Category Archives: Mature Reading

Kramers Ergot volume 8

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By various, edited by Sammy Harkham (PictureBox)
ISBN: 978-0-98458-927-2

Since the 1980s when “Underground” creators and cartoonists of adult and mature English-language comics first began to find mainstream and popular acceptance by re-branding themselves as alternative or Avant Garde, there have periodically emerged groundbreaking anthologies which served to disseminate the best of the best in challenging sequential art. Following on the groundbreaking heels of Raw and its descendants, Kramers Ergot launched as a 48-page mini-comic in 2000 and grew into a vari-format, anything goes visual and intellectual banquet before suspending publication with #7 in 2008 with a hugely proportioned (536x414mm) 96-page deluxe hardback starring sixty of the art form’s most beguiling pantheon of stars.

Now founding father Sammy Harkham returns with another stunning array of top-notch new creations and a smattering of sublime vintage material in a gloriously accessible 240-page clothbound B-format hardback that once more brandishes the sharpest of cutting edges at fans of the medium at its most uncompromising…

The magic begins with the abstract and glittering Overture by Robert Beatty, after which Washington Punk musician Ian F. Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, Weird War and Chain and The Gang) contributes a fascination and informative essay on the shape of American arts with Notes on Camp part 2.

Alternative star and social commentator ‘Jimbo’ returns in a trek across tomorrow’s wastelands in a sharp monochrome yarn from Gary Panter after which C.F. explores isolation and human relationships in the placidly eerie ‘Warm Genetic House-Test Pattern’ whilst Kevin Huizenga redraws an old Charlton Comics fantasy tale (“The Half Men” by Bill Molno & Sal Trapani and possibly scripted by the prolific Joe Gill) in the quirkily disturbing ‘Mysteries of Unexplained Worlds’…

Leon Sadler produces the first of two contributions in the colourfully pensive ‘Friendship Comic’ whilst the muted hues and jolly style of Gabrielle Bell’s ‘Cody’ successfully belies the tale’s violent underpinnings and Frank Santoro & Dash Shaw shock and stun with their chilling ‘Childhood Predators’.

‘Ain’t it So?’ is a smart cartoon by Tim Hensley and ‘Get Your Ass to Mars’ is a set of stunning art photo pieces from Takeshi Murata, whilst ‘Mining Colony X7170’ is a typically dark and savage sci fi shocker from anti-art iconoclast Johnny Ryan before

Leon Sadler returns with the expansive and picaresque ‘Goblins Orbit the Earth (I’m Here! It’s Me!)’.

Chris Cilla takes a different look at love in ‘Secret Tourist’ and ‘Barbarian Bitch’ by Anya Davidson joyously screws with all the traditions of the hoary old genre and Ben Jones plays cunning mind-games and perpetrates dire puns in his shaggy doggish and charmingly primitivist ‘The Ultimate Character 2002’ after which Editor Sammy Harkham picks up his own pens to describe the silent horror and driving melodrama of ‘A Husband and a Wife’.

‘Epilogue’ is another visual voyage from painter Robert Beatty and this tome concludes with a long lost delight.

The last contribution is a true joy for me reprinting as it does a selection from what I believe to be one of the most delicious and clever British strips ever created. ‘Oh, Wicked Wanda (Select Excerpts)’ reprints in sublime full glossy colour Ron Embleton & Frederick Mullalley’s brilliant socio-sexual satire which ran in Penthouse magazine between 1973-1980.

Journalist, editor (of left-wing magazine Tribune), columnist, novelist and political writer Mullally was hired to script the exotic, erotic adventures of Wanda Von Kreesus, the richest woman in the world, Candyfloss, her insatiable jailbait paramour and an outrageous coterie of faithful employees including an all-girl army, a mad scientist and a brutal looking thug with the soul of a poet. To illustrate he secured the talents of oil painter and comic strip veteran Ron Embleton who had astounded comic readers with his lush and vibrant strip Wulf the Briton in Express Weekly and his illustrations in Look and Learn.

Oh, Wicked Wanda! was originally a prose serial illustrated by Bryan Forbes, beginning in 1969 before becoming, in 1973, the unbelievably lavish and torrid strip reprinted here, continuing until 1980 when it was replaced by Sweet Chastity, also painted by Embleton, and scripted by Penthouse proprietor Bob Guccione.

The bored and mischievous hellion is a sexually adventurous woman from a time when sexual politics and liberation were huge issues, and therefore prime targets for low comedy and high satire. Mullally peppered his scripts with topical references (many, sadly which would escape today’s casual reader, I’m sure) and the phenomenal Embleton would depict them with hyper-realistic accuracy. Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Ted Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Fidel Castro, Lyndon Johnson, Spiro Agnew, Mao Tse-tung, John Wayne, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and even comic-strip greats like Pogo, Mutt and Jeff or Krazy Kat, all meandered through the glossy pages, a cross between a Greek Chorus and pictorial ad-libs.

Many celebrities were actively parodied, participants and classical and contemporary erotic allusions abounded; ranging from a little nymphette lounging about reading William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch to visual and verbal references to Shelley’s Leda and the Swan.

