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Showcase Presents Weird War Tales volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Bill Finger, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Oleck, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Dennis O’Neil, Russ Heath, Mort Drucker, Frank Thorne, Alex Toth, Reed Crandall, Sam Glanzman, John Severin, Howard Chaykin, Ed Davis, Frank Robbins, Nestor Redondo, George Evans, Alex Niño, Russ Heath, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3694-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

American comics just idled along rather slowly until the invention of Superman provided a flamboyant new genre for heroes and subsequently unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and imaginative generation for a suddenly thriving, voracious new entertainment model.

Implacably vested in World War II, these gaudily-attired mystery men swept all before them until the troops came home, but as the decade closed more traditional themes and heroes began to resurface and eventually supplant the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

As a new generation of kids started buying and collecting, many of the first fans who retained their four-colour habit increasingly sought more mature themes in their pictorial reading matter. The war years and post-war paranoia had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything. Their chosen forms of entertainment (film, theatre and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

To balance the return of Western, War, Crime and imminent Atomic Armageddon-fuelled Science Fiction, comics created new genres. Celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist or teen-oriented comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features sprang up, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly addictive horror comics. There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in superhero trappings but these had usually been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering the reader.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and filled it by inventing romance comics (Young Romance #1, September 1947) and they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952). The company which would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively strait-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with The House of Mystery (cover-dated December 1951/January 1952).

After the hysterical censorship debate which led to witch-hunting Senate hearings in the early 1950s was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulation, titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, but the audience’s appetite for suspense was still high and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets. Stories were dialled back from uncanny spooky yarns to marvellously illustrated, rationalistic fantasy-adventure vehicles and – eventually – straight monster-busting Sci Fi tales which dominated the market into the 1960s. That’s when superheroes – which had gradually enjoyed their own visionary revival after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4 – finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a rapidly-expanding coterie of costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which forced previously staunchly uncompromising anthology suspense titles to become super-character books. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, superheroes began dropping like Kryptonite-gassed flies. However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and, at the end of the 1960s with the cape-and-cowl boom over and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain, the surviving publishers of the field agreed to revise the Comics Code, loosening their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics.

Nobody much cared about gangster titles but, as the liberalisation coincided with yet another bump in public interest concerning supernatural themes, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer.

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, horror comics came back and quickly dominated the US market for more than half a decade. DC led the pack: converting House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into supernatural suspense anthologies in 1968 and resurrecting House of Secrets a year later.

Such was not the case with war comics. Tales of ordinary guys in combat began with the industry itself and although mostly sidelined during the capes-&-cowls war years, quickly re-asserted themselves once the actual fighting stopped. National/DC were one of the last publishers to get in on the combat act, converting superhero/fantasy adventure anthology Star Spangled Comics into Star Spangled War Stories the same month it launched Our Army at War (both cover-dated August 1952). They repurposed All-American Comics into All-American Men of War a month later as a “police action” in Korea escalated.

DC grew the division slowly but steadily, launching Our Fighting Forces (#1, November 1954) – just as EC’s groundbreaking combat comics were vanishing – and in 1957 added GI Combat to their portfolio when Quality Comics got out of the funnybook business.

As the 1950s closed however, the two-fisted anthologies all began incorporating recurring characters such as Gunner and Sarge – and latterly Pooch – from Our Fighting Forces #45 on, (May 1959); Sgt Rock (Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) and The Haunted Tank (G.I. Combat #87, April/May 1961). Soon all DC war titles had a lead star or feature to hold the fickle readers’ attention. The drive to produce superior material never wavered however, hugely aided by the diligent and meticulous ministrations of writer/editor Robert Kanigher.

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to the game-changing Blazing Combat, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining American war comics was DC. In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a new generation of readers in the 1960s, the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing, beautifully limned battle tales presenting armed combat on a variety of fronts and from many differing points of view.

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Homefront death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response, military-themed comic books from National Periodical Publishing, as it then was, became even more bold and innovative.

However, the sudden downturn in superheroes led to some serious rethinking, and although the war titles maintained and even built sales, they also beefed up the anthological elements.

Thus in 1971 a title combining supernatural horror stories with bombastic battle yarns in an anthological setting seemed a forgone conclusion and sure thing to both publishers and readers alike…

This epic monochrome tome collects the contents of Weird War Stories #1-21 (cover-dates September/October 1971 to January 1974), offering a broad blend of genre mash-ups for readers with a taste for the dark and uncanny to relish. The series launched in a 52-page format combining new material with modified reprints featuring a veritable Who’s Who of top flight creative talent – both seasoned veterans and stars in waiting.

WWS #1 saw Editor Joe Kubert writing and illustrating an eerie linking strand entitled ‘Let Me Tell You of the Things I’ve Seen’, wherein a lost GI meets the personification of Death (the title’s long-term narrator in various blood-stained uniforms) who has a few foxhole stories to share…

The Reaper begins with ‘Fort Which Did Not Return!’ (by Kanigher & Russ Heath, as first seen in GI Combat #86), detailing how a bomber continues its mission even after the crew bail out, following up with all-new ‘The Story behind the Cover’ wherein Kubert reveals how a shunned German soldier carried on his duties after death…

From Star Spangled War Stories #71 (July 1958) Bob Haney & Kubert disclosed ‘The End of the Sea Wolf!’, as a sadistic U-Boat captain is sunk by one of his own earlier victims, whilst SSWS #116 (August/September 1964) originally debuted France Herron & Irv Novick’s ‘Baker’s Dozen’, with a fresh-faced replacement to a super-superstitious platoon battling to prove he’s not their unlucky thirteenth man…

The issue ends with that lost GI realising just who has been telling tales in Kubert’s ‘You Must Go!’…

The reprints in these early issues were all taken from a time when supernatural themes were proscribed by the Comics Code Authority, but even so they all held fast to an eerie aura of sinister uncertainty… the merest hint of the strange and uncanny to leaven the usual blood and thunder of battle books. In Weird War Tales #2, Kubert reprised his bridging vehicle as ‘Look… and Listen…’ sees a crashed Stuka pilot meeting a ghastly stranger at a battle-torn desert oasis before ‘Reef of No Return’ (Haney & Mort Drucker from Our Fighting Forces #43, March 1959) details a determined frogman’s most dangerous mission in advance of Kanigher & Frank Thorne’s new WWI silent saga ‘The Moon is the Murderer’ proving that overwhelming firepower isn’t everything…

Kubert’s ‘Behind the Cover’ features a prophetic dream and terrifying telegram, and ‘A Promise to Joe!’ (Kanigher & Novick, G.I. Combat #97 (December 1962-January 1963) sees a dead gunner seemingly save his friend from beyond the grave, after which the superb ‘Monsieur Gravedigger’ – by Jerry DeFuccio & legendary Reed Crandall – follows the follies of a sadistic Foreign Legionnaire who pushes his comrades too far. Cartoonist John Costanza delivers gag-packed ‘Military Madness’ and Kubert & Sam Glanzman offer a fact-packed ‘Sgt. Rock’s Battle Stations’ about ‘The Grenadier’ before Bill Finger, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito examine a young recruit’s rite of passage and development of ‘The Face of a Fighter’ (Our Fighting Forces #25, September 1957) before ‘Oasis’ concludes the sorry saga of that downed Aryan airman.

American Naval Aviators ditching at sea were the unwilling audience for Death’s stories as WWT #3 opens with Kubert’s ‘Listen…’ The roster starts with ‘Been Here Before!’ (Finger, Andru & Esposito, G.I. Combat #44 January 1957) as a soldier under fire turns his mind back to boyhood games to save the day, after which we see an aerial battle and parachute drop from the perspective of ‘The Cloud That Went to War!’ (Our Fighting Forces #17, January 1957) courtesy of Dave Wood, Andru & Esposito.

More Costanza comedy from ‘The Kreepy Korps!’ precedes an early tale by Len Wein & Marv Wolfman, ably illustrated by Heath as both cave tribes and modern soldiers battle to possess ‘The Pool’, before the artist’s earlier collaboration with Bob Haney reveals how ‘Combat Size!’ is all a matter of mental attitude in a tale from Our Army at War #66 (January 1958). After Glanzman’s ‘Battle Album’ explains ‘Flying Guns’, a finny friend helps a US submarine sink an aircraft carrier in Finger & Drucker’s ‘Pilot for a Sub!’ (OAaW #68, March 1958) and the issue ends as Kubert sends a ‘Lifeboat’ for those tragic aviators…

The fourth issue opens with Kubert’s final linking tale as a ‘Gypsy Girl’ and her family find wounded soldier Tony after his buddy runs off to get a medic. They kindly offer to pass the time with him, sharing stories like ‘Ghost Ship of Two Wars’ (Kanigher & Novick, All-American Men of War #81, September 1960) wherein an obsessed WWI pilot seemingly slips into 1944 while pursuing his unbeatable archenemy the Black Ace.

Kanigher & Gene Colan’s ‘Time Warp’ originally appeared as ‘The Dinosaur Who Ate Torpedoes!’ in SSWS #123 (October/November 1965 and part of the uniquely bizarre War That Time Forgot series), pitting US frogmen against colossal sea-going saurians, after which ‘The Unknown Sentinel’ (by author unknown & Mort Meskin from House of Mystery #55, October 1956) saves the lives of two soldiers lost on manoeuvres on America’s most famous battlefield.

Glanzman then offers one of his magnificently engaging autobiographical USS Stevens vignettes with all-new, elegiac ‘Prelude’ before Kubert wraps up his chilling drama as ‘I Know Them to be True’ sees medics arriving to find Tony a much-changed man, leaving Costanza to close things down with a laugh and some ‘Military Madness’.

