Category: Comics/Academic

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Sophie’s World – A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy: Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo


By Jostein Gaarder, adapted by Vincent Zabus & Nicoby, colours by Philippe Ory with Bruno Tatti; translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: ?978-1-91422-411-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

It has long been a truism of the creative arts that the most effective, efficient and economical method of instruction and informational training is the comic strip. If you simply consider the medium’s value as a historical recording and narrative system, the process encompasses cave paintings, hieroglyphs, pictograms, oriental prints, Stations of the Cross, the Bayeux Tapestry and so much more: and pretty succinctly covers the history of humanity…

For well over a century and a half, advertising mavens exploited the easy impact of words wedded to evocative pictures, whilst public information materials frequently used sequential narrative to get hard messages over quickly and simply. In a surprisingly short time, the internet and social media restored and enhanced the full universal might of image narratives to transcend language. Who doesn’t “speak” emoji?

Since World War II, carefully crafted strips have been used as training materials for every aspect of adult life from school careers advice to various disciplines of military service – utilising the talents of comics giants as varied as Milton Caniff, Will Eisner (who spent decades producing reams of comic manuals for the US army and other government departments), Kurt Schaffenberger and Neil Adams. The educational value and merit of comics is a given.

The magnificent Larry Gonick in particular uses the strip medium to stuff learning and entertainment in equal amounts into weary brains of jaded students with his webcomic Raw Materials and such seasoned tomes as The Cartoon History of the Universe, The Cartoon History of the United States and The Cartoon Guide to… series (Genetics, Sex, The Environment et al). That’s not even including his crusading satirical strip Commoners for Common Ground, and educational features Science Classics, Kokopelli & Company and pioneering cartoon work with the National Science Foundation…

For decades Japan has employed manga textbooks in schools and universities and has even released government reports and business prospectuses as comic books to get around the public’s apathy towards reading large dreary volumes of public information. So do we and everybody else. I’ve even produced the occasional multi-panel teaching-tract myself. The method has also been frequently used to sublimely and elegantly tackle the greatest and most all-consuming preoccupation and creation of the mind of Man…

Like organised religion, the conceptual discipline dubbed Philosophy has had a tough time relating to modern folk and – just like innumerable vicars in pulpits everywhere – its proponents and followers have sought fresh ways to make eternal questions and subjective verities understandable and palatable to us hoi-polloi and average simpletons.

In 1991 Norwegian teacher Jostein Gaarder found one that became a global sensation. Oslo-born in 1952, he taught Philosophy and the History of Ideas in Bergen until he retired to write a modern prose masterpiece of allegory and symbolism in the guise of a fantastic mystery and quest saga.

In an assortment of languages, Sofies verden became an award-winning bestseller in Europe, before being translated into English in 1994 and – as Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy – metamorphosed into the top-selling book on Earth a year later.

Translated into 59 languages with sales far in excess of forty million copies, it enjoys regular anniversary rereleases, and has been adapted to the large and small screen in many countries, as well as PC and board games, and all the usual merchandising instances of a global sensation…

In 2022, playwright/comics scribe Vincent Zabus (Le Journal de Spirou, Les Ombres, Incroyable!) and prolific, wide-ranging Bande Dessinée illustrator Nicolas Bidet AKA “Nicoby” and “Korkydü” (Ouessantines, Le Manuel de la Jungle, Belle-Île en père, Sang de Sein, Tête de gondola, Poète à Djibouti, C’est la guerre – journal d’une famille confine) joined forces to translate the philosophical phenomenon into words and pictures: deftly embracing the magically realist underpinnings of the tale by fully exploring and exploiting the self-imposed fourth wall (and floors and ceilings) of the “ninth art”…

Big, bold and embracing wonderment head-on, Sophie’s World – A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy: Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo seductively adapts the first half of Gaarder’s masterpiece as 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen and her best friend Colleen anticipate their first protest event. They are fired up about the planet’s imminent demise and ready to fight for its life, but Sophie’s scattershot passions are suddenly derailed and her curiosity enflamed after receiving an anonymous package asking the somehow compulsively significant question ‘Who Are You?’…

The Who and Why of this enigmatic pen pal transaction completely obsess her after the unseen arrival of follow-up question “Where does the world come from”, and as she ponders, she is lured into the first of some frankly weird if not supernatural proceedings…

As Sophie determinedly seeks answers on a range of conceptual levels, further inquiring despatches literally take her on a journey through all of human development, guided at first remotely, but eventually in the shadow and company of a seemingly benign tutor with an agenda all his own.

…And at every moment and juncture – no matter how wild, impossible or magical – the girl learns and grows…

This initial comics session encompasses cunningly targeted and curated visits, affording up-close-&-personal experiences, via the entirety of the evolution of Western history and culture…

However, as bewildering engagements (or at least gripping, interactive syntheses thereof) unfold in ‘Myths and Natural Philosophers’, ‘Atom and Fate’, ‘Athens and Socrates’, ‘Plato’, ‘Aristotle’, ‘Hellenism’, ‘Two Cultures’, ‘St. Augustine, Averroes, St. Thomas’, ‘The Renaissance’, there’s a turning point in ‘The Baroque’ that unlocks and expands Sophie’s understanding whilst addressing a secret tragedy that unconsciously drives her.

Ultimately, the avid teen discovers other forces in play and unknown actors participating in her lessons, as glimpsed in ‘The Dream of Hilde’ and rebellious phase/phrase ‘A Woman is a Man’s Equal’, and before long the seeker is ready to chart her own course…

Completing the educational brief, this opening discourse includes ‘Author Biographies’ of ‘Nicoby’, ‘Vincent Zabus’ and ‘Jostein Gaarder’ and is absolutely To Be Continued…

Rendered in bright, cheerfully inviting colours in the welcoming manner of a children’s book, this vibrant voyage of discovery is mesmerising in its gently mischievous intensity: an outrageously joyous, entertaining rundown of humanity’s evolution and fundamental principles of thought, cunningly disguised as a superb conundrum to rival any detective yarn. Moreover, the seeds have all been laid for a monumental “Big Reveal” in the next volume…
© 2022 Albin Michel. Based on & © Jostein Gaarder’s novel Sophie’s World. English translation © 2022 SelfMadeHero. All rights reserved.

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Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of The Shadow (Will Murray Pulp History Series)


By Will Murray, illustrated by Frank Hamilton, Rick Roe, Colton Worley, Joe DeVito & various (Odyssey Publications)
ISBN: 979-8-36971-672-4 (PB/Digital edition)

In the early 1930s, just as the Great Depression hit hardest, The Shadow afforded thrill-starved Americans measured doses of extraordinary excitement via shoddily produced periodical novels and over eerily charged airwaves via an iconic radio show.

The “Pulps” were a blend of book and monthly magazine, made exceedingly cheaply and published by their hundreds in every style and genre. The results ranged from truly excellent to pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two stars who outshone all others in terms of quality and sheer imagination. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier relentless creature of the night darkly dispensing grim justice was the enigmatic vigilante discussed here.

Detective Story Hour licensed and dramatised stand-alone crime yarns from Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine, deploying a spooky-toned narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale and set the scene and mood. Think of it as just like our Jackanory, but for grown-ups and rather toned down….

The anonymous usher absolutely obsessed listeners and became known as “the Shadow”. From the very start on July 31st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he highlighted…

Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of The Shadow is a beguiling and utterly compelling history of how the phenomenon occurred: revealing exactly how that voice evolved through sheer popular demand, smart business acumen and the writing find of a generation, to manifest as proactive character/brand The Shadow: solving instead of narrating mysteries, defending the innocent and punishing the guilty, and reshaping how the public viewed its leisure and entertainments.

Thanks to fervent and incessant demand, on April 1st 1931, the sepulchral stranger began mastering newsstands in his own adventures, mostly written by incredibly prolific and astounding gifted Walter Gibson. He was a journalist, author, historian and aficionado of stage magic and legerdemain who broke records and sired legends under the house pseudonym “Maxwell Grant”.

On September 26th 1937, the radio show was officially rebranded as The Shadow and the menacing call-&-response motto “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!” resonated out unforgettably over the nation’s airwaves and into common cultural currency.

Over the next 18 years, 325 novels were published, usually at the rate of two a month. The uncanny crusader infested comic books, movies, newspaper strip and all the hoopla and merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of an indisputable superstar.

The pulp series officially ended in 1949, although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped the world. This trend generated reprinted classic yarns and new contemporary stories in paperback novels from Belmont Books, catapulting the sinister sentinel back into print in both books and especially comics.

