By Paul Di Filippo & Jerry Ordway (America’s Best Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-298-3
It’s not all death, disaster and depravity for the super-powered police force of Neopolis, the city where every citizen is a superhuman, a god or robot or monster. Sometimes you get a day off for a staff picnic. However The Job is never far away…
When an ominous supernatural apparition appears over the city it presages an interdimensional Armageddon, but the weary cops have more than enough to deal with already as the new Mayor fires their old boss and replaces him with a paramilitary martinet who would rather issue loyalty pledges and spy on his own men than actually police the city or find the mastermind who’s drowning the robotic citizenry in a sea of circuit-frying electronic dope.
Tensions and paranoia run high and the apparition is only seconds away from destroying the universe, but will the cops even be able to do their jobs?
Set five years after the conclusion of TOP 10: Book 2 (ISBN 1-56389-876-4), this follow-up outing has great pace and ingenuity but somehow lacks the passion and humanity of Moore’s scripts. Much of the uniquely dull and dowdy feel is absent and even the superb artwork by Jerry Ordway nonetheless leans too much on the glamorously “Super†rather than the frailly “Human†side. I hate having to say something so negative about such an earnest effort, especially as its always the plaint of the old codger – but this just isn’t as good as it used to be…
By various, compiled by Mike Higgs (Hawk Books)
ISBN 0-948248-06-8
The Daily Mirror has been home to a number of great strips over its long history – beginning with one of the Empire’s greatest successes Tiger Tim, who debuted there in 1904 and culminating with the likes of the war-winning nymphette Jane, The Perishers, Garth and Andy Capp. The latter two feature in this beautiful compilation from Mike Higgs’ Hawk Books which has done so much over the years to keep British cartoon history alive.
This particular effort collects sample selections from the newspaper’s back catalogue in a spiffy hardback that is stuffed with fun, thrills and quality nostalgia.
Garth is the first star featured in an adventure from 1957 by series originator and longest serving creator Steve Dowling (1943-1969 – succeeded by his assistant John Allard, then Frank Bellamy and finally Martin Asbury). Garth is a hulking physical specimen, a virtual human superman with the involuntary ability to travel through time and experience past and future lives. This simple concept lent the strip an unfailing potential for exotic storylines and fantastic exploits.
‘The Captive’ – written by Peter O’Donnell and illustrated by Dowling and Allard – is a contemporary tale with our hero abducted from Earth as a prize in a galactic scavenger hunt instigated by bored hedonistic aliens who don’t realise quite what they’ve gotten themselves involved with… A second adventure, ‘The Man-hunt’, is the last that Frank Bellamy worked on. The astounding Bellamy died in 1976 whilst drawing this story of beautiful alien predators in search of prime genetic stock with which to reinvigorate their tired bloodlines. Written by Jim Edgar, the strip was completed by Asbury who took over with the 17th instalment. This tongue-in-cheek thriller is full of thrills and fantastic action, yet never loses its light humorous touch.
Andy Capp is a drunken, skiving, misogynistic, work-shy, wife-beating scoundrel who has somehow become one of the most popular and well-loved strip characters of all time. Created by jobbing cartoonist Reg Smythe to appeal to northern readers during a circulation drive, he first saw the light of day – with long-suffering wife Florrie in tow – on August 5th 1957. The volume reprints 37 strips from the feature’s 41 year run, which only ended with Smythe’s death in 1998, but the sheer magic of this lovable rogue is as inexplicably intoxicating as it always was, defeating political correctness and common decency alike: A true Guilty Pleasure.
Romeo Brown began in 1954, drawn by Dutch artist Alfred “Maz†Mazure, and starred a private detective with an eye for the ladies and a nose for trouble. The feature was a light, comedic adventure series that added some glamour to the dour mid-1950s, but really kicked into high gear when Maz left in 1957 to be replaced by Peter O’Donnell and the brilliant Jim Holdaway, who would go on to create the fabulous Modesty Blaise together. The strip ended in 1962 and is represented here by a pair of romps from their penultimate year. ‘The Arabian Knight’ and ‘The Admiral’s Grand-daughter’ combine sly, knowing humour, bungling criminality and dazzlingly visuals in a manner any Carry-On fan would die for.
