Year: 2009

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Barefoot Gen Volume 3: Life After the Bomb


By Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-594-1

As much a justified assault on the horrors of atomic weapons and the kind of people who could even contemplate using them as semi-autobiography, Keiji Nakazawa’s epic Barefoot Gen is an examination of hope and change; of cultures in drastic upheaval.

Volume 3 opens with Gen, his mother and newborn sister Tomoko resolutely seeking somewhere to shelter, or a permanent place to live. But everywhere they are confronted by exploitative greed, suspicion and even superstitious terror. Bomb victims, displaced and helpless, were considered to be tainted with invisible disease and worst of all “Bad Luck”.

They had found brief refuge with the widow Kiyo, a childhood friend of Gen’s mother Kimie, but were driven away by their saviour’s greedy children and embittered grandmother. But now after searching her conscience, Kiyo shrugs off the institutionalised deference to senior family and offers the refugees her storage shed as a house of their own. Delighted with so little a gesture, the family rejoices unaware of the depth of resentment their very existence seems to engender.

This attitude to the A Bombs’ survivors persisted in Japan for decades. Even now Hibakusha (“Explosion-Affected People”) have a dichotomous existence in Japan. They are revered, spoken of with polite deference, but acknowledged as being “different”. To many Japanese this is still a major problem: conformity is everything. They have the dubious honour of being sacred pariahs. Laws were passed regarding them and they are still tracked and monitored by the Government.

The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defined Hibakusha as those people:

  • who were within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs
  • who were within 2 km of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings
  • who were exposed to radiation from fallout
  • babies carried by pregnant women in any of these categories.

The Hibakusha get a monthly government allowance, but they (and their descendents) were and are often the victims of severe discrimination due to ignorance about radiation sickness, which people initially believed to be hereditary or even contagious, About 1% of survivors, certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases, receive a special medical allowance.

Most of them live in Japan, but thousands have escaped social stigma by moving to more hospitable places like Korea. Every year, on the anniversaries of the bombings, the names of Hibakusha who have died in the previous year are added to the cenotaphs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As of August 2008, the death tolls stood at 258,310 at Hiroshima, and 145,984 at Nagasaki.

Desperate to earn money Gen tries everything, and eventually is hired by a rich man to tend his younger brother, whose bomb-induced injuries are so disgusting that no member of the family can bear to be in the same room with him. In a truly stomach-turning sequence Gen befriends the bitter, hostile victim, but all his neighbours and even his family think he’s a monster and pray for his death – his nieces even offer to double his pay if Gen will kill their uncle….

Seiji Yoshida was a promising artist visiting Hiroshima at exactly the wrong moment. Now maimed, deranged, despondent and dying, he is inspired by the irrepressible Gen to find a way to paint again. But as the petty abuses and tyrannies of the villagers, street kids, bomb orphans and even police make every day a new trial, Gen and Seiji establish a doomed rapport… And among those bomb orphans is a little thief named Ryuta (see volume 2, ISBN: 978-0-86719-619-1), the spitting image in looks and character of Gen’s dead brother Shinji. Eventually the waif is convinced to join Gen’s family, but this good deed, too will not go unpunished…

Seiji’s radiation sickness has inexorably advanced: whilst taken on a jaunt in a handcart by Gen and Ryuta they stumble upon a military body disposal site. The sight of thousands of bodies burned in vast, callous pyres with no thought of human dignity engulfs the artist: delirious and enraged he grips his brush, determined to record the impersonal horror for the world to see. As ever the message is “if we know, we won’t allow it to happen again…”

The effort nearly kills him, and in the final stages of illness he removes his bandages and demands the children take him naked through village, defying the people who called him “monster” and tried to ignore the hideous consequences of the war. With Seiji’s death his family breathes an unfeeling sigh of relief, but his example has inspired Gen: one day he too will be an artist and finish the tragic artist’s work. He will record the truth of Hiroshima…

Akira Nakaoka was evacuated from the city before the bomb hit. All this time he has been “safe and well” in the country, working on a state farm in Yamagata. Or so Gen thought. As with so much the government proclaimed, the truth was painfully different. Starved and beaten, used as slave-labour, the children of the farm get a rude awakening when the new of Japan’s surrender reaches them on August 15th. Abandoned by their teachers they drift away, back to Hiroshima…

Stuffed with broad humour to leaven the dire situations, Life After the Bomb uses the hardships and brutality of the aftermath to further hone Gen into a valiant, self-reliant, eternally optimistic character, capable of unrelenting compassion and empathy even as he learns new tricks to relieve the “haves” of what his family “has not”; a terrifyingly resilient fighter (the amount of physical abuse he takes and hands out would make Bruce Willis fans wince) always ready for trouble whilst looking to a brighter tomorrow. But there’s much more horror and tragedy to endure before that day dawns…

Barefoot Gen is a series that should be mandatory upper school reading (with proper adult supervision) but I should mention a rather obvious cultural difference that English speakers seem to think of significant import: in many countries nudity and coarse language are not the almighty taboos they are here.

The Japanese do not share our view of the human body and they acknowledge that kids know and use the occasional cuss-word when we’re not listening. Barefoot Gen is an earthy, human masterpiece about real people enduring and overcoming one of the greatest atrocities in the history of civilisation. To forego this incredible reading experience because of a four-letter word or a coyly drawn willy is just bloody stupid…

© 2008 Keiji Nakazawa. All Rights Reserved.

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Barefoot Gen Volume 2: The Day After


By Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-619-1

The second volume of Keiji Nakazawa’s astounding anti war masterpiece finds six year old Gen Nakaoka with his mother and newborn sister in the streets of devastated Hiroshima, traumatised witnesses to a parade of unique horrors and madness as the walking dead of the city stagger past, looking for aid or surcease – or perhaps for nothing at all.

Nakazawa, like Gen, does not only blame the Americans for the monstrous tragedy. In dry, bulletin-like manner the author blends the facts of the event into his passionate drama, and shows that the Japanese Military suppressed the news of the Atomic Bomb, fearing a panic or popular revolt, and allowing – perhaps even forcing (although that’s a pretty hard-sell for me) the Americans to do the same thing to Nagasaki three days later.