In graphic terms The Shadow had always been a major player. His national newspaper strip – by Gibson & Vernon Greene – launched on June 17th 1940 and, when comic books really took off, the Man of Mystery had his own four-colour title; running from March 1940 to September 1949. Stablemate Doc Savage was also present in his own solo strip…

Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary reworking in 1964-1965, crafted by Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger & Paul Reinman under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint. In 1973, DC acquired the rights, producing a captivating, brief and definitive series of classic sagas unlike any other superhero comic on the stands. Thereafter, DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante and even made him an official influencer of Batman…

After the triumph of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage vigilante for an audience at last acknowledged as mature enough to handle some sophisticated fare. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations and one cracking outing from Marvel, before Dark Horse assumed the license for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

There’s been another movie (1994) and the promise of still another, whilst Dynamite Entertainment secured the comic book option in 2011: reissuing much of those other publishers’ earlier efforts, and releasing fresh Shadow comics sagas closely adhering to the tone, timing and continuity of the pulp epoch.

In prose, new novels by the author of this mighty monograph have followed, including a fan’s dream teaming of the Man of Mystery and Man of Bronze…

Just as compelling as the stories themselves is how the Dark Avenger was born and precisely how he changed the world. This dossier details how it all came about in fascinating detail, beginning in a ‘Preface’ revealing how Will Murray’s 1970’s fanzine Duende has been retooled and remastered. Sharing the secrets and setting the scene, ‘The Men Who Cast The Shadow’ recounts precisely how The Shadow came to be: introducing the hidden men who made him and telling the tale of wonder scribe Walter Gibson.

What follows is a critical appreciation and outline of the publishing phenomenon, divided into discreet eras and tracked by cited individual issues. The formative cases are covered in ‘Phase One, 1931-1934: The Living Shadow to The Chinese Disks’, laying out how Gibson/Dent crafted fortnightly thrillers whilst building a supporting cast, core mythology, rogues gallery and new ways to enchant and confound readers.

The literary deconstruction continues with a period of confident experimentation in ‘Phase Two, 1934-1936: The Unseen Killer to Crime, Insured’, the pivotal payoffs of ‘Phase Three, 1933-1940: The Shadow Unmasks to Crime Undercover’ and confidant consolidation of ‘Phase Four, 1941-1943: The Thunder Kings to The Muggers’.

Firmly established and perhaps more risk-averse because of it, ‘Phase Five, 1943-1946: Murder By Moonlight to Malmordo’ deals with a managed decline. Wartime restrictions, substitute and auxiliary writers like Theodore Tinsley, as well as the series sheer age and ponderous back canon, augured a lack of assured spontaneity, even though the vigilante was now a cinema star too.

Another supplemental scripter signalled interim era ‘Phase Six, 1946-1948: The Blackest Mail to Reign of Terror’ as Noir-tinged, post-war attitudes and style infiltrated the established mystery detective oeuvre before the end came with a too-late return to first principles in ‘Phase Seven, 1948-1949: Jade Dragon to The Whispering Eyes’…

Although the magazine was gone, certain shadows lingered in the place where he’d begun. The 325th and final issue of The Shadow was cover-dated Summer1949, but his radio crusades against crime continued until December 21st 1954. As the Sixties unfolded he was back on the airwaves again, in comics and in new tales, whilst outside America he never went away. The British Shadow magazine, for example, kept on going until 1957…

Wrapping up the investigations, ‘Epilogue’ explores those later years and discusses that Batman connection and influences, before we learn a bit more of the backroom boys. That includes illustrator Joe DeVito in ‘About the Artist’, “angel” Dave Smith in ‘About our Patron’ and Murray himself in ‘About the Author’.

If you’re addicted to classic pulp fiction but need more than just the stories, you really need to check out Will Murray. New prose stories continue the primal legends of Doc Savage – including sidebar novels starring his phenomenal kinswoman Pat Savage; The Spider; the C’thulu mythos; Sherlock Holmes; King Kong; The Green Lama; The Bat; The Avenger; The Shadow; The Destroyer (Remo Williams); and Tarzan even as his astoundingly accessible scholarly books about the characters, era and especially creators, published as the Will Murray Pulp History Series.

You’ll probably want to see – or may already enjoy – Murray’s comics too: gems like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (co-created with Steve Ditko), Spider-Man, Hulk, The Destroyer, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Secret Six, The Spider, The Gray Seal, Ant-Man, Green Hornet, Zorro, The Phantom and many more…

When Sherlock Holmes wrote such informational tracts like this one, they were called monographs. These days we just call them unmissable.
© 2022 Will Murray. All rights reserved.

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Invisible Men – The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books


By Ken Quattro, and featuring material by Adolphus Barreaux Gripon, Elmer Cecil Stoner, Robert Savon Pious, Jay Paul Jackson, Owen Charles Middleton, Elton Clay Fox & George Dewey Lipscomb, Clarence Matthew Baker, Alvin Carl Hollingsworth, Ezra Clyde Jackson Alfonso Greene. Eugene Bilbrew, Orrin C. Evans, George J. Evans Jr., John H. Terrell, William H. Smith, Leonard Cooper, Calvin Levi Massey & various (IDW/Craig Yoe Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68405-586-9 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68406-912-5

I’ve spent a lot of time here talking about “firsts” and “breakthroughs”, “role models” and changes in culture, and frankly, I’m not apologizing for any of it. We are not just the Naming ape and the Making ape, we’re also the Worshipping ape: contriving a never-ending blend of guesses, fiction and unexplained phenomena to bolster our courage, feed our hopes and explain away bewildering mysteries.

No other animal worships anything or uses supposition to build a model of the universe. Well, maybe cats do, but only in front of refrigerators. I’m still pondering that one and I’ll get back to you…

In comics we have always noted what hero and villain does what, mused on how that affects the reader and generally congratulated ourselves on how far we’ve come. What we don’t do so often is focus on how those comics are made, who did the work and how their lives were and are shaped by and impacted upon in what has always been a very hard-hearted if not actually cutthroat commercial industry.

For decades, a notion persisted that American comic books and the newspaper and magazine strips they grew out of were the sole preserve and creation of white men. It’s a blatant lie of omission fuelled by ignorance and apparent lack of interest. In recent years, as the world of word/picture stories became both an acceptable art form and cultural wellspring as valid and profitable – and high-fallutingly pompous – as movies, ballet or even jazz, it’s a belief that has been thoroughly challenged and utterly rubbished.

This superb, Award-winning collection drives a final great big stake through the notion by detailing the lives of black contributors to and workers in comics who were unnecessarily neglected and sidelined from the start. Here is a catalogue of almost universally unsung stars whitewashed out of comics history – just like in so many other areas of human endeavour over the last three centuries…

This scholarly examination details and commemorates the artists (some of whom you may have even heard of), threading and weaving them back into the full tapestry through a concise history of America’s negro culture spanning the end of slavery to the latter quarter of the last century. when the Civil Rights movement reminded white America and the wider western world that black people still dwelt amongst them and would no longer tolerate being Separate and (un)Equal…

Published under the aegis of Craig Yoe’s pioneering, tireless efforts to legitimise the world of funnybooks, Invisible Men is Compiled and written by author, essayist and historian Ken Quattro (Hoo-Hah!, The Al Williamson Reader). It shines a light on dozens of African Americans who contributed to the burgeoning comic book field. Many also had lengthy careers in a parallel but unspoken, black-only publishing industry (to which, just like the movies, made books, comics and magazines white audiences were utterly oblivious). Others were not so fortunate…

These personal histories are supported by copious examples of their work and even the other sort of stories: complete strips to read and enjoy, elevating this collection beyond mere historical tract and cultural correction whilst conveying and sharing the joyous exuberance and “anything goes mentality of Golden Age” comics entertainments…

Setting the scene is an Introduction from archaeologist, cultural anthropologist and comics fan Stanford W. Carpenter, PhD, addressing the vast, varied and deliberately buried social and racial mix that was almost uniformly subverted to a male, white, Anglo-Saxon sensibility and agenda in the natal moments of the comics industry…

Then Quattro’s essay ‘Seeing the Unseen’ scrupulously details the lousy, dangerous working world for non-white mass media artists and how the situation so-slowly altered over decades. He also bravely takes the bull by the horns in addressing the ever-shifting terminologies used to define racial (and religious) differences over decades. If even reading certain words or mercifully archaic and obsolete phrases might cause you difficulties, you’re better off stopping here and staying unenlightened. We’ll just go on without you…

The first candidate for your attention is ‘Adolphus Barreaux Gripon – Visible Man, Invisible Pioneer’ and he is the perfect example to discuss the far from clear-cut social scene of this era. Well-educated and relatively well-off, he was also called Adolphe Leslie Barreaux and was officially classified by the US Census Bureau as “mulatto”. For many that meant he was just white enough to acceptable…

He worked as a magazine illustrator, newspaper strip artist and – when comic books were born – drew those too. Here, that translates to beautiful examples of The Enchanted Stone of Time (Dell’s The Comics), Flossie Flip (a regular of the Police Gazette), Dragon’s Teeth from Champion Comics, and the legendarily salacious Sally the Sleuth (Private Detective Stories, Crime Smashers). His entry concludes with Sally saga ‘Death Bait’, as seen in Private Detective Stories volume 21, #3 from June 1949.