Useless Eustace was a gag-panel (a single-picture joke) that ran from January 1935 to 1985. Created by Jack Greenall, its star was a bald nondescript everyman who met the travails of life with unflinching enthusiasm but very little sense. Greenall produced the strip until 1974, and other artists continued it until 1985. The selections here are from the war years and the 1960s. Another comedy panel was Calamity Gulch, a particularly British view of the ubiquitous “Western†which invaded our sensibilities with the rise of television ownership in the 1950s. Created by Jack Clayton, it began its spoofing and sharp-shooting on 6th June 1960, and you can see 21 of the best right here, Pardner.
A staple of children’s comics that never really prospered in newspapers was the sports adventure. At least not until 1989 when those grown up tykes opened the Daily Mirror to find a football strip entitled Scorer, written by Barrie Tomlinson and drawn by Barry Mitchell, and eventually John Gillatt. Very much an updated Roy of the Rovers, the strip stars Dave ‘Scorer’ Storry and his team Tolcaster F.C. in fast, hot, sexy tales of the Beautiful Game that owed as much to the sports pages it began on as to the grand cartoon tradition. ‘Cup Cracker’, included here is by Tomlinson and Gillatt from 1994, and shows that WAGS (Wives And GirlfriendS, non-sports fans) were never a new phenomenon.
Not many people know this, but before I review an old book (which I arbitrarily define as something more than three years old) I try to locate copies on the internet. It’s a supreme disappointment then for me to admit that this wonderful and utterly British tome is readily available in France, Germany – most of Europe in fact (and you could order it from Amazon.fr for example), but not in any English-speaking nation that I could find. Perhaps that’s a testament to the book’s quality and desirability, and if that’s the case maybe The Mirror Group should expedite a new edition – or even a few sequels…
Robert E Howard & Peter Kuper (Dodd, Mead & Co 1984)
 ISBN: 0-396-08370-6
This quirky little tour-de-force reprints Howard’s ‘The Beast from the Abyss’; an essay on the value and nature of cats, originally published in The Howard Collector in 1971, but with each page created as a design and illustration exercise by seminal creator and cutting edge comics pioneer Peter Kuper.
The combination of Howard’s terse, dark prose style with the iconoclastic and left-field sensibilities of Kuper presented here in the form of 49 stark and hysterical lino-cut (think wood-cuts but without the splinters) prints make this a frankly startling addition to the plethora of cat’n’cartoon books out there. I just wish this one still was. Still, it would be a fairly inexpensive book to reprint…
An absolute hoot from two artists not usually noted for a broad sense of humour.
His homeland fell to the invaders in 1940, and Georges Remi’s brief military career was over. He was a reserve Lieutenant, working on The Land of Black Gold when he was called up, but the swift defeat of Belgium meant that he was back at his drawing board before the year’s end, albeit working for a new paper (since Le Petit Vingtième was closed down) and on a brand new adventure. He would not return to the unfinished ‘Black Gold’ with its highly anti-fascistic subtext, until 1949.
And so begins a superb mystery adventure as Tintin follows his lead to the sinister freighter “Karaboudjan†where he is nearly murdered before the diabolical Mate “Allan†(last seen in Cigars of the Pharaoh – Adventures of Tintin: Volume 2, ISBN 13: 978-1-4052-2895-4) shanghais him. It is whilst a prisoner that the boy reporter meets a drunken reprobate who would become his greatest companion: The ship’s inebriated Master, Captain Haddock.