What I hadn’t previously known was that on that same day Russia ended its neutrality agreement with the Empire and attacked the Japanese Kwantung Army in a Soviet invasion of Manchuria: the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Only then did the war leaders stop throwing away their peoples’ lives…

Gen and his mother make for the suburbs driven by revulsion and hunger. Severely malnourished for months, she has no milk to suckle her baby with, and the boy leaves her to scavenge for food, but comes upon a military clean-up squad literally stacking bodies, making no distinction between dead and nearly so…

He finds children and an old woman brutalising a dead American POW. Many prisoners and slave races like the Korean Mr. Pak (a friend and fellow Pariah, as despised as the anti-war Nakaoka “traitors” had been) were used for forced labour in the industrial heart of Hiroshima – a fact the Americans must have known…

Overcome with hunger and exhaustion Gen collapses, and ends up on a pyre with a pile of corpses. He is saved by one of the funeral squad – a decent soldier who tries to carry him home only to collapse from hideous, mysterious ailments – Gen’s first experience of the invisible destroyer Radiation Sickness. Soon he realises that he hasn’t escaped the unseen terror either as his hair falls out in knotted clumps. Nakazawa is a master of emotional placement – we readers know what is happening but to the survivors in 1945 this was a completely new experience – a ghost disease that struck without warning, affecting everybody in a different manner, and with his open, stylized drawing he makes us feel the bewilderment and terror.

Lurching from one encounter to the next Gen is an innocent cataloguing the many horrors of the bomb, but always he tries to encourage the people who had reviled him mere days ago. However when he stops the disfigured little girl Natsue from committing suicide, he finds a greater purpose and begins his lifelong campaign to defeat the evil of warfare with a positive attitude and bold action.

Throughout the epic, folk songs are used as a narrative device, and when Gen’s performance at a suburban house earns enough rice to stave off death a while longer it leads to a startling encounter with a pack of child thieves, one of whom is the exact double of dead brother Shinji. Called Ryuta, the boy’s tale of woe is as bad as all the rest but it does lead to a reunion with the Mr. Pak and a realisation: Gen must find and honour the remains of his family…

With all their obligations fulfilled the remaining Nakaoka’s head for the rural district of Eba and temporary refuge with Mother’s oldest friend. But the reception would prove to be anything but hospitable…

August 6th 1945 changed the world forever and deeply affected six-year-old Keiji Nakazawa. When the “Little Boy” thermonuclear weapon was thrown from the American B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” onto the city of Hiroshima, he was only one kilometre from Ground Zero, just entering Kanzaki Primary School. He was saved from instant vaporisation in the same manner as his comics alter-ego Gen Nakaoka, and over the years he has suffered many of the same hardships, tragedies and triumphs. Hopefully Barefoot Gen, the evocative anti-war weapon he created, will always stand ready to counteract the periodic madness that arouses the greedy and afflicts the vain and the foolish.

© 2008 Keiji Nakazawa. All Rights Reserved.

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Barefoot Gen Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima

barefoot-gen-v
By Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-602-3

I first found the Educomics magazine I Saw It! in 1982; initially seduced by the garish cover and the Chester Gould-like illustrations. There was very little translated manga around then, and it was lumped in with the wild, wacky and often salaciously outrageous “Underground Comix” on the racks of my regular comics shop.

I was gobsmacked.

In England we’ve had educational comics for decades, but this was something completely new to me. There was no tasteful distancing here; just an outraged scream of defiance and a direct plea to make things right. This was history and politics – and it was deadly serious, not played for laughs or to make points as British cartooning traditionally did.

I Saw It! became Barefoot Gen, constantly revised and refined, and now the entire semi-autobiographical saga is being remastered in an unabridged ten volume English translation by Last Gasp under the auspices of Project Gen, a multinational organisation dedicated to peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Hadashi no Gen originally began in 1973, serialised in ShÅ«kan Shōnen Jampu (Weekly Boys Jump) after an occasional series of single stories in 1972 including Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Struck by Black Rain) and Aru Hi Totsuzen, (One Day, Suddenly) in various magazines. These led Shonen’s editor Tadasu Nagano to commission the 45 page Ore wa Mita (I Saw It) for a Monthly Jump special devoted to autobiographical works. Nagano realised that the author – an actual survivor of the first Atomic Bombing – had much more to say and commissioned the serial which has grown into this stunning epic.

The tale was always controversial in a country that too often prefers to ignore rather than confront its mistakes and indiscretions, and after 18 months Hadashi no Gen was removed from Jump transferring first to Shimin (Citizen), Bunka Hyōron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyōiku Hyōron (Educational Criticism). Like his indomitable hero Keiji Nakazawa never gave up and his persistence led to the first Japanese book collection in 1975, translated by the first Project Gen into English, and many other languages including Norwegian, French German, Italian, Portuguese Swedish, Finnish, Indonesian, Tagalog and Esperanto. He completed the tale in 1985 and his dark chronicle has been adapted into three live action films (from 1976 to 1980), 2 anime films, (1983 and 1987) and in 2007, a 2-part live action television drama.

The unabridged first book A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima introduces six year old Gen Nakaoka in a small allotment, cultivating wheat with his father, an artist whose anti-war sentiment has made life even more difficult for his family. Hiroshima is starving, with American air-raids a constant hazard and rabid patriotic militarists urging the weary populace to greater and greater sacrifice. Every one is constantly reminded that their greatest honour would be to die for the Emperor. I almost expected Darkseid to pop up at any moment…

Gen is the third of five children; Koji and Akira, are his older brothers, his sister Eiko and brother Shinji are younger. His beloved, devoted mother is heavily pregnant. It is a desperate time. Neighbours spy on neighbours, secret police skulk everywhere, criminals and police confiscate all the food and everywhere the militarists scream that total victory for Japan is only a few days away…

Spring 1945: Hunger is everywhere. The bitter realist Papa Nakaoka is increasingly unable to suppress his anger at the greedy warmongers who have brought Japan to the edge of ruin. His open dissent turns his neighbours and friends against the family. They are all labelled traitors for his beliefs, shunned and cheated. Akira is evacuated to the countryside, Koji forced to join the ranks of the Kamikaze, but for pregnant Kimie and her youngest children the stress is unrelenting and inescapable…

Gen’s father is a complex figure – often regarded by critics as a pacifist, though he is far from that. He is however a totally honest man with a warrior’s heart and a true descendent of an honourable warrior culture. Arrested, beaten, maligned, he is unwavering in his fierce belief that the war is wrong, instigated by greedy men to line their own pockets. He always fights for what he knows is right and even as he is beaten by the police he tells his sons “When you know something’s right, don’t give it up…”

His other lesson becomes a major metaphor and visual theme of the series “Be like wheat that sprouts in the dead of winter and gets trampled over and over, but grows straight and tall and bears good fruit”.