Here some of the earliest adventures are re-presented as Wanda destroys, debases, abducts and mounts (no, not necessarily that way) the obnoxiously rich and famous for her Museum of Misfits and Deviancy; consequently taking on the Mafia, the CIA and South American Nazi war criminal Martin Boorman. Her personal Mad Scientist Homer Sapiens also reveals his sordid connections to some of the 20th century’s nastiest personages…

Oh, Wicked Wanda! is still a funny, sexy read and inarguably one of the most beautiful British strips ever crafted. Hopefully this selection will lead to a new audience and a comprehensive reprinting …

As well as being a comics-lovers dream, Kramers Ergot is a book-lovers delight with excellent design and a reassuringly high-class print values. This package is something no lover of the medium can afford to miss.

All material © 2011 respective authors and owners. All rights reserved.

Frank Brunner’s Seven Samuroid

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By Frank Brunner (Image International)
ISBN: 0-943128-06-4

The 1980s were a fertile time for American comics-creators. It was as if a brand new industry had been born with the proliferation of the Direct Sales Market and dedicated specialist retail outlets; companies were experimenting with format and content and economically, times were good so punters even had a bit of spare cash to play with.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally been invalidated and America was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be a for-real, actual art-form…

Consequently many young start-up companies began competing for the attention and leisure-dollars of fans grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads, all supplemented by the rapid rise of a healthy plethora of comics criticism, collection and informational magazines…

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even smaller companies had a fair shot at the big time and a lot of great material came – and too often, quickly went – without getting the attention or success it warranted.

One of the most overlooked but just plain fun features came from an unlikely paring of star artist Frank Brunner and a printing company based in New Zealand, which tapped into the growing zeitgeist of Japan’s burgeoning robotic warrior knights or “mecha” and the modern pulp space opera of the first Star Wars generation…

In the future the great Galactic Union succumbed to war brought about by political ambition and economic greed. At the height of the conflict a group of wise men created a small force of super-robots hardwired with the unflinching principles of ancient Earth’s noblest warriors; dedicated to preserving all innocent life and defending the oppressed; whether organic or mechanical.

These Samuroids were then bonded with the personalities of valiant volunteers whose intellects were transcribed into the awesome automatons. However after decades of constant struggle even the unceasing efforts of the puissant mechanicals were not enough to stave off an era of darkness, decline and destruction…

Two millennia later the universe is a place of chaos and anarchy dotted with small emergent enclaves of brutal feudal “civilisation” still limited to their own isolated, hostile star-systems. On the planet Ion, freedom fighter Zeta leads a band of rebels battling the rise of a new Dark Imperium. Hunted by sky-borne troops in deadly gun-ships, she falls into a cave and discovers a ponderous solitary figure: Ultek the Samuroid.

The tragic undying warrior has stood sentinel in this dark hole since he and his fellows failed in their appointed task centuries ago, contemplating the horrors he was built to prevent and all the lives he was forced to take. However his broken soul is fired up at last when the Imperium troops savagely attack, wounding Zeta.

Roused to action, Ultek destroys the monstrous thugs and joins Zeta’s cause, determined to thwart the expansionist horrors of the voracious Imperium and its mad monarch, The Mikado…

To this end he seeks out the other surviving Samuroids, who have indeed fallen low…

After millennia their quasi-mystical power-source Reiki is all but exhausted. Another mecha Sarr donates his reserves to scientists in hope of their synthesising a substitute fuel whilst Ultek returns to the stars in search of more old comrades. He finds two aboard an ancient Galaxy-Union Star Battle Wagon, converted into a vast and corrupt travelling carnival. They are unresisting slaves of its vile master, Strom Bolla…

Sark and Gorr have bartered their honour for dwindling rations of Reiki, but Ultek finds a valuable friend in the brave but inconsequential droid Toto who describes himself as an “honorary Samuroid”. With precious time passing and desperately determined to free and rehabilitate his fallen comrades Ultek joins the Carnival as a gladiator, but before he can make his move events spiral out of control when the decrepit warship is attacked by two more Samuroids Hum-Run and Dagg…

United at last the Seven Samuroid return to Ion where the rebellion has fared badly under the Mikado’s barbarous assaults and horror, glory and restored honour await them…

That or final irrevocable death and darkness…

At first this book (published in the overlarge 285 x 220mm European Album Format) might seem a creature of unlikely marriages: adapting the classic plot and ever-so-serviceable themes and motifs of Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no Samurai to the heavily technocratic milieu of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica is not so big a leap, but much of this sci fi romp is exceedingly dark and decidedly mature in content and Brunner’s superbly humanistic illustration is often at odds with the grubby, grimy tone and faceless  dehumanising technology and hardware of the storyline.

Stuffed with in-jokes and dry asides, this tales also skirts rather than embraces the spiritual aspects of the original Seven Samurai but does pay lip-service to the all-embracing warrior code of Bushido as well as finding room for romance and a happy ending of sorts.