‘Elmer Cecil Stoner – Harlem Renaissance Man’ traced his lineage back to George and Martha Washington (before the first First Lady freed his ancestors), and became a prominent artist in Pennsylvania. His comics efforts included The Golden Age Blue Beetle, The Challenger and Phantasmo whom he created for Dell’s The Funnies. After WWII he moved into producing commercial and promotional comics as well as high profile advertising work. His major contribution here is ‘The Threat from Saturn’ as originally seen in The Blue Beetle #34, September 1944 and biographic strip ‘Rev. Ben, Fighter of Fascism’ (detailing the life of black anti-fascist preacher Ben Richardson from 1945’s The Challenger #1).

Money talks and at this juncture enforced egalitarianism. The new big thing in entertainment was exploding and publishers needed pages filled as cheaply as possible, even if they had to be written, drawn and lettered by black people or even women…

Legendary designer and Civil Rights activist ‘Robert Savon Pious – The Afrocentric Historian’ is represented by many of his most important works. However we’re focussing on his early strips The Dopes, Blue Bolt covers and Kalthar the Giant Man (Zip Comics). Also on show is informational feature ‘Facts on the Negro in World War Two’ with horror classic ‘The Ghost from Algol’ (Adventures into the Unknown #8: December 1949/January 1950). Tragically short-lived ‘Jay Paul Jackson – an Artist Apart’ is celebrated in many racy works (such as Tisha Mingo, Speed Jaxon and Home Folks) from black newspapers; patriotic cartoons and paintings and his only known comic book strip ‘Blond Garth’ (from Colossus Comics #1, March 1940).

Troubled ‘Owen Charles Middleton – Resilient Idealist’ reveals a talented creator who spent much of his as an incarcerated black man, union worker, and American political campaigner. His art entries include paintings, political advertising imagery, newspaper cartoons and comics such as Fawcett’s Spy Smasher. His complete tale is ‘Two Months in the Bush’ from Dell’s War Heroes #5 (July-September 1943).

The contrasting lives of ‘Elton Clay Fox & George Dewey Lipscomb – The Progressive and the Professor’ displays Fax’s landmark posters for the NAACP and his rousing anti-“Jim Crow” newspaper cartoons. Less well known are pioneering teen magazine Young Life, syndicated biographical panel cartoon ‘They’ll Never Die’, cover/interior illustrations from Dr. George Washington Carver, Scientist and extracts from the Classics Illustrated newspaper serial. Also on view are Susabelle and Afro Comics strips, as well as a complete Bull’s-Eye Bill episode from Target Comics (vol. 6, #3 May 1945). Lipscombe’s contribution is the script for African adventure strip ‘Simba Bwana – Lion Master!’, limned by Fax for Jack Armstrong #1 (November 1947).

If the nebulous cohort of black comics artists had a super star, it was absolutely ‘Clarence Matthew Baker – The Natural’ who lived fast, drew lots and died notoriously young. Matt Baker is famed for racy sexy adventure, but he evolved into a sublimely gifted master illustrator of subtle drama and romance. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Baker did most of his work in comic books, as seen here in covers for Phantom Lady, Seven Seas Comics, Cinderella Love and Teen-Age Temptations. Interior Tiger Girl pages complement extracts from Canteen Kate – an early, outrageous “crossdresser” challenging those hidebound male role models…

Examples of his magazine illustration work comes from Pulp Mystery Tales #6 and the Flamingo newspaper strip, but the true gold here is the complete Voodah adventure from Crown Comics #3. Cover-dated Fall 1945, it featured the first clearly, indisputably black hero in American comics: an otherwise standard jungle god type character battling white hunters and marauding natives. By issue #6, the editors had noticed what was happening and Voodah magically and without fuss turned into a far more believable white guy king of the jungle…

Baker is so darned wonderful that his chapter includes a second complete strip with the improbably pneumatic Phantom Lady polishing off ‘The Subway Slayer!’ in a wild romp from the appropriately dubbed All Top Comics #12 (July 1948)…

A pre-eminent illustrator of a later era, ‘Alvin Carl Hollingsworth – The Young Professional’ blends fascinating tales of the educational opportunities enjoyed by young black and ethnic artists (like Joe Kubert or Alex Toth) with later adult success. Many comic books ultimately benefited from New York’s forward-looking scholastic integration policies as seen in images re-presented here.

These include Hollingworth excerpts from Diary of Horror #1, Inspector Roc’s Felony Files (inked by Kubert), ‘Farewell to Love’ (True-To-Life Romances #9, 1949), and even superhero Bronze Man. Horror snippet ‘The Ripper’s Return’ precedes a selection of prospective newspaper features about black schoolteachers. Somehow, neither Dorothy Tutor or Bob Mentor caught on in the 1950s…

Hollingsworth was of Afro-Caribbean rather than African American origins and the dichotomy and tensions between the distinctly different communities makes for fascinating reading here, supplemented by later fine art, design, political, editorial and journalistic paintings and prints.

His comic book section delivers biographical tale ‘Lena Horne’ (Juke Box Comics #2, May 1948) and ‘Where Zombies Walk!’ (Witchcraft #5, December 1952/January 1953)…

Triumph and tragedy tinge the stories of ‘Ezra Clyde Jackson & Alfonso Greene – A Tale of Two Students’ who attended Manhattan’s High School of Industrial Art.

Originally Jackson paired with white veteran Maurice Whitman before going solo, in features such as The Iron Ace (Airboy Comics), ‘The Secret Seven’ (Patches Comics #1, 1945) and Classics Illustrated: Typee. His complete solo outing here is eerie chiller ‘Sentence of Death’ (Suspense Comics #9, August 1945).

As described in a heartbreaking testimony from Alex Toth, Alfonso Greene had a far harder ride and died the way so many black men still do today, but his work at least survives in strips like ‘Swimming Lessons Save a Life’ and true crime yarn ‘Bandit Patrol’ (both from New Heroic Comics #64, January 1951), ‘Boy Hero’ (life-saving black youngster Roy Marshall Jr.in New Heroic Comics #53, March 1949), and ‘Wonder Women of History: Sojourner Truth’ (Wonder Woman #13, Summer 1945).

‘Eugene Bilbrew – A Different Talent’ found his place in comics via popular music and record design, via strips like Astro Girl, The Charlie Mingus Record Club, fetish magazines and the comedic Clifford back-up strip in Will Eisner’s syndicated Spirit Section.

As previously stated, America at this time supported two separate worlds, one black and the other acceptable. Even in liberal states that championed full equality, most black folk kept to their own neighbourhoods, ran their own businesses and ran their own churches and entertainments. Inevitably, that led to comics for coloured folks thanks to ‘Orrin C. Evans, George J. Evans, Jr., John H. Terrell, William H. Smith, Leonard Cooper – At Last, The First’ who acted in concert and launched All-Negro Comics in June 1947. Closely allied to left wing political movements the output was target-specific, limited in distribution and short lived, but it proved there was room for many kinds of readership. This chapter includes formative strips from black papers – such as Adventures of Tiger Ragg by John Terrell – and describes how All-Negro Comics was born and died. On show are house ad, covers, excerpts from assorted series ‘Sugarfoot’, ‘Lion Man’ various gags and cartoons and the complete first exploit of two-fisted street tough private eye ‘Ace Harlem’…

This astounding chronicle concludes with the life of breakthrough artist ‘Calvin Levi Massey – Vanguard of the Next Generation’. His later artistic endeavours advanced black culture on a rapidly-shifting world stage, but only after a relatively stellar comics career as a cartoonist. Employers included James Warren, and he was a mainstay of Atlas/Timely and a jobbing illustrator; as seen here in moments from ‘The Milton Berle Story’ (Uncle Milty #2, February 1952), and all of ‘Absent-Minded Professor’ (Horror from the Tomb #1, September 1954)…

Augmented by an affirming ‘Afterword by Ken Quattro’ and a prodigious ‘Index’, this powerful tract balances some historical scales and bestows acclaim on those unjustly excluded, by offering a sublime selection of strips and stories crafted by Invisible Men who – like women – were always there, if we’d only bothered to look…
™ & © 2020 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Paul Robeson for Beginners


By Paul Von Blum, illustrated by Elizabeth Von Notias & Ramsess (For Beginners)
ISBN: 978-1-934389-81-2 (PB/Digital edition)

For Beginners books are heavily-illustrated text primers: accessible graphic non-fiction foundation courses in a vast variety of subjects ranging from art to philosophy, politics to history and much more, all tackled in an accessible yet readily respectful manner. This particular volume was written by Paul Von Blum, author and Senior Lecturer in African American Studies and Communication Studies at UCLA, wedded to a wealth of strips and illustrations by graphic design specialist Elizabeth Von Notias and self-taught multi-media creator Ramsess.

