The Newsboy Legion by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby volume Two


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby with Don Cameron, Joe Samachson, Ed Herron, Arturo Cazeneuve, Curt Swan, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7236-4 (HB/Digital edition)

Just as the Golden Age of comics was beginning, two young men with big dreams met up and began a decades-long association that was always intensely creative, immensely productive and spectacularly in tune with popular tastes. As kids they had both sold newspapers on street-corners to help their families survive the Great Depression…

Joe Simon was a sharp-minded, talented guy with 5 years’ experience in “real” publishing; working from the bottom up to become art director on a succession of small papers – such as the Rochester Journal American, Syracuse Herald and Syracuse Journal American – before moving to New York City to freelance as an art/photo retoucher and illustrator. Recommended by his boss, Simon joined Lloyd Jacquet’s pioneering Funnies Inc. This was a production “shop”: a conveyor belt of eager talent generating strips and characters for numerous publishing houses eager to cash in on the success of Action Comics and its stellar attraction Superman.

Within days, Simon created The Fiery Mask for Martin Goodman of Timely Comics (now Marvel) and met Jacob Kurtzberg, a cartoonist and animator just hitting his stride with the Blue Beetle for the Fox Feature Syndicate.

Together, Simon and Kurtzberg (who went through many pen-names before settling on Jack Kirby) enjoyed a stunning creative empathy and synergy: galvanizing an already electric neo-industry with a vast catalogue of features and even sub-genres.

They produced influential monthly Blue Bolt, rushed out Captain Marvel Adventures #1 for Fawcett and – after Martin Goodman appointed Simon editor at Timely – created a host of iconic characters such as Red Raven, the first Marvel Boy, Hurricane, The Vision, Young Allies and million-selling mega-hit Captain America.

Famed for his larger-than-life characters and colossal cosmic imaginings, “King” Kirby was an astute, spiritual hard-working family man who lived through poverty, gangsterism and the Depression. He loved his work, hated chicanery of every sort and saw a big future for the comics industry…

When Goodman failed to make good on his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby jumped ship to industry leader National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and open chequebook. The pair were initially an uneasy fit, bursting with ideas the staid company were not comfortable with and thus given two strips that were in the doldrums until they found their creative feet…

Turning both around Sandman and Manhunter virtually overnight and – once established and left to their own devices – went on to devise the “Kid Gang” genre (technically, it was “recreating” as the notion was one of the duo’s last innovations for Timely as seen in 1941’s Young Allies). The result was unique and trendsetting juvenile Foreign Legion The Boy Commandos.

The little warriors began by sharing the spotlight with Batman in flagship publication Detective Comics, but before long they won their own accompanying solo title – which promptly became one of the company’s top three sellers. Frequently cited as the biggest-selling US comic book in the world at that time – Boy Commandos was such a success that the editors, painfully aware that the Draft was lurking, green-lit the completion of extra material to lay away for when their star creators were called up.

S&K assembled a creative team that generated so many stories in a phenomenally short time that publisher Jack Liebowitz then suggested they retool some of it into adventures of a second kid gang…

Thus was born The Newsboy Legion and super-heroic mentor The Guardian

Probably based on the Our Gang/Little Rascals film shorts (1922-1944) and pitched halfway between a surly comedy grotesques and charmingly naive ragamuffins, the Newsboy Legion comprised four ferociously independent orphans living together on the streets of “Suicide Slum” peddling papers to survive. Earnest, good-looking Tommy Tompkins, garrulous genius Big Words, diminutive, hyper-active chatterbox Gabby and feisty, pugnacious Scrapper – whose Brooklyn-based patois and gutsy belligerence usually stole the show – were all headed for a bad end until somebody extraordinary entered their lives…

Their exploits offered a bombastic blend of crime thriller and comedy caper, leavened with dynamic superhero action and usually seen from a kid’s point of view. The series debuted in Star-Spangled Comics #7, forcing Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy off the covers and to the back of the book. The Legion remained lead feature until the end of 1946 when, without fanfare or warning, issue #65 was published without them.

The lads had been ousted and replaced by solo tales of Robin, the Boy Wonder. His own youth-oriented solo series subsequently ran all the way to SSC #130 in 1952, by which time superhero romps had largely been supplanted throughout the industry by general genre tales.

This second superb collection concludes their Golden Age exploits, with tales from Star-Spangled Comics #33-64 (cover-dated June 1944 – January 1947), including every stunning cover by Kirby, Simon, Fred Ray and teenager Gil Kane all inked by Arturo Cazeneuve, John Daly, Steve Brodie, George Roussos & Stan Kaye. There’s also an informative Introduction from The Jack Kirby Collector/Two Morrows’ publishing guru John Morrow setting the scene for the fun that follows…

In the very first tale, rookie cop Jim Harper adopted a superhero alter ego to administer hands-on justice when The Law was not enough. His vigilantism resulted in the capture of an infamous kidnap ring. Newspapers dubbed the mysterious hero the Guardian of Society and sold like hotcakes on all street corners, making money for even the poorest junior entrepreneurs.

Harper initially had no intention of repeating his foray into vigilantism but when he caught Tommy, Big Words, Gabby and Scrapper shoplifting, his life changed forever. The tough little monkeys were headed for reform school, but he made an earnest plea for clemency on their behalf and the judge appointed him their responsible adult: their “guardian”.

“The Newsboy Legion” were set on a righteous path, but their suspicions were aroused. Frustratingly, no matter how hard they tried, the boys could never prove that their two Guardians were the same guy…

With tales of the war declining in popularity, Star Spangled Comics #33 opens this concluding compilation with ‘The Case of the Bashful Bride!’ Regular illustrator Arturo Cazeneuve limns a fast-paced but uncredited yarn as gangster Sloppy Sam seemingly hangs up his gat after marrying into money. The nosy kids simply can’t accept the transformation and their poking around soon uncovers a cunning plot, cruel criminality and just a hint of hilarious hoity-toity crossdressing behind the scheme…

Naturally, by the time they’re in over their heads, Harper has again swapped his badge and gun for golden helmet and shield to wrap up the case…

The boys’ lives were peppered by dozens of get-rich-quick notions that inevitably uncovered crimes and unleashed chaos. In ‘From Rags to Ruin!’ (#34, by Cazeneuve, July 1944), Gabby discovers the power of positive thinking and talks himself into a high-paying executive position at an insurance company. His dream sours after discovering he’s the figurehead – and fall guy – for a protection racket. Time to call in some old pals…

Still calling himself Eli Katz, future superstar Gil Kane illustrated #35’s ‘The Proud Poppas!’ as the Newsboys adopt a homeless orphan fleeing a cruel and repressive institution. Peter wants to be an artist and gleefully moves into the Boys’ orbit – and shack – but his rightful carers desperately want him back and ruthless kidnappers now know who he is and where he’s hiding…

Cazeneuve returned for ‘The Cowboy of Suicide Slum!’ as grizzled former western sheriff Hawkeye Hawkins of Howlin’ Gulch comes Back East to see the sights. The Legion are all beguiled by his tall tales and before long hip-deep in trouble after they convince the ornery coot to display his talents by going after local gang boss Little Dodo

After saving a swell from bullies in the slum, Scrapper is offered an apprenticeship by the city’s top gem cutter in ‘Diamonds in the Rough!’ However, as a business prone to criminality, the benefactor expects the fisty firebrand to protect his hands and quit fighting…

When workmen fixing waterpipes trigger a crude oil gusher in Suicide Slum, everybody wants to cash in whilst the toffs in swanky Doughbilt Apartments don’t want their views ruined by derricks. Into that bubbling cauldron of trouble come opportunists; crooks too, so it’s not long until The Guardian and the Legion discover what’s actually going on in ‘Roll Out the Barrels’

Steve Brodie begins inking Cazeneuve in #39’s ‘Two Guardians Are a Crowd!’ (December 1944) as a crooked doppelganger plays hob with the hero’s reputation and the boys’ conviction of Harper’s double life – until the inevitable face-off – after which notorious thief Danny the Dip bids ‘Farewell to Crime!’ by writing a tell-all memoir. When the kids get involved, it’s exposed as less a confession and more perjury and blame-shifting, leading to the Guardian getting truth – and justice – his way…

When a criminal set fires and create street accidents to tie up first responders in ‘Time Out for the Guardian!’, cop Harper is among the injured. Mistakenly diagnosed with a broken leg, he uses the mistake to convince his wards that the superhero is another guy when they go after the culprits. However, they are just young, not idiots…

In #42, the Legion discovers ‘The Power of the Press!’ when they produce a grassroots periodical going after crooks at ground level. It’s good enough to get them framed by malign mastermind The Undertaker until good old Jim steps in, before the boys test their musical chops in a (naturally fixed and wildly comedic) barbershop quartet singing competition designed to expose the ‘Trials of a Tenor!’

Misguided philanthropy and unthinking privilege steer Ethelreda Winkle and her nephew Cuthbert when the daft dowager sets up an institute to elevate the poor by teaching them proper manners in ‘Etiquette Comes to Suicide Slum!’ With thieves flocking in to improve their chances of better scores, Harper asks the Newsboys to get with the program and learns all is not as seems, after which ‘Crime Gets Clipped!’ finds the lads setting up a …news-gathering “clipping service” and catching a vain bigshot plundering the city’s banks…

‘Clothes Make the Criminal!’ finds the kids on the trail of crooks using a selection of stolen uniforms and costumes to commit outrages before Jim and the boys again prove they have the right stuff…

With George Roussos inking Cazeneuve, ‘The Triumph of Tommy!’ sees the bold Newsboy gunned down by a robber. To recuperate, he’s carted off to Camp Woko-ni-to (“for underprivileged children of the slums”) by his doctor, and when his comrades visit, it sparks another fight when Tommy spots the thug who shot him laying low. Meanwhile, The Guardian has been following another trail and pops up just when he’s most needed…

‘Booty and the Blizzard!’ is one of the few stories we know the writer of. Don Cameron scripts for Cazeneuve & Roussos as an icy cold snap cuts off Suicide Slum and the industrious boys shovel out a network of tunnels for fellow residents trapped behind ten feet of hard-packed snow. Too bad it’s also an ideal escape route for wily bank bandits, until the Guardian learns to ski…

The same creative team measure out ‘One Ounce to Victory!’ as a scrap paper drive gets hyper-competitive when the Newsboys compete with rival news peddlers the Hawker Street Hawks. As if bitter enmity isn’t enough, the effort is made more dangerous after recently released convict Tightlips Leo hides the map to his stashed loot in one of those collected paper piles and resorts to murderous means to retrieve it…

Cover-dated November 1945, Star Spangled #50 features Joe Samachson, Joe Kubert & Roussos adding a flash of film fantasy in ‘The Leopard Man Changes his Spots!’ Here the boys help a meek movie star specialising in monsters channel his inner hero and escape the clutches of a racketeering mobster.

