By Ben Dunn & Kevin Gunstone (AP Pocket Manga)
ISBN: 1-932453-64-4
After decades of homegrown comics product America finally began to grow aware of other country’s graphic treasures through of all things television, when in the late 1960s imported cartoons from Japan first began appearing as part of Saturday morning programming. With shows like Astroboy, Marine Boy, Speed Racer and others reshaping a nation’s most malleable minds, it wasn’t too long before Western anime lovers also branched out into the scrupulously stylised world of manga too…
By the 1980s translated works were increasingly dominating the US and world markets and devotees also found a burgeoning and impressive subgenre market of cross-cultural, fan-turned-pro material we now know as OEL (“Original English Languageâ€) or Amerimanga.
Probably the most adept and successful of these new creators is Ben Dunn, who was born in Taiwan in 1964, where he was exposed early and often to the fabulous alternatives of the East, before returning to Kentucky and Texas. He founded his own publishing house Antarctic Press in 1984 during the first days of the black and white comics boom, and with both timing and raw talent on his side created a series of wonderful trans-Pacific series which combined the best of American and Japanese art style and storytelling philosophy.
Among his best known creations are Ninja High School and Warrior Nun Areala and Marvel tapped his expertise when they launched their own “Mangeverse†sub-imprint in 2000.
A man of diverse interests, Dunn also cites the fabulous Film and TV fantasy adventures of the Swinging Sixties as a major interest and influence, as can be seen in this pocket collection of a six-issue miniseries he produced with writer Kevin Gunstone for Image in 2004.
The Agents is set in an alternative future: a glorious and outrageous homage to Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, The Prisoner, Green Hornet, and such superspy stalwarts as Derek Flint, James Bond, John Steed & Emma Peel and Lady Penelope Creighton–Ward as well a dozens of lesser lights from that unforgettable age of heroes…
The action opens in ‘You Only Live Once’ as thirty years from now veteran agent Nigel Cord is called back to active service when the only super-villain to have ever outwitted him makes the world an incredible offer.
Three decades ago criminal mastermind Professor Daedalus nuked Washington DC and Moscow and took over Paraguay in the aftermath. With both global Super Powers reeling Great Britain stepped in to assume the role of World Policeman and civilisation has been in a spiral of escalating scientific terrorism ever since. Now the dying megalomaniac is offering his technological marvels in return for one last confrontation with his arch nemesis…
Meanwhile irreplaceable Boy Savant Mike 70 has gone missing and masked sidekick Haiku, without the fortifying influence of his mentor the Red Wasp is losing his edge in the unceasing battle to reclaim the streets of New York from gangsters and anarchists whilst spymaster Lady Pippa seems intent only on drinking herself to death and bedding the new recruits ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Agency’…
There are other factors in play such as the deadly C.A.B.A.L. assassin Kristal Veil and her increasingly erratic paymasters, whilst secretive crisis-management organisation the Tomahawks use advanced technology to fight disasters but do nothing to fix the political inconsistencies which cause them.
‘The Spy Who Saved Me’ finds Cord and Veil as guests of the dying Daedalus whilst the C.A.B.A.L. war among themselves and ‘Her Majesty’s Secret Agent’ reveals that the New World Order is riddled with moles and traitors…
With global Armageddon minutes away the action and intrigue accelerates to a fatal climax in ‘Thundercrack’ before ‘Our Man Cord’ finally saves the day – if not the status quo…
With all such nostalgic pastiches of bygone glories there’s an overwhelming temptation to tweak the source material for modern consumption – or perhaps just to show how clever we all are these days – but The Agents generally resists that urge, preferring to present a full-on, exuberant and magically honest appreciation of great times gone by.
Drawn in monochrome manga style but still genuinely Vista-Visioned and happily Super-Marionated, this lost delight might just be the best paean to lost days any wistful, thrill-starved baby-boomer could desire… and it’s even available as an ebook.
Story © Kevin Gunstone. Art © Ben Dunn. All rights reserved.
This coment isn’t about this review. I found this site looking for info on the graphic novel version of Bradbury’s Frost and Fire.
Seeing how knowledgeable you were about graphic novels I thought I would ask a question about a graphic novel I remember from my youth. I have searched many times for it wiht no luck. I have no idea of the author or title.
I read this about 1962, but I have no idea how old it was. It was very similar to Tintin, but it was not Tintin.
A key plot twist in it was this: they are aboard ship on the ocean looking for treasure. They have a map, but there is no island at the map coordinates. Then they discover that the map was made in France around the time of the French Revolution and used Paris as the prime meridian instead of Greenwich. After which they found the treasure and everyone lived happily ever after.
Ring any bells?
Hi Tom
sorry to have taken so long responding, and sadly I have to admit you’ve stumped me. At first I thought it might be one of the Classics Illustrated tales but that didn’t pan out.
Can you recall if it was a complete comic album or a long tale in an Annual perhaps?
TThe story sounds like the kind of extended adventure DC Thomson would use in a Beezer or Topper Book, but if it was a serial there are lots of sites concentrating of British weeklies that might offer some help.
Have you tried looking on Steve Holland’s superb Bear Alley site?
Sorry again, good luck with the search, and if you can think of any other info please feel free to get back in touch
Thanks for the response.
The book I’m talking about was about the size (height, width and pages) of a Tintin and the individual panels were also similar to Tintin. It was a book, 40-50 pages and was one of a series (I remember us boys arguing over who was next to read each as they others finished them). There weren’t a huge number of volumes in our little library, I would guess three or four, so I don’t know how many there may have been that we didn’t have access to. My memory is that the covers were not illustrated, and it seems to me that the panels were drawn in more realistic and less “cartoony†style than Tintin.
Tom: you seem to be describing the plot of Tintin: “Red Rackham’s Treasure”.
Paraphrasing Wikipedia’s article on the book:
“Tintin hypothesizes that Sir Francis Haddock used the Paris Meridian instead of Greenwich … Sure enough, the ship reaches an unknown and uninhabited island … Calculus’s submarine proves useful in searching for the sunken Unicorn … While facing complications like shark attacks, they discover a cutlass, a gold bejeweled cross, a strongbox of old documents, the figurehead of the ship and, to Captain Haddock’s delight, a large supply of vintage Jamaican rum.”