By Pericle Luigi Giovannetti (Macmillan)
ASIN: B0000CKEHG
Pericle Luigi Giovanetti was a huge star in the cartoon firmament in the years following World War II, and one look at his work will instantly show you why.
Born in 1916 in Basel, he launched his most famous character in Punch in April 1953. Max is a small, round furry creature most likened to a hamster, whose wordless pantomimes were both cute and whimsical and trenchantly self-deprecating. Don’t ask me how a beautifully rendered little puff-ball could stand for pride and pomposity punctured, but he did. It was also blissfully free of mawkish sentimentality, a funny animal for adults.
Max was syndicated across the world, (known as Mr. Makkusu-san in Japan) numbering such diverse luminaries as Jason Robards and Charles Schulz as fans and even lending its star to the British Navy and Swiss Air Force as mascot and figurehead. There were four collections between 1954 and 1961: Max, Max Presents, this volume (from 1959) and the Penguin Max. Like these, two other collections, Beware of the Dog and Birds without Words, are also criminally out of print.
The sheer artistic virtuosity of Giovanetti is astounding to see. That his work should be forgotten is a travesty. If you ever, ever see a collection of his work do yourself the biggest favour of your life and grab it with both hands!
By Christopher Moeller (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-575-6
This slight but satisfying fantasy romp is actually a Wonder Woman vehicle with the rest of the World’s Greatest Superheroes reduced to the roles of bit-players and hostages for the body of the action but is still nonetheless a pretty good blend of angst and adventure, and well leavened with some fine tongue-in-cheek comedy touches.
In 1348AD the last Dragon is defeated by Christian Knights and the modern Age of Man begins. But the Queen Wyrm is not dead, and sleeps beneath the Swiss Alps until awakened by Gnomes, whom she subjects to her will as she plans to devastate the Earth.
After a busy tour of duty with her fellow Justice Leaguers, Princess Diana returns to Greece for a break and hears a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi. The mystic seer declares the menace of the last Dragon and warns that it will be defeated by the JLA – but only at the inevitable cost of their lives. Although the Oracle is never wrong, she can be open to interpretation, so if the team only has one member only one member has to die…
Beautifully painted art and a solid, if not too fresh plot makes this a plain-and-simple fun book to read and the themes, light touches and deft avoidance of continuity means that new readers and old fans can enjoy this modern fairy tale equally.
Not every book has to be great. Sometimes it’s enough simply to be fit for purpose. Like this plain and simple non-political, non-editorial cartoon book in the traditional “variations on a theme†manner.
Comedy often has venerable subjects, and cartooning doubly so. The comic greats and the merely adequate alike have all worked on the same set-ups, with mixed and unpredictable results. Possibly as commonplace as the Desert Island with a single Palm Tree or the Mother-in-Law Arrives is the bearded geezer suspended on a wall in a dungeon. The variations on this pictorial theme are endless and the punch-lines are nigh infinite.
The eighty cartoons here, like most gags, will be uproarious to some and soporific to others. The drawing isn’t the best you’ll ever see. But still, this type of thing was the backbone of the newspaper cartoon feature page, with collections like this sometimes selling in the millions, and quite frankly I miss them. Most modern magazines and periodicals would benefit from a few extra gag-panels to brighten up our days.
You might not be able to track this book down, but there are lots of others in similar veins, lurking in charity shops and at car-boot sales, so why not treat yourself to a bit of undemanding, old-fashioned frivolity for a change?
Jane is one of the most important and well-regarded comic strips in British, if not World, history. It began on December 5th 1932 as Jane’s Journal: Or The Diary of a Bright Young Thing, a frothy, frivolous gag-a-day strip in the Daily Mirror, created by the cartoonist Norman Pett. Originally a series of panels with cursive script embedded to simulate a diary page it switched to the more formal strip frames and balloons in late 1938, around the time scripter Don Freeman came on board.
Jane’s secret was skin. Even before war broke out there were torn skirts and lost blouses aplenty, but once the shooting started and Jane became an operative for British Intelligence her clothes came off with terrifying ease. She even went topless when the Blitz was at its worst.