Another industrious enterprise transforms into a means of corralling crooks when the boys start a second-hand apparel business. Naturally, any way to help poor folk advance draws cunning connivers with a perfidious plan, but ‘The Style Show of Suicide Slum’ (Cameron & Kubert) also triggers a wicked comedy of errors when the ugliest jacket on Earth (concealing a fortune in stolen cash) is inadvertently passed from one ungrateful recipient to the next…

Cameron, Cazeneuve & Brodie reunite for #52’s ‘Rehearsal for a Crime!’ as Gabby breaks into an abandoned theatre and mistakes a practise run for robbery for a new play pre-debut. When he comes back with his pals they are all captured and it’s up to Harper to seek them out, shut them down and save the day…

Kirby returned in the next issue where Gabby won a jingle contest – and $500 – and pursued a career in rhyme as ‘The Poet of Suicide Slum!’ (script by Cameron and inked by Brodie). His delusions and propensity for naming gangsters and their plans in his odes soon made him a target for early immortality… until The Guardian applied his own brand of two-fisted criticism…

Another acknowledgement of the rise in western themes informs ‘Dead-Shot Dade’s Revenge!’ (by an uncredited writer, Kirby & Brodie) as a spiky relic of pioneer days drives his “prairie schooner” into Suicide Slum. He’s come 2000 miles in pursuit of Gaspipe Gosser, who stole Dade’s life savings, and it’s all The Guardian can do to stop the old coot shooting him dead like a dawg just to see him drop…

Happily, Gosser’s guilt triggers a pre-emptive strike that gives the hero all he needs to put the thug away, after which Curt Swan & Jack Farr depict how ‘Gabby Strikes a Gusher!’ He had been tending his vegetable garden when he discovered oil, but just as he looks into setting up a company, the thugs who originally stole the stuff came calling…

Cooking for the Newsboys was done on a strict rota basis, with dealer’s choice the prime consideration. When Gabby accidentally came into possession of oysters dropped by fleet-footed Willy Wetsell, he thought it solved his problem of what the gang would eat that night.

Instead, each mollusc contained a superb, huge fully processed Arabian pearl and Jim Harper realised that this ‘Treasure of Araby’ (art by Kirby & Ray Burnley) was far more than chance and not in the least lucky…

Kirby & John Daly limned Star Spangled Comics #57’s cunning shocker as mobster Snake Huggins resolved to fix the interfering brats for good. His plan was to hit him at his weakest point and resulted in ‘A Recruit for the Legion!’ but wealthy Timothy Tuck was not what he seemed and proved a far bigger threat that he looked…

Kirby handled exotic diversion ‘Matadors of Suicide Slum!’ as the boys befriend elderly janitor Perez and hear rousing tales of his glory days in the bullrings of Mexico. Coincidentally, Yankee businessmen are trying to bring the bloody sport to Suicide Slum, leading to a decades-delayed concluding duel between the man and his nemesis El Diabolo. Only, it’s not quite as they recalled or any onlooker quite expected…

From sentimental slapstick, we turn to criminal mystery in Kirby’s Daly inked ‘Answers, Inc.!’ (#59, August 1946) wherein Tommy cashes in on an unsuspected gift for solving riddles, puzzles and general knowledge quizzes. Although he’s smart, he’s still a kid though and when a cunning cove poses a pithy conundrum, Tommy hands over a method for a foolproof heist. Happily, jaded, cynical Jim Harper is on hand to ask his own difficult questions whilst The Guardian is ready to answer them…

Ed Herron, Swan and Stan Kaye then detail a whimsical winner as Scrapper seeks to become ‘Steve Brodie Da Second!’ to one-up friendly rivals the Boy Commandos. The Brodie in question is not the inker, but the turn of the century sportsman who claimed to have survived jumping off the East River Bridge. Here, however, Scrapper’s idiotic emulation ends when he jumps right into a gangster’s secret submarine, and silly season stunt escalates to front page crime caper…

Swan & Kaye then continued the new trend for stunts as Guardian’s pursuit of a crook leads to a syndicate dictating the demise of him and the Newsboy Legion under the pretence of sponsoring them in ‘The Great Balloon Race!’ across America, after which ‘Prevue of Tomorrow’ sees a mysterious stranger spark chaos by handing out papers offering news from 24 hours into the future. Of course for our heroes forewarned is simply forearmed…

Brodie inked Swan on penultimate outing ‘Code of the Newsstand!’ as the boys visit Chinatown just as Harper enters the enclave to find escaped convict Stiletto Mike. Of course, they are first to find the felon but it’s The Guardian who has the last word… and punch.

Cover-dated January 1947, Star Spangled Comics #64 closed the Newsboy Legion’s eclectic run with ‘Criminal Cruise!’ wherein Swan & Brodie had the kids literally sailing off into the sunset after winning an all-inclusive holiday to the South Seas. Naturally, trouble followed with lost tickets, stowaways and a gang of jewel thieves spicing up the voyage…

And that was that for almost 25 years, until Kirby brought them back in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (October 1970), spearheading his mega revitalisation of DC’s continuity – but let’s talk of that another day…

There is a glorious abundance of Jack Kirby material available these days: true testament to his influence and legacy, with this magnificent and compelling collection in collaborations with fellow pioneer Joe Simon being another gigantic box of delights perfectly illustrating the depth, scope and sheer thundering joy of the early days of comics. Funny, thrilling and ideally accessing simpler days, this is a treat every fan should enjoy and share.
© 1944, 1945, 1946, 2017 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Garth Ennis Presents Battle Classics


By John Wagner, Alan Hebden, David Hunt, Mike Western, Ron Tiner, John Cooper, Cam Kennedy & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-741-0 (HB)

In Britain, for decades after the rise of television, Easter Monday was the day when you all sat back after a big lunch and sank into a classic war movie. Some of them were pretty good.

I’m nothing if not nostalgic and backward-looking, so let’s see what that’s like in comic terms…

Perhaps you don’t know, but: apart from his other scripting wonders, Garth Ennis is the best writer of war comics working today. In fact, if you disregard the splendid Commando Picture Library series published by DC Thomson (which you shouldn’t – even though no one admits to reading them in my circle), he may well be the only full-time comics professional regularly working with the genre in the entire English Language.

His credentials are well established and, despite his self-deprecating tone in his Foreword, here, Ennis’s affinity for and love of combat tales makes him the go-to guy if you’re planning to re-publish classic war stories and even more so if they all come from his favourite boyhood read…

In January 2014, Titan Books began a series of Garth Ennis Presents Battle Classics, but there have only been two thus far. Volume II did manage a digital incarnation, but sadly that first shot only came in a solid, outsized hardback edition. Perhaps the publisher or their successors will amend that discrepancy soon, and even curate a couple more from the vast reservoir of unseen canonical wonders?

For most of the industry’s history, British comics have been renowned for the ability to tell a big story in satisfying little instalments. This, coupled with supremely gifted creators and the anthological nature of our publications, ensured that hundreds of memorable characters and series seared themselves into the little boy’s psyche inside most British (adult) males.

One of the last great weekly comics was Battle: a strictly combat-themed confection which began as Battle Picture Weekly, launching on 8th March 1975. Through absorption, merger and re-branding (as Battle Picture Weekly & Valiant, Battle Action, Battle, Battle Action Force and Battle Storm Force) it reigned supreme in Blighty before itself being combined with Eagle on January 23rd 1988. Over 673 blood-soaked, testosterone-drenched issues, it fought its way into the bloodthirsty hearts of a generation, consequently producing some of the best and most influential war stories ever.

Happily, some of the very best – like Charley’s War, Darkie’s Mob and Johnny Red – have been preserved and revisited in resilient reprint collections, ably supplemented by taster tome The Best of Battle, but there’s still loads of superb stuff to see, as typified by recent releases from Rebellion Studios (stay alert for those in days to come, chums!)…

This particular Titanic compendium (still readily available) re-presents two of the very best in their entirety, and also provides a triple dose of short, sharp shockers illustrated by doyen of war artists Cam Kennedy.

In introductory essay ‘And you expected to die hard: HMS Nightshade, Ennis offers background on the strip which disproved an abiding publishing maxim that kids didn’t want to read “ship stories” whilst detailing how and when the 48-instalment feature began in Battle #200, dated January 6th 1979 and just why it was so special…

The simple answer is sheer talent: scripter John Wagner (Bella at the Bar, One-Eyed Jack, Joe Two Beans, Roy of the Rovers, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Fight for the Falklands, Button-Man, The Bogie Man, Batman, A History of Violence etc.) and artist Mike Western (The Leopard of Lime Street, Jack o’ Justice, The Wild Wonders, The Sarge and so many more) had worked together on other strips like Partridge’s Patch and the aforementioned Darkie’s Mob, but here especially their talents synchronised and merged to form a minor classic of grit, determination and courage under fire and despite stupidity and cupidity.

Set in an almost forgotten and much-neglected maritime arena, HMS Nightshade shares the stories of Seaman George Dunn, as told to his grandson: grim and glorious events of the Second World War as seen from the rolling decks of a British Flower-Class Corvette.

Escorting merchant marine ships and tanker convoys keeping Britain on her feet during the Battle of the Atlantic, or constantly re-supplying war materiel to Russia on the Murmansk Run, meant days of back-breaking toil and unending tedium, punctuated by moments of insane amusement or terror-filled tension and sudden death, but the old salt slowly, engagingly reveals how bonds forged between shipmates and the vessel which protected them remain strong – even though old George is the last survivor of those perilous days…

With occasional art assistance from Ron Tiner, the saga begins with young George and his new shipmates Big Stan, Smiffy and Jock McCall joining a relatively tiny vessel in May 1940.

Forced to adapt quickly to life aboard ship, the quartet are just in time to become part of the vast flotilla rescuing British soldiers from Dunkirk: experiencing first-hand and up close all the horrors of war and shocks of personal loss.