Weird War Tales #5 opens with Haney & Alex Toth providing a book-end tale of ‘The Prisoner’ held by Nazis in Italy. Seeking a way out, he recalls tales of escape such as ‘The Toy Jet!’ (Haney & Heath, All-American Men of War#78, March/April 1960): a chilling psychological thriller about an interned pilot in North Korea. It’s followed by ‘Human Trigger’ (Herron, Andru & Esposito, Star Spangled War Stories #18, February 1954) which shows how a soldier lying on a mine deftly saves his own life…

Herron & Carmine Infantino then reveal how an US spy is forced to ‘Face a Firing Squad!’ (SSWS #14, November 1953) and Norman Maurer instructs with the history of ‘Medal of Honour: Corporal Gerry Kisters’ before Willi Franz & Heath detail the victory of a ‘Slave’ in Roman times and Haney & Toth offer final release in ‘This Is It!’

Issue #6 saw Weird War cut to a standard 36-page package and take a step into tomorrow with Haney & Toth’s battlefield test of ‘Robots’. Wolfman & Frank Thorne expanded the theme in ‘Pawns’ as humans and mechanoids finally decide who works for whom whilst ‘Goliath of the Western Front!’ (Herron, Andru & Esposito, SSWS #93 – October/November 1960) features a giant mechanical Nazi and American David who finally does for him, before Haney & Toth settle all debate with the conclusive ‘Robot Fightin’ Men’…

Wolfman & Kubert provide thematic bookends for #7, beginning with ‘Out of Action’ and wounded GIs awaiting the worst by trading tales like William Woolfolk, Jerry Grandenetti & Joe Giella’s ‘Flying Blind’ (OAaW #12, July 1953) wherein a wounded pilot must trust someone else for the first time in his life if he wants to land his burning jet. Kanigher & Kubert’s ‘The 50-50 War!’ (A-AMW #41, January 1957) finds sporting rivals forced to help each other after both suffer injuries on an alpine mission, with Costanza adding more welcome levity through his ‘Military Hall of Fame’. ‘The Three GIs’ (Finger & Heath, SSWS #62, October 1957) riffs smartly on those monkeys who respectively can’t see, hear and speak and the Purple Heart yarns end with Wolfman & Kubert’s chilling ‘I Can’t See’…

From WWT #8, editorial control switched to the Mystery division under Joe Orlando and with that reprints were shelved in favour of original material as publication frequency graduated from six times a year to monthly. This all-German-focused issue begins with a gruesome ‘Guide to No-Man’s Land’ (probably written by assistant editor E. Nelson Bridwell and illustrated by Tony DeZuñiga) before moving on to ‘The Avenging Grave’ (Kanigher & DeZuñiga) with SS officers learning too late the folly of desecrating the dead of WWI. Anonymously scripted ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill!’– with art by Steve Harper & Neal Adams – sees more gloating Nazis facing a vengeful golem. Kanigher & DeZuñiga return to reveal the fate of an arrogant 1916 air ace in the skies over No-Man’s Land in ‘Duel of the Dead’ before the artist’s ‘Epilogue’ wraps things up, whilst Weird War Tales #9 invites us to ‘Enter the Portals of War’ in an introduction drawn by Howard Chaykin, swiftly followed by a trio of Kanigher yarns illustrated by the cream of DC’s Filipino artists.

‘The Promise’ was limned by Alfredo P. Alcala, telling a tale in two eras as both Teutonic knights in 1242 and German tankers seven centuries later fail to cross frozen Lake Chud, whilst Gerry Talaoc renders the disastrous end of deathly, determined ‘Blood Brothers!’ during the American Civil War, and incomparable Alex Niño details ‘The Last Battle’ between East and West before Chaykin pops back to declare ‘Death, the Ultimate Winner’.

Sheldon Mayer & Toth open WWT #10 with a deliciously whimsical ghostly love story in ‘Who is Haunting the Haunted Chateau?’ before Raymond Marais & Quico Redondo change the tone as a Death-Camp commandant returns after the war to salvage ill-gotten gains from ‘The Room that Remembered’, whilst Wein & Walter Simonson – in the artist’s pro comics debut – reveal why invading Nazis shouldn’t abuse the town idiot, incurring the wrath of ‘Cyrano’s Army’…

Always experimental, the creative team of Mayer, DeZuñiga, Alcala, Talaoc & Niño tried their hand at a time-twisting complete adventure for #11. Occurring on ‘October 30? over 99 years beginning in 1918, the tale compares the progress of an ambitious German General granted a wish for glory by a treacherous spirit of war, with three ghostly Americans determined to fix a long-standing mistake whatever the cost…

DeZuñiga draws the introduction to #12, featuring tales of ‘Egypt’ starting with Kanigher & Talaoc’s tale of an ancient warlord who learned to regret spitting on the ‘God of Vengeance’, whilst ‘Hand of Hell’ (Kanigher & DeZuñiga) sees Anubis similarly deal with one of Rommel’s least reputable, most sadistic deputies. Arnold Drake & Don Perlin then switch locales to Roman Britain where a centurion takes an accidental time-trip and ultimately overthrows the Druids in ‘The Warrior and the Witch-Doctors!’

Weird War Tales #13 opens with Oleck & Nestor Redondo’s ‘The Die-Hards’, with Nazis realising there are even worse killers than they haunting their latest conquered village, before Drake & Niño determine that ‘Old Samurai Never Die’ when a would-be shogun offends the patron spirit of Bushido. ‘Loser’s Luck’ – by Michael J. Pellowski, George Kashdan & DeZuñiga – details harsh choices facing the unfortunate winners of the next, last war…

Mayer, DeZuñiga & Alcala reunite in #14 to tell an eerie tale of doomed love and military injustice from the days before Pearl Harbor which begins with a ‘Dream of Disaster’, incorporates a deadly flight with a ‘Phantom for a Co-Pilot’ and marines who arrive ‘Too Late for the Death March!’ before finally meeting ‘The Ghost of McBride’s Woman’ and vindicating an unsung hero…

A little lad enamoured of war’s glory learns a lesson in WWT #15 when his dead grandfather takes him back to WWI to see how ‘…Ace King Just Flew in from Hell’ (Drake & Perlin) before Oleck & Talaoc reveal the doom of ‘The Survivor’ of a Viking raid which offends a sorceress, and Oleck & Alcala detail the shocking fate of a fanatical crusader who succumbs to ‘The Ultimate Weapon’ of a Saracen wise man. Drake & Alcala describe transplant science gone mad in #16’s ‘More Dead than Alive!’, whilst the first of a Niño double bill sees him delineate Oleck’s ‘The Conquerors’ who eradicate humanity – but not the things that predate on them – whilst Drake’s ‘Evil Eye’ sees a little boy inflict hell’s wrath on both Allies and Axis alike…

In #17, Kanigher & George Evans disclose how a dishonourable French Air Ace is punished by ‘Dead Man’s Hands’ before Pellowski, E. Nelson Bridwell & Ernie Chan reveal how a murdered soldier is avenged by ‘A Gun Named Marie!’ WWT #18 has Drake & DeZuñiga sketch the brief career of ‘Captain Dracula!’ as he marauds through (mostly) German forces in Sicily before Mayer & Talaoc return for the cautionary tale of a greedy German sergeant in France whose avarice makes him easy prey for the ‘Whim of a Phantom!’

Drake & Talaoc start #19 with the full-length story of an agent who infiltrates the Nazi terror weapon known as ‘The Platoon That Wouldn’t Die!’, and #20 reverts to short stories with Oleck & Perlin’s ‘Death Watch’ of a doomed coward who should have waited one more day before deserting, before Drake & Alcala’s period saga of a witchcraft vendetta ‘Operation: Voodoo!’ and their Battle of Britain chiller wherein a burned-out fighter pilot learns ‘Death is a Green Man’.

This blockbusting blend of military mayhem, magical melee and martial madness concludes with Weird War Tales #21 and ‘One Hour to Kill!’ by Drake & Frank Robbins, wherein an American soldier is ordered to go back in time to assassinate Leonardo Da Vinci and prevent the invention of automatic weapons. Mayer & Bernard Baily then detail just how a foul-up GI becomes an unstoppable hero ‘When Death Took a Hand’…

Classily chilling, emotionally intense, superbly illustrated, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, this is a deliciously guilty pleasure that will astound and delight any lover of fantasy fiction and comics that work on plot invention rather than character compulsion.
© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1937 Herman creator Jim Unger was born, whilst in 1967, pioneering Golden Age artist Homer Fleming (Craig Kennedy, The Whip, Chuck Dawson, Captain Jim of the Texas Rangers, Classics Illustrated) died.

Also in 1967, British weeklies Pow! and Mandy both launched, as did tabloid treasure The Beezer way back in 1956 today.

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Lafcadio Hearn’s The Faceless Ghost and Other Macabre Tales from Japan: A Graphic Novel


By Seán Michael Wilson & Michiru Morikawa (Shambhala Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-61180-197-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

If you read prose and love old stories you should really track down the works of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek raconteur latterly renamed Koizumi Yakumo. They are wonderful and truly compelling. He was a pretty impressive character too, so you’d be best served to learn of his remarkable life too.

I’m not certain how the socially pioneering teacher, journalist, historian, translator and archivist would react to seeing some of his most engaging works translated into graphic narratives but as a renowned breaker of borders and flouter of taboos, I suspect he’d approve, even if this gleefully wry collation hadn’t been produced by such stellar luminaries as Scottish author Seán Michael Wilson (Breaking the Ten, Portraits of Violence – An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking, Ranald MacDonald: a manga of his adventures in Japan) and his frequent collaborator Michiru Morikawa.

Wilson’s life has some parallels with Hearn’s. The Japan-based writer, educator and dedicated Humanist has written political and philosophical tracts such as Goodbye God – An Illustrated Examination of Science Vs. Religion in graphic form and adapted Western and Eastern literary classics like Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol, Sweeney Todd, and Chinese classics Tao Te Ching and The Garden, as well as original genre pieces such as urban interracial romance The Story of Lee.

