there would be plenty of yes nonsense later) action extravaganza introduced a bike-riding Sentinel of Order in the cautionary tale of brutal bandit Whitey, whose savage crime spree was ended with ferocious efficiency before the thug was sentenced to Devil’s Island – a high-rise artificial plateau surrounded by the City’s constant stream of lethal, never-ending, high-speed traffic. Prog #3 saw Dredd investigate ‘The New You’ in a cunning thriller by Gosnell & McMahon wherein a crafty crook tries to escape justice by popping into his local face-changing shop, whilst #4 saw the first appearance of the outcast mutants in ‘The Brotherhood of Darkness’ (Malcolm Shaw & McMahon) as ghastly post-nuclear pariahs raid the megalopolis for slaves.

Early hints of humour began in Prog 5’s ‘Krong’ by Shaw & Ezquerra, introducing Dredd’s little-old-lady cleaner/landlady Maria, wherein deranged horror film fan/hologram salesman Kevin O’Neill – yes it’s an in-joke – unleashes a giant mechanical gorilla on the city. The issue was the first to cover-feature old Stone Face (that’s Dredd, not Kev)…

‘Frankenstein 2’ pits the Lawman against an audacious medical mastermind, hijacking citizens to keep his rich-but-aging clients in fresh, young organs, whilst #7 sees ruthless reprobate Ringo’s gang of muggers flaunting their criminality in the very shadow of ‘The Statue of Judgement’ until Dredd lowers the boom on them…

The first indications that the super-cop’s face was somehow hideously disfigured emerge in #8, as Charles Herring & Massimo Belardinelli’s ‘Antique Car Heist’ finds the Judge tracking down a murdering thief who stole an ancient petrol-burning vehicle, after which co-creator John Wagner returned in Prog 9 to begin a staggering run of tales with ‘Robots’, illustrated by veteran British science fiction artist Ron Turner. The gripping vignette was set at the Robot of the Year Show, exposing callous cruelty citizens inflicted upon their mechanical slaves as a by-product of a violent blackmail threat by a disabled maniac in a mechanical-super chair… This set the scene for an ambitious mini-saga in #10-17 as those casual injustices paved the way for ‘Robot Wars’ (alternately illustrated over the weeks by Ezquerra, Turner, McMahon & much missed arch wag Ian Gibson) wherein carpentry-robot Call-Me-Kenneth succumbs to a mecha mind meltdown to emerge as a human-hating steel Spartacus, spearheading a bloody revolution against fleshy oppressors.

The slaughter is widespread and terrible before the Judges regain control, helped in no small part by loyal, lisping Vending droid Walter the Wobot, who graduated at the conclusion to Dredd’s second live-in comedy foil…

With order restored, self-contained stories firmed up the vision of the crazed city. In Prog 18 Wagner & McMahon introduced the menace of mind-bending ‘Brainblooms’ cultivated by another little old lady/career criminal, and Gerry Finley-Day & John Cooper described the galvanising effect of a ‘Muggers Moon’ on Mega-City 1’s criminal class before Dredd demonstrated the inadvisability of being an uncooperative witness…

Wagner & McMahon then debuted Dredd’s bizarre paid informant Max Normal in #20, whose latest tip ended the profitable career of ‘The Comic Pusher’; Finley-Day & Turner turned in a workmanlike thriller as the laconic lawmaker tackles a seasoned killer with a deadly new weapon in ‘The Solar Sniper’ and Wagner & Gibson showed the draconian steps Dredd was prepared to take to bring in mutant assassin ‘Mr Buzzz’.

Prog 23 comfortably catapulted the series into all-out ironic satire mode with Finley-Day & McMahon’s ‘Smoker’s Crime’ when Dredd stalks a killer with a nicotine habit to a noxious City Smokatorium, after which Malcolm Shaw, McMahon & Ezquerra reveal the uncanny secret of ‘The Wreath Murders’ in #24. The next issue began the long tradition of spoofing TV and media fashions with Wagner & Gibson concocting lethal illegal game show ‘You Bet Your Life’ whilst #26 exposes the sordid illusory joys and dangers of the ‘Dream Palace’ (McMahon) before #27-28 offer some crucial background on the Judges themselves when Dredd visits ‘The Academy of Law’ (Wagner & Gibson) to give Cadet Judge Giant his final practical exam. Of course, for Dredd there are no half measures or easy going and the novice barely survives graduation…

With the concluding part in #28, Dredd moved to second spot in 2000AD (behind brutally jingoistic thriller Invasion) and the next issue saw Pat Mills & Gibson confront robot racism as Ku Kux Klan-analogue ‘The Neon Knights’ brutalised the reformed and broken artificial citizenry until the Juggernaut Judge krushes them.

Mills then offered tantalising hints on Dredd’s origins in ‘The Return of Rico!’ (McMahon) as a bitter criminal resurfaces after twenty years on the penal colony of Titan. The outcast wants vengeance on the Judge who had sentenced him, but from his earliest days as a fresh-faced rookie, Joe Dredd had no time for corrupt lawmen – even if one were his own clone-brother…

Whitey escapes from ‘Devil’s Island’ (Finley-Day & Gibson) in Prog 31, thanks to a cobbled-together contraption that turns off weather control, but doesn’t get far before Dredd sends him back, whilst fully automated skyscraper resort ‘Komputel’ (Robert Flynn & McMahon) becomes a multi-story murder factory that only Mega-City’s greatest Judge can counter before Wagner (as John Howard) took sole control for a series of savage, whacky escapades beginning with #33’s ‘Walter’s Secret Job’ (art by Gibson). Here the besotted droid is discovered moonlighting as a cabbie to buy “pwesents” for his beloved master…

McMahon & Gibson illustrated 2-parter ‘Mutie the Pig’: a flamboyant criminal and bent Judge, and perform the same tag-team effort on ‘The Troggies’, a debased colony of ancient humans living under the city and preying on the unwary…

Something of a bogie man for wayward kids and exhausted parents, Dredd does himself no favours in Prog 38 bursting in on ‘Billy Jones’ (Gibson) and exposing a vast espionage plot utilising toys as surveillance tools. On tackling ‘The Ape Gang’ in #39 (19th November 1977 by McMahon), the Judge graduated to lead spot whilst quashing a turf war between augmented, educated, criminal anthropoids in the unruly district dubbed “the Jungle”…

‘The Mega-City 5000’ was an illegal, murderously bloody street race the Judges were determined to shut down, but the gripping action-illustration of the Bill Ward drawn first chapter is sadly overshadowed by hyper-realist rising star Brian Bolland, who began his legendary association with Dredd by concluding the mini-epic in blistering, captivating style in Prog 41. Bolland, by his own admission, was an uncommercially slow artist and much of his later Dredd work would appear as weekly portions of large epics with others handling intervening episodes, giving him time to complete his own assignments with a minimum of pressure.