Learning to despise the ever-present, merciless U-Boats and perpetual airborne attacks from Stukas and other predatory planes, Nightshade’s crew quickly master spotting and shooting back, but escort duty still consists mostly of barely suppressed panic and the appalling anger and pain as one more tanker or cargo ship under their protection explodes and sinks…

Wagner’s amazing ability to delineate character through intense action and staccato humour carried the series from the North Atlantic, through an astounding sequence in Russia, to Africa: blending sea battles with evocative human adventures – such as an imbecilic merchant sea captain, Smiffy’s tragic marriage and brush with Black Marketeers, or George’s vendetta with psychotic bullying shipmate Parsons. That villain’s ultimate fate remains one of the most unforgettable scenes in British comics history…

The voyage abounds with sharply defined and uniquely memorable supporting stars such as Handsome John, tragic Dennis Flowers and despondent “Never-gonna-make-itBrown – who was so obsessed with his impending demise that every man aboard carried one of his goodbye letters to his mum. Even Dogfish – a half-drowned mongrel saved from drowning, and whose canine senses proved invaluable in early warning of German air raids – became a beloved co-star -which meant nothing to a writer like Wagner who knows how to use sentiment to his advantage…

Constant attacks led to a high turnover and later replacements included Whitey Bascombe, who barely survived an immersion in Arctic waters and never felt warm ever again, affable coward/inevitable absconder Tubby Grover and simpleminded body builder “MusclesThomson – who took his repugnant role of “Ship’s Crusher” to his heart…

Packed with intense combat action, bleak introspection, oppressive tension and stunning moments of gallows hilarity, the life and inescapable death of HMS Nightshade is a masterpiece of maritime fiction and war comics in general, and alone would be worth the price of admission here.

Even so, there are more dark delights to tickle the military palate, and the next inclusion offers a view of the conflict through an enemy’s eyes…

As explained by Ennis in ‘Rest Easy, Herr Margen: The General Dies at Dawnis a short yet provocative serial dealing with the concept of “the Good German”, cleverly executed here as a deathbed confession by a disgraced Wehrmacht officer awaiting death at Nuremberg.

Scripted by Alan Hebden (Rat Pack, Fighting Mann, M.A.C.H. 1, Meltdown Man, Major Eazy, etc) with art by John Cooper (Thunderbirds, Judge Dredd, Dredger, Armitage, One-Eyed Jack, Johnny Red, Dr. Who and so much more), this brief – 11 episodes from October 4th to December 28th 1978 – thriller traces the meteoric career of professional soldier Otto Von Margen.

Found guilty of Cowardice, Disobedience, High Treason and Defeatism by his fellow Nazi generals, he languishes in a cell at Stadiheim Military Prison, Nuremburg, on the 20th April 1945: counting down the 11 hours to his execution by telling his side of the story to his jailer.

Beyond the walls, the surging US army is drawing ever closer…

From early triumphs in Poland to the invasion of Norway, from Dunkirk to Yugoslavia, the Siege of Stalingrad and eventually Normandy – where his incessant opposition to the monstrous acts of his own side finally became unpardonable – Von Margen and his devoted comrade Feldwebel Korder proved themselves brilliant, valiant and honourable soldiers.

However, their incessant interference in Gestapo affairs and SS battlefield atrocities made them marked men, and finally the General went too far…

The tale of a patriotic soldier who served his country ruthlessly and proudly as a tank commander, whilst conducting a private and personal war against barbaric Nazi sadists of the Gestapo and SS, is both gripping and genuinely moving, and the glittering, dwindling hope of the Americans arriving before his execution keeps the suspense at an intoxicating level…

This epic monochrome collection (256 pages and 312mm x 226mm) then concludes with three complete short stories, all illustrated by the magnificent Cam Kennedy (Commando, Fighting Mann, Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Batman, Star Wars, The Light and Darkness War, The Punisher, Zancudo).

Sadly, as explained by Ennis in his prelude ‘Get out, Leave me alone! This is my grave!: Private Loser and other stories’, only the last – and by far best – has a writer credit.

‘Clash by Night!’ is a classic “irony” tale, as a group of US Marines on Iwo Jima fall foul of the Japanese trick of imitating wounded American soldiers, whilst equally anonymous ‘Hot Wheels’ wryly describes the do-or-die antics of flamboyant supply truckers Yancy and Mule as they break all the rules to get a shipment of food and ammo to hard-pressed G.I.s closing in on Berlin in 1945…

There’s a subtle knack and true art to crafting perfect short stories, and Battle’s veteran editor Dave Hunt shows how it should be done in impressively gripping ‘Private Loser’ wherein a meek, hopeless failure left to die during the British retreat from Burma in 1942 finally finds a horrific, gore-soaked, existentialist moment where he matters…

Ennis’ Afterword wraps everything up with appropriate Thank-Yous and some very handy information on where to find even more masterful martial comics madness to enthral and delight anyone whose appetite for torment, tragedy, blood and wonder hasn’t been fully slaked yet…

These spectacular tales of action, tension and drama, with heaping helpings of sardonic grim wit from both sides, have only improved in the years since Battle folded, and these gems are as affecting and engrossing now as they’ve ever been. Fair warning though: this is astoundingly addictive fare and you might feel compelled to take up arms and campaign for more…
© 2013 Egmont UK Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Art of Ramona Fradon


By Ramona Fradon; interviewed by Howard Chaykin (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-140-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Although present in comic books from the start, women – like so many other non-white male “minorities” – have been largely written out of history. One of the very few to have weathered that exclusion is Ramona Fradon. This excellent commemorative art collection celebrates not only her life and contribution, but thanks to its format – a free and unexpurgated extended interview with iconoclastic creator Howard Chaykin – offers the artist’s frank and forthright views on everything from work practise to the power of fans…

It all begins with an Introduction from Walt Simonson who proclaims ‘Meet your Idol… and discover They’re even Cooler than you Thought!’, before the early days are revealed in ‘Part One: Setting the Scene’ and ‘Part Two: In the Beginning’

Ramona Dom was born on October 2nd 1926 to an affluent Chicago family with many ties to commercial creative arts. Her father was a respected artisan, letterer and calligrapher who had designed the logos for Camel cigarettes, Elizabeth Arden and other major brands, and also formulated the fonts Dom Casual and Dom Bold. He had plans for his daughter, urging her to become a fashion designer…

The family moved to (outer) New York when Ramona was five., Ramona initially attended The Parsons School of Design, where she discovered she had absolutely no interest in creating clothes. Although she had never read comic books, she had been a voracious reader of illustrated books like the Raggedy Anne and Andy series by John Barton Gruelle, and a devoted fan of newspaper strips. Her favourites included Dick Tracy, Bringing Up Father, The Phantom, Alley Oop, Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates and Li’l Abner (all represented here by examples from the 1930s) and she transferred to the New York Art Students League, a hotbed of cartooning…

There she met and married Arthur Dana Fradon, who would become a prolific illustrator, author and cartoonist and a regular contributor to The New Yorker between 1948-1992. They wed in 1948 and he actively encouraged her to seek work in the still young funnybook biz.

‘Part Three: Gingerly Breaking into Comics’ reveals how her first forays at Timely Comics led to DC/National Comics and a Shining Knight story published in Adventure Comics #165 (cover-dated June 1951), ten months later taking over the long-running Aquaman feature in #167. Fradon was one of the first women to conspicuously and regularly illustrate comic books, drawing the strip throughout the 1950s and shepherding the sea king from B-lister to solo star and Saturday morning TV pioneer.

In the first of a series of incisive and informative mini biographies, ‘Sidebar: Murray Boltinoff’ reveals the influence of the much-neglected and under-appreciated editor. ‘Part Four: Queen of the Seven Seas’ and ‘Part Five: Man of 1000 Elements’ show how occasional stints on The Brave and the Bold team-ups led to her co-creation of Sixties sensation Metamorpho, the Element Man. However in 1965 – at the pinnacle of success – she abruptly retired to raise a daughter, only returning to the fold in 1972 for another stellar run of landmark work.

‘Sidebar: George Kashdan’ tells all about the multi-talented scripter before ‘Part Six: Ramona Returns to Comics… At Marvel???’ details how the House of Ideas lured the artist back to her board and highlights her difficulties working “Marvel-style” on assorted horror shorts, The Claws of the Cat and Fantastic Four, all presaging a return to DC…

‘Sidebar: Joseph Patterson’ looks into the astounding strip Svengali who green lit Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley and more before ‘Part Seven: Back Home at DC Comics’ where she was busier than ever. As well as horror and humour shorts, Fradon drew a new Metamorpho try-out, superhero spinoff Freedom Fighters and her twin magnum opuses: revived comedy superhero Plastic Man and TV tie-in Super Friends. The revelations are bolstered by ‘Sidebar: E. Nelson Bridwell’, exploring the life of the man who knew everything about everything…

In 1980, Fradon took over Dale Messick’s long-running Brenda Starr newspaper strip, drawing it for 15 years. ‘Part Eight: Leaping From Books to Strips’ explores the painful and unpleasant chore in sharp detail, supplemented by ‘Sidebar: Brenda Starr’ outlining the feature’s history and reprinting those episodes when the ageless reporter met a certain cop, allowing Fradon to finally draw childhood idol Dick Tracy

The most fascinating stuff is left until last as ‘Part Nine: Ramona the Author’ discusses her career post-Brenda: drawing for Bart Simpson and Spongebob Squarepants comics, returning to higher education and writing a philosophical historical mystery novel – The Gnostic Faustus: The Secret Teachings Behind the Classic Text – as well as illustrated kids book The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct.

Packed throughout with candid photos, and stunning pencil sketches, painted pictures and privately commissioned works of her stable of past assignments – like Aquaman, assorted Super Friends, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin; the Metal Men, Aqualad, Brenda Starr, Black Canary, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Shining Knight, The Atom, The Spirit, Metamorpho and cast, Marvel Girl, Miss America, Power Girl, Catwoman, Hawkman, numerous illustrations from The Story of Superman book, and convention sketches, this celebration concludes with even more fabulous sleek super art images in ‘Part Nine: Ramona Today’ and ‘Part Eleven: Bibliography’

This is an amazing confirmation of an incredible career and any nostalgiac’s dream package. Amongst the gems unearthed here are complete Aquaman stories ‘The Kid from Atlantis!’ (Adventure Comics #269, 1960), ‘A World Without Water’ (Adventure Comics #251, 1958) and ‘How Aquaman Got his Powers!’ (Adventure Comics #260, 1959), plus tales from Star Spangled War Stories (#184, 1975) and ‘The Invisible Bank Robbers!’ from Gangbusters (#30, 1952).