Escaping together, they eventually reach the African Coast, with Haddock’s dipsomaniac antics as much a threat to the pair as the gangsters, ocean storms, and deprivation. These trials are masterpieces of comedy cartooning that have never been surpassed. Despite all odds the heroes survive sea, sands and scoundrels to link up with the military authorities. Making their way to Morocco they track down the criminals to reveal a huge opium smuggling operation. A fast-paced tour-de-force of art and action, liberally laced with primal comedy and captivating exotic locales, this is quite simply mesmerising fare.
The Shooting Star was one of the first tales to be re-issued after World War II, due no doubt to its relatively escapist plot. Originally running from 1941-1942 it is practically an old-fashioned pulp thriller. The world is gripped in terror as a fiery meteor is detected hurtling towards Earth. The apocalypse is averted only by the sheerest chance, as the heavenly body narrowly misses Earth, although when a relatively small chunk breaks off, scientists find that it contains an unknown metal of immense potential value. And so begins a fantastic race to find and claim the fallen meteorite.
A party of European scientists charters the survey ship “Auroraâ€, with Captain Haddock commanding and Tintin aboard as official Press representative. Frantically sailing north to the Pole, they discover that they are in competition with the unscrupulous forces of the evil capitalists of the Bohlwinkel Bank, whose rival expedition uses every dirty trick to sabotage or delay the scientists.
After a truly Herculean effort and by sheer dint of willpower – not to say spectacular bravery – Tintin is the first to claim their floating prize and successfully defend it from the villainous Bohlwinkel crew, but the star itself is a menace as its mysterious composition induces monstrous gigantism. Tintin and Snowy must survive assaults by mutated insects and plants before the breathtaking conclusion of this splendid tale.
When he returns home Tintin finds the model has been stolen but on visiting the first and most strident of the collectors who tried to buy it from him he discovers that the man already has an exact duplicate of the missing model. After much hurly-burly Tintin and Haddock find that Sir Francis was once a prisoner of the pirate Red Rackham, but escaped with the location of the villain’s treasure horde. Subsequently making three models of his vessel “The Unicornâ€, he placed part of a map in each and gave them to his three sons…
Someone else obviously knows the secret of the model ships and that mysterious mastermind becomes ever more devious and ruthless in his attempts to obtain the complete map. Events come to a head when Tintin is kidnapped, which is a big mistake, as the intrepid lad brilliantly turns the tables on his abductors and solves the mystery. With the adventure suitably concluded, the volume ends with our heroes ready to embark on the no-doubt perilous voyage to recover ‘Red Rackam’s Treasure’…
By Will Eisner, with Keith Diaczun & Barry Caldwell (Scholastic Book Services)
ISBN: 1-5638-9789-X / 89-70123-8
Here’s an odd little item that will probably never be reprinted, although it’s definitely worth a look if you should ever stumble across a copy.
In the 1970s Will Eisner was working as a cartoonist and commercial designer, but took time out to oversee this collection of children’s gags and jokes that cashed in on the twin movie crazes of Jaws (the shark not the Bond villain played by Richard Kiel) and the science fiction boom generated by the first Star Wars film.
Executed in tone and wash, and if I’m completely honest, seeming more the work of assistants Keith Diaczun and Barry Caldwell than the great man himself, there are still enough rib-ticklers, gems and crackers on view warm up the deepest depths, be they space, the oceans or the tired jaded, human heart.
By Barbara Randall Kesel, Heidi Arnhold & Max Kim (TOKYOPOP)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-701-6
The manga movement gains more ground with this wonderful prequel to the classic fantasy movie as Barbara Randall Kesel scripts a gripping and emotive story of oppression and defiance on a far-flung world.
Gelflings are passive, gentle folk; farmers and artisans in a world lacking technology. The real power players are the philosophical Mystics and their depraved and evil counterparts, the Skeksis. Whilst the former are solitary isolationists, the monstrous Skeksis are power-hungry and use the life essence of the Gelflings to extend their own lives.
This story starts as the herder and musician Lahr discovers the giant Garthim are raiding again, taking Gelflings for the Skeksis to consume. Too late to save his own village, he stumbles across Neffi, whose village was also raided by the lobster-like plunderers. The desolates pair up and find another Gelfling village, hidden deep in a ravine.