If remembered at all, Paul Leroy Robeson ((9th April 1898-23rd January 1976) is regarded by most people as that African American performer with an incredibly deep voice. Maybe some will recall that he was a left wing political activist who particularly incensed Senator Joe McCarthy during America’s infamous “Red-baiting” witch-hunting period… so, kudos for that, too…

That’s all true enough, but he was also one of the most accomplished and gifted individuals in the nation’s history: a true Renaissance man who was cheated of his ultimate potential simply because his skin was the wrong colour…

An Introduction lists Robeson’s astonishing accomplishments – all the more amazing when you realise the lack of opportunities if not outright repression facing negroes in segregated America at the time of his birth and not truly tackled until the Civil Rights movement began gaining traction in the late 1950s. If even then…

As told in more telling detail – via word and pictures in ‘The Early Days’, ‘Paul Robeson the Athlete’, ‘Paul Robeson the Stage Actor’, ‘Paul Robeson the Screen Actor’ and ‘Paul Robeson the Singer’ – he was the son of a preacher and born in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the last of five children, locked into a time and place rigidly defined by class and race divisions…

A brilliant student, Paul Robeson graduated Somerville High School in 1915 and won a 4-year scholarship to Rutgers University, where – despite initial hostility and actual physical assaults – he became the star of the Football, Baseball, Basketball and Athletics squads. He was twice designated “All-American”.

Graduating from Rutgers, he attended New York University Law School before transferring to Columbia University Law School. Talented and seemingly tireless, Robeson turned an interest in the dramatic arts into a part-time stage career and became a professional Football player in 1920.

He married, acted, sang, played Pro ball and kept on studying: graduating Columbia in 1923 to work as a lawyer at a prestigious firm… until the bigotry he experienced from his own subordinates became too much.

In 1924, during the enthralling localised period of negro liberality and cultural growth dubbed “The Harlem Renaissance” (1923-1927), he switched from stage acting to movies, but still carried on a glittering international career: starring as Othello in London and playing in many hit plays and musicals including Showboat, Emperor Jones, Stevedore and All God’s Chillun’s Got Wings…

Incessantly, helplessly politically active, he visited the Soviet Union in 1934, spoke out against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War, co-founded the anti-colonial Council on African Affairs and used his name and fame to agitate for social and legal changes in such contentious areas as Southern lynch law and trade union legislation. These activities made him a prime target in the USA and in 1941 J. Edgar Hoover ordered the FBI to open a file on him…

In 1950, the US government took away his passport because he refused to recant his pro-Soviet, pro-socialist stance, making Robeson an exile in his own country. He was unable to leave America for 8 years, until a Supreme Court ruling decreed the State Department had no right to revoke passports due to an individual’s political beliefs.

Somehow, I’m reminded of how successive British Home Secretaries have smugly wallowed in the shameful, self-granted ability to revoke and deny the nationality and movements of its own citizens: especially the young, brown, non-Christian, groomed and trafficked one…

Robeson’s life was filled with such astounding breakthroughs and landmarks. Once free to travel again, he became an international political celebrity and social commentator, using his concerts and stage appearances in places as disparate as Wales, Australia, Russia, New Zealand, East Germany, Canada, and elsewhere to promote a dream of World “Freedom, Peace and Brotherhood”…

His beliefs, struggles achievements and failures are scrutinised in ‘Paul Robeson the International Activist’, ‘Paul Robeson the Domestic Political Activist’ before a thorough appreciation in ‘The Final Years and His Lasting Legacy’…

Augmented by a ‘Bibliography’, ‘Selected Chronology’ and creator biographies, this absorbing documentary proves again the astounding power of visual narrative when wedded to the life story of a truly unique individual, and begs the question: where are his graphic biography and definitive biopic?
© 2013 Paul Von Blum. Illustrations © 2013 Elizabeth Von Notias & Ramsess. All rights reserved. A For Beginners Documentary Comic Book © 2013.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks volume 11: Christmas For Shacktown


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, growing up in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you crave detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With studio partner Jack Hannah (another animator turned occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for a cartoon short into Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published in October of that year as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 and – although not his first published comics work – was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, he worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters, including Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952) and Magica De Spell (1961) to supplement Disney’s stable of illustrated actors.

His greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: world’s wealthiest septuagenarian waterfowl and the harassed, hard-pressed, scene-swiping co-star of this tome.

Whilst producing all that landmark material, Barks was just a working guy, crafting covers, drawing other people’s scripts and contributing his stories to a burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Only in the 1980s – after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his work and other Disney strips – did Barks discover the devoted appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output, even though his brilliant comics were produced for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the Disney studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his Scrooge comics output.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comedy blockbuster: blending wit, history, science, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life, Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts – uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s strip and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabidly discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, Barks’ belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books started collecting his Duck materials in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing the output approximately year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library…

The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and showcasing works from 1947. Today we’re revisiting 1951-1952, with volume 11 offering another landmark Seasonal tale that critically reshaped the supposedly throwaway, 2-dimensional miser into the richly rounded character beloved by billions…

It begins eponymously with Bark’s most enduring creation in top form. The elder McDuck had debuted in ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Color #178, December 1947): a handy comedy foil stemming from a Yuletide tale of woe and joy. He was a miserly relative who seethed in opulent isolation, hating everybody and meanly opting to share the gloom by tormenting his nephew Donald and his junior houseguests Huey, Louie and Dewey – by gifting them his mountain cabin for the Holidays. Scrooge schemed, intent on terrorising them in a bear costume, but fate had other ideas…

After the tale ended Barks realised that although the old coot was creepy, menacing and money-mad, he was also energetic and oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Further appearances proved that he was right and his expedient maguffin was undoubtedly his greatest cartoon creation. The Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often, eventually expanding to fill all available space in tales set in the scenic metropolis of Duckburg.

Here. shifted slightly out of publishing chronology – because McDuck is not about wasting time or money – we open eponymously with the lead tale from Four Color #367. Cover-dated January 1952, ‘A Christmas For Shacktown’ begins as Donald’s nephews take a detour through the bad side of town and realise they cannot allow all the poverty-stricken children they see endure a festive season without food or toys…

Their discussion also inspires Daisy Duck, who resolves to organise a solution, and before long her women’s club is tapping Duckburg’s citizens for contributions. Daisy herself asks Donald – who’s experiencing a personal cashflow crisis and can’t afford his own Yule celebrations – who might make up her final $50 shortfall. When the nephews suggest Scrooge McDuck, Donald is reluctantly despatched to beg a donation, and does not relish the conversation…

That last 50 bucks is to buy turkeys and provide the joyless waifs with a train set, but after a titanic tussle, Donald can only get the skinflint to agree to $25… and that’s only for the food, not silly fripperies like toys…

Rapidly regrouping, Donald and Daisy are overwhelmed when the nephews hand over their savings and tell their “Unca Donald” to similarly donate the money put aside for their presents, but it’s still not enough and the trio then head off to shovel snow from sidewalks to make up the difference.

Ashamed and emboldened, Donald resolves to get what’s needed from Scrooge, embarking upon a series of increasingly wild stunts – including recruiting despicable rival Gladstone Gander – that culminates in disaster when Scrooge’s overloaded money vault collapses under the weight of its own reserves, plunging his entire fortune into the bowels of the Earth.

Confronted with penury, the despondent tycoon is saved by Donald and the boys who devise a means of retrieving the loot which gives the miser a new perspective on the value of toys: a view that rightly translates into Shacktown enjoying the best Christmas ever…

A month prior to that yarn, anthological Walt Disney Comics & Stories #135 (cover-dated December 1951) featured The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill’ wherein the old money magnate debuted his monolithic money bin, and invites Donald and the boys to inspect it… if they can get past all his baroque and byzantine security measures. Sadly, the visit also inspires the dastardly Beagle Boys to try to empty it…

WDC&S #136 (January 1952) then finds Donald suffering a braggart’s boasts again as his despised super-lucky rival recounts ‘Gladstone’s Usual Good Year’. Driven to distraction, Donald resorts to cheating just to raise his own spirits and something very unlikely occurs…

For #137, Donald and the nephews head to the mountains after he sells a song. Sadly, ‘The Screaming Cowboy’ is a particularly annoying tune that Donald smugly plays on every juke box in the region: the ominously named Avalanche Valley…

Scrooge returned in (WDC&S #138 March 1952), acting in a most uncharacteristic manner as ‘Statuesque Spendthrifts’ revealed him locked in financial combat with the proudly philanthropic Maharajah of Howduyustan to prove who was truly “the richest man in the world”. The battle revolved around who could donate the most ornate, ostentatious and gaudy monument of Duckburg’s founder…

When Huey, Dewey & Louie’s latest hobby – racing pigeons – inspires Donald’s disdain, the mean Unca attempts to sabotage and gaslight them, but learns his lesson when ‘Rocket Wing Saves the Day’ (WDC&S #139, April) after he has an accident…

The family – and even outrageous inventor Gyro Gearloose – are united in WDC&S #140, working to uncover annoying wastrel ‘Gladstone’s Terrible Secret’, and the chaos-creating boffin is back in #141, much to Donald’s dismay and the nephews’ delight: upsetting the natural order with machines giving beasts human attributes in ‘The Think Box Bollix’…

Four Color #408 (July/August 1952) was an All-Donald/All Barks affair and opens with a brace of single page gags, starting with ‘Full-Service Windows’ as the wily retailer finds a cheap and easy way to clean his shop front and compounding interest with ‘Rigged-Up Roller’ (alternately called ‘Rigged Up Lawn’) wherein the nephews must find a new way to keep the yard maintained…

The main event was extended action adventure ‘The Golden Helmet’ wherein bored museum guard Donald stops a suspicious individual poking about in a Viking longship and uncovers a hidden deerskin map. It reveals how explorer Olaf the Blue discovered America in 901 AD, and left a golden helmet which confirms when and how the nation was born.