Also on show are unpublished sample strips by Dana & Ramona Fradon and a monumental cover gallery depicting unforgettable images from Super Friends #3, 5-8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24-27, 31, 33, 36-39 & 41; Plastic Man #16-20; The Brave and the Bold #55, 57, 58, Showcase #30 & 33, Metamorpho, the Element Man #1-5, Namora #1 (2010), Fantastic Four #133 and Freedom Fighters #3.

These are supported by selected interior pages in full colour or monochrome from Star Spangled War Stories #8; Adventure Comics #190; Metamorpho, the Element Man #1; 1st Issue Special #3; Fantastic Four #133; The Brave and the Bold #57; House of Secrets #116 & 136; Secrets of Haunted House #3 & 14; House of Mystery #232 & 273; Plop! #5; Freedom Fighters #3 & 5; Plastic Man #14; Super Friends #6-8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21, 23 & 25 and the Super DC Calendar 1977.

A truly definitive appreciation of the Comic Book Hall of Fame inductee 2006, this oversized (229 x 305 mm) hardback reproduces hundreds of pages and covers, plus a wealth of out-industry artwork and commissioned wonders, as accompaniment to an astonishingly forthright testament and career retrospective of a phenomenal and groundbreaking talent.

The Art of Ramona Fradon will delight everyone who wants to see a master in their element showing everybody how it should be done….

Marvel Characters © and ™ 1941-2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. DC Comics Characters © and ™ DC Comics. Brenda Starr™ © 2013 Tribune Media Services. All Rights Reserved

Unknown Soldier volume 1: Haunted House


By Joshua Dysart, Alberto Ponticelli & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2311-3 (TPB)

One of the very best concepts ever devised for a war comic, The Unknown Soldier was actually a successful spin-off, having first appeared as a walk-on in a Robert Kanigher/Joe Kubert Sgt. Rock story (Our Army at War #168, cover-dated June 1966). He won his own series in 1970, beginning with Star-Spangled Comics #151, cover-dated July 1970 and an all-Kubert affair.

The timely interventionist was a faceless super-spy and master-of-disguise whose forebears had proudly fought and died in every American conflict since the birth of the nation. This family’s last son had dedicated himself to ensuring the safety of his nation in the face of outrageous aggression from the Nazis and Japanese, and specifically the death of his own older brother in an enemy sneak attack…

The war strip grew to be one of DC’s most popular and long-lived: Star-Spangled became The Unknown Soldier in 1977 and the comic only folded in 1982 with issue #268, when sales of traditional comic books were in severe decline.

Since then the character has resurfaced numerous times – in superhero guest-shots and as a 12-issue miniseries in 1988-9; a 4-part Vertigo tale in 1997 and this ferocious politically-charged contemporary reboot which surfaced as an ongoing series in 2009. Another iteration was later revived and unsuccessfully updated as part of the 2011 “New 52” project.

With each iteration the hero moved further and further away from the originating concept, but never truly abandoned or escaped it.

As reimagined by Joshua Dysart (Violent Messiahs, Swamp Thing, Hellboy: B.P.R.D., Conan, Harbinger, Bloodshot, Goodbye Paradise) for adult imprint Vertigo Comics, the action shifts to Uganda at the beginning of this century, where almost continual tribal unrest since the fall of Idi Amin had turned the nation into a charnel house.

Especially appalling were the actions of murderous fundamentalist Christian demagogue Joseph Kony: a self-professed prophet whose “Lord’s Resistance Army” kidnapped, pressganged and brainwashed children: making killers of boys and sex slaves of girls – all forcibly indoctrinated into his religion-cloaked armed insurgency. If you’re old enough, you’ll recall a time when his atrocities were never far from our news…

Here, Dysart and illustrator Alberto Ponticelli (Dial H for Hero, Frankenstein, Come un cane, Sam & Twitch, Blade II, Alias, Blatta) co-opt those headlines as basis for a shocking tale of barbarity and duplicity set in 2002 when noted pacifist, physician and award-winning humanitarian Dr. Moses Lwanga returned to the country of his birth after decades away.

A successful refugee from Amin’s lethal reign, he has been raised in America since he was seven. After benefitting from an Ivy League education at Harvard, he intends on doing good for his benighted former countrymen. The move has already paid wonderful dividends as his first explorations won him a wife in the form of equally-accomplished local doctor Sera Christian.

Now, having endured the painful rigmarole of fundraising and gladhanding even the most well-meaning of interested parties – such as “involved and concerned” humanitarian cause-driven actress Mrs Margaret Wells – Moses is more than ready to head in-country and save actual lives.

It’s a painful, frustrating task as it’s not just modern problems causing bloodshed and carnage. The country suffers from ancient grievances underlying everything else: caused by the colonial British bundling together disparate tribes and adjacent regions into one country. When they left, eternal differences between the southern Ganda/Buganda and northern Acholi Peoples fuelled much of the brutal ambitions of all those monstrous “leaders” seeking to fill the power vacuum…

Into this morass of murder and exploitation the Lwangas plunge, setting up a field hospital in Acholiland and trying their very best. They are keenly observed by many, especially journalist Momolu Sengendo and President Museveni’s highly ineffective Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF), who are providing security for the facility which is deep in the region where Kony’s atrocities are daily occurring…

Apart from Sera, nobody is aware of the horrific, violent nightmares Moses endures nightly, and even she does not know how she figures in them…

Weeks later, the couple are struggling to cope with a continuous stream of mutilation, rape and punishment amputation cases caused by Lord’s Resistance Army units: largely autonomous groups spreading chaos and terror in the name of Jesus and Kony. One morning it all becomes too much. When a dying boy is brought in and reveals the LRA have taken his sister, Moses snaps and heads into the bush, outdistancing his extremely reluctant guards. He is easily captured and forced to watch children brutalise even younger children. Deep inside him, something breaks and a terrifyingly different man emerges: one as skilled in combat and death as Moses Lwanga is in healing…

When the smoke clears and the shooting stops, he’s subject to flashbacks of things that never happened, ongoing hallucinations and a voice in his head giving him orders…

Days later, a kind of rationality returns as he awakens with a ruined infected face swathed in bandages. They’ve been applied by an Australian nun, running a home for orphan girls in the middle of the worst place on Earth they could possibly be…

The famous doctor’s disappearance has caused dangerous waves in the outer world, and the press and the UPDF are frantically beating the bushes, but a much more measured approach is being taken by mysterious overseas interests. They have tasked the local CIA office to sort the problem and the ops on the ground “commission” – extort – veteran agent and drunken renegade Jack Lee Howl to find Moses at all costs…

The subject of all that interest is physically recovering at the convent school, but not so much in his head. That voice is telling him that neither he nor the children are safe and it’s backed up by increasingly agonising flashbacks and ever more daring insurgent forays.

Inevitably, the attack comes and broken child soldiers come looking for war brides, only to meet a force of murderous nature no amount of training could prepare them for…

Nevertheless, the bandaged terror fails and is captured by local LRA commander Lieutenant Lakut. A fanatical, remorseless monster, he recognises another when he sees one, and tries to break and recruit his captive. He would have been far wiser killing him right at the start…

As helpful-seeming old lag Howl probes Sera Lwanga for clues, in the bush Moses – or at least the passenger in his head – escapes and even more kids die as he tries to save the convent school residents, but another partial failure only tips him further way from the good man he wants to be…

By the time Howl finds him, Moses is having hallucinations – or are they recollections? – about another, far older killer with a bandaged face and no morality…

Ultimately, Moses battles his way back to Sera at an Internally Displaced Persons camp, only to lead Lakut to fresh victims. In the course of the massacre that follows, the doctor is lost to the soldier and in the aftermath of driving way the LRA, the bandaged man resolves that the only way to heal this infection is to hunt down and kill Joseph Kony himself…

To be continued…

A powerful and unforgettable tale of inhumanity made ever more shocking by its real world origins, this is a staggeringly potent comics tale long overdue for further attention. This initial tome – still cruelly out of print and unavailable digitally – was coloured by Oscar Celestini and lettered by Clem Robins, and features a variant cover by Rich Corben, augmenting regular covers by Igor Kordey whose image for US #1 won the Glyph Comics Award for Cover of the Year.

Dark, brooding, painfully true, Haunted House is a book worthy of your time and deserving of everyone’s attention.
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Lucky Luke volume 21 The 20th Cavalry


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-016-0 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant and somewhat sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper.

The taciturn trailblazer regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions, and interpretations…

Over decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums (excluding the many spin-off series) with sales totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages thus far. That renown has led to a mountain of merchandise, aforementioned tie-in series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan), plus toys, computer games, animated cartoons, a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions.

No theme park yet, but you never know…

The brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first officially seen in Le Journal de Spirou’s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke sprang to laconic life in 1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American tourist Rene Goscinny. When Rene became his regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary, heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation on August 25th 1955. In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote for La Diligence (The Stagecoach).

Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, whereupon Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. He died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante…

Lucky Luke has history in Britain too, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo.

Morris & Goscinny’s 18th coproduction, Le Vingtième (or Le 20ème) de cavalerie was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou #1356-1377 before becoming the 27th album release in 1965. It’s a wickedly barbed spoof of Hollywood’s output (especially John Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy) in regard to Western soldiering and its often decidedly one-sided view of the US’s Indian wars. If you’re a fan of those flicks, you’ll see caricatures of plenty of favourite stars such as Randolph Scott and Victor McClaglen…

The plot is one you’ll know – by cultural osmosis – if not actual repeated viewings as, deep in Wyoming territory, Chief Yellow Dog’s recent treaty signing with representatives has led to confusion, hostility and potential bloodshed. The stated commitments involved white settlers passing through unmolested in return for not killing all the buffalo, but that’s suddenly stopped happening, leaving Fort Cheyenne’s garrison and particularly commander Colonel McStraggle in dire straits and quite a quandary…

With settlers prevented from crossing Indian land, tensions are mounting and in Washington DC the movers and shakers once again request the aid of a seasoned, unbiased and seemingly infallible troubleshooter…

By-the-book warrior Colonel McStraggle is proud of his achievements with the 20th Cavalry regiment, but is also a stickler for protocol and the “Army way”. He is not keen on the new “scout” foisted upon him, but is even less happy with the appalling progress of his son Grover – a lowly trooper who must prove his worthiness on a daily – if not hourly – basis with dear old dad micromanaging every moment…

Along with a typically quotidian cast including savvy Chinese laundryman Ming Foo, a fanatical old Irish sergeant and a Greek chorus of complaining soldiers who have seen it all before, more unusual if temporary occupants of Fort Cheyenne include stranded and obnoxious hat maker Jeremiah Bowler

Tempers are simmering everywhere, but the biggest problem Lucky can see is that somebody is supplying the Indians with guns and booze. When he visits the angry natives and meets proudly villainous deserter Derek Flood, our hero realises that just stopping the renegade won’t end the crisis. The old leader is even being pushed into war by his own braves and fellow/rival chiefs Crazy Coyote of the Sioux and Sick Eagle of the Arapaho.