The level of domestic violence – and indeed casual social and cultural violence – is apt to cause some modern readers a little concern. Papa Nakaoka is a “hands-on” father, always quick to physically chastise his children, and Gen himself develops into a boy all too ready to solve problems with his fists, but that the family loves deeply and is loved in return is never in doubt – you will just have to steel yourself for a tale about and prominently displaying lots of “tough love”.

There’s a great resemblance to the best of Charles Dickens in Barefoot Gen, especially Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, but as the human travails of Gen and his family mount there’s no human face of evil; only a ghastly clock counting down. We all know what’s coming even if they don’t and a repeating motif of a circle sun – more often dark than light – keeps that dread tension and foreknowledge of an utterly abhuman crisis solidly in focus.

Monday August 6th 1945 dawns bright and clear. Gen is celebrating a rare personal victory as little Shinji plays with a hard-won toy. There’s a flash of light in the sky…

Much has been written about the effects of the bomb and the incredible, matter-of-fact, nightmarish way Nakazawa has captured them. They’re all true. The depiction of the atomic aftermath and its immediate effects upon the survivors – although I hesitate to use such a hopeful term – are truly ghastly, and a testament to the power of the artist’s understated drawing talent. But this is a book about overcoming the impossible and to understand Gen’s achievement and victory, one has to see the face of his foe.

As the firestorm engulfs the city the miraculously unscathed boy rushes home. The structure has collapsed upon itself, trapping Papa, Eiko and Shinji. Despite his and mother’s efforts they can’t be extricated and no one will help. Mother and child watch helplessly as the family burns to death and the trauma induces labour. Amidst the flames Gen delivers his sister into a world of pain and horror…

Polemical, strident and unrelenting, A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima is also a great piece of craft: graphic narrative at its most effective and powerful. Gen is a flawed but likable hero, big-hearted and trustworthy, a source of cathartic laughter of the best slapstick kind, and a beacon of tragedy, hope and (im)patient understanding.

Although undoubtedly overshadowed by the strength and effect of its message, it’s also a compelling read as a drama, supremely informative and entertaining, memorably beguiling. Please read it. Read all of the series.

It might make you sick: it should. It’s meant to. Read it anyway. And when you think they’re ready, show it to your children. “Those who do not learn from history…”

© 2008 Keiji Nakazawa. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Challengers of the Unknown


By Arnold Drake, Ed Herron, Bob Brown & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1725-9

The Challengers of the Unknown was a bridging concept. As superheroes were being revived in 1956 here was a super-team – the first of the Silver Age – with no powers, the most basic and utilitarian of costumes and the most dubious of motives – Suicide by Mystery. Yet they were a huge hit and struck a chord that lasted for more than a decade before they finally died… only to rise again and yet again. The idea of them was stirring enough, but their initial execution made their success all but inevitable. Springing from one-man hit-factory Jack Kirby, before his move across town to co-create the Marvel Universe, the solid adventure concept and perfect action heroes he left behind were ideal everyman characters for the tumultuous 1960s – an era before super-heroes obtained a virtual chokehold on the comic-book pages.

Kirby had developed a brilliantly feasible concept and heroically archetypical characters in cool pilot Ace Morgan, indomitable strongman Rocky Davis, intellectual aquanaut Prof. Haley and daredevil acrobat Red Ryan. The Challengers of the Unknown were four ordinary mortals; heroic adventurers and explorers who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we now call “adrenaline junkies”, they decided that since they were all living on borrowed time, they would dedicate what remained of their lives to testing themselves and fate. They would risk their lives for Knowledge and naturally, Justice. They were joined by an occasional fifth member, beautiful (of course) scientist June Robbins in their second appearance (‘Ultivac is Loose!’ Showcase #7, March/April 1957), and she became a hardy perennial always popping up to solve puzzles, catch criminals and generally deal with Aliens, Monsters and assorted supernatural threats (see previous volume ISBN: 978-1-4012-1087-8).

A number of writers, many sadly lost to posterity, wrote these tales, including Bill Finger, Ed Herron, Jack Miller, Bob Haney and Arnold Drake, but one man handled the artwork: Bob Brown. To our shame very little is known about this wonderfully capable artist. I can’t even confirm his date of birth, although he died in 1977 following a long illness. He co-created the long-running Space Ranger, drew Tomahawk, Vigilante, Batman, Superboy, Doom Patrol, World’s Finest Comics and a host of other features and genre shorts for DC before moving to Marvel in the 1970s where he drew Warlock, Daredevil and the Avengers among others. He was a consummate professional and drew every issue of the Challs from #9 – 63, a near-decade of high-octane fantasy and adventure that ranged from leftover Nazis, ravaging aliens, super-villain, cute-and-fuzzy space beasts and supernatural horrors.

This second volume collecting the contents of Challengers of the Unknown #18 – #37 starts off with ‘The Menace of Mystery Island’ originally released in February/March 1961, which found the team fighting crooks on a tropical island where an alien probe had crashed, depositing an test animal with uncanny powers. In the manner of the times the victorious troubleshooters adopted the fuzzy li’l space-tyke, naming him Cosmo. The second story in that issue was darker fare however, as they were shanghaied through time to save ‘The Doomed World of Tomorrow’.

‘The Alien Who Stole a Planet’ teamed the heroes with refugees from a doomed world, but things turned sour when one of the survivors decided that Earth would be suitable replacement, whilst ‘The Beasts from the Fabulous Gem’ pitted the gang against a soldier-of-fortune who had stolen a mystic jewel used to imprison monsters in ancient times. Their very own super-villain resurfaced as ‘Multi-Man Strikes Again’ in issue #20, and June joined them for a spot of monster-bashing in the hectic riddle of ‘The Cosmic-Powered Creature’ and although in the next issue it was apparently just the lads who were shanghaied to ‘The Weird World that Didn’t Exist’ she played a major role when Cosmo returned in ‘The Challengers’ Space-Pet Ally’.

‘The Curse of the Golden God’ was the usual action-packed crime-drama in the South American jungles, but #22’s second tale hit much closer to home as their secret base was compromised by ‘The Thing in Challenger Mountain’ and the team found that ‘Death Guarded the Doom Box’ in the form of ancient but still deadly mechanical devices, before more aliens began kidnapping humans to ‘The Island in the Sky’.