All in all this is a very queer beast indeed from a time when anything seemed possible, but in the final analysis provides a huge amount of old-fashioned thrills, chills and spills, making it well worth the time and effort of fans of movie and cartoon fantasy as well as classic comics adventure.
© 1984 Frank Brunner. All rights reserved.

New British Comics volume 3

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By various (NBC)
No ISBN:

Here’s a terrific little anthology tome (the third in a very impressive series) for older readers which delivers a tremendous amount of cartoon wonder and literary entertainment. This lovely B5 format compilation gathers a selection of contemporary graphic tales and vignettes by very talented, imaginative and keen creators who aren’t quite household names yet, beginning with the delightful ‘Cindy & Biscuit Save the World (again)’ by Dan White, wherein a plucky lass and her faithful mutt tackle an alien invasion, after which Lawrence Elwick & Paul O’Connell reveal an unsuspected side of ‘Alfred Hitchcock: Master of Suspense’.

‘Ink vs Paper’ by John Miers is an edgy, multi-layered silent foray into high design and “Hai! Karate!” followed by ‘Animal Magnetism’, the first of two equally speechless jazzy adventures by Elwick & O’Connell starring ‘Charlie Parker “Handyman”…

Scathing social satire is the order of the day in the futuristic unreality show ‘Here Comes the Neighbourhood’ by Matthew Craig & Richard Johnson, whilst more traditional sci fi fare informs the excellent ‘Better Living Through Distance’ by Dave Johnson, and genuine spooky nihilism makes Craig Collins & Iain Laurie’s ‘The Quiet Burden’ the very last thing you want to read at bedtime…

‘Luvvable Lex: Dirty ‘N’ Down’ by Rob Miller offers the unique Celtic insights of a very with-it “Glesga Gangster” before ‘Wonderland’ by Wilbur Dawbarn finally confirms what you’d always feared about the fauns and that Wardrobe to Narnia… After ‘Charlie Parker “Handyman”: Skyscraper Lunch’, Van Nim breaks hearts and shatters illusions of fairytale romance in‘(crack)’.

The thrills and chills come thick and fast in the macabre western ‘Von Trapp’ by WJC and this superb sojourn in strange lands ends with ‘A Complex Machine’ wherein David Ziggy Greene exposes the ghastly, fantastic, impossible truth about reflexology, Chinese medicine and those serene but wizened old gentlemen…

Most of the most popular and impressive creators of the last thirty years broke into the paying end of the business via the Independent, Small Press or Self Publishing routes and as each of the contributors here has a website you can see more at, courtesy of the biographies section at the back, you can get in on the crest of the next wave simply by picking up the luscious little black and white book…
All work © 2011 the individual creators. All rights reserved

To obtain New British Comics check this out, or contact Rob Miller.

100 Bullets: Decayed

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By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-384-8

Not long after Columbus landed in America, thirteen ancient European crime-families migrated to the New World and clandestinely carved up the continent in perpetuity between them. As the country grew cultured and a new nation was born the Trust embedded itself within every aspect of it.

To prevent their own greed and ambition from destroying the sweetest deal in history the Families created an extraordinary police force to mediate and act when any Trust member or faction acted against the unity and best interests of the whole. They were called the Minutemen and were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

Not too long ago though, some of The Trust’s current leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them.

Betrayed Minutemen captain Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal well and has been slowly enacting a plan to rectify that casual injustice. For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets …

Some of those tragic beneficiaries have been revealed as Minutemen with their personalities hypnotically submerged in cover identities to hide and protect them from the Trust. Gradually they have been reawakened by Graves as he confidentially proceeds with his long range strategy… although no-one really knows what the end-game and ultimate goals are.

With this tenth volume (collecting issues #68-75 of the Vertigo comicbook and the three quarter mark of the stunning adult saga) comes another stunning ratcheting-up of suspense as even more players are removed from the game and the increasingly wary survivors consolidate their positions for the fast approaching apocalyptic finale.

Pay attention when perusing: the uncompromising co-creators have never been accused of underestimating their audience’s intelligence – or appetite for blood, sex, intrigue and ultra-violent action – and these stories need to be carefully studied: both the delightfully sparse words and the shockingly slick pictures…

After an introduction from Darwyn Cooke the ongoing drama re-opens with ‘Sleep, Walker’ and a flashback to 1962 as Axel, leader of House Nagel, is informed by young Augustus Medici that the Minuteman leader Neil Walker has died…

To replace him Medici and Javier Vasco favour the coolly capable Philip Graves, but the junior Minuteman is not so certain he will win the position or the Trust’s full acceptance…

In the present Nagel is a tired old man carried along on Medici’s ambitions and sadly realising his own time has, at last, run out…

As new Trust Warlord Lono targets death-obsessed street-fighter Jack Daw and finally reactivates the next hidden sleeper agent by almost beating him to death, another flashback reveals that some Trust members fear Graves’ Holy Grail has always been a House of his own…

The extended saga ‘A Wake’ reintroduces another capable and nefarious character as low-level enforcer Ronnie Rome hunts for the suicidal mook crazy enough to steal from his gangster boss Mimo. If only all the evidence didn’t point to Ronnie’s wild younger brother Remi…

Meanwhile Axel’s funeral points out a minor problem: as the nine remaining Trust Families swear new allegiance and solidarity to each other a contentious point of order crops up.