The real problem is that – apart from McStraggle and Yellow Dog – everyone apparently wants a fight and won’t back down until they get one…

When the two leaders finally agree to parley, the ceremony is sabotaged and the Chief arrested over Lucky’s protests.

Now it’s time for the time-honoured siege of the fort, and desperate ride for reinforcements and horrendous slaughter unless Luke can change the script in time…

A deliciously wry and loving homage to classical western cinema, The 20th Cavalry revels in its classic set-piece slapstick and witty wordplay: poking gentle fun at the fundamental components of the genre and successfully blending tradition with action to deliver a major victory for fun…

Here is another wildly entertaining all-ages confection by unparalleled comics masters, affording an enticing glimpse into a unique genre for today’s readers who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

Irmina


By Barbara Yelin; translated by Michael Waaler (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-13-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Award-winning German illustrator, cartoonist and comics maker Barbara Yelin (Le Visiteur, Le Retard, Gift, Riekes Notizen, Spring, Gigaguhl und das Riesen-Glück, Tagebuch eines Zwangsarbeiters, But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust) was born in 1977 and studied illustration in Hamburg before scoring her earliest successes in the French Bande Dessinées market.

She favours fact-based human interest stories and biographical tales. When Yelin found letters and diaries revealed unknown aspects of her own grandmother’s closeted past, she was inspired to dramatize the history: crafting an exploration of race and identity; forensically dissecting the notion of compromise, allure of self-deception, force of social pressure and weight of personal responsibility. The graphic novel won great acclaim and led to her being celebrated as Best German Graphic Novelist 2016 at the Erlangen comics festival.

First released in English that year, the tale of Irmina is now available in a paperback edition and offers timely and still uncomfortable insights into a problem that has never really gone away…

It begins in ‘Part One: London’ as in 1934, Irmina von Behdinger skirts the fringes of English society. Dour and a bit dowdy, she is extremely forthright and outspoken as she pursues a dream. Seeking education and a profession, she studies at a commercial school for young women: learning to be a typist. Dragged to a party for useless snobs and swells, she again feels a like a target and communal object of amusement for the so-cavalier In-Crowd until she meets Barbadian law student Howard Green.

Mistaking him for a waiter when he’s actually one of the first black students at Oxford, she finds they have lots in common…

A close, covert and frequently strained relationship develops as they trade life stories that are far from commonplace and compare experiences of being outsiders in a hidebound culture constrained by class, race and constant disdainful judgement by distant, graciously hostile and forever exclusive British society. As the odd couple get to know each other better, it transpires that neither was particularly well-suited to life in their own homelands either…

For instance, the new rulers of a resurgent Germany encourage women to eschew learning and self-reliance in favour of motherhood and the building of a stronger Fatherland through service to their men and the state. All she wants is to be her own woman and see faraway places like the sunny West Indies that spawned such a complex paradox as Howard…

Further complicating her life – which she sees as separate from the greater world – are newspaper reports from Germany which her “host parents” and everyone else around her somehow feel are connected to her. It’s as if they hold the exchange student responsible for the acts of all her countrymen. The defence that these are not “her Germans” means nothing…

Of course, it’s not much better in England, as Howard learns when he and Irmina stumble into a “Blackshirt” rally in Hyde Park. The encounter with the British fascist movement prompts a move and Irmina becomes the companion of an émigré countess from Germany: an old suffragette who has made the Empire her homeland and now works with the Labour Party to improve the lives of the poor, disenfranchised and female…

Despite being ferociously gripped by her ideal of an independent, autonomous existence, Irmina cannot escape the labels and assumptions piled upon her. Howard too is feeling the pressure as his exams loom. Both are caught up in the chaotic tides of the times and as the global political situation calcifies and crystalises, they part and she is compelled to return home and adapt to a new Normal in ‘Part Two: Berlin’

Having finally achieved her long-desired independence, Irmina in 1935 is far from secure or happy. Behind on rent, underpaid in her government secretarial/translator’s position at the Ministry of War and a constant target for lecherous men in uniform or administrators taking the credit for her work, she persists because of a promise of an official transfer to London. The promise is never fulfilled and the pedestrian chore of staying ahead, making no waves and endless stream of bureaucratic form-filling that comprises her life gradually wears the ambitious isolationist dreamer down.

Even the occasional social flurry – like a party held by her cousin – only serves to highlight that she is not a proper German anymore, tainted as she is by her time amongst the decadent British…

Moreover, her sense of being “othered” kicks into overdrive after meeting up-and-coming architect Gregor Meinrich, who has embraced the new national philosophy with the frenzy of a zealot. As promises fail to be met and national pride swells, Irmina endures perpetual disappointment and, as her chances to leave Germany dwindle, she withdraws from life, slavishly passing each successive day. The drear existence culminates in marriage to SS officer Gregor and the shattering boredom of a dutiful hausfrau…

Sidelining and abandoning her few friends, Irmina becomes a ghost of her former self as all around her ordinary people are caught up in a new zeitgeist: embracing pride and a toxic ideology. By the time her son is born, Germany is officially at war and Gregor is gone all the time. Now she doesn’t even have his borrowed dreams and ambitions to sustain her and as the war proceeds her beliefs and hopes and all human decency are similarly whittled away…

The story climaxes in ‘Part Three: Barbados’ as in 1983, stand-offish school secretary Irmina Meinrich contemplates her imminent retirement. Her life is carefully and scrupulously devoid of all emotional extravagance and foolish, pointless joy or hope: everything is simply making time with the least effort until death claims her. Then one night she receives a letter from Barbados. His Excellency Governor General Sir Howard Green is hoping to carry out a promise he had made to a young exchange student in 1934…

Delivered in moody muted colours and rendered in expressionistic soft tones and childlike simplified lines, Yelin’s exploration of extraordinary people in catastrophic times is uncomfortable, distressing and challenging, but is all the more powerful and topical for that.

Counterpointed by Dr. Kolb’s stringent exploration of everyday life in Nazi Germany and enquiring just how an entire nation seemingly surrendered to its collective dark side, this is a timeless and compelling treatise on aspiration and personal integrity as affected by extreme circumstance and unrelenting peer pressure.
Potent, powerful, moving and memorable, this is a true romance tale well told and impossible to forget. © 2014 Barbara Yelin & Reprodukt. All rights reserved.

Airboy Archives volume 1


By Chuck Dixon, Tim Truman, Stan Woch, Benn Dunn, Bill Jaaska, Tom Lyle, Larry Elmore, & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-900-2 (TPB) 978-1-62302-641-7 (IDW Digital edition)

Airboy was one of the very best adventure strips of the Golden Age: one with a terrific pedigree and a profound legacy. Created for Hillman Periodicals by the brilliant Charles Biro (Steel Sterling, Crimebuster, the original Daredevil, The Little Wiseguys and landmark genre prototype Crime Does Not Pay number among his many triumphs), it featured a plucky teen and his fabulous super-airplane, affectionately dubbed “Birdie”.

Airboy and Birdie both debuted in the second issue of Air Fighters Comics, cover-dated November 1942 (so Slightly Belated Happy Birthday guys!). The title was packed out with similarly-themed and oddly off-kilter aviator heroes such as Skywolf, The Iron Ace, The Black Angel, The Bald Eagle, The Flying Dutchman, The Flying Fool and a landmark horror proto archetype dubbed The Heap – forerunner of all comic muck monsters…

In December 1945, and after 23 issues, the title was redesignated Airboy Comics and soldiered on until 1953, when Hillman with great foresight got out of the funnybook biz just as hostile clouds of censorship were gathering. In over a dozen years of publication, the boy-warrior had tackled the Axis powers, crooks, aliens, monsters, demons and every possible permutation of sinister threat and horror-tinged terror – even subversive giant rats and conqueror ants!

The gripping scripts – initially the work of Biro and Dick Wood before the latter assumed complete control – took the avenging aviator/soldier-of-fortune all over the world to confront some of the most striking adversaries in comics and often some of the sexiest. The most notable of these was undoubtedly the conflicted Nazi Air Ace known as Valkyrie, who flew the killer skies with a squadron of lethal lovelies codenamed The Airmaidens.

However, as the world and tastes changed, Airboy vanished with many other gaudy comic book champions whose time had run out. Clearly, memories remained fresh for many, no doubt rekindled by a superb popular history series in the early 1970s. The Steranko History of Comics and its effusive chapter on the lethal lad led to a speculative venture reprinting two issues of the early run.

Airboy was also the inspiration for Jetboy – originating lynchpin of the Wild Cards franchise by Howard Waldrop, George R.R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass and their many friends. That began in January 1987 and is still going strong with 30 books as of 2022…

In 1982 comics devotee and champion archivist Ken Pierce had collected early Airboy exploits featuring the voluptuous, absurdly pneumatic Nazi-turned-freedom-fighter Valkyrie, and this apparently inspired budding independent comics company Eclipse to reboot and revive the character …and many of his Hillman comrades.