Illustrator and manga artist Michiru Morikawa won the 2005 International Manga and Anime Award before going on to illustrate Wilson’s books Buskers, Yakuza Moon, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts and Musashi, amongst numerous comics series.

Hearn visited Japan as a correspondent in 1890, and fell in love with the land and the culture. He ended his days there in 1904, after marrying, becoming a Japanese citizen, teaching in numerous schools and universities and introducing the western world to the exotic, enigmatic East through his writings and translations of its myths and legends.

Absurdly accessible, the tales here are gathered from the nation’s feudal period and open with a samurai yarn dubbed ‘Diplomacy’, wherein a highborn executioner performs his onerous task and plays a subtle and crafty trick upon the imminently departed to ensure that there will be no repercussions from beyond the grave…

That mordantly amusing distraction then gives way to a classic ghost story in ‘The Snow Woman’, wherein a young woodcutter survives an icy encounter with a mystical spirit at the cost of a simple promise. Tragically, in all such stories, keeping one’s word is always impossible and leads to appalling inescapable circumstances.

Vanity and dissatisfaction fuel the saga ‘Of a Mirror and a Bell’, after the priests of Mugenyama ask the local women to donate their bronze mirrors so they can be cast into a great bell. After complying, one farmer’s wife begins to bitterly regret her actions and so intense are her feelings that the mirror cannot be melted down.

Wracked with guilt for her shameful intentions and the spoiling of the bell, she takes her life, triggering a concatenation of unfortunate events…

After the history-making final clash between Heike (Taira) and Genji (Minamoto) clans, the rulership of Japan was decided for centuries to come. However, the consequent sea battle created thousands of ghosts and ‘Hoichi the Earless’ relates how a blind musician and bard is tricked and beguiled by these restless spirits until a Buddhist priest intervenes. The end result was not an unqualified success…

Pitiless, inescapable horror drives the brief yet potent tale of a luckless merchant who encounters ‘The Faceless Ghost’, whilst love and friendship inspire the story of a young man in need of a bride who prospers after he graciously saves a shark spirit and is uniquely rewarded by ‘The Gratitude of the Samebito’…

As recounted in the ‘Author’s Note’ – detailing the origins and source material of these adaptions – the stories are mostly taken from Hearn’s books Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903) and Shadowings (1900), and come packed with sleek, informative and delightfully rambling diversions which add fabulously engaging context to the stories.

Eerie, exotic and wonderfully compelling, these “yokai” stories are gems of unease, disquiet and wonder that no lover of the strange can fail to adore.
© 2015 by Sean Michael Wilson. Illustrations © 2015 by Michiru Morikawa. All rights reserved.

Today in 1894 Little Orphan Annie creator Harold Gray was born, as was George (Green Arrow, Superboy, Congo Bill) Papp in 1916 and Scots pen & pencil wizard John McLusky (James Bond, Secret Agent 13, Laurel and Hardy, Pink Panther, Look and Learn) in 1923. In 1944 Bill (Zippy the Pinhead) Griffith joined the world as did Keith Pollard (Thor, Fantastic Four, Vigilante) in 1950.

On the debit side the world lost caricaturist, cartoonist and father of French animation Émile Cohl in 1938 and in 2017, master draughtman, painter, educator, film production artist, comics star and thoroughly sound bloke John Watkiss (Sandman, Ring of Roses, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Deadman, Starman).

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Who Killed Nessie?


By Paul Cornell & Rachael Smith (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-23-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

The world is not as you imagine.

Actually, it probably is and the cosy creepy mystery that unfolds here will happily confirm it for you. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?

The hospitality industry has been through some tough times lately and generally tries extra hard to keep even the most difficult of customers happy. That’s especially true of repeat gigs, as new hire Lindsay Grockle discovers when she’s left in sole charge of the Lakeside Hotel near Turoga, Wisconsin. She’s three weeks on the job and the entire staff have entrusted her with running, supervising and accommodating an annual convention. Apparently they’re lovely but a bit weird and she should expect a lot of strange appearances and pretty intense cosplay…

Prepped but nervous, the hordes arrive (57 guests actually!) and settle in. As she was warned Lindsay learns they take their role-playing really seriously. At least it’s all familiar stuff – monsters, cryptids, fairies, legendary beasts and the like – giving Grockle time to stew in what went wrong in her recent bust-up and ponder what life’s all about…

Sadly, things go south on the first night after a great deal of alcohol has been consumed all around. Awakened by a very upset but remarkably poised and composed talking cat (The Beast of Bodmin Moor or “Bob” to you) Lyndsay is informed that one of the guests – The Loch Ness Monster – has been murdered… and, by the way, all the guests are actual magic-infused monsters, fairies, legendary beasts and the like…

Once she’s properly convinced that she’s awake and it’s all happening, Grockle grudgingly takes on the job of finding the killer: trudging through bizarre relationships, outré politics, wild historical grudges and all the traditional tawdriness that comes with a domestic killing as opposed to (say) slaying a dragon or facing a gorgon…

Depressed and overwhelmed, Grockle persists against a wall of weird mis- and dis-information: probing, interviewing, crosschecking and visiting the underworld to question the victim (a rare perk in most murder cases); and slowly a pattern forms. Hopefully she can resolve it before the regular staff turn up on Monday morning and before the next murder attempt succeeds…

Crafted by multi award-winning wordsmith Paul Cornell (screen, podcast, prose and comics pages) who has crafted tales of everything from Doctor Who to Sherlock Holmes and Batman to Wolverine – as well as his many self-originated series and star, this fabulously wry and charming chiller is rendered by equally award-winning illustrator Rachael Smith, whose other delights include NAP COMIX, Doctor Who, Wired Up Wrong, Quarantine Comix and Isabella & Blodwen.

Beguiling, subversive, intensely absorbing and delightfully full-on and off-kilter, Who Killed Nessie? is a smart and witty foray of froth and fantasy no one with dreams and wishes still to enjoy should miss.
© Paul Cornell, Rachael Smith, 2025. All rights reserved.

Today in 1932 was born everyman Jack Caprio; writer, agent, artist, editor of Creator’s Syndicate and Vice President of the National Cartoonists Society. One thing he didn’t do was create Hergé’s Jo, Zette and Jocko which launched today in 1936.

In 1948 Joe (E-Man, Dick Tracy, Scooby Doo, everything) Staton was born, just like Tom (Swamp Thing, Prince Valiant) Yeates in 1955. Ella Cinders cartoonist Charles Plumb died in 1982, and we lost George Woodbridge (Mad Magazine) in 2004 as well as Dutch cartoonist Jan Kruis (Jan, Jans en de Kinderen/Jack, Jacky and the Juniors) in 2017.

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The Phantom – The Complete Series: The Gold Key Years volume 1


By Bill Harris & Bill Lignante with George Wilson (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-005-5 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the 17th century a British sailor survived an attack by pirates, and, washing ashore in Africa, swore on the skull of his murdered father to dedicate his life and that of all his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights crime and injustice from a base deep in the jungles of Bengali, and throughout Africa is known as the “Ghost Who Walks…

His unchanging appearance ad unswerving quest for justice have led to him being considered an immortal avenger by the credulous and the wicked. Down the decades one hero after another has fought and died in an unbroken line, and the latest wearer of the mask, indistinguishable from the first, continues the never-ending battle.

Lee Falk created the Jungle Avenger at the request of his syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed hero in comics, The Phantom was the prototype paladin to wear a skintight bodystocking, and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits.

He debuted on February 17th 1936 in an extended sequence pitting him against a global confederation of pirates – the Singh Brotherhood. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing artist Ray Moore the illustration side. The Sunday feature began in May 1939. For such a successful, long-lived and influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic novel collections The Phantom has been very poorly served by the English language market. Various small companies have tried to collect the strips – one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history – but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success.

However, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians, who have long been manic devotees of the implacable champion) surely “Kit Walker” is worthy of a definitive chronological compendium series?

Happily, his comic book adventures have fared slightly better – at least in recent times.

In the 1960’s King Features Syndicate dabbled with a newsstand line of their biggest stars – Flash Gordon, Mandrake, Popeye and The Phantom – but immediately prior to that, the Ghost Who Walks held a solo starring vehicle under the broad and effective aegis of veteran licensed properties publisher Gold Key Comics.

This superb chronological compendium gathers the first eight issues – cover-dates November 1962 through August 1964 – and, as explained in fan/scholar Ed Rhoades’ Introduction ‘The Phantom and the Silver Age’, offers newspaper strip tales originally illustrated by Wilson McCoy that were adapted by original scripter Bill Harris and redrawn in comic book format by Bill Lignante. The Phantom was no stranger to funnybooks, having appeared since the Golden Age in titles such as Feature Book and Harvey Hits, but only in straight strip reprints. His Gold Key exploits were tailored to a big page and a young readership. The fascinating history lesson is also augmented by pages of original artwork and ends much too soon for my elevated tastes, but if you’re a fan of pictorial adventure there’s plenty more to enjoy.