Lars and Anna, twins with an unhealthy affection for each other, are the heirs to House Nagel, but since there can be only one undisputed head and the twins are reluctant to choose they must be prodded at all costs into making an irrevocable decision…

Elsewhere, with all the angles weighed, Ronnie readies himself to settle with Remi, but the snotty sibling has found the case, gun and 100 bullets Graves left with the older leg-breaker…

Things turn very nasty when the real thieves are exposed, but the horrific bloodbath that results there is as nothing compared to what happens after one of the Rome boys is revealed as another dormant Minuteman…

And at the highest level of society, Lono works things out with the two potential heirs of Axel Nagel. When he’s done there’s one less House in the Trust…

This volume ends with ‘Amorality Play’ as Graves plays his game in San Francisco, offering young grill-chef and washed-up medical student Dustin his usual deal and briefcase while Lono revels in his growing clout with the Trust and messes with assorted street-punks, predators and lowlifes – just to keep his hand in and to prove what really makes humanity tick…

Wicked, clever, blackly funny and gloriously, gratuitously vicarious, this ultra-violent, sex-stuffed, profanity-packed, utterly addictive thrill ride always delivers maximum punch and every beautiful panel on every thrilling page might hold the final clue  to the grand saga unfolding before your eyes. Moreover even whilst playing scrupulously fair the creators are doing their best to shock, mislead and set you up….

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics ever produced, the series developed into a staggeringly plausible and painfully visceral conspiracy thriller of vast scope and dazzling, intricate detail. Over the months and years Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso slowly and carefully planted many seeds which grew into a tangle of disparate shoots simultaneously entwining and growing off at tangents before coming together into a perfect mosaic of mood, mayhem and murder.

If there are still any of you rush-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by nudity, rudity and very violent behaviour – who haven’t seen this compulsive classic yet, get out there and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! You need them all and the very best is yet to come…
© 2006 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

A Matter of Time

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By Juan Gimenez (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-012-3, Del Rey edition (2005):  978-0-34548-314-0

Juan Antonio Giménez López was born in Mendoza, Argentina in 1943 and after studying industrial design attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona. Hugely influenced by Hugo Pratt and Francisco Solano López, Gimenez broke into the comics field with stories for Argentine magazines Record and Colomba before beginning his long association with European comics in such publications as Spain’s Zona 84, Comix International and 1994, France’s Metal Hurlant and Italy’s Lanciostory, L’Eternauta  and Skorpio, before gaining global fame with his scintillant Metabarons series produced in collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky.

His preferred metier is adult tales of science fiction and/or combat and Gimenez is an accredited expert on all things avionic or to do with war in the air.

In 1985 Catalan Communications collected a selection of time-travel related short stories (many of which had appeared in the American magazine Heavy Metal) usually known as the Time Paradox Tales into one glorious baroque and stunningly beautiful fantasy anthology with dark, sardonic and sublimely lyrical overtones of classic 2000AD Future Shocks or Twisted Times “sting-in-the-tale” stories…

Following a expansive and lavishly illustrated critique from Carlos Gimenez (no relation) the elegantly lush procession of exotic, eccentric eight-page excitements begins with ‘DIY’ wherein a father and son meddle with the wrong home-computer program and dad ends up a terrified touchline visitor at some of the most dangerous moments of all time and space, after which ‘Tridisex’ details the horrific fate of a couple of salacious chronal researchers who land in the right place at the right time but at the wrong size…

‘Express’ sees a dedicated time-assassin dispatched into the past to unwittingly murder himself whilst ‘Entropy’ details a tragic timeslip which causes the greatest combat aircraft of two eras to experience the closest of encounters.

‘8½’ explores the secret advantage of the fastest gunslinger of the Wild West and recounts the fate of the time-tourist who rooted for him whilst a tragic synchronicity-loop and incomprehensible paradox at last explains the great leap forward of an ancient civilisation in ‘Chronology’…

‘Residue’ takes the exercise in futility that is war to its inescapable conclusion in a lustrous four-page paean to technological advantage, bringing this magnificent artistic treat to a close on the darkest of downbeats…

Gritty, witty and ever so pretty, A Matter of Time is pure speculative gold: old-fashioned, cutting edge fantasy fun and entertainment with a satirical edge and its tongue firmly in its cheek. Perfume for the eyes so breathe deeply and jump aboard.
© 1982-1985 Juan Gimenez. English translation © 1985 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

The Desert Peach volume 4: Baby Games

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By Donna Barr (Mu Press/Aeon Pubs)
ISBN: 1-883847-05-2

Donna Barr is one of the comic world’s most singular graphic raconteurs. She always constructs impeccable, fully realised worldscapes to house her stories and tells them with a style and voice that are definitely one-of-a-kind. Her most perfect creations are the Half-Horse Stinz Löwhard, and The Desert Peach, perfectly self-assured and eminently capable gay brother of the legendary “Desert Fox” and the scintillating star of this effervescent assemblage of sly, dry wit, raucous drollery and way out military madness.