Always innovative, Eclipse were experimenting at that time with fortnightly (that’s twice a month, non-Brits) comics with half the page count of industry standard books, but at a markedly reduced price. To be honest, at 16 pages of story per issue, it wasn’t that different from the 17-18 pages Marvel and DC had been reduced to working with during the late 1970s…

Airboy premiered at 50¢ a copy in July 1986 and quickly found a vocal, dedicated following. Rereading – in either trade paperback or digital editions – this first archival compilation, it’s easy to see why…

Collecting Airboy #1-16 spanning July 15th 1986 February 27th 1987, this superb, so very Eighties all-action romp opens with a revelatory Introduction by instigator and near-exclusive scripter of the entire resurrected franchise Chuck Dixon who asks and answers ‘Why Airboy?’: detailing the events that led to all-star packager/indie maverick Tim Truman getting involved with one of the biggest and most influential series of that era. With Dixon scripting, Truman co-plotting, editing and pencilling, Tom Yeates inking, Tim Harkins lettering and Ron Courtney applying a then-radical colour palette, the initial 5-issue story arc (collected in 1989 as graphic novel Airboy: The Return of Valkyrie) explodes into action…

Issue #1 begins ‘On the Wings of Death’ as, in California’s Napa Valley, a broken man rails against an unjust fate. David Nelson II is bitter and angry. Not even his teenaged son can bring joy to his life. The boy barely knows and certainly has no warm memories of his dad: an aviation magnate who switched from building civilian planes to forging deadly high-tech weapons for any dictator to buy…

Trained since birth by former Japanese WWII fighter ace and deadly martial artist Saburo Hirota, young Davy has become a brave, confident fighter who cannot imagine why his life has been one of constant combat training.

Suddenly, a horde of assassins attacks the compound and the senior Nelson dies in a hail of bullets. Only then does Davy discover the truth about his father. Once upon a time, the aloof martinet was war veteran and roving hero Airboy: battling against and alongside valiant comrades and piloting a truly unique super-aircraft. Second feature ‘Phoenix’ sees the aging samurai tell of the lost hero and – armed with the truth – Davy Nelson III swears to avenge his father and atone for his own inactions and neglect…

Two weeks later, ‘The Wolf and the Phoenix’ reintroduces WWII legend Skywolf who tangentially enters the saga whilst clearing out South American drug traffickers who have been using his isolated Florida Keys island/US military dump for decommissioned ordnance as a staging post for their enterprise. When Hirota and the kid turn up, it’s not just to share the news of a fallen comrade, but also to reclaim and rebuild the shell that used to be Birdie…

As they reassemble and modify the super plane, stories are told and Davy discovers another shocking truth. His mother was not his father’s true love. Once he loved a beautiful German woman-warrior named Valkyrie. However, for the last thirty years she has been trapped in suspended animation by Misery, a phantasmal being who feeds on evil and steals the souls of lost fliers…

Forced to do the monster’s bidding for three decades – such as providing weapons for South American despots to slaughter and enslave innocents – the old hero had gradually died inside. Now his son is ready to avenge him and free the beautiful sleeper. Soon Skywolf’s drug-dealer problem are connected to the death of the original Airboy, leading them all to tropical Bogantilla and despotic General Orista – one of Nelson Aviation’s biggest customers and a staunch anti-Communist whose regime is proudly supported by the Reagan Administration…

With #3’s ‘Misery Loves Company’, Willie Blyberg began inking Woch as – after a tragic and costly misunderstanding – the reunited Air Fighters ally with rebels resisting Orista’s depredations. It’s been a hard struggle as the dictator army is fully supplied with Nelson’s armaments, backed up by black magic. Ghastly Misery has been extorting the ordnance from his arch foe by threating to kill the comatose Valkyrie: a process that had slowly poisoned the heart and crushed the soul of Davy’s dad. Now, however, the tide is turning…

Months previously, from deep in the Florida Everglades the monstrous bog-creature known as The Heap stirred after decades of inactivity. Something momentous was beginning to unfold and – vaguely remembering a previous life, brave heroes and a diabolical evil – it began shambling southwards…

Now the rebels and yanqui heroes raid the General’s citadel in Gamada Cruz, assisted by the Heap and a local shaman, triumphantly completing their ‘Assault on Villa Miserio’ by rescuing the dormant sleeping beauty, weaking bloody vengeance on Orista and driving off the immortal emotion vampire behind all the death and destruction in concluding chapter ‘Misery Takes A Holiday’ (illustrated by Woch, Blyberg & Emil Novak). Not all the good guys make it back, and most uncomfortably of all the revived captive is unaware that the hero she tries so passionately and amorously to reward is not “her Davy”…

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and written with all the gung-ho bravado of a Rambo movie, this tale of liberation and revolution rattles along, a stirring blend of action and supernatural horror that sweeps readers along with it, setting the scene for a tense confrontation in #6 as ‘Back in the USA’ covers the aftermath wherein the time-displaced “aviatrix” seeks to adjust to a strange and frustrating new world and form some kind of relationship with the son of her lost lover…

Hirota leaves them to it: he’s more concerned with another long-term rehabilitation project: helping an old ally from WWII with very different yet eerily similar problems. Davy is trying to cleanse his corporation of the last taint of scandal and corruption only to discover that – thanks to CEO Emil Kronenberg – it has been happily supplying appalling weapons and support to almost every gang, terror group and corrupt regime on the planet. He has no idea that other eyes are upon the aging European: hungry, implacable, vengeful ones…

In #7, Valkyrie accepts a vast wad of cash and heads to New York City to lose herself in hedonism. Inked by Jeff Butler, ‘Partytime’ then sees Davy ambushed by his entire complicit Board and abducted by Kronenberg who resumes the indoctrination experiments he devised back in the camps in Germany. Unluckily for him, whilst losing herself, Valkyrie has impossibly found an old friend from the War who also has not aged a day…

Fellow former Luftwaffe pilot Baron Victor Heller has his own magical secrets to keep but makes a useful ally once Davy’s disappearance galvanises Hirota to enlist Val’s assistance in finding the boy…

Davy’s in big trouble in #8 (illustrated by Woch & Blyberg with colours from “Air Rescue”), trapped ‘Down in the Darkness’ and tortured. The extreme hostile takeover move proves initially unsuccessful and as the next issue hikes the price up to $1.25 and extends the page count, ‘Body Count!’ sees his friends move in for a savage showdown.

Inked by Mark Nelson & coloured by Moondoggies, it was offset by a new back-up series exploring the post war career of Skywolf and other Golden Age Air Fighters characters. Concluding in the next issue, ‘China Hands’ by Dixon, Larry Elmore, Harkins & Steve Oliff/Olyoptics, is set in 1948 as China falls to communist control. Here Link Thorne – AKA The Flying Fool – ferries food and medical supplies to the simple peasants caught up in the political carnage, only to be framed by US spook Jensen of what will become the CIA and imprisoned by Chang Kai Shek’s Nationalist army.

Desperate to help, American freight company owner Riot O’Hara reaches out to aimless drifters Skywolf to spring Thorne. Their rescue attempt is sabotaged by agents of the American government and officially they all die in the attempt… Officially…

With John Nyberg inks, #10 concludes Davy’s rescue and sees Kronenberg at last get what’s coming to him in ‘Tooth and Claw’, even as ‘China Hands part 2’ reveals how Skywolf became the man of mystery we all know and love…

Airboy #11 was written by Truman, with art from Ben Dunn & Hilary Barta. ‘…I Am Birdie’ peers into the past and retells the origin of David Nelson II and his sentient wonder craft whilst Dixon & Bill Jaaska combine for another historical 2-parter starring Skywolf. Set in 1949, ‘I Don’t Need My Grave!’ (with the concluding chapter inked by Jeff Darrow) sees the masked wanderer in Tokyo, resolved to stop criminal upstart Billy Yee, strongarming Riot O’Hara.

Yee wants her to export his drugs to America, but as “sangokujin” (displaced Korean or Chinese foreigners) must work outside Japan’s established criminal hierarchy. That’s proved when Skywolf’s attack is interrupted by members of the Yamataki syndicate and before long Yakuza and Yankee outlaw are united in the same goal. All they have to do is deal with the US soldiers Jensen has set on their tails and it’s clear sailing from then on…

The Airboy story in #10 had ended with a portentous teaser as an aerial assault force devastated Skywolf’s Florida island retreat in 1985. Leading the raid was a bloodthirsty loon dubbed Manic. The saga properly kicks off in #12’s ‘Gone to Texas’ (by Dixon, Woch, Kim DeMulder), as – whilst Hirota counsels former ally The Iron Ace (angrily trapped inside the world’s most advanced full body prosthesis) – Davy and Valkyrie tentatively explore their new normal. Both are understandably disturbed by the thought of renewing her relationship by proxy, switching her avid affection from father to son, but thankfully Skywolf distracts them with his latest problem…

Amidst the rubble of his home is a message from his unseen enemies: the burned body of a cop from the banana republic of the Grand Coronicos Islands…

A hastily arranged meeting brings Davy and Hirota to Galveston, Texas and a frankly hilarious encounter with Skywolf’s older, smarter, tougher, wheelchair-bound mother. She thinks her boy’s an idiot and refuses to call him anything but “Lawrence”, but her advice is welcome and leads to Nelson Aviation fronting Skywolf a new top-of-the-line helicopter gunship for their upcoming visit to the Grand Coronicos…

In #13 Dixon, Woch, Nelson & Steve Haynie craft a chilling ‘Tag-Team’ as Manic and his psycho partner Cowgirl apprise their boss of the situation. The nation is supposedly ruled by avid anti-Communist El Presidente Generalissimo Valasquez, but it’s his wife who has really pulled the strings for much of the last 50 years. The methodical scheme to corner America’s entire drug trade is hers, but that starts unravelling as soon as Davy and Birdie start shooting down drug-filled cargo planes…

The response is swift and savage and teams are despatched by Manic to kill everyone close to Nelson and Skywolf. Of course no drug cabal assassin is a match for Hirota, Valkyrie or Lawrence’s mom…

The drama intensifies in ‘A Barrel Full of Sharks’ (Woch & Nelson) as the intended victims all converge on the Islands for a little payback…

Airboy #13 & 14 also offer a fantastic history mystery by Dixon, Tom Lyle & Romeo Tanghal, as ‘Queen of Yeti Valley’ reveals how Skywolf and the Bald Eagle unite to exfiltrate the British Ambassador’s daughter in the Himalayas and end up saving a lost race from human monsters…

In 15 & 16 the posterior back-ups see supposedly deceased Skywolf sneak back into Texas in 1950 for ‘White Lightning’ (Dixon, Woch & Vern Henkel). Happily anonymous, the outlaw says hi to his ma and puts paid to a preacher opening up a Ku Klux Klan franchise to deal with all them uppity, invasive Mexicans in a deeply satisfying and cathartic dose of bigot-trashing catharsis…

At the fronts and in the Eighties, Airboy and his crew go undercover to infiltrate Puerto Oloroso, poverty stricken capital of the Grand Coronicos Island Chain, inevitably unleashing a ‘Caribbean Rampage’ over the final two episodes in this spectacular opening compilation. By scuttling the scheme to flood America with cut-price coke, Airboy, Hirota, Valkyrie and Skywolf (and his mom) achieve a brief moment of pure Eighties synergy: marrying style, outrageous fashion, ostentation, Contras, drugs, the CIA and always over-the-top action with a spurious motive, and wicked humour in a high octane romp translating the fighting stars of WWII to the era of Airwolf, Nightrider and Miami Vice.