From out of nowhere in a bold change of pace, Dredd is seconded to the Moon for a 6-month tour of duty beginning in #42. His brief is to oversee the nigh-lawless colony set up by the unified efforts of three US Mega-Cities there. The outpost was as bonkers as Mega-City One and a good deal less civilised – a true Final Frontier town…

The extended epic began with Wagner & Gibson’s ‘Luna-1’, with Dredd and stowaway Walter almost shot down en route in a mysterious missile attack before being targeted by a suicide-bomb robot before they can even unpack. ‘Showdown on Luna-1’ introduces permanent Deputy-Marshal Judge Tex from Texas-City, whose jaded, laissez-faire attitudes get a sound shaking up when Dredd demonstrates he’s one lawman who won’t coast for the duration of his term in office. Hitting dusty mean streets, Dredd starts cleaning up the wild boys by outdrawing a mechanical Robo-Slinger and uncovering another assassination ploy. It seems reclusive mega-billionaire ‘Mr. Moonie’ has a problem with the latest law on his lunar turf…

Whilst dispensing aggravating administrative edicts like a frustrated Solomon, Dredd chafes to hit the streets and do real work in #44’s McMahon-limned ‘Red Christmas’. Opportunity arises when arrogant axe-murderer ‘Geek Gorgon’ abducts Walter and demands a showdown he barely lives to regret, whilst ’22nd Century Futsie!’ (Gibson) finds Moonie Fabrications clerk Arthur Goodworthy cracking under the strain of overwork: going on a destructive binge, with Dredd compelled to protect a future-shocked father’s family from Moonie’s overzealous security goons. The arc concludes in Prog 46 with ‘Meet Mr. Moonie’ (Gibson) as Dredd & Walter confront the manipulative manufacturer and uncover his horrific secret.

The feature moved to the prestigious middle spot with this episode, allowing artists to really open up and exploit full-colour centre-spreads, none more so than Bolland as seen in #47’s ‘Land Race’ as Dredd officiates over a frantic scramble by colonists to secure newly opened plots of habitable territory. Of course, there’s always someone who doesn’t want to share…

Ian Gibson illustrated 2-part drama ‘The Oxygen Desert’ (#48-49), wherein veteran moon-rat Wild Butch Carmody defeats Dredd using superior knowledge of the airless wastes beyond the airtight domes. Broken, the Judge quits and slides into despondency, but all is not as it seems…

Prog 50 debuted single-page comedy supplement Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd – but more of that later – whilst the long-suffering Justice found himself knee-boot deep in an international interplanetary crisis when ‘The First Lunar Olympics’ (Bolland) against a rival lunar colony controlled by the Machiavellian Judges of the Sov-Cities bloc escalates into assassination and a murderous, politically-fuelled land grab. The conflict was settled in ostensibly civilised manner with strictly controlled ‘War Games’, yet there’s still a grievously high body-count by the time the moon-dust settles. This vicious swipe at contemporary sport’s politicisation was and still is bloody, brutal and bitingly funny…

Bolland illustrated a sardonic saga of ruthless bandits up for a lethal laugh in #52’s ‘The Face-Change Crimes’, employing morphing tech to change their appearances and rob at will until Dredd beats them at their own game. Wagner & Gibson crafted a 4-part epic (Progs 53-56) wherein motor fanatic Dave Paton’s cybernetic, child-like pride-&-joy blows a fuse and terrorises the domed territory: slaughtering humans and infiltrating Dredd’s own quarters before the Judge finally stops ‘Elvis, The Killer Car’.

Bolland stunningly limned a savagely mordant saga of killer bandits who hijack the moon’s air before themselves falling foul of ‘The Oxygen Board’ in #57, but only managed the first two pages of 58’s ‘Full Earth Crimes’, leaving McMahon to complete the tale of regularly occurring chaos in the streets whenever the Big Blue Marble dominates the black sky above.

It was a fine and frantic note to end on as, with ‘Return to Mega-City’, Dredd rotates back Earthside and resumes business as unusual. Readers were probably baffled as to why the returned cop utterly ignored countless crime and misdemeanours, but Wagner & McMahon provide a logical answer in a brilliant, action-packed set-up for madcap dramas to come

This first Case Files chronicle nominally concludes with Wagner & McMahon’s ‘Firebug’ from Prog 60, as the ultimate lawgiver deals with a seemingly-crazed arsonist literally setting the city ablaze. The Law soon discovers a purely venal motive to the apparent madness…

There’s still a wealth of superb bonus material to enjoy before we end, however, and kicking off proceedings is the controversial First Dredd strip (illustrated by Ezquerra) which was bounced from 2000AD #1 and vigorously reworked – a fascinating glimpse of what the series might have been. It’s followed by the eawliest Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd stwips (sowwy – can’t wesist!) from 2000AD Progs 50-58. Scripted by Joe Collins, these madcap comedy shorts were seen as antidote to the savage, brutal action strips and served to set the scene for Dredd’s later full-on satirical lampoonery. Illustrated by Gibson, ‘Tap Dancer’ dealt with an embarrassing plumbing emergency whilst ‘Shoot Pool!’ has the Wobot again taking his Judge’s instructions far too literally…

Bolland came aboard giving full rein to his own sense of the absurd with 5-parter ‘Walter’s Brother’: a bizarre tale of evil twins, cunning frame-ups and malign muggings inevitably resulting in us learning all we needed to know about the insipidly faithful, annoying rust-bucket. Dredd then had to rescue the plastic poltroon from becoming a pirate of the airwaves in ‘Radio Walter’ before the star-struck servant finds his 15 seconds of fame as winner of rigged quiz-show ‘Masterbrain’ and this big, big book concludes with a trio of Dredd covers from Progs 10, 44 and 59, courtesy of artists Ezquerra, Kev O’Neill and McMahon.

Mesmerising and beautifully limned, these punchy stories of Britain’s most successful and iconic comics character are the narrative bedrock from which all the later successes of the Mirthless Moral Myrmidon derive. More importantly, they are timeless classics no comic fan can ignore – and just for a change something that you can easily get your hungry hands on. Even my local library has copies of this masterpiece of British literature and popular culture…
© 1977, 1978, 2006 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved. Judge Dredd & 2000AD are ® & ™ Rebellion.

Posted on

Bunny Vs Monkey volume 9: Bunny Bonanza


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-306-6 (Digest HB)

Bunny vs Monkey has been the bonkers hairy backbone of The Phoenix since the first issue back in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands. Concocted with gleefully gentle mania by cartoonist, comics artist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember), these trendsetting, mind-bending yarns have been wisely retooled as graphic albums available in remastered, double-length digest editions such as this one. All the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little beast plopped down in after a disastrous British space shot.

Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite all efforts from reasonable, sensible, genteel, contemplative forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine could not contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape, who to this day remains a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating, troublemaking lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” with or without the aid of evil supergenius ally Skunky or their “henches” Metal Steve and Action Beaver…

Problems are exacerbated by other unconventional Crinkle creatures, particularly monochrome mad scientist Skunky whose intellect and cavalier attitude to life presents as a propensity for building extremely dangerous robots, bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons…

Here – with artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances resumes even though everybody thought all the battles had ended. They even seemingly forgot the ever-encroaching Hyoomanz…

Divided into seasonal outbursts, this ninth magnificent hardback archive of insanity opens in the traditional manner: starting slowly with a sudden realisation, by building on the shocking denouement of the last book when the lop-eared good guy cried enough and quit. The cosmically surreal shenanigans resume on New Year’s Day with the woods gripped in snowy winter and still utterly ‘Bunnyless’ after the steadfast voice of reason surprisingly ascended to higher realms to get a little peace and quiet…

As the shellshocked populace (Ai, Pig Piggerton, Weenie Squirrel, Metal E.V.E., Le Fox and Lucky the Red Panda) meander and moan, seeking someone to fill that vacant place, even the anthropoid antithesis feels the loss and builds a replacement but it’s simply ‘Not Bunny’ and ends up scrapped like so many dastardly ploys, compelling morally ambiguous outsider Le Fox to seek change for its own cathartic sake. As he makes his companions ‘Switch Up’ it results in a huge explosion that unearths and awakens their long-lost companion… or does it?

Although apparently back from the Puddle of Eternity thanks to a fluke of the Molecular Stream, “Bunny” has complete amnesia – and utter incredulity regarding Monkey’s antics – especially after he unleashes scatological atrocity weapon ‘Stickleplops’ and learns with some shock that this rabbit also has no tolerance for nonsense…

Spring arrives, heralding another harsh lesson after the simian starts lobbing ‘Eggy Drops!’ and Bunny again acts contrary to expectations, before Monkey’s reality-bending ‘Flying Fun’ starts grinding down the forgetful rabbit’s resilience and ongoing attempts to restore lost memories result in a true theatrical travesty in ‘The Show Must Go On’…

To facilitate another DNA experiment, Skunky and Monkey raid the Human farm Pig came from and force the tender-hearted refugee to guide them on their ‘Mouldy Mission’ after which an untitled (unless you read music) and silent – but deadly – tale of Skunky’s wind-borne ultimate weapon leads to ‘A Moment of Calm’ for Le Fox shattered by incessant stupid questions like “where are my socks?” and “have you seen that black hole I made and lost?”

Events take an even stranger turn and Bunny starts being weirdly changeable when Weenie and Pig discover something strange in ‘The Cave’ just as Skunky & Monkey deal with the ghastly contents of the ‘Bin of Doom!’ prior to indulging in pranks and ‘Birthday Wishes!’ for Bunny…

A revolting mess goes on ‘A Blobby Journey’ and attains transcendent loveliness just before ‘The Day the Sky Fell In! (Part one and two)’ sees imminent lunar catastrophe barely averted by the advent of “Danger Sausage” even as Bunny experiences virtual (un)reality in ‘Plugged In’: but still can’t stop Summer starting with ‘The Fastest Monkey in the World’ when the ape idiot gets hold of a super-speed suit…

It’s time for some tragic origin-ing courtesy of ‘Action Beaver: The Early Years’ after which Pig gets a unique pet in ‘Old!’ whilst a diversion to times past sets the scene for future frolics as a couple of pirates bury their ‘Hidden Loot’ blithely unaware how their actions will annoy a monkey centuries from then…

Ungracious and solitary, Le Fox dabbles with Skunky’s devices to create a beast able to enforce some ‘Shush!’ just as the evil genius is busy probing the captive Red Panda and discovering exactly what ‘A Little Bit Unlucky’ feels like at ground zero. Maybe that’s what causes the period of intellectual funk and lack of creativity that necessitates holding an ‘Invent-a-thon’ to restore appropriate levels of chaos and carnage to Crinkle Woods…

With Bunny seemingly resolved to endure Monkey’s incessant antics, ‘Nice Neighbours’ displays the ingrained idiocy of Weenie and Pig as seen in a windblown Fantastic Voyage tribute before ‘Butterflew’ sets teeth on edge and‘The Shubmarine’ that swims through soil meets its inevitable fate…

Events take a strange turn as Autumn begins and ‘Dig Up!’ reveals an incredible subterranean civilisation and fantastic big beasts before ‘Muckey’ sees the simian sod achieve a lifelong dream to become “the stinkiest monkey in the universe” – a situation only remedied by an ancient process hidden in Metal E.V.E’s memory banks…

The mystery of our hero’s amnesia is slowly solved when cyborg ‘Bunny Law’ targets Monkey, but with Skunky distracted by a cosmic calculation and unable to ‘Work it Out’ the brutal invasion by a really ‘Big Bunny’ proves to the creeped-out Crinkle critters that there is more than one of their friend around…

At last galvanised into affirmative action, Monkey resolves to build his Monkeyopia before it’s too late and begins his campaign in ‘Sqeak-ooooo’ unaware that his latest superweapon has a fatal flaw. Undeterred, he’s back with cybernetic ‘Fists of Fun’ able to decimate the woods at will just as ‘Happy Birthday Bunny (Part one & two)’ at last reveal what really happened to Monkey’s nemesis and how a terrifying ‘Shadow Bunny’ has come to take care of his unfinished business…

Winter returns with Christmas on the way and ‘Super-powered Monkey!’ in charge of everything, crushing opposition with his “Doom Fists” under ‘A New Regime’. Happily, ‘A Very Hoppy Christmas!’ signals a true miracle as the proper Bunny returns with all those other rabbit replacements in tow…

The agonised, anxiety-addled animal anarchy might have ended for now, but there’s a few more secrets to share, thanks to detailed instructions on ‘How to Draw Shadow Bunny’, ‘…Rock Bunny’ and ‘…Bunny Law’ as well as handy previews of other treats and wonders available in The Phoenix to wind down from all that angsty furore…

The zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird wit, brilliant invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. Is that you?

Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Doctor Who Graphic Novel #21: The Eye of Torment


By Scott Gray, Mike Collins, Jacqueline Rayner, Martin Geraghty, David A. Roach & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-673-1 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Timely Seasonal Treat… 8/10

Today is the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Here’s another Timey-Wimey treat to celebrate a unique TV and comics institution in a periodical manner …

We Brits love comic strips, adore “characters” and are addicted to celebrity. The history of our comics includes an astounding number of comedians, Variety stars and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Charlie Drake and so many more I’ve long forgotten and you’ve likely never heard of.