Set in World War II Africa and effortlessly combining hilarity, absurdity, profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity, the stories describe the daily grind of Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel; a dutiful if unwilling cog in the German War Machine.

However, although as capable as his beloved elder sibling Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the gracious and genteel Peach is a man who loathes causing harm or giving offence and thus spends his dry and dusty days with the ever-so-motley crew of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, trying to remain stylish, elegant and non-threatening to the men under his command and the enemy forces around him.

The only people he really dislikes are boors, bigots and card-carrying Blackshirts…

He applies the same genteel courtesies to the sundry natives inhabiting the area and the rather tiresome British – not all of whom are party to a clandestine non-aggression pact Pfirsich has agreed with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces…

The romantic fool is also passionately in love with and engaged to Rosen Kavalier: handsome Aryan warrior and wildly manly Luftwaffe Ace…

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues via a number of publishers and was subsequently collected as eight graphic novel collections (1988-2005). A prose novel, Bread and Swans, a musical and an invitational collection by other artists entitled Ersatz Peach were also created during the strip’s heyday. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collects issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

Arguably the real star of these fabulous frothy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, a man of many secrets whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent man and tolerable officer in the entire German army.

This terrifyingly scarce fourth softcover collection reprints issues #10-12, and starts the ball rolling with ‘Two-Timers’ wherein the fiercely protective Pfirsich infiltrates the British positions as history’s least believable English Officer to ferret out a spy targeting his brother Erwin.

Of course to carry off the mission somebody has to be prominently visible in the German camp as the ever-so-unmissable and wickedly froufrou Desert Peach. Ein step vorwarts, (or else…) patriotic he-man and self-appointed Nazi political officer Leutnant Kjars Winzig…

Meanwhile, as the entire 469th kvetch over the Leutnant’s unlikely and unhappy performance, Pfirsich’s impossible imposture is going inconceivably well until he confronts the undercover agent over drinks in the NAAFI. Although the bold Boche succeeds in reasoning with the master-spy, a couple of Anzac non-coms (who hate Poms as much as Krauts) are not fooled, leading to a spectacular chase and frantically thrilling conclusion…

That hilarious comedy of terrors was quickly topped by a superbly delightful and trenchantly wicked adult farce in ‘Straight and Narrow’ wherein Udo, disgusted with the mockery his effeminate boss engenders amongst other German units, determines to get his boss laid by a woman – specifically the very willing and professional ladies of local bordello “The Cedars”.

Aiding and abetting this appalling scheme is Pfirsich’s one true love, wild man Luftwaffe pilot and airborne inamorata Rosen Kavalier. Even with the more than willing demimondaine Babette in on the scheme and exerting all her professional wiles it takes a chemical “additive” to finally get the ball rolling…

Of course the entire vile scheme ends badly and the Peach, crushed, disgusted and humiliated storms off. Soon after however, Babette realises that she’s now eating for two…

The reprinted material ends here with the inevitable conclusion in ‘Menschenkind – Child of the World’ as nine months after that epic night Pfirsich – still distant with his staff and boyfriend – drives away the unrepentant Ace. Kavalier storms off and visits The Cedars again, discovering a fascinating piece of news…

Although the Peach refuses to listen to his true love, cunning Udo, in on the secret, inveigles his boss into returning to his place of shame, where after another farcical misapprehension of events the Peach is finally introduced to his newborn son…

But of course even this joy is tempered by incredible problems…

To augment and complete this fabulous triptych of torrid tales there’s a new epilogue ‘Home is Where…’ set in the Peach’s declining years, wherein Pfirsich and his adult son Mani play host to a reunion of the 469th few survivors: a bittersweet vignette which delights and fearfully foreshadows tragedies yet to come…

Referencing the same vast story potential as Sgt. Bilko, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Catch 22, as well as such tangential films as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Birdcage, the Desert Peach is bawdy, raucous, clever, authentically madcap and immensely engaging. These fabulous combat fruit cocktails were some of the very best comics of the 1990s and still pack the comedic kick of an embroidered landmine, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn. Moreover, with this volume the dark bitter edges and cold iron underlying these fabulous characters and their horrific, doomed situation become increasingly apparent.

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style, this book is a must-have for any history-loving, war-hating lover of wit, slapstick, high drama and belly-laughs. All the Desert Peach books are pretty hard to find these days but if you have a Kindle, Robot Comics have just begun to release individual comicbook issues for anybody who can get the hang of all this verfluchte technical tsuris…
© 1991-1994 Donna Barr. All rights reserved. The Desert Peach is ™ Donna Barr.

Thoroughly Ripped with the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers …and Fat Freddy’s CAT!