Pett drew the strip, famously using first his wife and then actress and model Christabel Leighton-Porter until May 1948 when his assistant Michael Hubbard assumed full control of the feature (prior to that he had drawn backgrounds and male characters). Hubbard carried the series, increasingly a safe soap-opera and less a racy glamour strip to its conclusion on October 10th 1959.
Jane’s war record is frankly astounding. As a morale booster she was reckoned worth more than divisions of infantry and her exploits were cited in Parliament and discussed by Eisenhower and Churchill. Legend has it that The Mirror‘s Editor was among the few who knew the date of “D-Day†so as to co-ordinate her exploits with the Normandy landings. In 1944, on the day she went full frontal, the American Service newspaper Roundup (provided to US soldiers) went with the headline “JANE GIVES ALL†and the sub-heading “YOU CAN ALL GO HOME NOWâ€. Christabel Leighton-Porter toured as Jane in a services revue – she stripped for the boys – during the war and in 1949 starred in the film The Adventures of Jane.
Although the product of simpler, if more perilous times, the innocently saucy adventures of Jane, patient but dedicated beau Georgie-Porgie and especially her intrepid Dachshund Count Fritz Von Pumpernickel are landmarks of our artform, not simply for their impact but also for the plain and simple reason that they are superbly drawn and great to read. Let’s hope that one day that fact will be acknowledged with a definitive reprinting.
By Wu Jingyu, adapted by Tsai Chih Chung (Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1976)
ISBN: 7-80028-905-2
As well as the more respectful graphic adaptations of the great literary classics of China, you can find much more ebullient and jolly interpretations to inform, elucidate and amuse. This collection of broad and breezy gags strips are by cartoonist and animated film-maker Tsai Chih Chung where, in a style very similar to Sergio Aragones, he repackages the history, philosophy and wisdom of China’s mythical and Imperial past in funny, exuberant and contemporary daily instalments.
This first volume recounts the lives of the immortal Ne Zha, the mystical Jiang Ziya, Evil King Zhou of Shang and the great King Wen of Zhou in broad slapstick snippets made contemporaneous by the adaptor’s pertinent use of creative anachronism.
One word of warning: Although the cartoons are translated into English (with Chinese subtitles – Mandarin) and copiously footnoted to explain points of detail and literary style, the English captions are plagued with spelling and grammatical mistakes. If you’re particularly picky about copy-errors this might drive you mad, but if you can go with the flow this is a fun and fascinating look into the exotic past and vibrant present of a cultural powerhouse.
By Kevin Smith, Phil Hester & Ande Parks (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-56389-976-0 (hardcover) ISBN 1-4012-0045-1 (softcover)
After returning from the dead (see Green Arrow: Quiver – ISBN: 1-84023-509-8) our reinvigorated hero tries to re-establish himself both as a do-gooder and more importantly with his extended family – especially Mia Dearden, a street kid he saved from prostitution and took into his home. But as he resists the pressure to make her his next sidekick (from both her and his son Connor) The Riddler comes to town intent on mischief, and a new bizarre serial killer stalks the streets hunting costumed heroes.
Onomatopoeia only speaks in sound effects and is a ruthless, flamboyantly sadistic, seemingly unstoppable force. So when he fails to kill the junior Green Arrow he invades the hospital where the critically wounded Connor is undergoing emergency surgery to finish the job, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake.
Sharp, darkly funny and chilling by turns this tale (collected from issues #11-15 of the monthly comicbook) breaks out of the usual mould in many ways, perhaps as much due to writer Kevin Smith’s other commitments as from any sense of narrative novelty, but it certainly doesn’t harm the result. Particularly delicious are the scenes with on-again, off-again lover Black Canary and heroic polar opposite Hawkman.
A little more mature in both themes and the treatment of interpersonal relationships (and surely no bad thing for that?) this is a superior superhero saga and a strong advocate for the argument that costume dramas don’t have to be all Fights and Tights.