As much adored and adapted were actual shows like Ace of Wands, Timeslip, Supercar, The Clangers and countless more. If we watched or listened, an enterprising publisher made printed spectacles of them. Hugely popular anthology comics like Radio/Film Fun/TV Fun, Look-In, TV Comic, TV Tornado, and Countdown would translate light entertainment favourites into pictorial joy. It was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed strip property…

Doctor Who debuted on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with episode 1 of ‘An Unearthly Child’. Months later in 1964, TV Comic began a decades-long association, as issue #674 began ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – by an unknown author with the art attributed to illustrator Neville Main.

On 11th October 1979, Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. Turning monthly in September 1980 (#44) it’s been with us – via various iterations – ever since: proving the Time Lord is a comic star of impressive pedigree, not to be trifled with.

Panini’s UK division ensured his comics immortality by collecting all strips of every Time Lord Regeneration in a series of graphic albums – although we’re still waiting for digital versions. Each time tome focused on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer, with this one gathering almost a year’s worth of stories plucked from the annals of history and the Terran cover dates August 2014 to August 2015. These yarns all feature The Twelfth Doctor as played by Peter Capaldi in a collection of full-colour episodes all given hues from James Offredi and letters by Roger Langridge.

It all kicks off with eponymous shocker ‘The Eye of Torment’ (Doctor Who Magazine #477-480, October-December 2014). Written by Scott Gray and drawn by Martin Geraghty – with inks from infallibly rewarding David A. Roach – it finds a newly-minted incarnation of the Time Lord and capable companion Clara Oswald fetch up inside a spaceship traversing the surface of the sun.

With inescapable flavours of Armando Iannucci’s 2020 comedy sci fi vehicleAvenue 5, the good ship Pollyanna is manned solely by women working for gigajazillionaire Rudy Zoom: a rich, over-achieving narcissist in love with his own legend. Surprisingly, he’s not the actual problem: that would a semi-sentient predatory alien infection imprisoned eons ago by Sol’s gravity. “The Umbra” mimic humanoid form: magnifying and feeding on despair. Once the horror broaches Pollyanna’s invulnerable hull, it/they start picking off the crew until the newcomers find a way to stop it/them and escape…

The epic yarn leads directly into the ‘The Instruments of War’ (DWM #481-483, January-March 2015) wherein writer/artist Mike Collins, ably assisted by Roach) deposit the time travellers in Earth’s Sahara just as German General Erwin Rommel is preparing to finish the Afrika campaign. Sadly, that’s when an agent of the Rutan Horde finally disinters a world-reshaping weapon long lost by their eternal arch-enemies The Sontarans…

Forced to ally with a few of the Sontaran clone-warriors, assorted Germans of various philosophies, righteously rebellious Tuaregs and the living enigma of an honourable warrior fighting for the wrong side, The Doctor and Clara are initially separated but soldier on to save everyone with a degree of success…

Skipping #484, we next arrive as south as we can get for some ‘Blood and Ice’ served up by Jacqueline Rayner, Geraghty & Roach, with actual schoolmarm Clara and the tall, rude one claiming to be Ofsted inspectors giving a college at the bottom of the world a cautious once-over. It’s 2048, the Antarctic Treaty protecting the polar continent from resource exploitation is about to expire and something strange is happening at Snowcap University: something Dr. Patricia Audley is very unhappy to acknowledge and a situation she is working very hard to remedy. However, even with fatal accidents, mutants appearing and students vanishing, both our heroes are a bit off their game. Fans will recall that on TV, Clara had been splintered into a million alternate versions scattered throughout the timestream and finding one of herself at Snowcap has truly unsettled her. The Doctor also has qualms: last time he was here it was a military base filled with cybermen and resulted in the death of his first generation (First Doctor William Hartnell, keep up, keep up!) and first re-generation…

The disorientation doesn’t stop them solving the riddle of the place, but not before a lot of people are dead or worse…

The dramas conclude in fine style and traditional form as a holding pattern allowing the TV Doctor’s debut to catch up with his print incarnation allows DWM #475-476 to deliver a Gallifreyan-adjacent sidebar saga from Gray, Collins, Roach, Offredi & Langridge. Set during London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 ‘The Crystal Throne’ is an untold adventure of “The Paternoster Gang” (Silurian Madame Vastra, her human wife Jenny Flint and their butler Sontaran Strax) who – with assorted associates – oppose weird terror, scurrilous sedition and deranged genetic meddler Lady Cornelia Basildon-Stone for rule of the British Empire. The battle at “The Crystal Palace” is made harder by their ruthless foe, who remakes men into insectoid monsters; employing stolen Silurian technology…

Supplemented with fascinating insights from all the creatives involved in each tale and augmented by tons of sketches and other pre-publishing artwork in the Commentary section, this is a splendid book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another go…
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv 2015. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. All other material © 2017 its individual creators and owners. Published 2015 by Panini. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Moomin volume 8 – The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-121-5 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-555-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Magical Mirthful Manners Unbridled… 10/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen and ink, manipulating economical lines and patterns into sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols. So was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Patriarch Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author and cartoonist, and an art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their strange friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, big-eyed, gently adventurous romantic goof began as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a bit clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators believe the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or sometimes The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially resumes here…

Liberated from cartooning pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many modern artists get their faces on the national currency?

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan 12 years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite.

In 1956, he began co-scripting the Moomin strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. In 1959, her contract with The London Evening News expired and Lars officially took over, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s art style. He had done so in secret, assisted and tutored by their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. From 1961 to strip’s end in 1974, Lars was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

Lasse was also a man of many parts. Other careers included aerial photographer, professional gold miner, writer and translator. He was basis and model for the cool kid Snufkin…

Lars’ Moomins was subtly sharper than his sister’s version and he was far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour, but his whimsy and wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, he began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed theme park Moomin World) as producers of anime series The Moomins and – in 1993 with daughter Sophia Jansson – on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: modern bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores but under Lars, increasingly diverted and distracted by societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable if perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst devoted spouse Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

Their son Moomin is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions. He adores and moons over permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially better…

A particularly wry affair, this 8th monochrome compilation revisits serial strip sagas #30-33, opening with Lars fully in charge and revealing how a near-fatally bored young Moomintroll drags the entire clan and clingers-on across the oceans to become ‘Moomin Family Robinson’. Wracked by sameness and tedium whilst simultaneously beguiled by charismatic, enigmatic Snufkin, he convinces the Snorkmaiden to run away to sea with him…

Before long the cruise liner stowaways are caught and cast adrift. Their problems only grow once they reach land and wash ashore on a private beach. Naturally, when mama and papa take ship after them everything instantly gets even worse. If only they didn’t keep looking for Man Friday. But wasn’t that an entirely different book?