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By Gilbert Shelton & Dave Sheridan with Paul Mavrides (Rip Off Press, Inc.)
ISBN: 978-0-89620-088-3
(1978)

Since nobody normal, god-fearing, decent and upstanding would ever dabble with  recreational pharmaceuticals, you’re probably utterly unaware of the extensive sub-culture which has grown up around the casual abuse and dastardly trafficking of narcotics – and so, of course, am I – but it must be said: those counter-culture dudes certainly know how to craft a comic tale.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969. This effective collective continued to maximise the madness as the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (a contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folks) captured the imagination of the more open-minded portions of America and the world (not to mention their kids)…

In 1971 Rip Off published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers - which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times, Playboy and numerous foreign periodicals in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (and his cat): simpatico metaphorical siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Always written by Shelton and, from 1974 illustrated by Dave Sheridan (until his death in 1982) after which Paul Mavrides picked up the nibs and brushes; the disjointed strips (sorry; irresistible puns are the monkey on my back) combined canny satirical cynicism, surreal situations, scatological sauciness and a terrifying grasp of human nature in staggeringly comedic episodes which cannot fail to amuse anyone with a mature sense of humour.

All the strips have been collected in various formats (in Britain by the marvellous Knockabout Comics) and have been happily absorbed by vast generations of fans – most of whom wouldn’t read any other comic.

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is irrefutably a consummate professional. His ideas are always enchantingly fresh yet timeless, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page fillers, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet story-appropriate – climaxes.

And they’re so very, very funny.

Freewheelin’ Franklin is the tough, street-savvy one who can pull the chicks best, Phineas T. Freakears is a wildly romantic, educated and dangerous (to himself) intellectual whilst Fat Freddy Freekowtski is us; weak-willed, greedy, not so smart, vastly put upon by an uncaring universe but oddly charming (you wish…)

One last point: despite the vast panoply of drugs imbibed, both real and invented, the Freaks don’t ever do heroin – and if that’s not a warning message I don’t know what is…

Thoroughly Ripped is a compilation first released in 1978 and revised with the 1980 edition reviewed here: a luxurious full painted-colour softcover which collects the last of Dave Sheridan’s strips and a couple of the superb early Paul Mavrides efforts in a gloriously anarchic and hilarious chronicle of cloudy-headed, anti-corporate skits and sketches.

The wit and wonderment opens with ‘Fat Freddy’s CAT in the Burning of Hollywood’ from 1978 as the sublimely smug and sanguine survivor of a million hairy moments recounts to his ever-burgeoning brood of impressionable kittens how he and his imbecilic human spectacularly flamed out in the movie biz in a classic tale written and illustrated by Shelton, after which follows a single page strip about the dangers of buying your fun from a guy in an alley…

Next up is the breakthrough “origin” saga of Phineas ‘Winter of ’59’ (produced for internationally distributed Playboy magazine in 1974) and a saucy retrospective of high times in the Fabulous Fifties and Swinging Sixties.

‘Sunday Funnies’ was a single-page spoof of super-cop Dick Tracy starring inept undercover Fed Notorious Norbert (the Nark) who returned in ‘The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and the Mysterious Visitor’ which saw the start of Dave Sheridan’s artistic endeavours in a snazzy sting operation by the dragged-up drug cop, followed by the superbly surreal ‘Ridin’ That Train’ as Fatty Freddy discovered the mixed joys of train sets and strong weed…

Much of the material consisted of untitled quickies and short strips. Freewheelin’ Franklin solos in a paranoid cautionary tale of the perils of housework, whilst Freddy and Phineas get into a bizarre battle over TV privileges after which the Fat One finally decides to get rid of the cockroach invasion blighting his life before accidentally and cataclysmically exposing corporate greed in the fire-alarm sales trade…

Preceded by a one-page tale of Phineas’ latest drug-dregs recycling invention, ‘The $29.95 SF to NYC Non-Stop Whiteline Cannonball Express’ by Shelton & Sheridan details the explosive and acerbic epic tale of the Bro’s attempt to start a trans-continental people’s vintage bus service with the usual wildly unbelievable detours and results, after which a flurry of short strips, including Freddy’s adventure in a mud wallow, Phineas’ attempt to make bees produce marijuana honey, Norbert’s latest drug scanning technology fiasco and a search for the legendary “Lost Volkswagen Cocaine Stash” leads to the lads’ latest home-growing experiment decimating their apartment block.

The Reefer Madness concludes with a yarn exposing the secret TV conspiracy to suck out our brains, how undercover cops won a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers look-alike competition and two Mavrides one-pagers – an untitled collaboration with Sheridan detailing the wonder of “the munchies” and the disgustingly uproarious ‘Zeno’s Law’ as the Freaks attempt to legislate and police refrigerator privileges and responsibilities…

Without Shelton and the Freaks the whole sub-genre of slacker/stoner movies, from Cheech and Chong’s assorted escapades to more modern entries such as Dude, Where’s My Car?, Supertroopers, Harold and Kumar and all the rest, good, bad or indifferent, wouldn’t exist. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you…

Anarchically sardonic and splendidly ludicrous, the madcap slapstick of the Freak Brothers is always an irresistible and joyously innocent tonic for the blues and these tales should be a compulsory experience for any fan of the comics medium. However, if you’re still worried about the content, which is definitely habit-forming, simply read but don’t inhale…
© 1981 Rip Off Press, Inc. Fat Freddy’s Cat © 1981 Gilbert Shelton. “Winter of ‘59” © 1974 Playboy.