The monolith of wholesome fun that is Archie Comics really hit its stride in the 1960s. In an era that saw the commercial orientation of the world shift permanently to the Youth Market, the red-haired archetype finally broke into the TV arena with the first of many animated shows, scored a world-wide pop hit with the single “Sugar, Sugar†and utterly dominated the comicbook humour market.
This volume collects a scant few of the stories from that decade, concentrating on fashions, fads, Flower-Power, Pop-Art and even the growing divide between rebellious teens and oppressive adults. It also delightfully shows the overwhelming power of good writing and brilliant art to captivate an audience of any age.
Archie is a still that good-hearted, well-meaning boy lacking common sense. Betty is still the pretty, sensible girl next door, and glamorous Veronica is as rich, exotic and quixotic as ever, whilst the school and leisure antics of the broader cast are as hip and engaging as ever.
This eternal triangle has been the basis of more than sixty-five years of charming, raucous, gentle, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending comedy ranging from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, and has never been better depicted by such wonderful talents as Frank Doyle, George Gladir, Bob Montana, Bob Bolling, Dan DeCarlo, Joe Edwards, Samm Schwartz, Bill Vigoda and Harry Lucey than in the era when everything changed and – at least on paper – the Kids took over.
These charming and comfortable yarns are a gentle delight and a much neglected area of cartoon and graphic narrative. It would benefit us all to take another long look at what they have to offer.
By Paul Dini & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-673-3
The second collection of post-Infinite Crisis Batman adventures from Detective Comics (issues #827-834) presents another fine crop of tales of the Not-Quite-So Dark Knight righting wrongs in the urban sewer of Gotham City, courtesy of Paul Dini and a stalwart team of associates.
‘Double Talk’, illustrated by Don Kramer and Wayne Faucher, introduces a new and nasty Ventriloquist as the mouthpiece of the murderous Scarface, whilst ‘Sharkbite’ is an old-fashioned murder “whodunit†with reformed villain-turned-consulting-detective The Riddler racing Batman to the killer’s identity.
Stuart Moore and artist Andy Clarke combine for the excellent two-parter ‘Siege’ as a human bomb captures the entire Wayne Tower skyscraper during a peace conference, and Dini, Kramer and Faucher return for ‘Kind of Like Family’ wherein Harley Quinn struggles with her decision to go straight when Scarface and the new Ventriloquist make her an offer she just can’t refuse.
‘Triage’, by Royal McGraw and Andy Clarke brings back Silver Age villains Fox, Shark and Vulture in a chilling psycho-drama before the volume concludes with the superb ‘Trust’ as warped stage magician Ivar Loxias returns in a chilling tale of slaughter and trickery guest-starring the bewitching Zatanna by the first team of Dini, Kramer and Faucher. And wait ’til you see the twist…
These tales of a renewed and determined crime-fighter look well set to overturn the Grim Sociopath image that has dogged Batman for too long. They are fresh, thrilling and powerfully compelling adventures that will astonish long-time fans and casual browsers equally. This is the best Batman in years.
Although now available as a CD-Rom with a musical score, old git that I am, I prefer my graphic narratives silent, so I’m recommending this slim volume of sketches, paintings, photos and comic strip recollections from one of the world’s most innovative illustrators (which is subtitled “A Journal of Travels through Africa and Southeast Asiaâ€) over its technological successor. At least you can read this in the bath or on the toilet – a welcome advantage as any world traveller (including the author) must admit.
With punchy, edgy line drawing cartoons Kuper recounts his Trip-of -a-Lifetime to the aforementioned destinations, accompanied by partner Betty Russell in a mesmerising documentary of jet-lag, exhaustion, trepidation, non-restful sleep, wonderment, joy and of course, violent, explosive stomach-disorders. Of especial use is the photo-feature Toilets of the World.
In addition to the journal strips there are many beautiful, expressive and arresting paintings, sketches, collages and drawings from this marvellously gifted artist and critic. This is comics reportage at its most engaging, and it’s a shame more creators don’t dabble in this area of our art-form.