The museum authorities are exultant… but only until the meddler returns with his lawyer Sharky. Azure Blue claims to be the descendant of Olaf and invokes the ancient “code of discovery” law. It dictates that as proof of the event, the helmet also confers ownership of the continent on the heirs… but only if Azure finds it first…

Almost resenting his earlier dreams of adventure, Donald recruits his nephews and dashes off with the museum curator to Labrador. They are all intent on saving Americans from becoming Blue’s slaves: battling deadly weather, constant misfortune and the machinations of Azure and Sharky in a superb action romp anticipating, Dan Brown, The Librarian and the National Treasure screen franchise…

The fun finishes with Donald’s Nephews ‘Awash in Success’ beside a faulty drinking fountain, counterbalanced by a Donald and Scrooge single from Four Color #422, (cover-dated September/October 1952) with the money-wise miser benefitting from bulk buying in ‘Stable Prices’.

Back on track and sampling Walt Disney Comics & Stories (#142, July 1952) sees Donald drag the kids on a ‘Houseboat Holiday’ to keep their summer vacation pranks and hijinks at a manageable level. Instead, he finds himself at the centre of a storm of freak calamities and life-threatening disasters. Its only marginally less fraught one month later when he takes them to the desert as ‘Gemstone Hunters’ and is bamboozled by cunning fraudsters and again humiliated by Gladstone…

The remainder of Four Color #422 follows, opening with a follow-up action excursion. In ‘The Gilded Man’ avid stamp collector Donald believes he’s tracked down a hugely valuable item and heads for British Guiana, with the nephews in tow and Gladstone hot on his trail.

The quest is for fabled El Dorado, and the jungle trek ultimately leads them to victory of a sort after exposing the secrets of the ancient golden god…

Two more one-pagers wrap up the issue: detailing correct precautions for saving a cat in ‘Armored Rescue’ before adapting an old idea to avoid social commitments in ‘Crafty Corner’…

Scrooge stole the spotlight again in WDC&S #144 (September) as another storage crisis in his vault compelled the old bird to try and learn a new trick. In an effort to make room, he hires insanely profligate Donald to share the secret of ‘Spending Money’ but is far from satisfied with what he learns…

The story portion of this tome terminates with the remainder of Four Color #367, with ‘Treeing Off’ showing how the nephews brighten up the Christmas decorating, after which Donald pays the price for presumption with mistletoe in ‘Christmas Kiss’ and the boys have the last word when adapting modern science to list writing in ‘Projecting Desires’ (AKA ‘Stamp-Sized Christmas List’).

The comics are augmented by a sublime Cover Gallery proving the Master’s gift for visual one-liners in Four Color (volume II) 367, 408 & 422, and Walt Disney Comics & Stories#135-144 which intercut context, commentary and validation in ‘Story Notes’ for each Duck tale gathered here. Following Donald Ault’s essay ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’, ‘Biographies’ then introduces commentators Ault, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone and Matthias Wivel and why they’re saying all those nice and informative things. We close as ever with an examination of provenance in ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, with almost all his work featuring Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold billions across the world. You might be late to the party but don’t be scared: it’s never too late to climb aboard the Barks Express.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “A Christmas For Shacktown” © 2012 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

 

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Algorithmic Reality


By Damian Bradfield & David Sánchez (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-306-6 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-307-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: You Better Watch Out, You Better Take Care… 9/10

In the modern world we are constantly watching and perpetually watched. We are society but society follows us everywhere even as it isolates us, and we cannot escape or avoid it. Are we unconscious or willing subjects of voyeuristic scrutiny or complacent participants in an increasingly intrusive overwatch culture that we really want but may not need?

This compelling graphic clarion cry wryly questions if that’s the randomly evolving progress of a wild system or somehow the gameplan of more sinister forces. Is unified technology, with all its benefits and instant gratifications the servant and builder of a truly integrated uniform and global society or just the newest means of a certain sort of predator (let’s call them “Tech-Barons”) making us all both cash cow and component consumer in a perpetually self-sustaining closed system – an internet battery farm where us chickens are both consumer AND product?

It’s clear that for many of us, our digital tools are now inescapable, essential, inimical and ultimately faithless and disloyal…

Comics are a nigh-universal, extremely powerful media that lend themselves to a host of topics and genres, but the area where it has always shone brightest is in its chimeric capacity for conveying complex arguments in a clear and compelling manner. Although daubing marks on a surface is possibly our oldest art form, the potential to ask questions, make stories and concisely communicate via that primal process remains infinitely adaptable to modern mores and as powerful as it ever was in exploring the unchanging basics of the human condition.

Narrative plus image – and the interactions such conjunctions can embrace – underpin all of our communal existence and form the primary source for how we view our distant forbears; especially as if employed by incisive, sensitive, uncompromising agents and interlocutors…

Here UK author, eminent digital pioneer, “tech exec” and lifelong comics fan Damien Bradfield posits in pictorial form some crucial and chilling questions about how and by whom, for what purpose and to what ends digital technologies have become such an inescapable and imperative force.

Casting a nervous yet knowing eye on the inept antisocial elites – Super-Rich mavericks spawned by manipulating Big Tech – Bradfield conjures up – via mordant, if not trenchant -incisiveness a sequence of ironically dystopian scenarios made chillingly clear and pervasively memorable by Spanish illustrator David Sánchez González.

Co-Founder of WeTransfer and its Chief Creative & Sustainability Officer, Damien Bradfield is also its Chief Strategy Officer, having created digital platform WePresent, co-founded digital design studio Present Plus, and formed illustration platform Kuvva. He owned an art gallery in Amsterdam and prior to all that worked for all the top advertising companies and Stella McCartney.

In 2019 he wrote The Trust Manifesto: What you Need to do to Create a Better Internet (discussing online privacy, trust and Big Data) and began by scoring a degree from the London School of Economics and Politics. You can regularly hear him on the Influence podcast…

Shaping thought and controlling information is also a deep concern for artist, designer and illustrator Sánchez: a solidly refined, intellectual draughtsman expert in restrained and understated imagery strongly influenced by Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes and Hergé. Among his most impressive and disturbing publications are Tú me has matado, No cambies nunca, La Muerte en los ojos and his illustrations for Robert Desnos’ El Destripador.

In Algorithmic Reality they combine to unleash sedately ironic speculations on where we are as a planet and where we’re going as a species in a range of wildly enchanting modern fables exploring our relationship with commerce, with particular emphasis on Short-termism, privacy, social media herd mentality, the tyranny of choice and information control. After all, isn’t Data the new fossil fuel: precious, invaluable, easily used, but so very dangerous when – not if – overexploited and misused?

Everyday tasks, major achievements, personal breakthrough and moments without merit jostle beside strange days and minor miracles in this tome, beginning with ‘Shoes’ as a visit to a store results in a sales assistant refusing to accept no sale as an outcome and doggedly stalking the failed purchaser, with confrontational encounters in the park, other stores and further inducements. By exploring how we’d react if a human vendor in the offline world behaved the same way as internet sales tools and bots do, the creators make a chilling point about pester power and the wisdom of making that first enquiry…

A search for ‘Insurance’ makes an equally distressing point about why a single simple sales transaction demands the surrender of so much apparently “necessary” extraneous personal detail just to secure a cheaper tariff after which ‘Shopping’ sees a one-off, first time buyer stumble into a sales emporium entirely patronised by shopping zombies programmed by repeated use of the system to make their needs accommodate the company’s demands…

A manifested nightmare for all collectors, ‘The Hoarder’ charts the inescapable downfall of an outlier and avowed social pervert who clings to physical objects rather than embracing digital experiences. His reluctance to abandon physical currency, books, vinyl records, polaroid photos and human interactions inevitably lead to Byron’s incarceration for “Data Avoidance” and “Health and Safety violations”…

Closing this packet of prophecy is ‘California Boomtowns Tour’, as an experience tourist takes the bus for a quick round up of all the Golden States’ boom-&-bust fads: accessing in person and a strictly curated abbreviated manner the desolate but so-picturesque remnants of gold mining, oil-drilling, Hollywood and pop music celebrity, computing and the property speculation that destroyed Silicon Valley, ending on the terrifying prospect of offworld expansion for the Next Big Things…

Being told that your personal electronics actually own you and incessantly work to make you targeted, monetizable fodder for attention-seeking, plutocratic weirdoes and faceless corporations is not new information, but seeing how masking that message works has never been more entertainingly handled than here. Bradfield and Sánchez deftly fudge and blur the line between offline and digital worlds: asking that readers look and think again.