They are in time to warn them but become embroiled in a deadly debate. Should the Gelflings stay hidden and hope to evade the relentless ravagers or should they abandon everything and run, in the hope of finding some new refuge? Is there another option? Can these gentle creatures learn to fight back in time to save their race?
Enthralling in both script and artwork, this is a quality fantasy tale, that won’t disappoint genre addicts or fans of the original film.
No Sandman fan’s life can be considered complete without this knowledgeable tome of interviews and commentary on the 10 graphic novel compilations that comprise the basic canon of Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking re-imagining of the classic DC superhero.
This book features an issue-by-issue exploration of the text, a series overview, influences and backstory, explorations of symbolism and interviews with many of Gaiman’s artistic collaborators plus comments and appreciations from such celebrity fans as Peter Straub, Samuel R. Delaney, Tori Amos, Alan Moore, and Harlan Ellison. Liberally illustrated throughout, and including many pre-production sketches and proposal drawings, there is also a beautiful colour section of rare art and artefacts.
If you are the kind of reader who needs more than the book itself, this erudite and expansive book should be a delight and a revelation.
By Ronald Searle (New English Library)
ISBN: 0-450-06026-8
In a previous review of England’s greatest living artistic treasure (even though he has lived, worked and been properly appreciated in France for the last 25 years) I dwelt on his fantastic humorous qualities, and rightly so, because he is one of our greatest ever cartoonists and graphic satirists and the book in question was a collection of his early cartoons (Ronald Searle’s Golden Oldies1941-1961, ISBN: 0-85145-102-1). I didn’t spend too much time on his other achievements – and I’m still not going to – as his work should be seen and his thoughts and opinions should be understood in his chosen language: Art. At least he still has enough fans to fill the internet with all the information you could need, so go search-engining after you read this if you wish.
This collection traces Searle’s career pictorially from his 1930s art school days to the 1980s, by which time he was established – everywhere but here – as not only a cartoonist and satirist but as a film-maker, sculptor, designer, travel-writer and creator of fascinating reportage. This man is a capital “A†Artist in the manner of Picasso or Hockney, and Scarfe and Steadman notwithstanding, he is the last great British commentator to use cartooning and caricature as weapons of social change in the caustic manner of his heroes Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson, Cruikshank and the rest.
This volume includes selections from many previous collections and includes political illustration, war and travel drawings (including some moving pieces from his time as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II), pure art-studies, nudes, medals he designed for the French Government, poster and paintings and of course, some of the most surreal, sardonic and grotesque funny pictures of the late 20th century.
Why his creations are so under-appreciated I do not know. Why this book is out of print: Ditto. That he will remain a relative unknown as yet another movie of his St Trinian’s girls gets all the headlines: Not if I can help it.
Anyone who considers themselves a devotee of the arts of graphic narrative should know of Searle’s work, not necessarily love – although how could you not? Just be aware of the tremendous debt we all owe to his vision, dedication and gifts.
 By various (Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN13: 978-1-933160-68-9
The British Invasion was a term coined in the 1980s to describe the influx and influence of a band of creators (most with 2000AD or Warrior credentials) that began working in and revolutionising the American comic-book industry. In this context, however it’s simply a group of British creators selecting their personal favourite piece of Marvel work for collection in this book.
Writer Alan Grant chose ‘Blood on the Moors’, a Punisher tale he co-scripted with long-time collaborator John Wagner. Hauntingly illustrated by fellow Scot Cam Kennedy, it details in a great blend of action, mystery and humour the semi-supernatural exploits of another obsessive vengeance taker whose crusade intersects Franks Castle’s one man war on crime.
Alan Davis is famed as both artist and writer, and his selection is from Excalibur #61. ‘Truth and Consequence’ is a cosmic superhero romp featuring Rachel Summers in her incarnation of the celestial entity ‘The Phoenix’ battling with planet devouring Galactus only to discover the hideous truth of her own existence.