Some of the collected material has also been seen in World War III Illustrated, Heavy Metal, American Illustration, Traveller, Bleeding Heart and Step-By-Step Graphics.
By Bob Haney & Dick Dillin (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-672-6
Are you old enough to yearn for simpler times?
The brilliant expediency of the 52 concept lends the daftest tale from DC’s back catalogue credibility and contemporary resonance since there’s now a chance that even the hippest and most happening of the modern pantheon can visit/interact with the most outrageous world or concept in DC’s long history. So this collection of well told tales from the 1970s, supplemented by tales from more self-conscious times, can be reprinted with a clear continuity-conscience without even the most strident fan complaining.
Written by Bob Haney and drawn mostly by Dick Dillin, the Super-Sons appeared with no fanfare in World’s Finest Comics #215, 1972; a bad time for superhero comics, but a great era for teen rebels. The free-wheeling, easy-rider, end of the flower-power days saw a huge focus on “teen consciousness†and the “Generation Gap†was a phrase on many lips. The editors clearly saw a way to make arch-establishment characters instantly pertinent and relevant, and being mercifully oblivious to the constraints of continuity (some would say logic) simply produced tales of the rebellious teen sons of the World’s Greatest Heroes out of whole cloth.
And well constructed, well told tales they are. In “Saga of the Super Sons†(inked by Henry Scarpelli) the young heroes run away from home – on the inevitable motorcycle, natch! – and encounter a scurrilous gang-lord. But worry not, the paternalistic parents are keeping a wary eye on the lads! Speaking as someone who was the target market for this experiment, I can admit that the parental overview grated then and still does, but as there were so many sequels somebody must have liked it.
“Little Town With a Big Secret†appeared in the very next issue, another human-scale human interest tale, but with a science-fiction twist and the superb inking of Murphy Anderson. WF # 221 featured “Cry Not For My Forsaken Son!†by the same team, which showed a troubled son the difference between value and worth, and the value of a father as opposed to a biological parent. Issue #222 “Evil in Paradise†(inked by Vince Colletta) took the young heroes to an undiscovered Eden to resolve the ancient question of whether Man was intrinsically Good or Evil.
“The Shocking Switch of the Super-Sons†(WF #224, and also inked by Colletta) took teen rebellion to its most logical conclusion as a psychologist convinces the boys to trade fathers! “Crown For a New Batman!†is a definite change of pace as Bruce Jr. inherits the Mantle and the Mission when his father is murdered! But never fear, all was not as it seemed, fans! This thriller first appeared in WF #228, and was inked by Tex Blaisdell, who also inked Curt Swan, artist for the more traditional Lost Civilisation yarn “The Girl That Time Forgotâ€, from WF #230.
The Relevancy Era was well over by the time Haney, Dillin and Blaisdell crafted “Hero is a Dirty Name†(WF #231), wherein the Sons question the motivation for heroism, and in #233’s “World Without Men†(inked by John Calnan) they tackle sexual equality and unravelled a plot to supplant human males. “The Angel With a Dirty Nameâ€, by the same team (WF #238) is a villains ‘n’ monsters slug-fest indistinguishable from any other super tale, and the original series ends with WF #242’s “Town of the Timeless Killersâ€, illustrated by Ernie Chua and John Calnan, wherein the kids are trapped in a haunted ghost-town and stalked by immortal gunslingers; an ignominious close to a bold experiment.
The kids made a one-stop return in “Final Secret of the Super-Sons†by Denny O’Neil, Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano (WF #263) when it was revealed that they were a simulation running on Superman’s giant Computer. In a grim indication of how much of a chokehold shared continuity had grown into, they then escaped into “reality†anyway…
The collection concludes with a short tale by Haney and Kieron Dwyer that appeared in Elseworlds 80-Page Giant. “Superman Jr. is No More!†is a charming and fitting conclusion to this odd, charming and idiosyncratic mini-saga.
If you’re not chained to continuity why not take a look at a few gems (and one or two duds) from a era where everybody read comics and nobody took them too seriously?