In ‘The Challengers Die at Dawn’ the hunt for a swindler led the team to a lost tribe of oriental pirates in the South China Seas, but the big story in #24 was ‘Multi-Man, Master of Earth’ a good old-fashioned battle for justice against a seemingly unstoppable foe. Although the stories were becoming a touch formulaic by this stage, the equation was a trusted one, and Brown’s art was always improving.

Challengers of the Unknown #25 (April/May 1962) was right at the cusp of the moment full-blown superhero mania was beginning and, although ‘Return of the Invincible Pharaoh’ is a story of ancient mystery and slumbering menaces, its plot of a lost secret bestowing superpowers was to become a recurring staple in such “normal, human heroes” comics such as the Challs, Blackhawk – and even the Batman titles. The second tale ‘Captives of the Alien Hunter’ featured another thieving extraterrestrial up to no good and once more both June and Cosmo were needed to foil the fiend.

‘Death Crowns the Challenger King’ is a bizarre variation on the Prisoner of Zenda’s plot, set in a hidden Mongol city with Prof replacing the true ruler in a series of ceremonial ordeals, and the rest of the gang running interference against the scurvy villains, whilst a flamboyant impresario was shown to have an out of this world new act in ‘The Secret of the Space Spectaculars’. Issue #27 led off with ‘The 1,001 Impossible Inventions’, wherein two convicts bamboozle a wounded alien into using his advanced science for crime, whilst ‘Master of the Volcano Men’ (the first story for which we have a confirmed writer – Arnold Drake) introduced another perennial villain: marauding lava beings from the centre of the earth.

It was once more rebellious robots causing a destructive fuss in ‘The Revolt of the Terrible FX-1’ but the real show-stealer of #28 was a classic time-travel romp sending the team back to ancient Egypt to solve ‘The Riddle of the Faceless Man.’ The next issue brought ‘Four Roads to Doomsday (again written by Drake) wherein satellite sabotage led the team to a plot by alien criminals to conquer Earth, whilst the antagonistic nature of the team was highlighted (this team was bickering and in-fighting years before Fantastic Four #1) in Ed “France” Herron’s ‘The War Between the Challenger Teams’ as Ace and Red battle Prof and Rocky to end a war between two sub-sea races.

‘Multi-Man… Villain Turned Hero’ turned out to be just another evil ploy by the shape-changing charlatan, but #30’s real treat was the introduction of Gaylord Clayburn, spoiled multimillionaire playboy who wanted to become ‘The Fifth Challenger’.

‘The Man Who Saved the Challengers’ Lives’ in #31 was the first full length story since 1960, impressively retelling their dramatic origin, and revealed the debt they possibly owed to a shady industrialist, whilst #32 was business as usual in Drake’s ‘One Challenger Must Die!’ as the boys fiercely competed to find who would sacrifice themselves to stop another rampaging Volcano Man, before rediscovering the power of teamwork, which was just as well since the second tale revealed how and why ‘Cosmo Turns Traitor.’

Each an expert in some field of human endeavour, in #33, the Challs were confronted by a superior individual in Drake’s ‘The Challengers Meet their Master’, but as with ‘The Threat of the Trojan Robot’, teamwork proved the solution to any problem. Ed Herron scripted the terse thriller ‘Beachhead, USA’ which opened #34, as a sub full of Nazis frozen since World War II tried to complete their last mission – blowing up the East Coast of America, with only the Chall’s in place to stop them, whilst Multi-Man discovered that no matter how smart you are, building the “perfect mate” is a very bad idea in ‘Multi-Woman, Queen of Disaster.’

‘The War Against the Moon Beast’ was a spectacular sci-fi yarn, balanced by the quirky prognostications of a Carnival Seer whose crystal ball revealed an adventure of the ‘Sons of the Challengers’ and whilst one of the boys became a monster in #36’s ‘The Giant in Challenger Mountain’, he recovered in time to join the others as ‘Bodyguards to a Star’ on the location of a dinosaur infested movie-epic.

This volume ends with #37 and ‘The Triple Terror of Mr. Dimension’ – a petty thug who found a reality-altering weapon, whilst Herron scripted the taut drama of ‘The Last Days of the Challengers’ as the team struggled to destroy giant robots and thwart an execution-list with their names on it…

Challengers of the Unknown is sheer escapist wonderment, and no fan of the medium should ignore the graphic exploits of these ideal adventurer-heroes in the evocative setting of the recent now; a simpler, better world than ours. Reader-friendly to anyone with a love of wild thrills, these long-neglected tales would make the perfect kids cartoon series too…
© 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The New Warriors: Beginnings


By various (Marvel)
ISBN13: 978-0-7851-2043-8

With the wealth of comics material Marvel has access to it constantly surprises me how poorly served the company’s faithful, mainstream fanbase remains. Whilst there’s always a book or collection with the key stories, name artists, latest edgy hit or crossover compilation available, strong, solid tales comprising pulse-pounding Marvel Madness of the type that made them Number One for so long just don’t seem to make it onto the bookshelves these days.

A perfect example would be this workmanlike gem from 1992, which collected the first unsteady steps of a kid team that grew to be one of the most consistently interesting superhero series of the later Marvel Age.

Created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz before being assigned to Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley to develop, the team consisted of a bunch of failed young super-doers led by a new grim-‘n’-gritty kid millionaire with a grudge, a battle suit and (trust me, it works) high-tech skateboard calling himself Night Thrasher (I still wince at the name).

At their inception the team consisted of hyper-kinetic Speedball, mutant Firestar, telekinetic Vance Astrovic/Marvel Boy, a re-invigorated Nova the Human Rocket, and Sub-Mariner’s niece Namorita: a line-up seemingly designed to flop, but one which swiftly proved the old adage about there being no bad characters, only bad handling…

They made their first appearance in Thor #411 and 412 before launching into their own title, but here, with uncharacteristic consideration for the reader, the editors have led off with that first issue, ‘From the Ground Up!’ an origin of sorts, which sees Dwayne Taylor, man with a mission, gather up a disparate group of super-kids for a mysterious – and as yet unrevealed – project, only to fall foul of a resurrected cosmic powered ex-herald of Galactus named Terrax.

Overcoming the threat the young heroes band together as much to spite dismissive adults like the Avengers as to fight for Justice. This initial helter-skelter romp was written by Nicieza, drawn by Bagley and inked by the legendary Al Williamson.

