Month: January 2008

By Pat Mills & Hunt Emerson (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-85286-011-1

The most successful comic strips depend more on the right villain than any hero or combination of protagonists, so this quirky little oddment was better placed than most for success. Created by British legends Pat Mills and Hunt Emerson this strident, polemical satire puts the boot in on the appalling tactics and philosophies of the third term Thatcher government with savagely hilarious art and stunningly biting writing.

The concept is simple now but groundbreaking in 1987. The reader is to be Prime Minister Maggie who, by reading sections of the book and selecting a choice of action at the end of each chapter is directed to another page to experience the ramifications of that decision. The objective is to win another election, and the method is to make only vote-winning decisions – thus the multiple-choice page-endings. The intention is not to win the game, obviously.

This powerful piece of graphic propaganda may have dated on some levels but the home-truths are still as pertinent. Even as Maggie and her demented pack of lap-dogs wriggled and squirmed on Mills and Emerson’s pen-points, their legacy of personal gain was supplanting both personal and communal responsibility to become the new norm. Today’s Britain is their fault and this book still reminds us of a struggle too few joined and a fight we should have won, but didn’t.

It’s still really, really funny though…

Text and concept © 1987 Pat Mills. Illustrations © 1987 Hunt Emerson. All Rights Reserved.

By Jamie Delano & David Lloyd (Marvel)
ISBN13: 978-1-85400-288-4

This (regrettably!) one-off sequel to Night Raven: The Collected Stories (ISBN13: 978-1-85400-557-3), although the second comic-strip adventure, actually followed a long and impressive run of prose tales that appeared in a huge variety of Marvel UK titles throughout the 1980s, written by such luminaries as Alan Moore and Jamie Delano, and eerily illustrated by some of Britain’s top artists. This utilisation of such a pulp-fiction style character in a modern equivalent of the originating genre was very fitting and those stories will hopefully be gathered together in a collection one day.

House of Cards is set in those fabled gangster days and tells a complex tale of tragic love and futile vengeance. Night Raven – who gets an origin of sorts here – is fascinated by the nearly-fallen-flower Inez Pearl. In the Depression-era Big City a girl does whatever she has to, but although in love with Soldier Jack, a charismatic Trigger-man for Tall Saul’s mob, she has remained mostly clean. That’s all going to change once she sings in Tall Saul’s Speakeasy, though…

When corrupt Congressman Harry Chase decides he wants Inez, Tall Saul orders Soldier Jack to lend the politician his girlfriend, precipitating a savage clash that devastates the underworld and leaves no winners, and even the enigmatic Night Raven is helpless to affect the outcome of this star-crossed melodrama.

The writing of Jamie Delano is in the modern florid, faux-poetic style and as such seems almost untrue to its pulp origins, which worked on a staccato rhythm of tough, clipped prose. Nevertheless it does work and the subtly washed-out, painted artwork by David Lloyd more than compensates for any perceived failing. The dreamy, muted tones belie the intensity of the events and make the action and the sad, still moments all the more powerful. This is a beautiful book to look at and one you should own.

A Prestige-format, comic-book sized edition was also released in 1992.

© 1991, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Steve Parkhouse, David Lloyd & John Bolton (Marvel)
ISBN13: 978-1-85400-557-3

In the good old days comic stories were pithy and punchy, (like the all-but-dead and much-missed prose short-story) relying on mood and action rather than excessive exposition and breast-beating pseudo-poetry to enthral their readers. A perfect example would be the three page instalments of pulp-noir magic created by Steve Parkhouse and David Lloyd for the weekly Hulk comic produced by Marvel UK in 1979.

Gathered in this volume and coloured (the originals were captivating in stark, moody black and white) they outline the earliest adventures of Night Raven, a helmeted, trench-coating wearing vigilante who stalked the grimy streets and alleys of Prohibition-era America dealing out fearsome personal justice to a succession of low-life hoods and thugs. Lloyd masterfully illustrated Night-Time in the City, Blind Justice, Gang Rule, In the Frame, The Assassin and Scoop before leaving the strip, but his replacement was another British star on the rise.

The Dragon is an eerie drama of the mythic Chinese Tongs that resonates with Parkhouse’s long fascination with all subjects Oriental, powerfully realised by John Bolton, in the days just before he made it big with King Kull, Marada the She-Wolf and Classic X-Men.

Clean, simple and irresistibly compelling these action vignettes serve to show how far we’ve come since the 1970’s, and sadly just how much we’ve lost in telling comic stories. But at least we can still see how it should be done…

©1979, 1990, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(GARTH ANNUAL 1975)

By Jim Edgar & Frank Bellamy (IPC)
No ISBN

This wonderful Softcover book was released whilst the amazing Frank Bellamy was still alive and astounding fans with his phenomenal illustration and design on the Mirror’s long-running time-travelling adventure strip (for fuller background you could Google ‘Garth’ or even check out our own archives for Garth: The Cloud of Balthus – ISBN: 0-90761-034-X or The Mirror Classic Cartoon Collection – ISBN: 0-948248-06-8).

This large tome is printed on thick newsprint and if you’re at all moved by the physical nature of comics as artefact, as well as the power of the work itself, the texture and even smell of such an item is as effective a time travel method as any used by our burly hero. Also, for some reason the art just seems to look better on off-white, gritty paper rather than the admittedly more durable slick and shiny stock favoured these days.

So if you can track down this book – and there are still a few out there – you can luxuriate in the majesty of Bellamy and Jim Edgar’s masterful, sexy thrillers with the first collection of The Orb of Trimandias, Ghost Town, The Cloud of Balthus, Women of Galba, Sundance (which Bellamy inherited from artist John Allard three weeks in) and Wolfman of Ausensee. I will digress and admit that the all-original cover created for this last story was a major factor in reviewing this annual. It’s a sight every comic art fan ought to be familiar with.

© IPC Magazines 1974.