Cyberpunk book 1 & 2

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By Scot Rockwell, Darryl Banks & Doug Talalla (Innovation)
ASIN: B005KDE9UO & B000GG0BBQ

One of the most ambitious and intriguing cash-ins on the 1990s literary phenomenon dubbed “Cyberpunk” was this challenging and potentially excellent yarn crafted very much in the manner of William Gibson’s Neuromancer which never had the time, editorial support or fanbase to develop into what it could and should have been. The story debuted as a brace of 2-issue miniseries in 1989 before being collected in colourful but exceedingly thin tomes.

It all begins in the near future with ‘Bad Dreams’ as freelance ICEbreaker Topo AKA “the Mole” attempts to infiltrate street-gang the Plastiques before returning his addicted consciousness to the shared cyberspace arena of the “Playing Field”.

Topo despises his meat body and would spend eternity in the neural universe if possible, but when his crusading lover and occasional employer is abducted by her latest target, Roi of Quondam Mechanics the Mole needs the assistance of tech-broker Alma Matrix to balance the scales and even the odds…

Probing the Corporation’s datastore in his avatar-form proves disastrous, but Topo survives and returns to his meat-form changed on a core level into something new and with very dangerous knowledge, leading to a fantastic showdown with Roi in an apocalyptic Playing Field which is catastrophically self-destructing all around them…

Book Two ‘The Masks of Time’ opens three years later as Juno allies with a streetgang called the Hotboys to track down her missing partner Topo who has vanished into cyberspace, obsessed with exploring the farthest frontiers of the digital universe and finding at last the mythical semi-mystical “Edge” of existence.

The rescue mission is doomed from the start. The Hotboys have their own agenda, Juno is unsure of her motives and Topo, deeper than any mind has ever delved, has encountered “Cyberghosts” who reveal a whole new reality…

When Alma Matrix is attacked and forced to intervene in Topo’s extended cerebral suicide, events take a extreme turn and the Mole’s gradual apotheosis resumes; culminating in a spectacular, radical denouement which offers the best available ‘Solace’ for all the conflicted players involved…

Although plainly derivative this smart little sci fi thriller offered a classy introduction to the sub-genre for comics fans and still holds the attention better than most related works, in comics or prose. The painted art ranges from excellent to murkily average but works well within the tale’s multi-level conception and I would certainly look favourably on a “twenty-five years later” sequel should one ever be mooted…
Cyberpunk, Topo, Juno and all other prominent characters and distinctive likenesses are ™ 1989 Scott Rockwell. Story © 1989 Scott Rockwell. Art (Book 1) © 1989 Darryl Banks, (Book 2) © 1990 Doug Tallala All rights reserved.

Heavy Metal Presents New Tales of the Arabian Nights

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By Richard Corben & Jan Strnad (Heavy Metal Books/Simon & Schuster)
ISBN: 930-36844-4

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist, springing from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in comic storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. He is equally renowned for his mastery of airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Until relatively recently Corben steered clear of the Fights ‘n’ Tights comicbook mainstream. He didn’t sell out – American publishing simply caught up, finally growing mature enough to accommodate him, due in no small part to his broad and pervasive influence…

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comicbooks of the Comics-Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontent older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything-goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent who were increasingly making the kind of material Preachers and Mummy and her lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Creativity honed by the resplendent and explicitly mature 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ perfectly crafted Duck tales and other classy early strips, a plethora of young artists like Corben responded with a variety of small-press publications – including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor – which featured shocking, rebellious, sexed-up, raw, brutal, psychedelically-inspired cartoons and strips blending the new wave of artists’ unconventional lifestyles with their earliest childhood influences… honestly crafting the kind of stories they would like to read.

Corben inevitably graduated to more professional – and paying – venues. As his style and skills developed he worked for Warren Publishing in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He famously coloured some strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit.

Soon after he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped creating comics but preferred personal independent projects with collaborators such as Bruce Jones, Jan Strnad and Harlan Ellison – who provided an effusive introduction here.

In 1975 Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal - from which this stunning saga was collected.

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. This particular tome gathers a particularly impressive fantasy serial from the early days of Heavy Metal (specifically from June 1978 to August 1979) which cunningly reveals the final voyage and fate of a legendary hero…

This superb, criminally out-of-print but still readily available fable opens with a history of the charismatic storyteller Shahrazad and how she charmed her murderously strict husband, then goes on to concentrate on the tale she kept from him; and only shared with her wayward sister Dunyazad… ‘Sinbad in the Land of the Jinn’.

‘The Last Voyage of Sinbad’ begins when merchant Badr al-Bakkar recognises a Sufi sage as the legendary seaman and begs to know what turned such a worldly warrior into a penitent priest. As the broken old wanderer speaks of his secret Eighth Voyage a saga of tragedy and wonder unfolds…

Sinbad was a bored and restless husband who broke many of the Prophet’s Holy Injunctions and, whilst drunk one night, encountered a Jinn who attacked him, claiming the sot had killed his wife.