Ultimately restored to their proper place, more unsavoury antics by unscrupulous barbarian Stinky lead to the assembled Moomins accidentally winning a prestigious photographic competition and becoming ‘Artists in Moominvalley’.

Along with the prize comes a literal horde of creative glitterati of varying degrees of talent and renown, all seeking the incredible sight the amateurs captured on film. All too soon, the fancy-schmancy, self-congratulatory in-crowd are pompously transforming the quiet valley into an appalling floating “art colony” that only Moominpapa’s urgent need to join has any hope of destroying…

Conman, venal chancer and annoying persistent associate Sniff again involves – or more accurately “implicates” – the whole family by helping himself to their beach front to build a ramshackle resort packed full of annoyingly needy paying holidaymakers before absconding. Leaving the inexplicably guilt-struck Moomins to manage ‘Sniff’s Holiday Camp’ generates chaos and the tried-&-true British middle class sitcom manner but thankfully – and also just like the UK – Moominvalley suffers from “weather”…

Crime, punishment and even more embarrassment accompanies ‘The Inspector’s Nephew’ after a drunken young wastrel becomes enamoured of rural crime busting and replaces idleness with over-imagination and zealousness. On the trail of skulduggery and early promotion, the likely lad soon targets the genteel Moomin family as kingpins in an empire of extortion, dope dealing (!), rum smuggling and more. Thankfully, his harassed uncle will do anything to restore calm to the valley…

This compilation closes with a closer look at the creator in ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ courtesy of family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes…

These are truly magical tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – are an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2013 Solo/Bulls. “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011/2013 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Doctor Who Graphic Novel 24: Emperor of the Daleks


By Dan Abnett, Paul Cornell, Warwick Gray, Richard Alan, John Ridgway, Lee Sullivan, Colin Andrew & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-807-0 (TPB)

Somewhere in time, it’s always that moment just before the TV got turned on and the Time Lord was born. This year is the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Here’s another Timey-Wimey treat to celebrate a unique TV and comics institution in a periodical manner …

We Brits love comic strips, adore “characters” and are addicted to celebrity. The history of our comics includes an astounding number of comedians, Variety stars and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Charlie Drake and so many more I’ve long forgotten and you’ve likely never heard of.

As much adored and adapted were actual shows like Ace of Wands, Timeslip, Supercar, The Clangers and countless more. If we watched or listened, an enterprising publisher made printed spectacles of them. Hugely popular anthology comics like Radio/Film Fun/TV Fun, Look-In, TV Comic, TV Tornado, and Countdown regularly translated light entertainment favourites into pictorial joy. It was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed strip property…

Doctor Who debuted on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with episode 1 of ‘An Unearthly Child’. Months later in 1964, TV Comic began its decades-long association, as issue #674 began ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – by an unknown author with the art attributed to illustrator Neville Main.

On 11th October 1979, Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. Turning monthly in September 1980 (#44) it’s been with us – via various iterations – ever since: proving the Time Lord is a comic star of impressive pedigree, not to be trifled with.

Panini’s UK division ensured his comics immortality by collecting all strips of every Time Lord Regeneration in a series of graphic albums – although we’re still waiting for digital versions. Each time tome focused on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer, with this one gathering stories plucked from the annals of history and the Terran recording dates November 1992 and July 1995. These yarns all feature Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy in a collection offering both monochrome and full-colour episodes. It all kicks off with sinister espionage thriller ‘Pureblood’ (from Doctor Who Magazine #193-196: November 1992 to January 1993) by writer Dan Abnett & artist Colin Andrew. Here the devious Time Lord and his formidable companion Benny save the last survivors of the Sontaran race from extinction at the hands of their immortal enemies the Rutan – despite hostage humans and a spy in the embattled clone-warriors’ midst. Why save a deadly enemy? Ah well, The Doctor has a rather convoluted plan…

The epic yarn leads directly into the ‘Flashback’ (Doctor Who Winter Special 1992, by Warwick Gray & John Ridgway) as we glimpse First Doctor (William Hartnell, keep up, keep up!) having a potentially universe- shattering falling out with his best friend: a proudly arrogant young Gallifreyan called Magnus (any guesses who he regenerates into?)

The main meat of this massive collection is eponymous epic ‘Emperor of the Daleks’ (DWM #197-202) reuniting the time meddler with his deadliest foe and their deadliest foe: Abslom Daak, a deranged maniac in love with a dead woman and determined to die gloriously exterminating Daleks…

Written by Paul Cornell and John Freeman with art from Lee Sullivan (and a chapter in full-colour courtesy of Marina Graham), the sprawling saga shows civil war between the murderous pepperpots’ creator Davros and their current supreme commander, with the Doctor (two of them, in fact) and a motley crew of allies stirring the bubbling mix and nudging the feuding megalomaniacs in a certain direction…

When the dust settles, Richard Alan & Sullivan provide a salutary epilogue in ‘Up Above the Gods’ (DWM#227, July 1995) as The Doctor explains his actions to Davros – or so, at least, the deluded devil believes…

Warwick Gray & Colin Andrew introduce a universe where The Doctor perished in his Third Regeneration: leading to a cross dimensional incursion by ours – plus Benny and Ace – to foil the ‘Final Genesis’ of Silurian/Sea Devil renegade Mortakk (from DWM #203-206) before full-colour fun returns in ‘Time & Time Again’ (#207, Cornell, Ridgway and hues-smith Paul Vyse) with all seven incarnations of the Gallivanting Gallifreyan in action to retrieve the Key to Time and stop the Black Guardian recreating the universe in his own vile image…

Abnett & Ridgeway return to the black & white days of 1840s Kent for ‘Cuckoo’ (#208-210) as Ace and Benny understandably revolt when The Doctor seeks to steal the limelight from the first woman palaeontologist Mary Anne Wesley. His motives are quite pure: what the young scientist has found is not a missing link in human evolution but something alien that its descendants are prepared to kill for…

The dramas conclude in fine style as Gray & Ridgway expose the ferocious spleen of the Doctor in full indignant mode when he is an ‘Uninvited Guest’ (DWM #211) delivering judgement and punishment to a soiree of indolent and callous timeless beings who enjoyed making sport and playing games with “lesser” creatures. They soon painfully learn that such valuations are all a matter of perspective…

Supplemented with commentaries by the original creators, this is a splendid book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another go…
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv 2014. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. All other material © 2017 its individual creators and owners. Published 2017 by Panini. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Commando Presents #2: The Fear Files volume 1


By Du Feu & Francisco Cueto, Alan Hebden & Patrick Wright, Kek W. & Jaume Forns, Georgia Standen Battle &Vicente Alcazar, & various (Heritage Comics/DC Thomson & Co.)
No ISBN: Digital only publication

DC Thomson is probably the most influential comics publisher in British history. In the 1930s The Dandy and The Beano revolutionised children’s comedy comics, whilst newspaper strips Oor Wullie and The Broons (both created by writer/Editor R. D. Low and legendary artist Dudley D. Watkins) have become a genetic marker for Scottishness. The company uniquely portrayed the occasional toff, decent British blokes and working class heroes who grew from the prose-packed pages of Adventure, Rover, Wizard, Skipper, Hotspur and latterly “strip picture papers” like Victor and Warlord.

