Attu: The Collected Volumes


By Sam Glanzman (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80158-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Blockbuster Entertainment to digest that Dinner by… 8/10

After far too many years as an industry secret, in recent years Sam Glanzman has finally been awarded his proper station as one of American comics’ greatest and most remarkable creators – thanks in no small part to the diligent efforts of publishing house Dover, which has resurrected his groundbreaking graphic novel sequence A Sailor’s Story and overseen the collection of his astonishing semi-autobiographical series USS Stevens.

However, Glanzman has been drawing and writing comics since the 1940s, most commonly in the classic genres – war, mystery, adventure and fantasy – where his raw, powerful and subtly engaging style and wry wit made his work irresistibly compelling to generations of readers

On titles such as Kona, Monarch of Monster Island (and where’s the definitive omnibus collection of those wild yarns?), Voyage to the Deep, Combat, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Hercules, the Haunted Tank, The Green Berets and cult classic The Private War of Willie Schultz, Glanzman always produced magnificently rousing yarns which fired the imagination and stirred the blood. That unceasing output always sold well and won him a legion of fans amongst fellow artists at least, if not from the insular and over-vocal fan-press.

In the 1990s Glanzman worked with Tim Truman’s 4Winds company on high-profile projects like The Lone Ranger and Jonah Hex whilst concocting a fantastic multi-genre mash-up named Attu. The first two volumes in a proposed series of original graphic novels, they were released at a time when the US marketplace was experiencing a glut of product and a storm of speculator interest. Those of us in the know patiently awaited more sci-fi barbarian wonderment, but it never materialised.

Now the wait is over: the first two books have been gathered into one superbly substantial oversized (278 x 208 mm) monochrome tome, graced and augmented at last by Glanzman’s unpublished third chapter.

Following Jeff Lemire’s fervent Foreword ‘What the Heck is Attu?’ and a fascinating Introduction and behind-the-scenes reminiscence from Tim Truman in ‘Four Winds and Forbidden Caves’, the uncanny blend of action and mystery begins…

On the primal super-continent of Gondwana in 137 million B.C., oddly clean-cut caveman Attu is making himself unpopular to the rest of the Kassar Tribe. Known as the Truth Seeker, the pest constantly vexes and troubles his hirsute, mountain-dwelling fellows and subsequently remands himself and forward-looking boy companion Oom to the lowlands: a place of giants, terrible beasts and uncanny creatures we would know as dinosaurs.

He also finds a lethally booby-trapped cave full of incomprehensible things where a beautiful woman sleeps in a tube of clear, warm ice…

Determined to liberate and possess her, Attu goes an on impromptu walkabout, encountering a multitude of strange monsters and weird men; learning new things and expanding his mind at every opportunity. When he appropriates a peculiar device under most unlikely circumstances, he instinctively knows it belongs with the pillar of

warm ice and the treasure inside…

Book Two: Durenella continues the wild rush of ideas as Attu – no longer a primitive by any means – unlocks the hibernation chamber of an alien princess and is cautiously introduced to and indoctrinated in the star-spanning culture of the Empire of Drago. Hearing – and eventually comprehending – the tragedy of Durenella as her Seeker Ship crashed to the primitive Earth and the crew all died, the caveman realises he now has no place on his own world anymore.

There’s also no place for him on fiercely embargoed and stratified Drago – even after a rescue ship arrives – unless he, the princess and the Emperor himself collude in a shameful and dangerous subterfuge which could topple a dynasty if exposed…

The series stalled for years as the nineties comicbook market turmoil essentially shut down 4Winds, but here the saga continues with the eagerly anticipated third chapter Jan-Uk.

The action-packed, blood-drenched extravaganza surprisingly goes back, not forward, to detail the brutal origins of Attu. As a young warrior barely past his manhood rites, Jan-Uk’s life changes forever after his father is betrayed and murdered and the boy seeks vengeance. His sire was both chief and seer, and before his demise foresaw his son living with strangers who rode strange birds from the stars but all that seems impossible to explain as the young warriors sets out after brutal rival Laanta and his cronies.

When the crime was perpetrated, Jan-Uk stalked the killers across the terrifying wilderness and tracked them up a mountain where even more primitive, half-ape creatures named Kassars lived. And then there was a blinding flash of light…

To Be Continued? (By Gosh I hope so…)

Following the astounding action extravaganza, Stephen R. Bissette offers a vast and comprehensive Caveman Comics Afterword on ‘Deconstructing Attu (Or: How a science Fiction Adventure Graphic Novel Can Indeed Be a Personal Work of Art from One of the Unsung Masters of Silver Age Adventure Comics’ and the book concludes with a bunch of stunning visual Extras including roughs, unused art (and hints of what’s next for Attu) plus charming pinups from Glanzman and celebrity guest contributors such as Michael T. Gilbert and Phil Hester.

An unrepentant fabulist adventure combining pre-history, monsters, murder mystery, political intrigue, super-science and even time-travel, this is a purely delightful slice of old-fashioned comics fun, rendered in stark, savage black and white; a brilliant paean to a bygone style and age. Moreover, it’s still not too late to urge this wonderful graphic master to sort out the next volume…
© 2016 Sam Glanzman. Foreword © 2016 Jeff Lemire. Introduction © 2016 Timothy Truman. Afterword © 2016 Stephen R. Bissette. All rights reserved.