Each issue was fronted by a stunning painted cover by George Wilson and the excitement kicks off here with ‘The Game’ (The Phantom #1, November 1962) as the international man of mystery encounters Prince Ragon Gil, whose idea of fun is to pit abducted, bought or bribed strangers against ferocious beasts. When an interfering masked man closes down his warped games, the eastern potentate swears vengeance and kidnaps the hero’s fiancée Diana Palmer. His plan is to force the interloper to play his savage game, but it’s his last mistake…

That premiere issue concludes with a single-page recap of the legend of The Phantom before #2 (February 1963) resumes the wildwood wonderment with ‘The Rattle’ as an exploit from The Phantom’s ancestral past flares up again after tiny bird-riding barbarians start stealing from the local tribes. The current ghost must crack the casebooks of his forefathers and penetrate a most inhospitable region to get to the bottom of the mystery and bring peace back to the jungle…

A second story taps into contemporary Flying Saucer interest as our hero encounters aliens intent on conquest. Thankfully, the purple-clad subject of ‘The Test’ proves sufficient to change their inquiring extraterrestrial minds…

History’s greatest treasures are stored in ghost’s fabulous Skull Cave, and the first tale in #3 (May 1963) relates how a rescued white man glimpses ‘The Diamond Cup’ of Alexander the Great and accidentally triggers a greed-fuelled crusade by eager criminals and ambitious chancers before the Ghost Who Walks finally restores peace and order. Rounding out the issue, ‘The Crybaby’ finds frail village boy Cecil given a crash course in confidence and exercise by the enigmatic masked man. The experience is literally life-changing…

For #4 (August) disgraced, fraud-perpetrating witchmen strike back against The Phantom through their manufactured deity ‘Oogooru’, only to be shown what real sleight-of-hand and prestidigitation can achieve, after which ocean voyager Kit Walker solves the enigma of vile vanishing villains the ‘Goggle-Eye Pirates’…

Two centuries previously, The Phantom established a police force dubbed The Jungle Patrol with himself as its titular but anonymous head. In #5 (October) those worthy stalwarts are almost outfoxed by a devious gang of bandits known as ‘The Swamp Rats’ – until the unseen Commander takes personal charge.

The big innovation of the issue is the premiere of a new episodic feature detailing ‘The Phantom’s Boyhood’, as a baby is born in the Skull Cave. Tracing the formative experiences of the current Phantom, the initial yarn follows little Kit from toddler to dawn of adolescence, when his parents regretfully decide it’s time to pack him off to private school in America…

The Phantom #6 (February 1964) leads with ‘The Lady from Nowhere’ as heiress Lydia Land is thrown from a plane and rescued by the masked manhunter. Soon he’s dogging her steps to track down which trusted associate was trying to silence her and steal her fortune…

A life-changing meeting shapes the destiny of the hero-to-be in ‘The Phantom’s Boyhood Part II – Diana’ as Kit falls for the girl next door and makes his mark amongst the cads and bullies of the civilised world.

The peaceful villages of the jungle are thrown into turmoil by the thieving depredations of ‘The Super Apes’ (#7, May) until the Jungle Patrol and The Phantom expose their shocking secret whilst ‘The Phantom’s Boyhood Part III – School’ finds the African émigré making his mark in the classroom, on the playing fields and in the newspapers…

The Phantom #8 (August) closes this initial outing with an epic extra-length tale of vengeance as the current Ghost Who Walks finally tracks down ‘The Belt’ and dispenses the Phantom’s justice to the villain who killed his father and stole it…

Straightforward, captivating rollicking action-adventure has always been the staple of The Phantom. If that sounds like a good time to you, this is a traditional nostalgia-fest you won’t want to miss…

The Phantom® © 1962-1964 and 2011 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Today in 1908 publishing Svengali and Marvel Comics godfather Martin Goodman was born. Graphic philosopher and storyteller supreme Raymond Briggs arrived today in 1934, as did artistic Mon o’ Mystery “Frank Quitely” in 1968. Sadly he was far too young to ever collaborate with the amazing Bill (Batman, Green Lantern, Wildcat, Robin, Joker, Catwoman, Batgirl, Bat-Mite, Ace, the Bat-Hound, Lana Lang, All Winners Squad) Finger, who passed away today in 1974.

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Popeye Classics volume 1


By Bud Sagendorf, edited and designed by Craig Yoe (Yoe Books/IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-557-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-62302-264-8

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are few comic characters that have entered communal world consciousness, but a grizzled, bluff, uneducated, visually impaired old sailor with a speech impediment is possibly the most well-known of that select bunch.

Elzie Segar had been producing Thimble Theatre since December 19th 1919, but when he introduced a coarse, brusque “sailor man” into the saga of Ham Gravy and Castor Oyl on January 17th 1929, nobody suspected the giddy heights that walk-on would reach…

Happy birthday, Sailor Man!

In 1924 Segar created a second daily strip The 5:15: a surreal domestic comedy featuring weedy commuter and would-be inventor John Sappo and his formidable wife Myrtle which endured – in one form or another – as a topper/footer-feature accompanying the main Sunday page throughout the author’s career. It survived his untimely death, eventually becoming the trainee-playground of Popeye’s second great stylist Bud Sagendorf.

After Segar’s tragic, far too premature death in 1938, Doc Winner, Tom Sims, Ralph Stein and Bela Zambouly all worked on the strip even as animated features brought Popeye to the entire world. Sadly, none of them had the eccentric flair and raw inventiveness that had put Thimble Theatre at the forefront of cartoon entertainments. Nonetheless, the strip continues to this day, with new Sunday episodes written and drawn by R. K. Milholland, whilst daily episodes are reprints by that man Sagendorf.

Born in 1915, Forrest “Bud” Sagendorf was barely 17 when his sister – who worked in the Santa Monica art store where Segar bought his supplies – introduced the kid to the master. Segar became his teacher and employer as well as a father-figure and, in 1958, Sagendorf took over the strip and all merchandise design duties, becoming Popeye’s prime originator…

When Sagendorf took over, his loose, rangy style and breezy inspired scripts brought the strip back to the forefront of popularity. Bud made reading it cool and fun all over again. He wrote and drew Popeye in every graphic arena for 24 years. Sagendorf died in 1994 after which Underground cartoonist Bobby London took over.

Bud had been Segar’s assistant and apprentice, and from 1948 onwards he wrote and drew Popeye’s comic book adventures in a regular monthly title published by America’s king of licensed periodicals, Dell Comics. When Popeye first appeared, he was a rude, crude brawler: a gambling, cheating, uncivilised ne’er-do-well. He was soon exposed as the ultimate working class hero: raw and rough-hewn, practical, but with an innate, unshakable sense of what’s fair and what’s not, a joker who wanted kids to be themselves – but not necessarily Good – and someone who took no guff from anyone. Naturally, as his popularity grew, Popeye mellowed somewhat. He was still ready to defend the weak and had absolutely no pretensions or aspirations to rise above his fellows, but time and popularity eroded that power.

Such was not the case in Sagendorf’s comic book yarns…

Collected in their entirety in this beguiling full-colour hardback or digital edition are the first four 52-page quarterly funnybooks produced by the Young Master, spanning February/April 1948 to November 1948/January 1949.

These stunning, seemingly stream-of-consciousness stories are preceded by an effusively appreciative Introduction – ‘Society of Sagendorks’ – by inspired aficionado, historian and publisher Craig Yoe accompanied by a fabulous collation of candid photos and letters, plus strip proofs, original comicbook art and commissioned paintings, an Activity Book cover and greetings card designs contained in ‘A Bud Sagendorf Scrapbook’.

Popeye‘s fantastic first issue launched in February 1948 with no ads and duo-coloured (black & red) single page strips on the inside front and back covers. The initial instant episode finds mighty muscled, irrepressible “infink” Swee’ Pea enquiring ‘Were There Ever Any Pirates Around Here?’ before doing a bit of digging, after which full-coloured extended fun begins with ‘Shame on You! or Gentlemen Do Not Fight! or You’re a Ruffian, Sir!’

As everyone knows, the salty swab earns a lucrative living as an occasional prizefighter and here upcoming contender Kid Kabagge and his cunning manager Mr. Tillbox use a barrage of psychological tricks to put Popeye off his game. The key component is electing Olive Oyl President of the deeply bogus Anti-Fisticuff Society to convince her man to stop being a beastly ruffian and abandon violence. That only works until the fiery frail learns she’s been gulled…

Swee’ Pea then stars in ‘Map Back! Or Back Map!’ as sinister unprincipled villain Sam Snagg tattoos an invisible secret diagram onto the baby’s body(!) before falling foul of the boy’s garrulous guardian when trying to reclaim the kid and divine the location of Spinachovia’s hidden treasures. Wrapping up the full-length action is ‘Spinach Revolt’ as Popeye’s perfidious pater Poopdeck Pappy kicks up a fuss about constantly having to eat healthy food…

As the first Superman of comics, Popeye was not a comfortable hero to idolise. A brute who thought with his fists and had no respect for authority, he was uneducated, short-tempered, fickle (when hot tomatoes batted their eyelashes – or thereabouts – at him); an aggressive troublemaker, who wasn’t welcome in polite society… and wouldn’t want to be. Time changed Popeye and made him tamer but the shocking sense of unpredictability, danger and anarchy he initially provided was sorely missed… so in 1936 Segar brought it back again…

A memorable and riotous sequence of Dailies introduced ancient, antisocial crusty reprobate Poopdeck Pappy. The elder mariner was a hard-bitten, grumpy lout quite prepared – even happy – to cheat, steal or smack a woman around if she stepped out of line. He was Popeye’s prodigal dad and once the old goat was firmly established, Segar set Olive and her Sailor Man the Herculean task of “Civilizing Poppa”. Even at the time of this tale that’s still very much a work in progress…

Fed up with eating spinach, Pappy hides his meals and steals the wherewithal to secretly subsist on a diet of candy, cakes and sodas. He even inveigles the lad next door into being the mule in his scurrilous scheme, but cannot evade the digestive consequences of his actions…

The premiere outing ends with a brace of single pagers detailing how Swee’ Pea deals with persistent salesmen and a day’s fishing before issue #2 commences…

Master moocher Wellington J. Wimpy again has cause to declare ‘Sir! You are a cheapskate!’ before Swee’ Pea & Popeye are swept up in a controversial debate. In ‘That’s What I Yam! or ‘I Yam! I Yam’, the sailor believes his baby boy tough enough to wander around town unsupervised but has reasons to revise his opinion after the kid vanishes. Moreover, when he does resurface, the titanic tyke is subject to strange transformations and behaviours. It’s as if a class of trainee hypnotists have all been using the kid as a practise subject but forgot to bring him out of his trance afterward…