From there we jump to those aforementioned Thor issues. ‘The Gentleman’s Name is Juggernaut!’ by DeFalco, Frenz and Joe Sinnott, was actually part of the Acts of Vengeance company event, wherein a coalition of villains arranged to trade enemies in a concerted attempt to wipe out the heroes. The Thunder God was targeted by the mystically enhanced X-Men nemesis, resulting in a spectacular, catastrophic battle that devastated much of New York, and the Asgardian Avenger was on the verge of losing his life until the woefully overmatched teens injected themselves into the battle…

New Warriors #2 ‘Mirror Moves’ found Taylor training his new team with his own adult mentors Chord and the enigmatic dowager Tai, when his mysterious past came back to haunt him in the form of old friends Silhouette and Midnight’s Fire, super-powered siblings who battled Korea-Town crime in their own rather unpalatable way. Also debuting were the human-weapon builders of the unscrupulous Genetech Company – destined to be a long-running thorn in the team’s collective side. When Silhouette was crippled in an ambush her brother instigated a murderous gang war that threatened to engulf the entire city…

As Larry Mahlstadt assumed the inking chores, ‘I Am, Therefore I Think’ further explored the budding relationships of the team whilst old Fantastic Four Foe the Mad Thinker took a decidedly deadly pop at the heroes courtesy of a little Genetech prodding, culminating in the New Warriors taking the battle back to them in the all-action ‘Genetech Potential’, which introduced the exceedingly odd gengineered combat force known as Psionex…

Whilst never going to the broadest of audiences these tales are a superb example of what Marvel used to do so well: cultivate a market and instill brand loyalty by producing the kind of thrilling action stories that always satisfied whilst keeping us hungry for more. This bread-and-butter approach ensured a following that was loyal and caring. They’re still there, but so much of what they want simply isn’t any more…
©1989, 1990, 1992, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

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Beasts! Book 1


By many and various, designed and edited by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN13: 978-1-56097-950-0

A few years ago an art director at Fantagraphics finally completed a dream project – to compile a catalogue of mythological creatures of all natures and cultures (defined and explained by writers Heidi Broadhead, Felicia Gotthelf, Paul Hughes and Rob Lightner) and brought to better-than-life by the cream of alternative artists. The result is captivating, wistful, funny and truly extraordinary – a Bestiary of the traditionally fantastic for the dreary 21st century where imagination and wonder have been formularised as crypto-zoology.

If you’re inclined towards shopping lists, this next paragraph lists each of the artists and their assignment, and please feel free to skip it if you’re impatient or in a rush, but if you’ve a favourite feel free to browse at your leisure. Like this superb book itself, that’s the point.

In page order then: Ray Fenwick – Beast Pattern, Art Chantry – American Buffalo, Gilbert Hernandez – Sea Hog, Tim Biskup – Amermait, Jason Robards – Acephalite, Ryan Clark – Aeternae, Charles Glaubitz – Ahuizotl, Esther Pearl Watson – Aitvaras, Ronald Kurniawan – Albastor, Jacob Covey – Argus, Deth P. Sun – Aries, R. Kikuo Johnson – Asp Turtle, Julie Murphy – Aspis, Martin Cendreda – Aswang, Brent Johnson – Auvekoejak, Colleen Coover – Baba Yaga, Katy Horan – Banshee, Dean Yeagle – Barguest, Kaela Graham – Barometz, Jesse LeDoux – Bautatsch-Ah-Ilgs, Marvin Kirschnik – Beast of Bray Road, Andrew Brandou – Big Ears, Renee French – Bigfoot, Lesley Reppeteaux – Black Annis, Eric Reynolds – Boa, Kenneth Lavallee – Boraro, Adam Grano – Brownies, PJ Fidler – Cacus, Brian Ralph – Carn Galver, Angela Kongelbak – Catoblepas, Keith Andrew Shore – Centaur, Amanda Visell – Cerberus, Mike Hoffman – Cheeroonear, Mat Brinkman – Chenoo, Scott Campell – Cliff Ogre, Dave Cooper – Bapets, Corey Lunn –Cyclopedes, Nate Williams – Cyclops, Alex Meyer – Disemboweller, Don Clark – Dog-Faced Bunyip, Kevin Cornell – Donestre, Nathan Jurevicius – Drac, Ron Regé, Jr. – Draug, Meg Hunt – Erinyes, Stan Sakai – Gaki, Marc Bell – Golem, Dan Grzeca – Gorgon, Johnny Ryan – Harpy, Little Friends of Printmaking – Hundred-Handed Giant, Kevin Scalzo – Kabandha, Bwana Spoons – Kappa, Mizna Wada – Kojiki’s Yamata No Orochi, Jeremy Fish – Kraken, Tyler Stout – Kukuweaq, Jordan Crane – Laestrygonians, Peter Thompson – Leveller, Scott Teplin – Loathly Worm, Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch – Loch Ness Monster, Martin Ontiveros – Long Wang, Chris Ryniak – Lou Carcolh, Andy Kehoe – Manticore, Atteboy – Melusine, Justin B. Williams – Mimick Dog, Jeff Soto – Minata-Karaia, Jason – Minotaur, Jessica Lynch – Monoceros, Nathan Huang – Nuckalevee, Kevin Dart – Odontotyrannus, Jesse Reno – Pegasus, Steven Weissman – Pey, Alan Mooers – Puk, Anders Nilsen – Sianach, Ted Jouflas – Siren, Foi Jimenez – Sphinx, James Jean – Succubus, Jay Ryan – Thunderbeast, Jason Miles – Thunderbird & Unceliga, Tony Millionaire – Leviathan, Josh Cochran – Triton, S.britt – Troll, Stella Im Hultberg – Tui Delai Gau, Seonna Hong – Unicorn, Sammy Harkham – Utukku, Sam Weber – Vampire, Richard Sala – Vodnik, Chris Silas Neal – Werewolf, Joe Vaux – Wihwin, Tom Gauld Wizard’s Shackle, Heiko Müller – Wolpertinger, Michael Slack – Yara-Ma-Yha-Who and Souther Salazar – Aunyainá.