In retaliation the supernatural horror demanded the life of Sinbad’s beloved spouse Zulaykha, but could not find her…

The woman had vanished from the face of the Earth and the terrified adventurer resolved to find her and save her from the vengeance of the merciless Ifrit.

He is aided in his quest by the enigmatic Akissa, who claims to be the selfsame demon wife Sinbad supposedly murdered. She wishes to be divorced from her brutal trickster husband and offers to guide Sinbad and his crew to the magical realm of Zu’l Janahayn, the Jinni King of Kings who can grant any wish should he please. All they must do is find his floating citadel of Ketra…

And thus begins a quest of shocking terror, stupendous action, wanton debauchery and stunning duplicity, which resulted in the near-breaking of our hero, magical horrors and valiant perseverance…

The artist’s infamous signature-stylisation includes abundant nudity, excessive, balletic violence and astoundingly proportioned male and female physiques and these are all prominently displayed in this cunning and beguiling continuation of the fabulous legend of an immortal hero, which still finds room for a brilliantly contemporary twist…

Richard Corben is a unique visual stylist blessed with a love of the dark and graced with a scathingly sharp sense of humour. Combine that with our apparently insatiable hunger for monsters and mystery and this book becomes the ideal treat to while away the witching hour…
© 1978, 1979 Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. Introduction © 1979 Harlan Ellison. All rights reserved.

William Gibson’s Neuromancer – a Marvel Graphic Novel

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By Tom de Haven and Bruce Jensen (Marvel/Epic)
ISBN: 0-87135-574-4

Even during the burgeoning comics boomtimes of the 1980s when the most inane, insane or banal illustrated material seemed capable of achieving a measure of success and acclaim, occasionally books everybody “knew” would be huge hits somehow failed to score or survive.

Perhaps the most surprising of these was a high-profile graphic adaptation of William Gibson’s landmark first novel, which looked great, triumphantly rode the zeitgeist of the era (in fact it created it) and was massively anticipated by avid readers within the industry and beyond it…

At this time Marvel led the field of high-quality original graphic novels: offering Marvel Universe tales, series launches, creator-owned properties, movie adaptations and licensed assets in lavishly expansive packages (square-ish pages of 285 x 220mm rather than the customary 258 x 168mm) which felt and looked instantly superior to the gaudily standard flimsy comicbook pamphlets – irrespective of how good, bad or incomprehensible the contents proved to be…

With the Gibson-minted term “Cyberspace” (first coined in his 1982 short story ‘Burning Chrome’ – as well as the acronym “ICE”: Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) on everyone’s mind and the suddenly legitimised literary Noir sub-genre of Cyberpunk revolutionising film and comicbooks, Marvel’s Epic imprint released the first two chapters of the multi-award winning Neuromancer in an effective and challenging 48 page adaptation by author and screenwriter Tom de Haven (It’s Superman!, Galaxy Rangers), illustrated by bookcover illustrator Bruce Jensen.

This slim introductory teaser tome comprises ‘Chiba City Blues’ and ‘The Shopping Expedition’ describing a frantic and terrifying dystopian future where life is cheap, drugs are everywhere, money is everything and human bodies are merely the basic canvas for electronic or mechanical augmentations.

Those with any imagination, hope or human potential spend all the time they can in the omni-pervasive wonder-world of cyberspace where anything is possible and escape is always tantalising close… just like death.

Burned out hacker-hustler Case is on a downward spiral. He used to be a top “Cowboy”, hired to break data security and steal for the Big Boys. His major mistake was keeping some for himself and getting caught…

Instead of killing him, his “clients” took away his talent with chemicals and surgery and then let him loose to die slowly and very publicly by inches over years…

Now his trials are almost at an end: someone in the vast under-city is hunting him and all the derelict’s remaining connections are turning their backs on him…

When he is finally cornered by the deeply disturbing augmented assassin Mollie Millions (who first debuted in Gibson’s 1981 short story Johnny Mnemonic) Case’s life changes forever – but not necessarily for the better…

Mollie’s boss Armitage needs the world’s greatest hacker to crack an impossible data store and in return he’s prepared to repair all the cyber-cripple’s neural handicaps. Of course it won’t be pleasant and the boss is going to take a few biological precautions to ensure complete loyalty…

Addictively desperate to return to Cyberspace the hobbled hacker agrees, but as he undertakes his task he increasingly finds that everyone involved has their own exclusive agenda: even Armitage’s silent partner, the mysterious Artificial Intelligence Wintermute, is playing its own deadly game…

Intriguing and engrossing, this ultimately frustrating artefact isn’t so much my recommendation (although on its own truncated terms its not a bad piece of work and you might just like on its own terms) as a heartfelt wish for a new – and complete – pictorial interpretation and an impassioned plug for the prose novel itself if you still haven’t got around to it…
Introduction © 1989 William Gibson.  © 1989 Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Original novel Neuromancer © 1984 William Gibson. All rights reserved.