Re-examining with wit and deadpan humour the addictive power of social media, enhanced and weaponised conformity, clandestine invasion of privacy and the appalling harmful potential of illicitly harvested, misused persona data, Algorithmic Reality demonstrates that there’s a such a thing as too much connectivity, and a little personal space is no bad thing…
Text and illustrations © 2021, 2022 Damian Bradfield and David Sánchez. All rights reserved. © 2022 NBM for the English translation.

Algorithmic Reality is scheduled for release on December 13th 2022 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/. Most NBM books are available in digital formats…

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Rayguns & Rocketships: Vintage Science Fiction Book Cover Art


By many and various: edited and compiled by Rian Hughes (Korero Press)
ISBN: 978-1-91274-004-8 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Eyepopping, Mind-blowing Vintage Visions… 9/10

Very often the books we write about our comics and other related passions can be better than the stories and pictures themselves: memorable, intensely evocative and infused with that debilitating nostalgic joy only passing years and selective memory can bestow. It’s not only true of our childhood comics but also the toys and books we encountered and invested so much time in…

For much of Britain’s Baby Boomer population, much of that unharnessed energy went into the wealth of science fiction book and pulp magazines that began popping up around the same time as the Nazis. As hostilities ensued, the genre kept pace, before spectacularly increasing in the post-war years, when prose science fiction became a welcome refuge for millions with an eye on a better tomorrow… and unlike rationed food or sweets or a new wave of weekly comics, books were comparatively cheap and sturdily re-readable…

That in in no way meant to denigrate or decry the superb efforts of countless – usually unrecognised and generally unlauded – creators who briefly brightened the lives of generations (and created quite a few harmless hobbyist/obsessive collectors) with fantastic adventures and brain-bursting images on flimsy, easily damaged pulp tomes but rather because of an added factor inherent in them – sheer mystery. Who made this stuff?…

No kid buying or shoplifting these items had any idea of who did what and only a few even cared: the stories and their covers worked on a primal, visceral connection or not at all, and always promised spectacular escape from the here and now…

As seen in era-expert Steve (read his Bear Alley blog) Holland’s impassioned and informative Foreword ‘Cruisers of the Void (Flying Factories and Hand-Crafted Spaceships)’ the genre and market was a tricky one, with publishers uncertain if they were selling pap to kids or at the sharp end of a new literary movement. What mattered was catching punters’ eyes and separating them from their cash…

Nevertheless from such confused, humble – and often shady – beginnings, a renaissance in speculative fiction emerged to change society and the world…

The conceptual main course of this menu of miracles follows as designer, author and comics creator Rian Hughes (Dare, Typodiscography, I Am a Number, The Science Service) further deconstructs the context and marketplace: sharing his own experiences as a wide-eyed wonder-boy gradually morphing into a Serious Collector and Expert finding favourite stories by falling for captivating cover images in every possible place from specialist emporium to local jumble sale…

Detail-packed Introduction ‘His Raygun Spat Atomic Fire…’ is a splendidly expansive overview, taking us through the evolving epoch. Tracing the genre’s development. he lists writers, publishers imprints and especially those artists who spun their visual webs and caught so many of us before the superb and delicious dessert we came for is served up…

As beguiling and educational as finally knowing the names behind so many icons of an unsuspected communal past, the real joy here comes from the thousands of reprinted covers on books you have seen and those you have not: an exhausting compendium of lost treasures that adolescent minds must have boiled over to first encounter. Although concentrating mainly on the British market, there are also foreign editions and original US mainstream titles and their licensed reprints. At all times the guidance is watch and wonder!

Spanning decades, numerous nations and the infinite gulfs of space and time, this gallery of marvels is as much love story as detective mystery as forensic analysis of a phenomenon, but in the end what you’ll remember most is the astounding, amazing art of Stanley Nicholson, Ed Emshwiller, Ray Theobald, Gordon C. Davies, Norman Light, Ron Embleton, Ron Turner, Denis McLoughlin, Brian Lewis, Henry Fox, Chesley Bonestell, Everett Kinstler, Josh Kirby, Art Sussman, Robert A. Osbourne, Enrich, and so many more, known and unknown.

Welcome attention is also paid to games, magazines, comics and British Annuals, with Turner, Ron Forbes, Terry Maloney, David Williams, Ron Jobsen and more well represented through absolutely mouth-watering merchandise and publications.

This copious chronicle concludes with appreciatively fond Afterword ‘Mushroom Cloud Fallout’ by author, archivist, historian and literary agent Philip J Harbottle who revisits that time of changes and era of scientific fantasy via his connection to a stalwart of both worlds: artist and die-hard fan Ron Turner, who rode the mushroom cloud of sci fi illustration until the mid-1950s before moving primarily into comics such as Lion’s Rick Random and TV21’s The Daleks…

Perhaps short on depth but gloriously addictive in terms of breadth, variety and wide-eyed nostalgic wonderment, Rayguns & Rocketships is a compendium and catalogue of cover artwork encapsulating Britain’s golden age of science fiction. It will reduce oldsters to tears but should also be offered to younger generations before they get permanently locked into frantically planning their careers (so before they’re five is best) in hopes of reminding them that there’s so much more out there…

The only thing that could make it better is if there was also a tabloid sized poster-book version of all these rousing, evocative, inspirational and occasionally just plain silly images for us to enjoy. Maybe the global interwebs umbrella, some digit-y micro-technologies and these modern electronic calculator contraptions could all be deployed to facilitate that – eh Professor?

First published in 2022 © Rian Hughes/Korero Press Limited/Original Artists & Publishers. All rights reserved.

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Walt’ Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks volume 13: Trick or Treat


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-874-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Donald Duck ranks among a small group of fictional characters to have transcended the bounds of reality and become – like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Popeye and James Bond -meta-real. As such, his origins are complex and convoluted. His official birthday is June 9th 1934: a dancing, nautically-themed bit-player in the Silly Symphony cartoon short The Wise Little Hen.

The animated cartoon was adapted by Ted Osborne & Al Taliaferro for the Silly Symphonies Sunday newspaper strip and thus classified by historians as Donald’s official debut in Disney comics. Controversially, he was also reported to have originated in The Adventures of Mickey Mouse strip which began 1931. Thus the Duck has more “birthdays” than he knows what to do with, which presumably explains why he’s such a bad-tempered cuss.

Visually, Donald Fauntleroy Duck was largely the result of animator Dick Lundy’s efforts, and, with partner-in-fun Mickey Mouse, is one of TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time. The Duck has his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame and has appeared in more films than any other Disney player.

Throughout the 1930s, his screen career grew from background and supporting roles via a team act with Mickey and Goofy to a series of solo cartoons which began with 1937’s Don Donald. That one also introduced love interest Daisy Duck and the irrepressible nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey…

By 1938 Donald was officially more popular than corporate icon Mickey Mouse, and even more so after his national service as a propaganda warrior in a series of animated morale boosters and information features during WWII. The merely magnificent Der Fuehrer’s Face garnered the 1942 Academy Award for Animated Short Film…

Crucially for our purposes, Donald is also planet Earth’s most-published non-superhero comics character, and has been blessed with some of the greatest writers and illustrators ever to punch a keyboard or pick up a pen or brush. A publishing phenomenon and megastar across Europe – particularly Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland – Donald (& Co) have spawned countless original stories and many immortal characters. Sales are stratospheric across all age groups there and in upwards of 45 other countries they export to. Japan’s manga publishers have their own iteration too…

The aforementioned Silly Symphonies adaptation and Mickey strip guest shots were trumped in 1937 when Italian publisher Mondadori launched an 18-page comic book story crafted by Federico Pedrocchi. It was quickly followed by a regular serial in Britain’s Mickey Mouse Weekly (a comic produced under license by Willbank Publications/Odhams Press that ran from 8th February 1936 to 28th December 1957).