Their comics for girls also shaped generations and still evoke passionate memories. Don’t take my word for it either; just ask your mum or grandmother about Judy, Bunty, Diana, Mandy and the rest…

After decades of savvy consumer-led publication for youngsters, in 1961 the company launched a digest-sized comics title dubbed Commando. Broadly the dimensions of a paperback book, it boasted 68 pages per issue – at an average of two panels a page – for single, stand-alone adventure tales, as well as venerable British extras like themed-fact pages.

Not to belabour the point, but each issue told a complete combat story (usually of WWI or II – although all theatres of conflict have featured since), a true rarity for British comics which usually ran material in one or two-page instalments over many weeks. The sagas were tasteful yet gripping yarns of valour and heroism: stark monochrome dramas charged with grit and authenticity. Full-painted covers made them look more like novels than comics and they were a huge and instant success. They’re still being published today.

The company is always looking for ways to reach fresh audiences and has recently moved into digital publishing of old and new stories in a big way and this timely compilation of supernaturally themed battle tales is an ideal way to announce their Heritage Comics imprint (expect more reviews in coming months).

Under the umbrella designation Commando Presents (#2) this blockbuster tome collects a quartet of macabre military missions as The Fear Files volume 1, opening with a letter to the readers from “The Commando Team.” Each episode in this selection is accompanied by its original wraparound cover and prefaced with a background page on the contributors. What more do you need in terms of briefing?

The weird war tales begin with prolific and well-travelled Chaco’s cover for ‘Ghost with a Gun’, scripted by the pseudonymous Du Feu, and limned by veteran Spanish artist Francisco Cueto (Young Marvelman, Annie Oakley and countless strips for Fleetway, DCT and European publishers). The tale was first seen in Commando #104 (1964): a classic yarn of repentance and salvation as wounded corporal Ben Walker is visited by ghosts as he bleeds out on a Belgian battlefield in 1944. The former Hussar from 1815 and a private from the Great War need an intermediary to help right the wrongs they died committing; perhaps they can help Walker in return and finally win eternal rest?

Packed with action and beautifully rendered, this private war is everything you need from a spooky saga. It’s followed by an Ian Kennedy cover accompanying another winning tale from the wonderful Alan Hebden (2000 AD, Meltdown Man, Rat Pack, El Mestizo, Major Eazy). Illustrated by Patrick Wright (Eagle, Battle Picture weekly, 2000 AD, Modesty Blaise), ‘Night of Fear’ comes from #984 (1984), detailing how vampire-obsessed British flying officer John Knowles sees his dream come true in 1943 after his Mosquito is brought down by bats and he lands in German-controlled Transylvania. Encountering two very different examples of Romanian nobility in the castle of Count Rempavi (work it out chums!), Knowles and his co-pilot Howard Garforth must complete their mission and get back to Blighty even if it means uniting with the strangest of allies…

Tom Foster’s cover for ‘Operation Silver Bullets’ (Commando #5381, 2020) leads into a frantic special ops mission as detailed by Kek W – AKA Nigel Long (2000 AD, Monster Fun Halloween Spectacular, Judge Dredd Megazine) – & Jaume Forns Bargeno (Wendy, Three Musketeers, Ben-Hur). Surviving a wolf attack as a boy, Adam Hanley became an expert on the beasts and in WWII was seconded to a special unit of Army Intelligence. The civilian professor was expected to brief and equip a combat team to counter an horrific Nazi terror weapon: man-made werewolves!

Sadly, monsters were not the only threat and a traitor in the commando unit almost ended the blood-soaked mission before it began – until a shocking transformation tipped the scales in Hanley’s favour…

Closing the account for now, Mark Harris’ cover leads into the eerie exploits of one the notorious “nachthexen”: Soviet women/bomber pilots who terrorised the Germans invading Russia. Written by Georgia Standen Battle (Beano, The Dandy, The Broons, Oor Wullie, Commandos vs Zombies) & legendary artist Vicente Alcazar (dozens of strips for DC, Marvel, Archie, Red Circle, Warren, Charlton Comics, War Picture Library, Space: 1999, UK Star Trek), ‘Night Witch’ comes from #5519 (2022) and details the short lethal lives of Women Flyers and Navigators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Despised by their male colleagues and equipped with outdated biplanes and rudimentary armament, they harass and harry the enemy with astounding efficacy, but things change for former aviation teacher Irina Popova after a crucial encounter.

Already plagued by dreams of burning, when Irina loses her best friend Katya in a blast of anti-aircraft fire, it triggers a strange change in her. When her plane is attacked by a far superior German night-fighter, her hate and rage seem to cause the enemy to explode in a fireball. Her navigator Vera thinks it coincidence, but Irina fears it means she has become a true witch…

Moody and menacing, the story of how her gifts grow and what happens when she faces the enemy ace dubbed “the Witch Hunter” make this the most potent saga of the collection.

Bolstered by ‘The Fear Files Art Galley’ of 11 additional horror-themed Commando covers by Joaquin Chacopino Fabre, Kennedy, Foster, Harris, Neil Roberts and Graham Manley, this is a tremendous catalogue of magical military exploits: one you’d be wise to and well rewarded for tracking down.
© DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2022.

Posted on

Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge


By Donne Avenelle, Carlos Cruz & José Ortiz (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-687-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Terror for Kids of Every Land and Vintage… 8/10

It’s time for another sortie down memory lane for us rapidly diminishing oldsters and hopefully a fresh, untrodden path for new fans of the fantastic seeking a typically quirky British comics experience.

This sinister selection delivers another stunning nostalgia-punch from Rebellion’s superb and ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, collecting seminal shocker and film-fuelled fright fest Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge.

The strip debuted in Lion and Thunder running from October 16th 1971 to October 21st 1972, with this book of the dead also including two epic appearances from the Lion Annuals for 1973 and 1974. The series is a typical example of the manner in which weekly periodicals functioned back then: a solid support trip offering a change of pace from straight action or fantastic adventure as supplemented by comedy pages.

Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge was crafted by British legend Donne Avenell, who began his career before WWII at in the editorial department of Amalgamated Press (which evolved into Fleetway/IPC on household name Radio Fun. Born in Croydon in 1925, Avenell served in the Royal Navy during the war before returning to publishing: editing an AP architectural magazine whilst pursuing writing for radio dramas and romances under a slew of pseudonyms.