Including stunning covers by Truman, Woch, Dave Stevens, Tex Blaisdell, Paul Gulacy, Flint Henry, Howard Bender, Yeates, John Totleben. Davis Dorman and Ron Randall, this is a true lost delight of sheer escapism well worth tracking down, with the promise of more and even better still to come.
Airboy Archives volume 1. Airboy © 2014 Chuck Dixon. © 2014 Idea and Design Work’s LLC. All rights reserved.

Lion Annual 1954


By Frank S. Pepper, Ron Forbes, Edwin Dale, Ted Cowan, Vernon Crick, & many & various (Amalgamated Press)
No ISBN: Digital edition

The 1950s ushered in a revolution in British comics. With wartime restrictions on printing and paper lifted, a steady stream of new titles emerged from many companies and when The Eagle launched from the Hulton Press in April 1950, the very idea of what weeklies could be altered forever. That kind of oversized prestige package with photogravure colour was exorbitantly expensive however, and when London-based publishing powerhouse Amalgamated Press retaliated with their own equivalent, it was an understandably more economical affair.

I’m assuming they only waited so long before the first issue of Lion launched (cover-dated February 23rd 1952) to see if their flashy rival periodical was going to last. Lion – just like The Eagle – was a mix of prose stories, features and comic strips and even offered its own cover-featured space-farer in Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot.

Initially edited by Reg Eves, the title ran for 1156 weekly issues until 18th May 1974 when it merged with sister-title Valiant. Along the way, in the approved manner of British comics which subsumed weaker-selling titles to keep popular strips going, Lion absorbed Sun (in 1959) and Champion (1966) before going on to swallow The Eagle in April 1969 before merging with Thunder in 1971. In its capacity as one of the country’s most popular and enduring adventure comics, the last vestiges of Lion finally vanished in 1976 when Valiant was amalgamated with Battle Picture Weekly.

Despite its demise in the mid-70s, there were 30 Lion Annuals between 1953 and 1982, all targeting the lucrative Christmas market, combining a broad variety of original strips with topical and historical prose adventures; sports, science and general interest features; short humour strips and – increasingly in the 1970s – reformatted reprints from IPC/Fleetway’s vast back catalogue.

That’s certainly not the case with this particular item. Forward-dated 1954, but actually published in late 1953, it’s the first counterstrike from AP in the war to own Christmas: a delicious – but occasionally ethno-socially and culturally dated and dubious – dose of traditional comics entertainment. Big on variety, sturdily produced in a starkly potent monochrome, it offers a wide mixed bag of treats to beguile boisterous boys in a rapidly-changing world. What’s especially satisfying is that, current sensibilities notwithstanding, this volume has been digitised and can be bought and read electronically by kids of all vintages today…

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that these entertainments were produced in good faith with the best of intentions by creators in a culture and at a time very different from ours. Very frequently attitudes and expressions are employed which we now find a little upsetting, but this book is actually one of the better examples of racial, gender and cultural tolerance. Still, even so…

The cornucopia of prose, puzzles, strips and features (all illustrated by artists as photography was too expensive) opens with a rather disturbing but truly lovely painted frontispiece ‘The Redskin Accepts the Challenge’ before a contents page promises astounding wonders to come.

We then rocket into adventure in the future where freedom fighter Captain Condor – by Frank S. Pepper and probably illustrated by original artist Ron Forbes – continues his war against despots running the solar system by solving ‘The Mystery of the Vanished Space-Ship!’ Edwin Dale then provides a prose thriller starring troubleshooter Mr. X, who discovers ‘The Tree that Stopped a Rebellion’ as he traverses the fabled African Veldt…

Presumably scripted by Ted Cowan & illustrated by Barry (R. G. Thomas) Nelson, ‘Sandy Dean’s Prize Guy’ is a comic strip wherein the schoolboy paragon and his chums deal with cheating classmates sabotaging and stealing effigies built to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. It’s followed by Nigel Dawn’s prose thriller ‘Too Smart for the Atom Spy!’ wherein a schoolboy pigeon fancier foils a cunning espionage plot, after which we segue into a historical action strip credited to George Forrest (Cowan again).

‘The Slaves who Saved the Emperor’ follows two recently escaped British warriors who foil an imperial Roman assassination and is counterbalanced by Tom Stirling’s (E. L. Rosman) humorous text tale ‘Only a Press-Button Champ!’ This sees inventor’s nephew Jingo Jones stir up tons of trouble using his “Invisibliser” to save himself from a bully. Sadly, it also gives his headmaster and a boxing promoter the idea that the skinny runt is a fighting marvel…

‘The Weird Ways of Witch-Doctors Beat the Bush-Rangers’ (possibly by John Donnelly Jr.) shares amazing “facts” about jobbing mages in the post-war world after which John Barnes -AKA Peter O’Donnell – tells prose tale of ‘Chalu the Elephant Boy’ who clears his beloved four-legged co-worker Tooska when the big beast is framed as a murderous rogue animal…

Rex King (A.W. Henderson) delivers comic strip cowboy thrills as cavalry scout exposes a traitor and battles ‘Peril on the Tomahawk Trail’ before ‘Wiz and Lofty – Rescuers of the Kidnapped King’ (by E.L. Rosman as Victor Norman) delivers text thrills and spills as the globetrotting speed merchants stumble into a deadly plot to usurp a kingdom…

Harry Hollinson D.F.C. details and depicts some soon to be commonplace future wonders in speculative feature ‘Scientists Land on the Moon’ after which we pop back to WWII where Edward R. Home-Gall (AKA Edwin Dale) reveals in cartoon form how ‘The Lone Commandos’ scupper hidden Nazi artillery and save British soldiers in ‘Operation Gunfire’ before Vernon Crick shows in prose that ‘Rust’s the Boy for Stunts’: a rousing tale of motorcycle mayhem and skulduggery at a circus’ Wall of Death ride…

A pictorial ‘World-Wide Quiz’ tests your general knowledge before Peter O’Donnell – as Derek Knight – delivers a chilling prose vignette of Arctic endeavour as ‘Tulak Hunts the Polar Terror’, saving lost scientists, capturing murderous outlaws and stalking a killer bear…

A sea strip by A. W. Henderson as Roy Leighton sees schooner skipper Don Watson save pearl divers and solve ‘The Secret of Ju-Ju Island’ whilst Michael Fox’s prose story ‘Mike Merlin – Master of Magic’ details the greatest trick of a schoolboy conjuror before we meet one of British comics’ most enduring stars.

Robot Archie began life as ‘The Jungle Robot’ and his comic strip (by E. George Cowan & Ted/Jim Kearon) reveals how the mechanical marvel becomes the ‘Pal o’ the Pigmies’ before another prose piece by R. G. Thomas sees a western trader and his Native American pal stave off bandits and a hidden tribe of renegades in ‘Rod and the Red Arrow Raiders’

A ‘Picture Parade of Facts from Near and Far’ precedes a text thriller by Hedley Scott (AKA Hedley O’Mant) wherein ‘The Schoolboy Treasure Hunters’ do a bit of digging and uncover presumed pirate gold with a far more modern and sinister provenance, before John Fordice (Colin Robertson) employs the comic strip form to catch ‘The Smash-and-Grab Speedster’, courtesy of consulting crimebuster Brett Marlowe, Detective as he explores the contemporary sporting phenomenon of motorcycle speedway…

Donald Dane’s prose yarn ‘Kurdo of the Strong Arm’ details the fascinating, action-packed saga of a Viking teenager – from ancient Scotland – stranded in North America hundreds of years before Columbus and leads to all those puzzle answers and final cartoon fact file ‘Fishy Tales – But They’re True!’ before a House Ad for weekly Lion – “The King of Picture Story Papers!’ brings us to the back cover and a sponsored treat: early infotainment treat ‘Cadbury’s Car Race puzzle’.

Sadly, many of the creators remain unknown and uncredited, especially the exceptional artists whose efforts adorn the prose stories, but this remains a solid box of delights for any “bloke of a certain age” seeking to recapture his so-happily uncomplicated youth. It also has the added advantage of being far less likely than other (usually unsavoury) endeavours which, although designed to rekindle the dead past, generally lead to divorce…

Before I go, let’s thank Steve Holland at Bear Alley (link please) and all the other dedicated diligent bods researching and excavating the names and other facts for everyone like me to cite and pretend we’re so clever…

A true taste of days gone by, this is a chance for the curious to test bygone tomes and times and I thoroughly recommend it to your house…
© 1955 the Amalgamated Press and latterly IPC. All rights reserved.

Black Max: Volume 2


By Frank S. Pepper, Alfonso Font & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-862-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Air Ace Action… 9/10

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

This stunning sequel selection delivers one more stunning nostalgia-punch from Rebellion’s superb and ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, collecting more episodes of seminal war/horror shocker Black Max.

The strip debuted in Thunder #1 and ran the distance: surviving cancelation and merger and continuing into Lion and Thunder until that magazine finally gave up the ghost mid-decade.

This second volume carries the next wave of those stories, covering May 15th to December 25th 1971, with the periodical perils rounded out by longer yarn taken from Thunder Annual 1973.

The series is typical of the manner in which weekly periodicals functioned back then: devised by screenwriter, veteran Editor and prolific scripter Ken Mennell (Cursitor Doom, Steel Claw, The Spider and many more) with the first episode limned by the company’s star turn for mood and mystery Eric Bradbury (Invasion, The Black Crow, Cursitor Doom, House of Dolman, Hookjaw and dozens more). The whole kit and kaboodle was then handed off to another team to sink or swim with, which they did until 1974: a pretty respectable run for a British comic…

In many ways, the attrition rate of British comic strips bore remarkable similarities to casualty figures in war, but this serial was well-starred. The assigned writer was Frank S. Pepper. who began his legendary comics career in 1926. By 1970 he had clocked up many major successes like Dan Dare, Rockfist Rogan, Captain Condor, Jet-Ace Logan and Roy of the Rovers to name but a very, very few.