The concept of a Bestiary – a chronicle of fabulous creatures – is probably older than the printed book itself and this incredibly broad and varied collection (originally released as a striking hardback in 2007) uses the very best of modern print technology and design sensibility to deliver an vivid package of sheer fantasy and artistic excellence, with as much emphasis on madcap humour as terror or wonderment. This edition also benefits from slick, coated paper and stunning gold ink, a text feature by “Yeti Hunter” Daniel Taylor, a family tree of Crypto-zoological creatures, an extensive bibliography and biographies of the 90 creators involved in the project.

Combining state-of-the-nation artists from a number of disciplines including comics, poster production, skate art, commercial illustration and gallery exhibitors, this is as much a catalogue of the contemporary US popular arts scene as a bible of the fantastic and a must-have for anyone who wants their eyes to bulge and protrude like a Tom & Jerry cartoon character. Hey? What page are they o…?
This edition © 2008 Fantagraphics Books. All images and text © 2008 their respective creator. All Rights Reserved.

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Iznogoud Volume 1: the Wicked Wiles of Iznogoud


By René Goscinny & Jean Tabary, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-905460-46-5

René Goscinny was one of the most prolific, and therefore remains one of the most read, writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. Born in Paris in 1926, he was raised in Argentina where his father taught mathematics. From an early age he showed artistic promise, and studied fine arts, graduating in 1942.

While working as junior illustrator in an ad agency in 1945 an uncle invited him to stay in America, where he found work as a translator. After his National Service in France he settled in Brooklyn and pursued an artistic career becoming in 1948 an assistant for a little studio that included Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Jack Davis and John Severin as well as European giants-in-waiting Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”, with whom he produced Lucky Luke from 1955-1977) and Joseph Gillain (Jijé). He also met Georges Troisfontaines, head of the World Press Agency, the company that provided comics for the French magazine Spirou.

After contributing scripts to Belles Histoires de l’Oncle Paul and ‘Jerry Spring’ Goscinny was made head of World Press’Paris office where he met his life-long creative partner Albert Uderzo (Jehan Sepoulet, Luc Junior) as well as creating Sylvie and Alain et Christine (with “Martial”- Martial Durand) and Fanfan et Polo (drawn by Dino Attanasio).

In 1955 Goscinny, Uderzo, Charlier and Jean Hébrard formed the independent Édipress/Édifrance syndicate, creating magazines for general industry (Clairon for the factory union and Pistolin for a chocolate factory). With Uderzo he produced Bill Blanchart, Pistolet and Benjamin et Benjamine, and himself wrote and illustrated Le Capitaine Bibobu.

Goscinny seems to have invented the 9-day week. Using the pen-name Agostini he wrote Le Petit Nicholas (drawn by Jean-Jacques Sempé), and in 1956 he began an association with the revolutionary magazine Tintin, writing stories for many illustrators including Signor Spagetti (Dino Attanasio), Monsieur Tric (Bob De Moor), Prudence Petitpas (Maréchal), Globule le Martien and Alphonse (both by Tibet), Modeste et Pompon (for André Franquin), Strapontin (Berck) as well as Oumpah-Pah with Uderzo. He also wrote strips for the magazines Paris-Flirt and Vaillant.

In 1959 Édipress/Édifrance launched Pilote, and Goscinny went into overdrive. The first issue starred his and Uderzo’s instant masterpiece Asterix the Gaul, and he also re-launched Le Petit Nicolas, Jehan Pistolet/Jehan Soupolet and began Jacquot le Mousse and Tromblon et Bottaclou (drawn by Godard). When Georges Dargaud bought Pilote in 1960, Goscinny became editor-in-Chief, but still found time to add new series Les Divagations de Monsieur Sait-Tout (Martial), La Potachologie Illustrée (Cabu), Les Dingodossiers (Gotlib) and La Forêt de Chênebeau (Mic Delinx).

He also wrote frequently for television. In his spare time he created a little strip entitled Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah for Record (first episode January 15th 1962) illustrated by a Swedish-born artist named Jean Tabary. A minor success, it was re-tooled as Iznogoud when it transferred to Pilote.

Goscinny died – probably of well-deserved pride and severe exhaustion – aged 933, in November 1977.

Jean Tabary was born in Stockholm, and began his comics career in 1956 on Vaillant, illustrating Richard et Charlie, before graduating to the hugely popular boy’s adventure strip Totoche in 1959. The engaging head of a kid gang, Totoche spawned a spin-off, Corinne et Jeannot, and as Vaillant transformed into Pif, the lad even got his own short-lived comic; Totoche Posche. Tabary drew the series until 1976, and has revived it in recent years under his own publishing imprint Séguinière /Editions Tabary.

In 1962 he teamed with René Goscinny to produce imbecilic Arabian potentate Haroun el-Poussah but it was the villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud that stole the show – possibly the little rat’s only successful plot.

With the emphasis shifted to the shifty shrimp the revamped series moved to Pilote in 1968, becoming a huge favourite, spawning 27 albums to date, a long-running TV cartoon show and even a live action movie in 2005. Following their success Goscinny and Tabary created Valentin, and Tabary also wrote Buck Gallo for Mic Delinx to draw. When Goscinny died in 1977 Tabary took over writing Iznogoud as well, moving to book length complete tales, rather than the compilations of short stories that typified their collaboration.

So what’s it all about?

Like all the best comics it works on two levels: as a comedic romp of sneaky baddies coming a cropper for younger readers, and as a pun-filled, sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads, much like its more famous cousin Asterix – and translated here with the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who made the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to the English tongue.

Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to Haroun Al Plassid, Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the sneaky little tyke has loftier ambitions, or as he is always shouting it “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”

The vile vizier is “aided” – and that’s me being uncharacteristically kind – in his schemes by his bumbling assistant Wa’at Alahf, and in this first album they begin their campaign with ‘Kissmet’, wherein pandemonium ensues after a talking frog is revealed to be an ensorcelled Prince who can only regain human form if kissed by a human. Iznogoud sees an opportunity if he can only trick the simple-minded Caliph into puckering up; unfortunately he forgets that he’s not the only ambitious man in Baghdad…

‘Mesmer-Eyezed’ finds him employing a surly stage hypnotist to remove the Caliph whilst ‘The Occidental Philtre’ sees him employ a flying potion obtained from a lost, jet-lagged western sorcerer, each with hilarious but painfully counter-productive results.