He returned to comics in the 1950s, with many contributions to childhood icons like War Picture Library and Lion, directing the sagas of The Spider, The Phantom Viking, Oddball Oates, Adam Eterno and more. He co-wrote major international features like Buffalo Bill, Helgonet (The Saint) and The Phantom for Swedish publisher Semic, created the strip Django and Angel and toiled on assorted Disney strips.

In 1975, with Norman Worker, he co-wrote Nigeria’s Powerman comic which helped launch the careers of Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons. Avenell was equally at home on newspaper strips such as Axa (1978-1986, drawn by Enrique Romero), Tiffany Jones and Eartha (illustrated by John M. Burns), and worked in television, writing shows like The Saint and their subsequent novelisations. He died in 1996.

Series illustrator Carlos Cruz González was born in 1930 in Andalusia. His large family moved to Malaga when the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, and again to Buenos Aires in 1949. By that time, Carlos was already a professional artist for local newspapers. In South America, whilst working in a flour mill, he moonlighted as a designer at publisher Abril.

In the 1950s he created covers for Idilio, Nocturno and Más Allá, and became fill-in artist on features like Hugo Pratt’s Sargento Kirk before graduating to his own strips like Colt Miller, Indio Suarez and Santos Palma (written by Hector German Oesterheld). Going international he contributed to German periodical Pip and worked on Egmont’s edition of The Phantom.

Moving back to Malaga in the 1960s, Cruz began a 20-year career with Britain’s Fleetway and DC Thomson, drawing war, action, horror, romance and girls’ fiction stories. Prolific and gifted, his strips appeared in many include Battling Boffins in Tiger, Sgt. Rock – Paratrooper (Tiger and Hurricane), Union Jack Jackson (Warlord), Crabbe’s Crusaders, Roamin’ James: Space Pilot! and Mighty McGinty in Buster, Moonie’s Magic Mate and The Pillater Peril in Smash, Eagle’s Blood Fang, Wendy, M.A.S.K. and jewel in the crown Dan Dare.

He also worked in the Spanish market on strips like Juanjo for Trinca, and crafted “Kelly” for Holland’s Tina, and in later years joined the art team on Sweden’s En Hombre Enmascarado. Carlos Cruz died in April 2018.

In the sixties and seventies the British liked their comics characters weird, wild, utterly amoral, flagrantly inept and invariably corrupt to the core. These days it’s a requirement we only demand from and venerate in politicians and public servants. One thing we have adored above all other things is a great, properly flamboyant villain. We always enjoyed a strange, extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “weird” or “creepy”) heroes.

So many stars and putative role models of our serials and strips have been outrageous or just plain “off”: self-righteous voyeurs-vigilantes like Jason Hyde, deranged vigilante geniuses like Eric Dolmann, self-absorbed outsiders like Robot Archie, arrogant, morally ambivalent former criminals like The Spider or outright racist supermen such as Captain Hurricane…

We also made much of (barely) reformed criminals like Charlie Peace and evil masterminds in the manner of The Dwarf, Black Max, Grimly Feendish, The Snake and today’s particular Menace to Society…

In the respectable English suburb of Blackford stands a strange house. Shaped like a pyramid it has giant cat statues as gates and ancient monuments dotted around the walled estate. Here dwells reclusive Egyptologist Dr. Mesmer and the world is faced with a terrifying crisis from the moment burglars rob his cellar temple of valuable – and arcanely powerful – ancient artefacts…

Outraged, Mesmer unleashes magical 5000-year-old mummy Pharaoh Angor, animated cat-idol Bulbul and sundry other supernatural relics to take back his property, punish the thieves, the dealer who fenced them and all those who bought the items. Only young police constable Tom Stone, and his initially disbelieving superior Inspector Moffat, are aware of what’s really going on…

Over weeks Mesmer’s retaliations and missions revealed incredible feats of horror, until he regained his collection, with the cops always overmatched but scoring some brief victories. As the strip evolved, Mesmer moved beyond righteous indignation, and – after an accidental time-swap – took all concerned back to meet the living pharaoh Angor and his noble enemies. The return to the present saw the doctor change tactics and try to conquer the modern world, with merely mortal gadfly nuisances Stone and Moffat his only opposition…

Once the series concluded, the doctor made a brace of encores in the Lion Annual for 1973 and 1974. The first tale saw how respected archaeologist Dr. Wrath was caught robbing tombs in the Valley of Kings and how his subsequent punishment led to uncovering the mummy of Angor, shattering vengeance inflicted upon his accusers and a little name change. The second yarn sees the power-hungry villain in Dorset, stealing an ancient sun-stone relic and awakening something even mighty mummy Angor cannot defeat…

Moodily chilling and evocatively compelling, Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge is a timeless treat for comics buffs and fear fans: one you’d be well advised to sample soon.
© 1971, 1972, 1973 & 2019 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

Posted on

The Hard Switch


By Owen D. Pomery (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-70-7 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Worlds Enough but Never the Time… 9/10

It’s a dog-eat-dog universe and commerce is the only weapon with real power. Everything knows that. However, in what appears to be a barely-fictionalised acknowledgment of the tone of our times, Owen D. Pomery (after wowing discriminating comics fans with books Victory Point & British Ice, or shorter pieces Between the Billboards, The Megatherium Club Vl. 1: The Great Ape) has again picked imagination as his instrument for low-key speculative pessimism and wrought one of the most sinister sagas in utterly ages.

After studying architecture, mastering printmaking and succeeding in commercial illustration venues as varied as Tribune, Monocle and The New Yorker, subtle visualizer Pomery turns his Ligne Claire-influenced eye (like Hergé jamming with Moebius) and seditious tendencies upon a declining tomorrow too much like the one we’re all enduring…

A glorious paean to traditional “hard sci fi”, The Hard Switch follows hard-working independent traders at the end of civilisation. Interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic travel/trade depend on a substance called Alcanite. The mineral facilitates all converse between worlds and it’s almost all gone. When there’s no more, the universe faces an abrupt and total reversion to complete isolation-by-distance and everyone gets stuck wherever they are when the lights go out and the other shoe drops…

In advance of imminent inescapable disaster, many seek to monopolise what resources remain, whilst others – like cargo freighter crew Ada, pilot Haika and octopoid engineer Mallic – graft even harder. They are exploring every wreck and rumour: stockpiling exotic artefacts or simple offworld nuts-&-bolts in anticipation of the worst panic buying spree in history…

On desolate desert world Dakhos, a chance encounter with other salvage-scavengers leads to a staggering theory when a truly ancient artefact hints at another method of star-travel predating – and utterly exclusive of – Alcanite. Humanoid Ada is descended from Mateaic nomads and the relic holds clues arguably confirming the legends that her kind roamed the stars before the over-exploited mineral was ever discovered…

Sadly, proving it won’t pay bills, so they continue hauling cargo while quietly looking for more data. Their search sparks clashes with organised crime, murderous “hunters”, and even people-smugglers, before their misplaced – and unaffordable – ethics lead to another mouth to feed after cargo-turned-sole-survivor Hodge joins the crew. The 12-year-old also has plenty of close calls before the crew fetch up the world of a super-rich scientist who might have the information they need to offer civilisation a second chance, if not actual salvation…

Naturally, he’s not at all what he seems, or what they need.