Pappy stars in ‘Easy Money’, with the greedy reprobate realising how much cash his sterling son earns for each boxing bout. Determined to get on the gravy train too, the oldster shaves off his beard and impersonates Popeye. By the time his boy catches wise, Pappy has conned Olive and Wimpy into his scheme and set up a punishing bout with a huge purse, so somebody is going to have to fight…

The issue ends with a two-tone short showing the hazards of bathing Swee’Pea and another full colour back cover gag as a bullying neighbour realises the folly of trying to spank Popeye’s boy…

Popeye #3 leads with an epic 32-page spooky maritime epic as the superstitious sailor reluctantly agrees to transport 250 “ghosk” traps to ghastly, radish – and phantom – infested ‘Ghost Island’: a cunning yarn of mystery and over-zealous imagination starring many cast regulars and preceded by a hilarious map of the route replacing the inside-front-cover gag…

Following up is an implausible account of Popeye apparently becoming a violent bully, beating up ordinary citizens in ‘Smash! or You Can Tell She’s My Girl, Because She’s Wearing Two Black Eyes!’ Happily, a doctor at the sailor’s trial is able to diagnose the incredible truth before things go too far, after which Swee’Pea indulges in too much sugar in the red & black bit and learns the manly way to play with dolls on the colour back cover…

The fourth and final inclusion in this outrageous, timelessly wonderful compilation begins with Wimpy up to his old tricks whilst Popeye hunts ducks, before another extended odyssey finds the Sailor Man and hangers-on Swee’Pea, Olive & Wimpy heading West on safari to capture a rare Ipomoea from sagebrush hellhole ‘Dead Valley’…

It’s a grim wilderness Popeye has endured before: an arid inferno no sane man would want to revisit unless a scientist hired him to. Sadly, that’s not the opinion of local bandit boss Dead Valley Joe who assigns all his scurvy gang the task of dissuading or despatching the uppity easterners before they uncover the region’s incredible secret…

Back home again, Olive Oyl receives a surprise ‘Gift from Uncle Ben!’ Sadly, the strange flying beast called a Zoop prefers Swee’Pea’s company, and her warm generosity in donating the beast takes a hard knock when a stranger offers a million bucks for it…

One final brace of Swee’ Pea shorts then sees the wily kid orchestrate free baseball views for his pals before indulging in food politics to win over a stray cat and wrap up in amiable style these jolly, captivating cartoon capers.

There is more than one Popeye. If your first thought on hearing the name is an unintelligible, indomitable white-clad sailor always fighting a great big beardy bloke and mainlining tinned spinach, that’s okay: the animated features have a brilliance and energy of their own (even the later, watered-down anodyne TV versions have some merit) and they are indeed based on the grizzled, crusty, foul-mouthed, bulletproof, golden-hearted old swab who shambled his way into Thimble Theatre and wouldn’t leave. But they are really only the tip of an incredible iceberg of satire, slapstick, virtue, vice and mind-boggling adventure…

There is more than one Popeye. Most of them are pretty good, and some are truly excellent. This book is definitely one of the latter and if you love lunacy, laughter and rollicking adventure you must now read this.
Popeye Classics volume 1 © 2013 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Popeye © 2013 King Features Syndicate. ™ & © Heart Holdings Inc.

Today in 1851 pioneering US illustrator A/B. Frost (Br’er Rabbit) was born, and in 1877 Australian artist Cecilia May Gibbs (Gumnut Babies/Bush Babies/Bush Fairies, Bib and Bub, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Tiggy Touchwood).

In 1920 epic UK weekly comic Film Fun began with the first of its 2225 issues. Never appearing therein was erotic cartoonist Georges (Blanche Épiphanie) Pichard who was born in the same year.

One year later Cuban Spy vs Spy/Mad magazine mastermind Antonio Prohias was born. As was Spanish artist Alfonso Azpiri (Black Hawk [UK Tornado], Bethlehem Steele, Lorna) in 1947 and Ann Nocenti in 1957 and the astonishing Genndy Tartakovsky in 1970.

Sadly we lost Belgian Pascal Garray in 2017, a quiet star who worked for years largely unheralded on The Smurfs, and Benoît Brisefer/Steven Sterk/Benny Breakiron.

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DC Finest: Superman – The Invisible Luthor


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Jack Burnley, Paul Lauretta, Wayne Boring, Jack Burnley, Paul Cassidy, Ed Dobrotka, Leo Nowak, Fred Ray, John Sikela, Dennis Neville, Don Komisarow, lettered by Frank Shuster, Betty Burnley Bentley, the Superman Studio & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-332-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Nearly 90 years ago, Superman rebooted planetary mythology and kickstarted the entire genre of modern fantasy heroes. Outlandish, flamboyant, indomitable, infallible and unconquerable, he also saved a foundering industry by birthing an entirely new genre of storytelling: the Super Hero. Since April 18th 1938 (the generally agreed day copies of Action Comics #1 first went on sale) he has grown into a mighty presence in all aspects of art, culture and commerce, even as his natal comic book universe organically grew and expanded. Within three years of that debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment that had hallmarked the early exploits of the Man of Tomorrow had grown: encompassing crime-busting, reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy and even whimsical comedy. However, once the war in Europe and the East captured America’s communal consciousness, combat themes and patriotic imagery dominated most comic book covers, if not interiors.

In comic book terms alone Superman was soon a true master of the world, utterly changing the shape of the fledgling industry as easily as he could a mighty river. There was a popular newspaper strip, a thrice-weekly radio serial, games, toys, foreign and overseas syndication and as the decade turned, the Fleischer studio’s astounding animated cartoons.

Moreover, the quality of the source material was increasing with every four-colour release as the energy and enthusiasm of originators Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster went on to inform and infect the burgeoning studio which grew around them to cope with the relentless demand.

These tales have been reprinted many times, but this latest compilation might arguably be the best yet, offering the original stories in reading – if not strictly chronological publishing – order and spanning cover-dates July 1940 to September 1941. It features landmark sagas from Action Comics #26-40 and Superman #6-11, plus pivotal appearances in New York’s World Fair No. 2, World’s Best Comics #1 and World’s Finest Comics #2 & 3 (all with eye-catching groundbreaking covers by Jack Burnley). Although most early tales were untitled, here, for everyone’s convenience, they have been given descriptive appellations by the editors, and I should also advise that as far as we know it’s written entirely by Seigel, with the majority of covers by Fred Ray (unless I say otherwise!).

This incredible panorama of torrid tales opens with gangsters attempting to plunder jewels from exhibits at the biggest show on earth. Taken from premium package New York World’s Fair #2, ‘Superman at the 1940 World’s Fair’ is credited to Siegel & Schuster, but actually illustrated by Burnley who also provided the first ever pairing of the Man of Tomorrow with Dynamic Duo Batman and Robin on the cover to drag readers in…

Siegel & Shuster had created a true phenomenon and were struggling to cope with it. As well as monthly and bimonthly comics a new quarterly publication, initially World’s Best and ultimately World’s Finest Comics – springing from the success of the publisher’s New York World’s Fair comic-book tie-ins – would soon debut with their indefatigable hero featuring prominently in it. Superman’s daily newspaper strip began on 16th January 1939 (Yes! Today but back then!), with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th: garnering millions of new devotees. The need for new material and creators was constant and oppressive, so expansion was the watchword at the Superman and Shuster studios.

On the primary pages though, Action Comics#26 (July 1940) introduced ‘Professor Cobalt’s Clinic’ (limned by Pauls Lauretta & Cassidy with Siegel inking and Frank Shuster lettering) wherein Clark Kent & Lois Lane expose a murderous sham Health Facility with a little Kryptonian help, whilst the following month dealt a similar blow to corrupt orphanage the ‘Brentwood Home for Wayward Youth’. September’s issue found Superman at the circus, solving the mystery of ‘The Strongarm Assaults’, a fast-paced thriller beautifully illustrated by the astonishingly talented and versatile Burnley. Whilst thrilling to all that, kids of the time could also have picked up the sixth issue of Superman (cover-dated September/October 1940). Produced by Siegel and the Superman Studio, with Shuster increasingly overseeing and only drawing key figures and faces, this contained four more lengthy adventures. Behind its Shuster & Cassidy cover, ‘Lois Lane, Murderer’, and ‘Racketeer Terror in Gateston’ by Cassidy had the Man of Action saving his plucky co-worker from a dastardly frame up and rescuing a small town from a mob invasion. An infomercial for the Supermen of America club and the secrets of attaining ‘Super Strength’ as shared by Burnley, Shuster & Cassidy follows. These lead to more adventure and action from Lauretta & Cassidy as ‘Terror Stalks San Caluma’ and ‘The Construction Scam’ sees the Man of Tomorrow foil a blackmailer who’s discovered his secret identity before spectacularly fixing a corrupt company’s shoddy, death-trap buildings.

Action Comics #29 (October 1940) again features Burnley art in a gripping tale of murder for profit. Human drama in ‘The Life Insurance Con’ was followed by deadly super-science as the mastermind Zolar created ‘The Midsummer Snowstorm’, allowing Burnley a rare opportunity to display his fantastic imagination as well as his representational acumen and dexterity. Then Superman #7 (November/December1940) marked a creative sea-change as occasional cover artist Wayne Boring became Schuster’s regular inker, whilst seeing the Man of Steel embroiled in local politics when he confronts ‘Metropolis’ Most Savage Racketeers’; quells manmade disasters in ‘The Exploding Citizens’; stamps out City Hall corruption in ‘Superman’s Clean-Up Campaign’ (illustrated fully by Boring) and puts villainous high society bandits ‘The Black Gang’ where they belong… behind iron bars.

For Action # 31 Burnley draws another high-tech crime caper as crooks put an entire city to sleep and only Clark Kent isn’t ‘In the Grip of Morpheus’ after which ‘The Gambling Rackets of Metropolis’ (AC #32) finds Lois almost institutionalised until the Big Guy steps up to crush an illicit High Society operation that has wormed its nefarious way into the loftiest echelons of Government, a typical Siegel social drama magnificently illustrated.