Issue #67 (May 15th 1937) premiered Donald and Donna – a prototype Daisy Duck girlfriend – drawn by William A. Ward. Running for 15 weeks, it was followed by Donald and Mac before ultimately settling as Donald Duck – a fixture until the magazine folded. The feature inspired similar Disney-themed publications across Europe, with Donald regularly appearing beside company mascot Mickey…

In the USA, a daily Donald Duck newspaper strip launched on February 2nd 1938, with a colour Sunday strip added in 1939. Writer Ted Karp joined Taliaferro in expanding the duck cast and history: adding a signature automobile, pet dog Bolivar, goofy cousin Gus Goose, grandmother Elvira Coot whilst expanding the roles of both Donna and Daisy…

In 1942, his comic book life began with October cover-dated Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9: AKA Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was conceived by Homer Brightman & Harry Reeves, scripted by Karp with the illustration by Disney Studios employees Carl Barks & Jack Hannah. That was the moment everything changed…

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, and raised in rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks was a cartoonist, then an animator before quitting the Studio in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

From then until his retirement in the mid-1960s (he officially downed tools in 1966 but was cajoled into scripting stories well into 1968), Barks operated in self-imposed seclusion: writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters like Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the nefarious Beagle Boys (1951) to supplement the Studio’s stable of cartoon actors.

His greatest creation was undoubtedly crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged nonagenarian and frequent spur/gadfly and reluctant sugar daddy to the adventuresome youngsters…

Whilst producing all that landmark material Barks was also just a working guy, generating cover art, illustrating other people’s scripts when asked, adding stories to a burgeoning international canon of Duck Lore. Only after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging Barks material in the 1980s, did he discover the well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed. Media Historian Leonard Maltin called Barks “the most popular and widely read artist/writer in the world”…

So potent were Barks’ creations that they fed back into Disney’s overarching animation output, despite all his brilliant comic work being for Dell/Gold Key and not the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly animated series Duck Tales, based on his classic Uncle Scrooge adventures.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the blockbuster tale: blending wit, history, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps that utterly captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

During his working life Barks was utterly unaware that his work – uncredited due to company policy, as was all Disney’s comics output – had been recognised by a rabid and discerning public as “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, belated celebrity began.

In 2013, Fantagraphics Books began chronologically collecting Barks’ Duck stuff in curated archival volumes, tracing his output year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. Physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 260 mm – to grace any bookshelf, with volume 13 here resurrecting works spanning May 1952-November 1953 which includes a wealth of material from a landmark spooky seasonal release…

Everything here is written and drawn by Barks, but these comics inclusions come from a quite distant and very different time, so please be aware that – despite his diligent research and sensitive storytelling – some modern readers might be upset by occasionally outdated depictions and characterisations originally and innocently intended to generate thrills and laughs…

I should also not that the contents are not re-presented in strictly chronological order, but honestly do you really care as long they’re good?

It begins eponymously with ‘Trick or Treat’, which was the lead story in Donald Duck #26. Cover-dated November 1952, it was an unofficial Halloween special that proved quite controversial in its own way.

The story was an adaptation of a current cinema release, and Barks’ faithful interpretation of what was clearly acceptable to moviegoers surprisingly fell foul of his comics editor, who had him cut, excise and redraw much of the saga to make it less scary and more palatable. The full story of the story and its repercussions for the artist are discussed in the text sections of this collection and both Bark’s versions of ‘Trick or Treat’ are re-presented here so readers can judge for themselves…

The tale as Barks intended opens with a witch flying over a spooky old graveyard. Hazel is up for mischief and finds plenty when she teams up with Donald’s nephews who are seeking candied loot in the time-honoured tradition. However, when Donald meanly refuses to play along, it sparks a war of pranks, that escalates into a mystical duel that unleashes a most animated parade of ghosts and terrifying multi-limbed magical monster Smorgasdbord…

From the same issue ‘Hobblin’ Goblins’ sees The Nephews embroiled in inventor Gyro Gearloose’s latest crisis, with his highly dubious “Goblin Foiler” setting them on a catastrophic path of zany stunts to save Halloween whilst all the other kids are having fun with pumpkins and fancy dress, after which ‘A Prank Above’ sees the canny Junior Woodchucks actually outsmarted in their tricking by a crafty antiques dealer…

Barks was as adept with single-image and quick-fire gag vignettes as epic adventures: easily blending humour with drama and charm with action and captivating ideas. This book sees many of his best. At this time, Barks’ main gig was covers and mid-length (10 page) Donald yarns in flagship monthly anthology Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. The following duck tales come from WDC&S #145 through #158 (October 1952-November 1953): a sequence of rapid fire romps that begin with ‘The Hypno-Gun’, as the Loco parentis confiscates an annoying toy and manages to self-delude himself into a “mesmerised” state. Believing himself tough and forceful, he’s easy prey for Uncle Scrooge, who makes him his bad debt collector…

WDC&S ##146 (November 1952) then reveals the story of scenic town ‘Omelet’ as Donald explains to Daisy how he once dabbled in chicken rearing – with outlandishly catastrophic consequences for the entire area…

This surreal disaster saga was purportedly based on Barks’ own recent attempts to make a little extra cash through some backyard farming, but I doubt similar origins sparked the tale that follows as super-lucky Gladstone Gander becomes an undeserving recipient of a social program run by Daisy. The worst part is that Donald is burdened with helping his smarmy cousin in ‘A Charitable Chore’…

Christmas hit hard in WDC&S 148 (cover-dated January 1953) as ultra-organised Donald sorted everything early only to find he’d forgotten to arrange his own seasonal feast. Determined not to do without he resolves to fool Uncle Scrooge to pay for it in ‘Turkey with All the Schemings’ but has not factored in his opponent’s mean nature and determination to save a penny…

A month later ‘Flip Decision’ saw Donald fall for a flim-flam man’s hokum and begin making every life decision on the basis of a coin-toss, whilst ‘My Lucky Valentine’ follows Donald’s heroic exploits as mailman in a major blizzard. His valiant record is only threatened once he realises his last delivery a romantic missive from Gladstone Gander to Daisy…

Issue #151 celebrated another seasonal highpoint as Donald is shortlisted for Grand Marshal of the forthcoming big parade. With Gladstone as the only other contender much politicking chicanery and bribery ensues but when he shockingly wins ‘The Easter Election’, Donald realises too late that no one can beat his rival’s supernatural fortune…

The May 1953 WDC&S (#152) is a vicious lampoon of gameshows as Donald tries many manic stunts to get on one and make a thousand bucks, even as the Nephews badger, pester and eventually provide a potential solution to his money worries by adopting ‘The Talking Dog’…

A big fishing contest descends into chaos when Donald switches to bait created by Gyro. In ‘Worm Weary’, the entire angling community is outraged and terrified by Don’s powerfully programmed and cooperative wrigglers who dive in and extract all the fish without human intervention, and soon our star is facing a fishy lynch mob…

Working as a realtor, Donald alienates everyone by seeking to sell an old pile currently used by the Nephews as a clubhouse in ‘Much Ado About Quackly Hall’, after which Scrooge adapts the Parable of the Talents to his succession planning and tests Donald, Gladstone and Huey, Dewey & Louie to determine who will eventually inherit and safeguard his money in ‘Some Heir Over the Rainbow’

The Brittle Master series is the name fans use to describe an occasionally-occurring group of stories wherein the perennially self-sabotaging, fiery-tempered and eternally put-upon everyman Duck displayed an astounding excellence in some unique skill, winning the approval and veneration of all and sundry – only to have his own smug hubris bring about ultimate humiliation and downfall.

It began with this tale from Walt Disney Comics & Stories #156 (September 1953) which showed Donald as ‘The Master Rainmaker’: a crop-dusting pilot and cloud-sculpting artiste delivering nigh-magical service to farmers and event-organisers. However, increasingly outrageous requests from his adoring public and his own bellicose nature lead Donald inevitably to disaster when jealousy over Gladstone’s monopoly of Daisy leads to the weather wizard’s accidental creation of a full-blown, devastating ice-storm.

A quirky change of pace came in the October issue where ‘The Money Stairs’ pitted Donald’s youth, fitness and determination against Scrooge’s limitless wealth in an escalating series of physical tasks that seemed too much to believe before #158 (November 1953) pauses the run for now with a manic moment as the boys build an apiary in the backyard that soon shuts down all of Duckburg in ‘Bee Bumbles’…

We end as we began with another strip from that contentious Halloween issue – DD #26 – as Barks successfully recycles a very old gag with Donald trying to scare Daisy in ‘Frightful Face’…

The comics are augmented by a sublime ‘Carl Barks Cover Gallery’ proving the Master’s gift for visual one-liners with a selection of frontages from Four Color (volume II) 394 & 450, Donald Duck #26-30 and Walt Disney Comics & Stories #145-158.

The visual verve over, we move on to validation with ‘Story Notes’ offering context and commentary for each Duck tale here, including the background battle of ‘Trick or Treat’ which is re-visited by Jared Gardner and expanded upon in ‘The Cutting Room Floor’, after which Donald Ault details ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’.