Tense and action-oriented, subtle and potently affable, this yarn is packed with tension and intrigue as our unlikely stars seek a whole new/old manner of interstellar transit and just staying alive for a sequel. Seductive and restrained in the Continental manner, The Hard Switch is a potent confection delivered in a beautiful, evocative and utterly compelling way no one could possibly resist. Therefore just don’t… possibly all the vacation you’ll need this year…
© Owen D. Pomery 2023.

The Hard Switch is scheduled for release on October 24th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

Posted on

Doctor who Graphic Novel #23: The Highgate Horror


By Mark Wright, Jonathan Morris, Steve Lyons, Roger Langridge, Jacqueline Rayner, Scott Gray, David A. Roach, Mike Collins, John Ross, Adrian Salmon, Martin Geraghty, Dave Gibbons, John Ridgway, Dan McDaid & various (Panini Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-749-3 (TPB)

Somewhere in time, it’s always that moment just before the TV got turned on and the Time Lord was born. This year is the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Here’s another Timey-Wimey treat to celebrate a unique TV and comics institution in a periodical manner …

The British love comic strips, adore “characters” and are addicted to celebrity. The history of our homegrown graphic narratives includes an astounding number of comedians, Variety stars and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Charlie Drake and so many more I’ve long forgotten and you’ve likely never heard of.

As much adored and adapted were actual shows and properties like Ace of Wands, Timeslip, Supercar, Pinky and Perky, The Clangers and countless more. If folk watched or listened, an enterprising publisher made printed spectacles of them. Hugely popular anthology comics like Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Comic, TV Tornado, and Countdown readily and regularly translated our light entertainment favourites into pictorial joy every week, and it was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed strip property…

Doctor Who debuted on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with the opening episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’. Mere months later, in 1964 a decades-long association with TV Comic began: issue #674 heralding the initial instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’ by an unknown author with the art attributed to illustrator Neville Main.

On 11th October 1979, Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. Turning monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) it’s been with us – via various iterations – ever since. All proving the Time Lord is a comic star of impressive pedigree, not to be trifled with.

Panini’s UK division ensured the immortality of the comics feature by collecting all strips of every Time Lord Regeneration in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums – although we’re still waiting for digital versions. Each time tome focused on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer, with this one gathering stories originally published in Doctor Who Magazine #484 and #489-500. Spanning March 2015 to July 2016; they star Peter Capaldi’s irascible old chrononaut the Twelfth Doctor and saucy sidekick/Impossible Girl Clara Oswald in action across the universe and every Elsewhen imaginable.

The adventures of the Grumpy Gallifreyan are – as always – described and delineated by a rapidly rotating roster of British creators who also provide a treasure-trove of background information in the Commentary section at the back. These comprise story-by-story history, background and insights from authors and illustrators, supplemented by scads of sketches, roughs, designs, production art and photos.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. Thankfully, all imagineers involved have completed the ultimate task of any artisan – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun work which can be enjoyed equally by the callowest of neophytes and most slavishly dedicated and opinionated fans imaginable.

That feast of fun – coloured throughout by James Offredi and lettered by multi-talented Roger Langridge – opens with Mark Wright, Mike Collins & David A. Roach’s ‘Space Invaders!’ as The Doctor and Clara fetch up at an orbiting storage facility just as the owners start their latest sell-off of unclaimed items. Typically, the time-travellers are not quite quick enough to stop avid bargain-hunters opening a container of just hatched planet-eating monster eggs…

Following smart social satire is a multi-part action romp. ‘Spirits of the Jungle’ – by Jonathan Morris & John Ross – finds our stars joining an extraction mission to recover lethal intelligent weapons-tech before apparently walking into trap on a planet where the forests have their own definition of World Wide Web…

Gothic horror and vintage thrills permeate Wright, Roach & Collins’ superb chiller ‘The Highgate Horror’ wherein Clara, her immortal straight man and neophyte Companion Jess Collins experience the 1970s London cemetery by hunting vampires and satanic covens and encounter a race of ancient predators who want far worse than mere blood…

As conceived and realised by Steve Lyons & Adrian Salmon, ‘The Dragon Lord’ was a radical activist attempting to save magnificent saurians from human fun-seekers killing them for sport on a medieval-themed fantasy resort world. However, by the time our turbulent troubleshooters turn up, things have turned decidedly lethal and it looks like nobody is getting out alive…

Roger Langridge then offers an all-him treat as Harry Houdini sends out a distress call and his old chum The Doctor dutifully answers. Sometimes even fakers and charlatans have power and really resent being de-bunked by upstart human escapologists playing in the ‘Theatre of the Mind’…

A new time-bending miscreant debuts in Jacqueline Rayner, Martin Geraghty & Roach’s epic tale of persecution and justice when temporal prankster Miss Chief infiltrates Clara’s workspace. After causing havoc at Coal Hill School, said trickster drops Miss Oswald in the vicious clutches of Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, leaving The Doctor to either participate in a time duel or somehow search the whole 17th century for his missing school ma’am in a ‘Witch Hunt’ with potentially fatal and final consequences…

Our temporal tintinnabulations conclude with a splendidly appropriate anniversary party get-together of old friends – and foes – that will delight lifelong devotees without bewildering or baffling newbies or casual readers.

Written by editor Scott Gray, ‘The Stockbridge Showdown’ returns the Time Lord to the alien-beleaguered British village just as cosmic corporate conqueror Josiah W. Dogbolter thinks he’s finally leveraged the keys to time itself.

As the universe nears a shocking “Going Out of Business” sale, the wily Gallifreyan and many allies from the past 500 issues unite to teach the richest man in creation the paucity of his resources and the lesson of his life in a tale crafted by artists past and current, including Dave Gibbons, Langridge, Salmon, Dan McDaid, Ross, Collins, John Ridgway, Geraghty and Roach.

Another marvellous chronicle for casual comics readers, this is also an unmissable shelf-addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our art-form to anyone minded to give comics a proper go.
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and used under licence. Licensed by BBC Worldwide. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Daleks © Terry Nation. All commentaries © 2016 their respective authors. Published 2013 by Panini UK Ltd. All rights reserved.