Warren Ellis is represented by one of his earliest tales for Marvel, from Hellstorm #15. ‘Cigarette Dawn’ sees the once ‘Son of Satan’ battle demons and expectations in an edgy, if perhaps dated tale illustrated by Leonardo Manco.
Peter Parker, Spider-Man volume 2, #35 provides the utterly charming ‘Heroes Don’t Cry’, written by Paul Jenkins and illustrated by Mark Buckingham & Wayne Faucher. If you already know the story you’ll understand why I refuse to say anything about this wonderful adventure other than you must read it if you haven’t. It really is that good.
Peter Milligan chose the moving and incisive character study ‘The Diaries of Edie Sawyer’ from X-Statix #10, illustrated by Philip Bond and Neil Gaiman picked the first issue of his miniseries 1602, which transposed key characters of the Marvel Universe to Elizabethan England, drawn by Andy Kubert and digitally painted by Richard Isanove.
Mark Millar selected ‘The Defenders’ from Ultimates 2, #6, a downbeat re-imagining of the Avengers, illustrated by Bryan Hitch, as his best moment, and the book concludes with the Punisher in a dark, brilliantly compelling look at Frank Castle’s childhood drawn by the legendary John Severin. ‘The Tyger’ is Garth Ennis at his absolute best, and this is a splendid conclusion to an interesting if somewhat inconsistent package, with the good heavily outweighing the not-so-hot.
DC Showcase Presents: Batman and the Outsiders, Vol 1
By Mike W. Barr, Jim Aparo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 10: 1-84576-669-5 ISBN 13: 978-1-84576-669-6
During the early 1980s the general trend of comics sales were in a downturn – although team-books were holding their own – and the major publishers were less concerned with experimentation than with consolidation. Many popular titles were augmented by spin-offs, a recurring tactic in publishing troughs.
Batman was the star of two and two half titles at the time, sharing World’s Finest Comics with Superman (until its cancellation in 1986) and with rotating guest-stars in The Brave and the Bold, as well as his regular spots in both Batman and Detective Comics. He was also a member of the Justice League of America. In July 1983 The Brave and the Bold was cancelled with issue #200 and in it was a preview of a new Bat-title. One month later Batman and the Outsiders debuted…
The basic premise was that the JLA was not fit for purpose; that too many problems were beyond their reach since they were hamstrung by international red tape and, by inference, too many laws. This volume collects issues #1-19, the first annual, that aforementioned preview and the New Teen Titans #37, which was the first part of a crossover between the two titles.
It all kicks off with a revolution in the European nation of Markovia (nebulously wedged into that vague bit between France, Belgium and Russia) and details a telling personal crisis when The Caped Crusader’s friend Lucius Fox goes missing in that war-torn country. As neither the US State Department nor his fellow superheroes will act, Batman takes matters into his own hands. He begins sniffing around only to discover that a number of other metahumans, some known to him and others new, are also sneaking about below the natives’ radar.
Markovia’s monarchy is threatened by an attempted coup, and is being countered by the King’s unorthodox hiring of Dr. Jace, a scientist who specialises in creating superpowers. When King Victor dies Prince Gregor is named successor whilst his brother Brion is charged with finding their sister Tara who has been missing since she underwent the Jace Process. To save his sister and his country, Brion submits to the same procedure. Meanwhile two more Americans are clandestinely entering the country…
Rex Mason, ‘Metamorpho’, is a chemical freak who can turn into any element, and he wants Jace to cure him, but Jefferson (‘Black Lightning’) Pierce is infiltrating as Batman’s ace-in-the-hole. Things go badly wrong when a ninja assassin kills the General Pierce is negotiating with, and he is blamed. Whilst attempting to rescue him Batman finds a young American girl in a bombed-out building who has fantastic light-based superpowers – and amnesia.