Series illustrator Alfonso Font was a ten-year veteran – mostly for overseas publications. Based in Spain, he had worked not just for Odhams/Fleetway but on strips for US outfits Warren and Skywald and continental classics such as Historias Negras (Dark Stories), Jon Rohner, Carmen Bond, Bri D’Alban, Tex Willer, Dylan Dog and more…

Episodic by nature and generally delivered in sharp, spartan 3-page bursts, by the time of these trench warfare and skyborne tales the premise and key characters were firmly established and Pepper & Font were growing bolder and more experimental…

In 1917, the Great War was slowly being lost by Germany and her allies. In the Bavarian schloss of Baron Maximilien von Klorr, the grotesque but brilliant scientist and fighter ace had devised a horrific way to tip the scales back in favour of his homeland. His extremely ancient family had for millennia enjoyed an affinity with bats and the current scion had bred giant predatory versions he controlled by various means – including telepathy – that flew beside him to terrify and slaughter the hated English. Initially, they had been a secret weapon used sparingly but by this juncture soldiers and aviators knew well this other form of death from the skies…

His schemes were imperilled and countered on a weekly basis by young British pilot Tim Wilson of Twelve Squadron. Originally a performer in a peacetime flying circus, the doughty lad was possibly the best acrobatic aviator on the Western Front and his constant encounters with von Klorr and the colossal chiropteran constantly frustrated the manic monster master…

Now, Wilson’s superiors are aware of the fearsome bio-weapons, and thanks to his constant interference, the Baron devotes an astonishing amount of time and effort to killing the English fighter ace …when not butchering Allied fliers and ground troops in vast numbers.

The odds seemed to shift once von Klorr began mass-producing his monsters, but Wilson eventually gained the upper hand: driving “Black Max” out of his castle HQ and into a hidden facility where the villain retrenched and made bigger, better terrors…

The private duel resumes here as extended, multi-part serials became standard. The first finds veteran English Ace Colonel “Hero” Hall quitting his desk job to take personal command of Twelve Squadron, after his younger brother is reported missing after meeting Max’s bats.

The vendetta makes life particularly hard for Tim Wilson and leads to Hall’s gross dereliction of duty in the field, but does send the German into retreat and cost him almost all of his monstrous animal allies…

On the back foot and frantically rebuilding, von Klorr is forced to improvise. Capturing and brainwashing ambitious new British recruit Johnny Crane the evil genius embeds him as a secret weapon against Wilson. After miraculously and obliviously escaping many traps, Tim is eventually captured by his nemesis and subjected to the same torture process, before turning the tables on Black Max and apparently killing the bat man in a spectacular escape…

Of course it’s not true and the Baron resurfaces in London weeks later. Wilson is there too, on sick leave, but as Zeppelins bomb the capital, he stumbles into a plot to kidnap British animal scientist Professor Dutton. Von Klorr needs the boffin to improve the strength of his killer beasts, but cannot resist going after Wilson too: a mistake that scuttles his grand scheme and costs him dearly…

Down but never out, the Baron returns to his regular tactics and familiar killing fields, but suffers another reversal when Wilson discovers his current laboratory base. With only one giant bat and his resources exhausted, Von Klorr relocates to a deserted aerodrome to consider his options and is shocked to receive a message from his grandfather. The terrifying patriarch of the bat clan has arcane knowledge spanning millennia and reveals he has unearthed an ancient potion to recreate the “great King-bat”!

Recovering the actual formula is far from easy as it rests beneath Allied lines, but after herculean efforts Black Max secures it and doses his final pet. Thanks to more timely interference from Tim, the killer beast imbibes far too large a dose and mutates into an immense, unstoppable horror that attacks both German and British lines, necessitating an unprecedented alliance of the sworn enemies. Wilson is completely ready for von Klorr to betray him, but is still taken unawares when the moment comes – just as they finally kill the rampaging terror…

To Be Continued…

As previously stated, this initial collection also includes a complete adventure from Thunder Annual 1973: an extended saga rendered by Font but sadly uncredited as regards a writer. It’s 1917, and Black Max is distracted from his obsession when glory-hungry Prussian Ace Major Heinrich Stynkel uses his influence to ground the bats and their master so that he can have first pick of the English fliers. The new psychopath’s plot almost ends the reign of terror until cruel fate and Wilson play their part in a macabre comedy of errors…

These strip shockers are amongst the most memorable and enjoyable exploits in British comics: smart, scary and beautifully rendered. This a superb example of war horror that deserves to be revived and revered.
© 1971, 1973 & 2021 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. Black Max and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements are ™ Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

It Was the War of the Trenches & Goddam This War!


By Tardi with Jean-Pierre Verney, translated by Kim Thompson & Helga Dascher (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-353-8 (HB Trenches) & 978-1-60699-582-2 (HB Goddam)

For years I’ve been declaring that Charley’s War the best comics story about The Great War ever created, but, while I’m still convinced of that fact, there’s a strong contender for the title in the astonishing award-winning conception C’était la guerre des tranchées by cartoonist Jacques Tardi. It began publication in France in 1993 and was released as an English edition by Fantagraphics in 2010. Three years later it was supplemented by an even more impressive and heart-rending sequel.

Credited with creating a new style of expressionistic illustration dubbed “the New Realism”, Tardi is one of the greatest comics creators in the world, blessed with a singular vision and adamantine ideals, even apparently refusing his country’s greatest honour through his wish to be completely free to say and create what he wants.

He was born in the Commune of Valence, Dróme in August 1946 and subsequently studied at École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the prestigious Parisian École Nationale Supérieure des arts Décoratifs before launching his career in comics in 1969 at the home of modern French comics: Pilote.

From illustrating stories by Jean Giraud, Serge de Beketch and Pierre Christian, he moved on to Westerns, crime tales and satirical works in magazines like Record, Libération, Charlie Mensuel and L’Écho des Savanes whilst also graduating into adapting prose novels by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Léo Malet.

The latter’s detective hero Nestor Burma became the subject of all-new albums written and drawn by Tardi once the established literary canon was exhausted leading, in 1976. to the creation of Polonius in Métal Hurlant and a legendary, super-successful star turn. Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adéle Blanc-Sec is an epic period fantasy series which initially ran in the daily Sud-Ouest. The series numbers ten volumes thus far and is still being added to.

The passionate auteur has also crafted many unforgettable anti-war stories – Adieu Brindavoine, Le Fleur au Fusil, Le trou d’obus and more – examining the plight of the common soldier, and has written novels, created radio series, worked in movies, and co-created (with writer Jean Vautrin) Le Cri du Peuple – a quartet of albums about the Parisienne revolt of the Communards.

Whilst his WWI creations are loosely inspired by the experiences of his grandfather, his 2012 graphic novel Moi René Tardi, prisonnier de guerre au Stalag IIB revealed the experiences of his father, a POW in the second conflict to ravage France in a century.

Far too few of this master’s creations are available in English (barely 20 out of more than 50) but, thanks to NBM, iBooks and Fantagraphics, we’re quickly catching up…

An unquestionable masterpiece and international multi-award winner, It Was the War of the Trenches begins with Tardi’s forthright Foreword detailing his process and motivations, plus a copious and chilling Special Thanks page, before a cartoon catalogue of humanity’s greatest folly unfolds.

These interlinked and cross-fertilising vignettes are about people not causes or battles or the fate of nations, with each tale linking to others: comprised of epigrammatic, anecdotal observations of the war as experienced by ordinary soldiers. The saga first saw print in A Suivre before being stitched together as a patchwork quilt of endurance, complaint, venality, misfortune, bravery, cupidity and stupidity, all informed primarily by family stories, but always verified and augmented by focussed research.

As the pages proceed, a litany of injustice and abiding horror unfolds as scared, weary, hopeless, betrayed and crazy men of every type suffer constant pressure, relentless ennui, physical abuse and imminent death…

Seeking and succeeding in bring those appalling experiences to life, Tardi forensically displays the constant shelling, awful weather, death in the skies and in the mud plus every possible variation in between them as an ever-changing roster of reluctant warriors wait for the end. They think of past lives and wasted chances and what turn of fate brought them to this muddy hole in the ground…

Especially poignant are those twists of luck that so often place supposed enemies together against the War itself, but always brief friendships end abruptly and badly, with the only winners being death and guilt and shame…

This is a book no one could read and sustain any vainglorious illusion of combat and honour as noble inspirations. This is a story that begs us all to stop war forever…

In 2013, after more than a decade of meticulous research and diligent crafting, It Was the War of the Trenches was finally supplemented by a sequel…

Translated as a potent and powerful hardback edition in full colour and moody, evocative tonal sequences, this pictorial polemic was originally released as six newspaper-format pamphlets entitled Putain de Guerre! From there it was collected in two albums and came to us as Goddamn This War!, tracing the course of the conflict through the experiences of an anonymous French “grunt”.

At once lucky, devious and cynically suspicious enough to survive, he is a tool used to relate the horrific, boring, scary, disgusting and just plain stupid course of an industrialised war managed by privileged, inbred idiots who think they’re playing games: restaging Napoleon’s cavalry campaigns, but this time as seen from the perspective of the poor sods actually being gassed and bombed and shot at…

Divided into five chapter-years running from ‘1914’ to ‘1919’ (as the global killing didn’t stop just because the Germans signed an Armistice in 1918 – just ask the Turks, Armenians, Russians and other Balkan nations forgotten when hostilities officially ended), the narration is stuffed with the kind of facts and trivia you won’t find in most history books. as our frustrated and disillusioned protagonist staggers from campaign to furlough to what his bosses call victory, noting no credible differences between himself and the “Boche” on the other side of the wire, but huge gulfs between the men with rifles and the toffs in brass on both sides…

This staggeringly emotional testament is backed up and supplemented by a reproduction of ‘The Song of Craonne’ – a ditty so seditious that French soldiers were executed for singing it – and a capacious, revelatory year-by-year photo-essay by historian, photographer and collector Jean-Pierre Verney. His World War I: an Illustrated Chronology chillingly shows the true faces and forces of war and is alone worth the price of admission…

It Was the War of the Trenches (C’était la guerre des tranchées) © 1993 Editions Casterman. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books.
Goddamn This War! (Putain de Guerre!) © 2013 Editions Casterman. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books.