‘Contributors’ introduces the commentators Ault, Alberto Beccatini, James Robert Cowles, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Gardner, Leonardo Gori, Thad Komorowski, Rich Kreiner, Bill Mason, Stefano Priarone and Francesco “Frank” Stajano and why they’re saying all those nice and informative things. We close as ever with an examination of provenance as ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’ clarify the rather byzantine publishing schedules of Dell Comics and the chronology of this collection’s treats. No tricks, honest!

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, with almost all his work featuring Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold billions across the world. You might be late to the party but don’t be scared: it’s never too late to climb aboard the Barks Express.
Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Trick or Treat © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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Josephine Baker


By Catel & Bocquet, translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91059-329-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Story of an Actual Wonder Woman… 9/10

Here’s a rather short review of an astonishingly eventful life celebrated in a superbly expansive, compellingly detailed account from two of the best graphic biographers working in the field. As I’m always implying, my Less is your More, and this is one story you’ll want to appreciate fresh and full-on, so just buy it and be done. You won’t be sorry and will have a revelatory time…

Born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3rd 1906 in St Louis, Missouri, the black icon, free spirit and symbol of self-determination who called herself Joséphine Baker was no scholar or schemer, but used her innate gifts as a dancer and entertainer to survive horrific acts of random racist violence and ultimately escape her origins as a despised second class citizen in the land of her birth.

A forceful, irrepressible, warm-hearted optimist with colossal empathy and a relentless sense of humour, Baker’s drive and willingness to take chances carried her to the peak of European sophistication and culture: rubbing shoulders with royalty and the cream of global creative intelligentsia: everyone from Picasso and Man Ray to Le Corbusier and Hemingway, Max Reinhardt, Buñuel, Cocteau, Colette, Pirandello, Georges Simenon and so many glittering others.

She was a vedette, singer, dancer, actress, movie star, civil rights activist, paramount artistic inspiration and – during WWII – an actual spy and French resistance operative working for future President Charles de Gaulle, as well as a ferocious defender of animals and devoted mother. Above all else, she was an entertainer par excellence…

Here, Baker’s incredibly eventful life is traced from cradle to grave in black-&-white vignettes, concentrating on her achievements, family life and relationships, seen through her progress from exploitable bit player to media sensation “La Baker”: Queen of Paris in the Jazz Age.

Her astounding energy, creativity and resolve to succeed was only exceeded by her adoration of children, secret acts of charity and unfailing ability to love men who were bad for her, but her legacy was almost erased in the years after she stopped working. Countless comeback attempts and financial troubles followed.

Perhaps she was never truly in earnest but pursuing the means to a greater end. Due to her inability to have children and immense fellow feeling for the downtrodden, Josephine had turned her post war years into an incredible social experiment, gathering orphans from many devastated countries into a single loving family… her multinational, multi-ethnic Rainbow Tribe…

All that achievement, accomplishment, unprofitable charity, disillusionment and ultimate abandonment by the august and wealthy in her own country (both of them!) led to Josephine fading from history until relatively recent times, but now she is being reclaimed by a world which could really benefit from her example…

Baker’s international fame led to frequent and painful attempts to reclaim her birth nation’s attention. Eventually – in 1937 – she renounced her American citizenship to become officially French. In later years she tried to help America’s fight against Segregation, but was shunned by both side of that struggle. At the end, as economic woes, life and ongoing illness plagued her final years, she found a few unexpected friends in powerful women like Brigitte Bardot and her final years were spent in Monaco, a guest of equally constrained and misused female icon Grace Kelly. Josephine Baker died on 11th April 1975.

Her public and private lives coalesce in this chronological dramatised narrative from award-winning graphic novelist Catel Muller (Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult, Adieu Kharkov, Lucie s’en soucie, Le Sang des Valentines) and crime novelist, screenwriter/biographer/comics writer José-Louis Bocquet (Métal Hurlant, Sur la ligne blanche, Mémoires de l’espion, Panzer Panik, Anton Six), who in their other collaborations have also explored the lives of Kiki de Montparnasse and Olympe de Gouges (…and we’ll get to them in the fullness of time).

Entertaining, enthralling, informative, and continually sparking explosions of aggrieved but justified outrage on Baker’s behalf, the book is supplemented by a vast supporting structure of extras, beginning with a heavily illustrated and highly informative ‘Timeline for Josephine Baker’, incorporating pivotal events in her public and private lives. It’s further augmented by ‘Biographical Notes’: 55 character portraits in prose and sketch form of the historical figures with supporting roles feature in this epic saga, plus as an essay on ‘The Rainbow Tribe’ by her son/historical consultant Jean-Claude Bouillon-Baker. Also included are a Bibliography and Filmography for further study.

If you love history, comics, justice triumphant or just great stories, you really need to set some records straight and read this book.
© Casterman 2021. All rights reserved.

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Illegal


By Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano & lettered by Chris Dickey (Hodder Children’s Books)
ISBN: 978-1-444-93400-7 (HB) 978-1-444-93169-3 (Digital edition)

Former primary school teacher Eoin Colfer is an award-winning author who written stories about everything. Most renowned for his Artemis Fowl books, he’s crafted many other novels and series, including Benny and Omar, Highfire, W.A.R.P. (Witness Anonymous Relocation Program), The Supernaturalist, Iron Man: The Gauntlet, Half Moon Mysteries and more.

Acclaimed Irish raconteur Colfer also penned the first official sequel in Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy sequence and served from 2014-2016 as the Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Laureate). It’s safe to say he knows what kids like and how they think…

Almost all of his works end up as sequential narratives and his long-term partners in adapting the Fowl series into graphic novels are writer Andrew Donkin (The Terminal Man, The Valley of Adventure, My Story: Viking Blood, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Doctor Who) and Italian illustrator Giovanni Rigano (Daffodil, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles). In 2017, in the face of an escalating international crisis, they harnessed their powers for good to produce an evocative fictionalised account of the forces in play compelling migrants to risk slavery and death, to leave their own homelands in search of – if not a better life – at least one less lethal and hopeless …

Following a Dedication and poignant, pertinent quote from Noble Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel a saga simultaneously unique and shamefully ubiquitous unfolds. Across 17 chapters flipping between recent flashbacks and immediate peril, we get to know Ebo: a 12-year-old from Ghana trying to reunite with his sister…

The now is midnight in the middle of the Mediterranean. Ebo is one of 14 scared voyagers currently overloading a rubber raft built intended for 6. Hours earlier he, brother Kwame and new friend Razak were – at gunpoint – forced into the “balloon boat” by people-smugglers who had been paid and didn’t want anything else to do with their “clients”…

As they rock in the salty darkness – hopefully heading towards Italy – Ebo’s mind washes back 19 months to the village in Niger. It was just him and Kwame since their mother died and sister Sisi left for Europe where she could earn money to feed them…

One morning, Kwame also disappeared, and Ebo instantly followed, tracing well-established routes across the sands to Agadez in Niger: a city of survivors in transit. Hardworking and smart he found ways to survive, dodging human predators, before miraculously finding his brother. Together they scraped together enough cash for a desert crossing, paying the bandits who trafficked drugs, cigarettes and other contraband like the desperate…

Despite incredible odds, the brothers survived the ordeal and retrenched in Libya. Even though Tripoli sees migrants as unwelcome parasites, many work illegally in the city until they have enough money to buy passage across the waters. Overcoming appalling hardship, the brothers make new friends and are soon ready to leave…

History is intercut with the failing sea-crossing, and more details emerge as the raft founders. The travellers universally lament never learning how to swim as realisation comes that they are all about to die. Ebo recalls friendly people he met along the way and suddenly, after accepting death, the paddlers are rescued from doom. However, the respite proves to be even more awful than their near-death escape. Even this chance event will end badly for all of them…

At all stages sheer luck had been their friend, but always an awful price was exacted. That proves horrifically true again when the weary voyagers are located by the Italian navy and ghastly human error triggers a disaster…

Supplementing this agonisingly current affair is a map of  ‘Ebo’s Journey’ and a ‘Message From the Creators’ appealing for common sense, understanding and human decency in handling this ongoing global calamity. Following them is ‘Helen’s Story’: an account of one girl’s experience provided by Women for Refugee Women and adapted by Colfer, Donkin & Rigano, after which the usual ‘Acknowledgements’ and information ‘About the Creators’ accompanies a superbly enthralling glimpse at the artist’s ‘Sketchbook’.

This story is constructed from many actual accounts and despite being for a general audience – particularly school-aged children – pulls no punches. This kind of targeted reportage can liberate young minds and has frequently changed the world in the past. Let’s hope that’s the case here too, and that the next generation of leaders can see their way clear to dealing with economics and political problems with warmth and understanding, and not thinly-veiled racist rhetoric, dog-whistle exceptionalism and parsimonious patriotism…

Shocking harrowing enlightening and rewarding, this is a children’s book every grown-up should read.
Text © Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin2017. Illustrations © Giovanni Rigano 2017. All rights reserved.