As Prince Brion emerges from Jace’s experimental chamber, the revolutionaries attack and not even his new gravity and volcano powers, plus the late arriving Metamorpho can stop them. Brion is shot dead and dumped in an unmarked grave whilst the Element Man joins Batman, who, encumbered by the girl, was also captured by the rebels. The heroes and Dr. Jace are the prisoners of the mysterious Baron Bedlam…
The second issue provides the mandatory origin and plans of the Baron, but while he’s talking the new heroes are mobilising. Like the legendary Antaeus, Brion (soon to be known as Geo-Force) is re-invigorated by contact with Earth and rises from his grave, whilst the girl (code-named Halo) is found by the ninja (‘Katana’) and together they invade the Baron’s HQ. Not to be outdone, the captive heroes break free and join forces with the newcomers to defeat the Baron, who now has powers of his own courtesy of the captive Jace.
As introductory stories goes this is above average, with plenty of threads laid for future development, and the tried and tested super-team formula (a few old and a few new heroes thrown together for a greater purpose) that worked so well with the ‘New X-Men’ and ‘New Teen Titans’ still proved an effective one. As always Barr is an adroit scripter and Jim Aparo, an artist who gave his all to a script, is in top form – and his skill is actually enhanced by the absence of colour in this bargain compendium.
Issue #3 began a long run of high-quality super-hero sagas with ‘Bitter Orange’ as the new team get acquainted and also stop a chemical terrorist with a hidden agenda. This is followed by that preview from The Brave and the Bold #200, a hostage crisis tale designed to tease, followed in turn by ‘One-Man Meltdown’ (Batman And The Outsiders #4) in which a radioactive villain from Batman’s past returns.
‘Death Warmed Over’ and ‘Cold Hands, Cold Heart’ tell the tale of The Cryonic Man, a villain who steals frozen body-parts and ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ is a sinister supernatural Christmas treat guest-starring possibly Aparo’s most fondly remembered character (most certainly for me) The Phantom Stranger. BATO #9 introduces a super-villain gang with ‘Enter: The Masters of Disaster!’ (the first half of a two-part tale) plus a back-up tale of Halo in ‘Battle For the Band’, written by Barr and illustrated by Bill Willingham and Mike DeCarlo. ‘The Execution of Black Lightning’ concludes the Masters of Disaster saga, and is illustrated by Steve Lightle and Sal Trapani.
Issue #11 begins ‘The Truth About Katana’ by exploring her past and the implications of her magic blade. ‘A Sword of Ancient Death!’ is by Barr and Aparo and continues with ‘To Love, Honour and Destroy’ which leads directly into #13’s impressive ‘In the Chill of the Night’, illustrated by Dan Day and Pablo Marcos, in which the desperate team must capture a dying and delusional Dark Knight.
The first Annual follows: ‘…Land Where Our Fathers Died…’ introduces a gang of ultra-patriots called the Force of July in a barbed epic written by Barr and illustrated by Jerome Moore, Alex Savuik, Jan Duursema and Rick Hoberg with Aparo on inks. This is followed by issue #14’s ‘Two by Two…’ with art by Willingham and Bill Anderson and #15’s ‘Going For the Gold’ (spectacularly illustrated by Trevor Von Eeden) a two-part thriller set at the 1984 Olympics.
‘The Truth About Halo’ begins and is inconclusively revealed in ‘…Goodbye…’ but the next two issues (#17-18) diverts to the desert for ‘We Are Dying, Egypt… Dying’ and ‘Who Wears the Crown of Ra?’ spotlighting Metamorpho, and the volume ends with another Christmas tale. ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Red “Sâ€?’ is a powerful tale of date-rape and sexual bullying, which pits Geo-Force against Superman and in many ways is the best story in this book.
Although probably not flashy enough to cross the Fan-Barrier into mainstream popularity, this is a competent and highly readable series re-presented in an inexpensive and accessible way. An open minded new reader could do lots worse than try this example “fights’n’tights†fiction.