Tabary drew himself into ‘The Time Machine’ as a comic artist desperate to meet his deadlines who falls foul of a mystical time cabinet, but when he meets the vizier, that diminutive dastard can clearly see its Caliph-removing potential – to his eternal regret… In ‘The Picnic’ Iznogoud takes drastic action, luring Haroun Al Plassid into the desert, but as usual his best-laid plans aren’t, and the book concludes with ‘Chop and Change’ as the villain gets hold of a magic goblet which can switch the minds of any who drink from it, forgetting that Caliphs are important people who employ food-tasters…

Snappy, fast-paced slapstick and painfully delightful word-play abound in these mirthfully infectious tales and the series has become a household name in France; said the name has even entered French Political life as a term for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and usually short.

Eight albums were translated in the 1970s and 1980s, but made little impact here: hopefully this new incarnation of gloriously readable and wonderfully affordable comedy epics will finally find an appreciative audience among British kids of all ages. I’m certainly going to be one of them…
© 1967 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Hulk volume 3


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Harlan Ellison, Herb Trimpe, & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1689-9

By the close of the 1960s the Incredible Hulk had settled into a comfortable niche and enjoyable formula as the tragic Bruce Banner sought cures for his gamma-transformative curse, alternately aided or hunted by prospective father-in-law US General “Thunderbolt” Ross and a variety of guest-star heroes and villains.

Herb Trimpe made the character his own, the “house” Jack Kirby based art-style quickly evolving into startlingly abstract mannerism, augmented by an unmatched facility for drawing technology and especially honking great ordnance and vehicles – all of which looks especially great in the crisp black and white of these magically affordable Essentials volumes. And of course no one can deny the cathartic reader-release of a mighty big “Hulk Smash” moment…

This chronologically accurate treat contains issues #118-142, as well as the corresponding parts of a couple of cross-overs, Captain Marvel #20-21 and Avengers #88, but the action begins with Incredible Hulk #118 (August 1969) wherein a duplicitous courtier at the Sub-Mariner’s sunken  citadel orchestrated ‘A Clash of Titans’, (as related by Stan Lee and Trimpe) before the Jade Giant stumbled into a South American country conquered by and ‘At the Mercy of… Maximus the Mad’, a two-part-tale which concluded with the Roy Thomas scripted ‘On the Side of… the Evil Inhumans!’

This all-out Armageddon with the Hulk also fighting the Costa Salvador army, the ubiquitous rebels, General Ross’ specialist forces and even a giant robot gave way to a moodier menace as Ol’ Greenskin returned to the USA – Florida to be precise – to find ‘Within the Swamp, There Stirs… a Glob!’, a muck-encrusted monstrosity that predated both DC’s Swamp Thing and Marvel’s own Man-Thing; designed as tribute in equal parts to Theodore Sturgeon’s “It” and the Hillman Comics Character The Heap, who slopped his way through the back of Airboy Comics in the early 1950s.

Incredible Hulk #122 promised ‘The Hulk’s Last Fight!’ when the Fantastic Four thought they’d found a cure for Banner’s condition, but as the concluding episode ‘No More the Monster!’ showed, you don’t always get what you want – specially when gamma-super-genius the Leader has involved himself in the plan.

Seemingly cured of the curse of the Hulk Bruce Banner was set to marry his troubled sweetheart Betty Ross, but ‘The Rhino Says No!’ and the subsequent set-to (rather heavily inked by Sal Buscema) re-set the tragic status quo of hunted, haunted hero on the run…

Trimpe again took up the inker’s brush for the bludgeoning battle in #125 ‘And Now, the Absorbing Man!’ whilst Doctor Strange guest-starred in an other-dimensional duel with the malign Undying Ones: ‘…Where Stalks the Night-Crawler!’ (a tidying up exercise closing a saga from the good Doctor’s own cancelled title – and one which directly led to the formation of the anti-hero super-group The Defenders).

In ‘Mogol!’ (#127) the child-like, lonely Hulk was transported to the Mole Man’s subterranean realm where he thought he’d finally found a friend, only to face bitter disappointment once more, and his pain-filled rampage threatened to destroy California (#127) when he tore his way surface-ward via the San Andreas Fault. ‘And in this Corner… The Avengers!’ found a solution to the problem, even if they couldn’t hold the Green Goliath, leading him to more trouble when ‘Again, The Glob!’ attacked.

Next up is a two-part tale from Captain Marvel #20-21 (June and August 1970) where erstwhile partner Rick Jones sought Banner’s aid to free him from a twilight existence bonded to the Kree hero – and intermittent exile to the Negative Zone. Astoundingly illustrated by Gil Kane and Dan Adkins ‘The Hunter and the Holocaust’ and ‘Here Comes the Hulk!’ compounded the mismatched battle with topical student unrest, in a brilliant story that presaged a move towards more “relevant” comics fare throughout the industry.

Incredible Hulk #130 saw Banner separate himself from the Hulk in ‘If I Kill You… I Die’, but the separation had potentially disastrous consequences for Los Angeles, if not the world and only Iron Man could help when ‘A Titan Stalks the Tenements!’ This powerful tale introduced black ghetto kid Jim Wilson, and is made doubly enjoyable by the inking wizardry of the legendary John Severin who signed on for a three-issue stint.

In #132, the Hulk was ‘In the Hands of Hydra!’ – although not for long and to their eternal regret. His desperate escape left him stranded in the Mediterranean dictatorship of Morvania, an unwilling freedom fighter against the despicable Draxon on the ‘Day of Thunder… Night of Death!’ Sal Buscema returned as inker for the conclusion ‘Among us Walks… the Golem!’ in Incredible Hulk #134, and one of the strangest Marvel team-ups then occurred in ‘Descent into the Time-Storm!’ when Kang the Conqueror dispatched the Hulk to the dog-days of World War I to prevent the Avengers’ ancestors from being born, only to fall foul of the masked aviator known as the Phantom Eagle.

Moby Dick (among other cross media classics) was homaged in ‘Klattu! The Behemoth From Beyond Space’ and ‘The Stars, Mine Enemy!’ (this last inked by Mike Esposito) as a vengeance crazed star-ship captain pursued the alien beast that had maimed him, press-ganging the Hulk in the process and pitting him against old foe the Abomination.