Cover-dated January/February 1941, Superman #8 was another spectacular and wildly varied compendium containing four big adventures ranging from fantastic fantasy in ‘The Giants of Professor Zee’ (Cassidy & Boring); topical suspense in spotlighting ‘The Fifth Column’ (Boring & Komisarow) and common criminality in ‘The Carnival Crooks’ (Cassidy) before concluding with cover-featured ‘Parrone and the Drug Gang’ (Boring), wherein the Metropolis Marvel duels doped-up thugs and corrupt lawyers controlling them.

Action Comics #33 & 34 are both Burnley extravaganzas wherein Superman goes north to discover ‘Something Amiss at the Lumber Camp’, before heading to coal country to save ‘The Beautiful Young Heiress’; both superbly enticing character-plays with plenty of scope for super-stunts to thrill the gasping fans.

Superman #9 (March/April 1941) was another four-star thriller with all art credited to Cassidy. ‘The Phony Pacifists’ is an espionage thriller capitalising on increasing US tensions over “the European War” whilst ‘Joe Gatson, Racketeer’ recounts the sorry end of a hot-shot blackmailer and kidnapper. ‘Mystery in Swasey Swamp’ combines eerie rural events with ruthless spies whilst the self-explanatory ‘Jackson’s Murder Ring’ pits the Caped Kryptonian against an ingenious gang of commercial assassins. The issue also improves health and well-being with another Shuster & Cassidy ‘Supermen of America’ update and exercise feature ‘Super-Strength’ by Shuster.

The success of the annual World’s Fair premium comic books had convinced editors that an over-sized anthology of their characters, with Superman and Batman prominently featured, would be a worthwhile proposition even at the exorbitant price of 15¢ (most 64-page titles retailed for 10¢ and would do so until the 1960s). At 96 pages, World’s Best Comics #1 debuted with a Spring 1941 cover-date and Fred Ray frontage, before transforming into the soon-to-be-venerable World’s Finest Comics from issue #2 onwards. From that landmark one-&-only edition comes gripping disaster thriller ‘Superman vs. the Rainmaker’, illustrated by Boring & Komisarow, after which Action Comics #35 headlines a human-interest tale with startling repercussions in Boring & Leo Nowak’s ‘The Guybart Gold Mine’, before even Superman is mightily stretched to cope with the awesome threat of ‘The Enemy Invasion’ rendered by Boring & Shuster: a canny, foreboding taste of things to come if – or rather, when – America entered World War II.

Superman #10 (May/June 1941) opens with eponymous mystery ‘The Invisible Luthor’ (Nowak), follows with ‘The Talent Agency Fraud’ (Cassidy, Nowak, Siegel & the Studio), steps on the gas in ‘The Spy Ring of Righab Bey’ and closes with ‘The Dukalia Spy Ring’ (both by Boring, Siegel & the Studio): topical and exotic themes of suspense as America was still at this time still officially neutral in the “European War”. Conversely, Action Comics #37 (June 1941) returned to tales of graft, crime and social injustice in ‘Commissioner Kent’ (Cassidy) as the Man of Steel’s timid alter-ego is forced to run for the job of Metropolis’ top cop, before World’s Finest Comics #2 (Summer 1941) unleashes Cassidy & Nowak’s ‘The Unknown X’ – a fast-paced mystery of sinister murder-masterminds, before AC #38 (and Nowak & Ed Dobrotka) provide a spectacular battle bout against a sinister hypnotist committing crimes through ‘Radio Control’…

Other than a Cassidy pinup, Superman #11 (July/August 1941) was an all Nowak affair, beginning with ‘Zimba’s Gold Badge Terrorists’ wherein thinly disguised Nazis “Blitzkrieg” America, after which “giant animals” go on a rampage in ‘The Corinthville Caper’. Seeking a cure for ‘The Yellow Plague’ then takes Superman to the ends of the Earth whilst ‘The Plot of Count Bergac’ brings him back home to crush High Society gangsters. All by Nowak but accompanied by a Cassidy pinup.

Horrific mad science creates ‘The Radioactive Man’ in Action #39 (Nowak & Shuster Studios), whilst #40 featured ‘The Billionaire’s Daughter’ (by John Sikela) wherein the mighty Man of Tomorrow needs all his wits to set straight a spoiled debutante before we closing with ‘The Case of the Death Express’: a tense thriller about train-wreckers illustrated by Nowak from the Fall issue of World’s Finest (#3).

Stories of corruption and social injustice were gradually moving aside for more spectacular fare, and with war in the news and clearly on the horizon, the tone and content of Superman’s adventures changed too: the scale and scope of the stunts became more important than the motive. The raw passion and sly wit still shone through in Siegel’s stories but as the world grew more dangerous the Man of Tomorrow simply had to become stronger and more flamboyant to deal with it all, with Shuster and his team consequently stretching and expanding the iconography for all imitators and successors to follow.

These Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price. My admiration for the stripped-down purity and power of these stories is boundless. Nothing has ever come near them for joyous, child-like perfection. You really should make them part of your life. In fact, how can you possibly resist them?
© 1940, 1941, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1939 Jean Van Hamme (XIII, Thorgal, Largo Winch) was born, which you now know was the same moment – allowing for time zone differentials – that the Superman newspaper strip launched. It ended in 1966 but Van Hamme’s still going…

In 1960 UK comic Judy debuted, and ten years later so did Garth Ennis.

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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: 978-1-905460-46-5 (Album TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s anniversary time again! Today in 1962 something smart and wildly wicked first appeared, and just hung around. Please read on…

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of (if not The) most prolific, most-read writers of comic strips the world had ever seen. He still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course, Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the dazzling, dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical skulduggery perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sand…

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to those hotly-contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish émigré Jean Tabary (1930-2011). He numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips but found a moment to detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah. However, it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud who stole the show – possibly the conniving little imp’s only successful coup…

The notion of the series apparently came from a throwaway moment in Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas, but – once it was fully formed and independent – Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created to join the roster in Record, with the first episode appearing in the January 15th 1962 issue. An assured if relatively minor hit, the strip jumped ship to Pilote – a picture-packed periodical created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little ratbag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on multiple levels: for youngsters it’s a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a-cropper, whilst older, wiser heads revel in pun-filled, witty satires and astoundingly wry yet accessible episodic comic capers. Just like our Parliament today. That latter aspect is investigated in this collection of short episodes…

This same magic formula (no, I’m being figurative, not literal) made its more famous cousin Asterix a monolithic global success and – just like the saga of the indomitable Gaul – our irresistibly addictive Arabian Nit was originally adapted into English by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge, who made those Franco-Roman Follies so very palatable to British tastes. Always, deliciously malicious whimsy is heavily dosed with manic absurdity, cleverly contemporary cultural critiques and brilliantly delivered creative anachronisms which serve to keep the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and hilariously inventive. However, like so many comics inventions, the series grew beyond its boundaries…

The retooled series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly growing into a massive European hit, with 31 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel & Nicolas after his passing in 2011); his own solo comic; a computer game; animated film, TV cartoon show and a live-action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977, Tabary started scripting his own sublimely stylish tales (from the 13th album onwards), gradually switching to book-length complete adventures, rather than the compilations of short, punchy vignettes which typified the collaborations.

In October 1974, whilst the shifty shenanigans were unfolding to the delight of kids, its sand-struck star began moonlighting. Pulling double duty as a commentator and critic of real-world politics and social issues in French newspapers the little wart scored a side hustle with a sidebar series that began as a statement and grew into a separate second career for the vindictive viper. Some oiks, like sand, just get everywhere…

So, what’s it all about?

Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to Haroun Al Plassid, Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the conniving little shyster 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 generous – in his endeavours and schemes by 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 as an ensorcelled Prince who can only regain human form if smooched by a human being.

Iznogoud sees an opportunity if he can only trick the simple-minded Caliph into puckering up; unfortunately but typically, the little rotter forgets that he’s not the only ambitious upstart 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’ wherein a comic artist desperate to meet his deadlines falls foul of a mystical time cabinet. However, when he meets the vizier, that diminutive dastard can clearly see its Caliph-removing potential… to his eternal regret…

Soon after in ‘The Picnic’ Iznogoud takes drastic action, luring Haroun Al Plassid into the desert, but as usual his best-laid plans really aren’t, before we conclude with ‘Chop and Change’ as our indefatigable villain obtains a magic goblet that 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 is a household name in France; said term has even entered French political life as a description for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and usually short in stature…

Eight albums were originally translated into English during the 1970s and 1980s without really making any little impact here, but once Cinebook’s revival the vile Vizier finally caught on in a superb sequence of gloriously readable and wonderfully affordable comedy epics that found an appreciative audience among British kids of all ages. That said, it’s been a while since the last one, but perhaps that’s the setting not the stories…
© 1967 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1905, the last episode of Gustave Verbeek’s The Upside Downs ran in the New York Herald and in 1924 writer Stan Kay (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Sad Sack, Fraggle Rock, The Muppets) was born. Practically yesterday, writer Scott Snyder (American Vampire. Batman. Justice Leafue) was born in 1976 whilst ten years later we lost Alfred Bestall of Rupert Bear fame.