It was back to Earth and another old enemy in ‘…Sincerely, the Sandman!’ (inked by Sam Grainger) as the vicious villain turned Betty Ross to brittle glass, whilst #139’s ‘Many Foes Has the Hulk!’ saw the Leader attempt to kill his brutish nemesis by exhaustion as seemingly hundreds of old villains attacked at once…

Another cross-over next, and a very impressive one as Harlan Ellison, Thomas, Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney produced ‘The Summons of Psyklop!’ for Avengers #88 where an insectoid servant of the Elder Gods abducted the Hulk to fuel their resurrection, which led directly into Incredible Hulk #140 and the landmark ‘The Brute that Shouted Love at the Heart of the Atom’ (drawn by Grainger over Trimpe’s layouts). Trapped on a sub-atomic world, Banner’s intellect and the Hulk’s body were reconciled, and he became a barbarian hero to an appreciative populace, and the lover of the perfect princess Jarella…

only to be snatched away by Psyklop at the moment of his greatest happiness.

The sudden return to full-sized savagery was the insectoid’s undoing and the Hulk resumed his ghastly existence… at least until #141 when a psychologist proved a way to drain the Hulk’s gamma-energy to restore the crystalline Betty – and even turn himself into a superhero in ‘His Name is … Samson!’ (with Severin returned as inker).

This volume closes with a satirical poke at “Radical Chic” and the return of the “feminist” villain Valkyrie when the Hulk was made a media cause celebre by Manhattan’s effete elite in the oddly charming ‘They Shoot Hulks, Don’t They?’ But don’t fret, there’s plenty of monumental mayhem as well…

The Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the movies, TV shows and action figures, are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, honestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better than these yarns so why not Go Green (even if its only in monochrome and your own head)?

© 1969, 1970, 1971, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Green Lantern: Legacy – The Last Will & Testament of Hal Jordan


By Joe Kelly, Brent Anderson & Bill Sienkiewicz, with Ro & Bleyaert (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0365-8

Green Lantern has been a DC star in one form or another since the company’s earliest days, but often that’s led to some rather extreme revamps and odd takes on what seems to be an extremely pliable character with an invaluable shtick – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In the Silver Age revival, true-blue test pilot Hal Jordan was bequeathed a power ring by a dying officer of an intergalactic police force run by benign, if austere, immortals known as the Guardians of the Universe.

During one of the interminable crises that beset the universe Jordan saw his home town of Coast City vaporised by an alien invader. He went mad, and sought to use his power to undo the carnage, in the process destroying his beloved GL Corps, stealing all the power rings and evolving into the time-bending villain Parallax. A menace to all reality, he redeemed his life and soul by sacrificing himself to reignite Earth’s sun when it was consumed by a monstrous sun-eater.

Whilst he was alive Hal’s best friend and confidante was Thomas Kalmaku, an Inuit flight engineer nicknamed “Pieface.” Although Tom survived the destruction of Coast City, the trauma led to his marriage failing and he climbed into a bottle of booze. Just as he’s fallen as far as its possible to go a lawyer turns up with a legacy left by the dead hero. Bitter and filled with self-loathing, and despite himself, Tom is saddled with a little boy named Martin Jordan who arrived with nothing more than the clothes on his back and a note that says “Fix it.”

Thomas desperately tries to unload Martin but when the Justice League and Green Lantern survivors try to confiscate the child, he realizes that once more he’s being manipulated. There’s something unnatural about the boy, a deadly monster is hunting them both and even the time-traveling Parallax is on their trail.

Just what is the true legacy of Hal Jordan, and who or what has to die to achieve it..?

This convoluted but highly readable sidebar to the epic Green Lantern mythology might deter the casual reader, but the genned-up fan will get a lot of enjoyment out of this bittersweet, action-packed yarn, especially with the ever-impressive Brent Anderson and Bill Sienkiewicz (ably assisted by some innovative colouring and effects from Ro & Bleyaert) in the illustrators’ seats.

© 2002 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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House of Mystery: Room & Boredom


By Matthew Sturges, Bill Willingham, Luca Rossi & various (Vertigo)
ISBN13: 978-1-84856-120-5

Re-imagined under the impressive Vertigo umbrella, one of DC’s most venerable titles returns as a tribute to Something Old cunningly disguised as Something New. Apart from a brief period in the Bat-crazed super-heroic mid-1960s when the Martian Manhunter and the ineffably quirky Dial H for Hero seized control, HoM was an anthology title that told tales of mystery and imagination in the tasteful, sedate manner of its parent company. It launched with a December 1951/January 1952 cover date and ran for 321 issues, finally folding in October 1983. When superheroes fell out of favour at the end of the 1960s, it became one of DC’s top selling titles.

At a place where realities meet – or at least overlap – a ramshackle house of indeterminate size, shape and age sometimes stands. In its own capacious grounds the unique structure offers a welcome to the star-crossed and time-lost souls of infinity. The lower floor has been converted into a welcoming hostelry.

Like the bar in “Cheers”, creatures from literally anywhere (many looking like characters out of the previous comic-book incarnation) drop in for a brew and a chinwag, often paying their way with a novel yarn, but for a select few such as the Bartender, the Poet, the Pirate and the Drama Queen the house is more like “Hotel California” – in that they can check out any time they like, but they can never leave…

Fig Keele is an architecture student with a problem and a history. Her home fell apart and two spectral, floating horrors started chasing her. Fleeing in panic she fortuitously found an entrance to the House, but now it won’t let her go. Surprisingly, she adapted pretty quickly to the inhabitants, but what really freaks her out is that the house speaks to her…

Writer Matthew Sturges, with sometime collaborator Bill Willingham, has managed the near-impossible task of combining the best elements of the old within this compellingly fresh horror yarn, and even concocted a cocktail of actual mysteries to keep the pot boiling away. Strikingly illustrated by Luca Rossi, who has incorporated a stylistic ghost of Bernie Wrightson into his artwork, the story of Fig and her fellow residents is punctuated by a series of very classy “pub-stories” illustrated by some of the industry’s best and brightest talents.

Those vignettes include two by Willingham; ‘The Hollows’, a disturbing love-story by Ross Campbell, and the delightfully far-fetched ‘In Too Deep’ from Jill Thompson, whilst Sturges scripted the remaining three ‘Spats and the Neck’ from Zachary Baldus, ‘Familiar’ by Steve Rolston and ‘Jordan‘s Tale’ by Sean Murphy.

Collecting issue #1-5 of the Vertigo comic book, this is enchanting blend of ancient and modern, horror and comedy, mystery and adventure: it’s also a huge amount of fun for anyone old enough to handle a little sex and a smidgen of salty language whilst unraveling the intricacies of a great big, all-absorbing puzzle. Just remember once you’re in you might never want to come out…

© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.