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Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Mike Royer, Vince Colletta, Don Heck, D. Bruce Berry, Greg Theakston, Mike Thibodeaux, Dick Giordano, Mike Machlan, Bill Wray, Steve Rude & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7717-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Today in 1971 American comic books again changed forever with the third component of a graphic masterpiece. On December 1st 1970 newsstands saw Superman meet counterculture head-on courtesy of Jack Kirby in a title like no other ever before. It was only one strand of a bold experiment that quite honestly failed, but still undid and remade everything. That was Forever People #1 and it was followed on December 22nd with New Gods #1. Then on January 14th 1971 comic books delivered a NEW new world that just kept on changing…

When Jack Kirby returned to the home of Superman in 1970 he was working on one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. The expansive grandeur of his Fourth World saga grafted a complete new mythology onto and over the existing DC universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers. If only there had been a few more of them…

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, where Kirby revived his 1940s kid-team The Newsboy Legion, introduced large-scale cloning in the form of The Project and hinted that the city’s gangsters had extraterrestrial connections. He then moved on to a main course beginning with The Forever People, intersecting where appropriate with New Gods and Mister Miracle to form an interlinked triptych of finite-length titles that together presented an epic mosaic. Those three groundbreaking titles collectively introduced rival races of gods, dark and light, risen from the ashes of a previous Armageddon to battle forever… and then their conflict spreads to Earth…

Kirby’s concepts, as always, fired and inspired contemporaries and successors. Gods of Apokolips & New Genesis became a crucial keystone of DC continuity and integral foundation of that entire fictional universe, surviving the numerous revisions and retcons which periodically bedevil long-lived comics fans. Many major talents dabbled with the concept over decades and a host of titles have come and gone starring Kirby’s creations. That’s happening now even as I type this…

As previously stated, the herald of all this innovation had been Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which Kirby had used to lay groundwork since taking it over with #133. There readers first met Darkseid, The Evil Project, Intergang and so much more, but it was also used as an emotional setup for a fascinating notion that had seldom if ever previously troubled the mighty, generally satisfied and well situated Man of Tomorrow…

After The Forever People #1, crossovers with DC mainstays were largely sidelined in favour of a tense and relatively isolated new normal. Those kids were Kirby’s way of depicting how conflict affected peripheral players and dragged them in and down, and the next (and most important) component was seeing seasoned soldiers do their work. New Gods would focus on the war itself…

With that all going on, next came something utterly unexpected: a non-hero who reflected a changing world and sought to capture the turbulent era’s zeitgeist by also looking out for himself and breaking loose of expectations and societal shackles…

Cover-dated February/March 1971 and on sale 55 years ago today, the premiere issue of Mister Miracle – Super Escape Artist sprang the last piece of the puzzle on readers by opening with a sedate set of mysteries balanced with emotional tension and explosive action. The star – notoriously based on Jack & Roz Kirby’s friend (comics genius, magician and escapologist) Jim Steranko – was a fugitive and runaway avoiding (perhaps dodging?) his responsibilities and searching for deeper truths. No matter how wild things got, that set-up was pure reportage…

Inked by Vince Colletta with Kirby doing most of the rest, ‘Murder Missile Trap!’ introduces aging entertainer Thaddeus Brown, an old war horse trying to get back in the saddle, and practicing his old escapology act to win an unwise wager with Metropolis’ Intergang boss Steel Hand. A terrifying test run is interrupted by a young stranger who observes with shock Brown’s apparent suicide and the panic of equally aged assistant Oberon before rushing in to help them.

That act of getting involved leads to orphan Scott Free inheriting the identity and stage persona of Mister Miracle after Steel Hand cheats and has Thaddeus shot and killed. Angry, intrigued and ready to settle down at last (or for a while at least), the wanderer – who has an astounding carpet bag of high tech tricks – wins justice for his predecessor by beating a spectacular rocket trap and decides to try something strange but substantial, for a change.

However, the coils of his past prepare to ensnare him…

The prosaic life of a showman was a beguiling setting as Scott and Oberon planned a comeback and the beloved old stagehand learned just how different the new kid really was. His suspicions of a wider, wilder side were confirmed as the orphanage Scott fled came looking for him and vicious Apokolyptian virago Granny Goodness unleashed the techno-terrors of matter-warping monster Overlord before trapping the targets in the insidious, infernal ‘X-Pit!’

Because comics fans were always abstruse, Mister Miracle regularly outsold its companion titles, but Kirby felt no compunction to explain his expanding pantheon and universe – or indeed space to do so. Here, though, please allow me to lay out some groundwork…

Soon after creation began, gods were born, thrived and perished – primarily by warring with each other. When the Old Gods died in a cosmos-shaking conflagration their perfect primal world was split into two. Eventually cooling fragments congealed into two new yet lesser worlds: the dark vicious globe of Apokolips and gleaming noble orb New Genesis. Over millennia, generations of superior beings of might and majesty populated the spinning spheres. Sadly, a tragic trait New Gods shared with their progenitors was the capacity for destruction and taste for conflict. Denizens of both planets always and inevitably found fresh ways to end each other’s immortal lives.

The tale proper began on joyous, spiritual New Genesis years after the latest all-out war with Apokolips ended. Mighty Orion arrived in paradisical Supertown where deific patriarch Highfather communes with cosmic mystery The Source. The metaphysical conduit despatched the turbulent wolf in their fold to its antithetical hell-world, only to find despot Darkseid gone. Against all treaties, captive humans from Earth had been abducted and probed for signs of the tyrant’s dream.

The lord of Apokolips wanted to do away with free will and rule personally over all that lived, employing an irresistible, intangible ultimate weapon. The “Anti-Life Equation” is a cheat code for totalitarianism: instant negation of choice, and command of all thought. Darkseid’s obsessive search for it led him to Earth where finding it would guarantee total triumph and dispense with his need for Parademons, Dog Cavalry, assorted terror weapons, and his elite inner circle of monstrous minions. Powerful and technologically advanced, for both races the basic tool is Mother Box: sentient circuitry connected to The Source and a lifelong cyber-symbiotic companion, able to communicate, advise and manipulate the physical world…

Mister Miracle #3 opens a bravura double-issue imbroglio as Scott agrees to an honourable duel with dishonourable disembodied robot-wearing intelligence Doctor Bedlam. Darkseid’s war code is strict and binding and finds the escape artist challenged to make his way out of a packed 50-storey skyscraper. The problems comes because the edifice is sealed tight and every person inside it is a raving homicidal maniac thanks to mental murderer Bedlam’s administering of ‘The Paranoid Pill!’…

As Oberon frets back at the Brown mansion, he is visited by an old friend of Scott’s, but master warrior Big Barda is not out to assassinate the runaway. She seems more interested in his wellbeing and fate and teleports to the trap site in time to watch Mister Miracle avoid ‘The Closing Jaws of Death!’  Barda is another abstention from the Apokolips method and a rowdy runaway like no other…

With Mike Royer taking over inking, Kirby’s twin loves – history and movies – are happily exercised and expressed in the next yarn as a manic military martinet (based on James Mason’s Rupert of Hentzau in The Prisoner of Zenda) attempts to humiliate and destroy the rebel in MM #5. Another stiff-necked clash of Codes of Honour, it sees elite Apokolips soldiers rendition and reclaim Barda, making her freedom contingent on Scott surviving the Wile E. Coyote-like inventions of ‘Doctor Vundabar and his Murder Machine!’ Of course he does just that, and the issue continues with the first episode in an occasional backstory featurette. Inked by Colletta, ‘Young Scott Free!!’ shares boyhood exploits of Granny’s appalling orphanage/war college where cadet Free just doesn’t fit in. He complains, he has ideas and, when no one’s looking, has extra lessons from New Genesis in the form of emotionless even-handed God of Scientific Curiosity Metron…

Humour and a heaping pile of unleashed agita underpin the wry tale of a sharp-talking conman seeking to profit off a creative star’s efforts when obnoxious, dissolute ‘Funky Flashman!’ (MM #6) seeks to monetise Scott’s act, only to run full on into “debt-collectors” from Apokolips. Happily settled in with Scott, Barda is targeted by old squadmates Stompa, Lashina, Bernadeth and Mad Harriet who have come to take her home to the Female Furies battalion she used to lead. They don’t like Flashman either and really resent missing her and taking him thanks to some sneaky sleight-of-hand…

Another brief Royer-inked ‘Young Scott Free!!’ episode finds the daily drugged & programmed dissident becoming more brazen and noticeable in his rebellions, prior to #7 opening an ‘Apokolips Trap!!’ Done with constant ambushes Scott resolves to return to the hell planet and win his right to permanent life-long liberty from Granny’s reprisals, but it all goes awry when battle-hungry Barda comes along, forcing the duo to fight the length of the evil kingdom against “Lowlies”, soldiers, war-machines and even Darkseid’s chief assassin Kanto before this duel of honour can even begin…

‘Young Scott Free!!’ adds nuance with the tale of that time the boot camp pariah somehow trashed deadly Parademons in a training exercise, after which the main event concludes in MM#8 as Scott surrenders to his nemeses and becomes a showpiece execution event against an unbeatable psychic horror during ‘The Battle of the Id!’ Unwilling to let her lover languish or die, Big Barda organises a Female Fury foray that rocks the joint, but as always, she needn’t have bothered…

In New Gods #7 Kirby revealed the origins of the current war and how Darkseid’s son Orion was traded for Highfather’s infant to become tokens of intent and hostage princes to assure a ceasefire. Now Mister Miracle #9 concludes the history lesson with the tragic how and why young man Scott Free breaks the truce, escapes the chains of expectation and chooses his own path after meeting outlaw philosopher ‘Himon!’ Cover-dated July 1972, the tale uses the last exploit ‘Young Scott Free!’ to show how, with rising-star soldier/covert rebel Lieutenant Barda, Scott challenged and dodged the system, no matter the cost…

Kirby’s intention for his Fourth World trilogy was three 12-chapter finite series working in tandem, but fate and sale demanded otherwise. Forever People and New Gods both ceased abruptly and without those intended conclusions, but something else happened for the Super Escape Artist…

The entire notion was a huge risk and massive gamble for an industry and company that was a watchword for conservatism. It was probably incredibly tough for editors and publishers to stop themselves interfering, and they often didn’t. With numbers low, and spooky stories proliferating everywhere, Kirby was pressured to drop the weird stuff and concentrate on old standards. Despite promises of support and complete autonomy, the King had already surrendered much to get his dream rolling. Crushing deadlines and ridiculous expected monthly page counts were one thing, but management had no understanding of what he was planning and promotion was non-existent. Thus, inevitably these series failed to find sufficient sales to keep on until that planned and promised conclusion. Nobody in comics argued with numbers so Forever People and New Gods #11 were the last, cancelled before Kirby could complete his grand experiment.

… Except Mister Miracle carried on. Its sales warranted continuation so with a sharp change of emphasis anticipated and accommodated by Kirby and Co, #10 saw Scott, Barda and AWOL ringleader Stompa, Lashina, Bernadeth & Mad Harriet move to Earth in a tense pause and apparent détente. With time on their hands the squad became an entertainment troupe as ‘The Mister Miracle to Be!’ finally explored showbiz and touring. Sadly, they regularly encountered outlandish human-scaled foes, such as high-tech racketeers the World Protective League and their deranged boss The Head, who mistook the wild wonders for international agents sent to derail a bio-weapon blackmail plot…

With Thaddeus’ son Ted and Oberon filling out the roster, #11 promised ‘The Greatest Show Off Earth!’ and delivered once Doctor Bedlam momentarily trapped Scott aboard an exploding spaceship before the extended run carried on with the death-cheaters challenged by an ancient artefact that stacked the odds during a deadly wager. The truth behind ‘Mystevac!’ was cruel, shocking and transient…

Next the hardworking stiffs were hijacked by a deranged fascist sect and dumped in ‘The Dictator’s Dungeon!’ (obviously not for long!) after which the growing horror trend saw them stumble over Satanists with an even more sinister secret in #14’s ‘The Quick and the Dead!’

The tone of those troubled turbulent times was then acknowledged by the introduction of a smart, capable black kid. ‘The Secret Gun!’ found Mister Miracle and friends fostering a witness to murder and eventually hiring him as the next big thing in escapology as seen in follow-up yarn ‘Shilo Norman, Super Trouble!’ as the team clash with invasive “insecto-sapiens” created by Professor Egg – a shrinking savant set on conquest and consumption. Then crime-busting returns with Scott, Barda and Shilo mistaken for hitmen when they inadvertently book in at ‘Murder Lodge!’ and are extravagantly earmarked for execution…

Eventually the encore came to a conclusion as – cover dated March 1974 – Mister Miracle #18 saw all the New God players become ‘Wild, Wild Wedding Guests!’ as Scott and Barda tied the one knot they couldn’t defy before moving in with his dad on New Genesis.

That followed one last all-out assault by Darkseid’s minions which went some way to finally looping readers back to the overarching spectacle as lovers from warring worlds decided to wed in the face of impending doom.

With that the saga was paused but time and changing tastes soon brought sequels and, at long last, Kirby’s return to craft a proper ending… of sorts. We’ll get to those in the fullness of time-space…

Mister Miracle remained a uniquely reusable concept for decades with Scott, Barda and the crew regularly getting guest gigs and new shots at the limelight in Fourth World revivals, DC titles ranging from Action Comics to Brave and the Bold to Justice League, and in solo comeback series.

This cosmic compendium offers bonus ‘Mother Box Files’ material comprising pertinent Kirby characters as revisited by himself, and select inkers from assorted DC Who’s Who fact files. Here a tremendous group treatment of The Female Furies, inked by Greg Theakston, backs up a clutch of solo entries for ‘Mister Miracle’ (Giordano), ‘Big Barda’ and ‘Granny Goodness’ (Theakston), ‘Doctor Bedlam’ (Mike Machlan), ‘Funky Flashman’ (Bill Wray) & ‘Virman Vundabar’ embellished by Steve Rude. Closing the wonderment are more delights in ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’, including an unused cover for MM #7 plus a selection of stunning pencilled pages from the original run.

That metaphor for freedom and a hero who chooses to stop running, to turn and to fight is a fundamental aspect of fiction, and one that will always deliver the goods. You know what to do so what’s holding you back?
© 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1863 Richard F. Outcault was born as were Golden Age artists Vince Alascia in 1914 and John Tartaglione in 1921. Filipino artist Rudy Nebres joined the crowd in 1937.

Fictionally, Elzie Segar’s Thimble Theatre debuted Castor Oyl today in 1920 and British standby Comet launched in our smoggy foggy newsagents today in 1950.

On a sad note, the deeply underappreciated Pat Boyette (Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Peacemaker, Blackhawk) passed on today in 2000.

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Buster Brown: Early Strips in Full Color


By Richard F. Outcault with an introduction by August Derleth (Dover Publications)
ISBN: 978- 0-1-486-23006-1 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

You probably won’t agree, but tomorrow is a very special day for our industry and art form, marking the 1863 birth of the man who invented modern comics.

Although fans and historians are never going to stop debating this one, Richard F. Outcault is credited with being the father of the modern comic strip. His breakthrough came in 1895: a scandalous creation dubbed The Yellow Kid manifested for legendary newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer and debuting in the New York World – where the feature was actually entitled Hogan’s Alley. It shared cartoon shenanigans that captivated the reading public and even led to the coining of a new term… “Yellow Journalism”…

Outcault was notoriously fickle and quickly tired of his creation, and of subsequent features he created for William Randolph Hearst in the New York Journal during a particularly grave period of bitter newspaper circulation warfare.

In 1902, he created a Little Lord Fauntleroy style moppet called Buster Brown, but the angelic looks actually acted as camouflage for a little hellion perpetually wedded to mischief, pranks and poor decision making. Yet again Outcault quickly got bored and moved on, but this strip was another multimedia sensation, capturing public attention and thus spinning off a plethora of franchises.

Our boy Buster was a merchandising bonanza. By a weird set of circumstances, Buster Brown Shoes became one of the biggest chain-stores in America, and in later years produced a periodical comic book Premium (a giveaway magazine free to purchasers) packed with some of the greatest comic artists and adventure stories the industry had ever seen. Outcault may have dumped Buster, but the little devil darling never quit comics…

Way back in 1974 Dover Publications released this facsimile reproduction of an earlier collection from 1904, then entitled Buster Brown and his Resolutions, featuring 15 glorious full-colour strips from the first two years of the run, and it’s about time they or someone else thought about doing it again. Maybe even publishing a far more comprehensive collected edition?

Until then, though, let’s re-examine what we have here and meet the cherubic scion and his faithful dog Tige, and perhaps ponder that if indelicate or untoward happenstance doesn’t create another round of chaos in the ordered and genteel life of the well-to-do Mr. and Mrs. Brown, then little Buster is always happy to pitch in and lend a hand.

Each lavish page, rendered in a delightfully classical, illustrative line style – like Cruickshank or perhaps Charles Dana Gibson – ends with a moral or resolution, but one that is somehow subversively ambiguous.

As Buster himself is wont to comment, “People are usually good when there isn’t anything else to do”…

Historically pivotal, Buster Brown is also thematically a landmark in content, and a direct ancestor of the mischievous child strip that dominated the family market of the 20th century. Could Dennis the Menace (“ours” or “theirs”), Minnie the Minx, Cedric, Ducoboo or Bart Simpson have existed without Buster or his contemporary rivals The Katzenjammer Kids?

It’s pointless to speculate, but it’s no waste of time to find and enjoy this splendid strip.
© 1974 Dover Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1914 Belgian marvel Joseph Gillain aka Jijé was born, and in 1930 world changing strip Mickey Mouse debuted. Three years later so did creator/writer (Star Hawks)/historian Ron Goulart. You should read The Adventurous Decade – Comic Strips in the Thirties and see why I’m going on so.

In 1956 we lost The Kin-der-Kids creator Lyonel Feininger and Britain suffered double death blows in 1968 with the cancelation of Wham! and Giggle.

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The Squirrel Machine


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-646-1 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1606993019 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in for dramatic effect.

Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in different arenas since the 1990s, beginning with self-published minicomics before graduating to full-sized, full-length epics such as Kill, Kill, Kill or The Gloaming. He has also worked in film, music, gallery works and performance art.

A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with controversial graphic novel Chloe, and has since spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals such as The Stranger, creating webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology periodical Chrome Fetus.

An avid student observer of dreams, Rickheit has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered, structured and open to wide interpretation. His most approachable and possibly preferred oeuvre is the recondite imagery and sturdily fanciful milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which proved such rich earth for fantasists such as Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, whilst his fine, studied, meticulously clear line is a perfect, incisive counterpoint to the cloud of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion engendered by the protagonists of his most successful book.

Brothers Edmund and William Torpor abide in an abode in a secluded 19th century New England town but they have never been part of their community. Raised alone by their artist mother, they are quite different from other children, with Edmund especially obsessed with arcane engineering and the assemblage of one-of-a-kind musical instruments from utterly inappropriate components.

Fantastic dream-like journeys and progressions mark their isolated existence, which is far more in tune with a greater metaphysical cosmos, but as puberty gradually moves them to an awareness of base human sexuality, they find the outside world impacting their private one in ways which can only end in tragedy and horror…

Moreover, just where exactly did the plans for the ghastly Squirrel Machine come from¦?

Visually reminiscent of Rick Geary at his most beguiling, this is nevertheless a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill and upset and possibly even outrage many readers.

It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky and nigh-impossible to forget. As long as you’re an adult and braced for the unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this century – or any other…

Out of print for decades, The Squirrel Machine has now been remastered and released in an accessible paperback edition, as well as that futuristic digital doings, just in time to disturb the sleep of a new generation of fear fans just as the winter nights draw in…
© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Contents © 2009 Hans Rickheit. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1991 Abbie an’Slats illustrator Raeburn van Buren was born; he shares the day with Ted (Metropol) McKeever, Joe (Daredevil) Quesada, Kala (Girl Genius) Foglio, Hans (The Squirrel Machine, Cochlea & Eustachia, Delia, Chloe) Rickheit and, I’m sure, many others.

However in 2001 we lost Italian mega maven Gian Luigi Bonelli, the man who gave the world Tex Willer.