Author: NowReadThis

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Small Press Sunday

I started out in this game just before the pyramids were built, making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow weirdoes, outcasts and comics addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets – or better yet professionally printed packages which put dreamers’ money where their mouths are – still gets me going in ways that threaten my tired old heart…

With that in mind here’s a quartet of little gems and treats that have landed in my review tray recently…

App-1 #1

By Jim Alexander, Eva Holder, Conor Boyle, iella & various (Planet Jimbot)

As well as stunning graphic novels, independent publisher Planet Jimbot (likely lads Jim Alexander & Jim Campbell and an ever-shifting pool of burgeoning talent) also deliver proper comicbooks, and recently added to the simple superb Wolf Country and assorted anthologies was this wryly off-kilter full-colour entry into the world of superhuman adventurers…

Comprised of interconnected vignettes it all begins with ‘Tongue Lasher’ by Alexander, illustrator Eva (Bad Tooth) Holder & letterer Campbell who introduce an Earth under the scaly domination of nasty lizard men dubbed “The Bogeys” where curfew-breaking kids cower in fear until they meet an old dosser who tells them of the world’s greatest hero: a perfect superman now mysteriously vanished and forgotten…

However uttering aloud the forbidden name “App-1” carries fatal consequences…

Harking back to earlier, happier times ‘Above Us Only Sky: Part 1’ (Alexander, Conor (Dead Roots) Boyle & Campbell) reveals the superman in all his puissant glory after which ‘The Scorch App-1 Interview’ allows inside his head for some character-revealing intimate moments before ‘Above Us Only Sky: Part 2’ finds the hero nonplussed when a deadly meteor turns out to be occupied with something from “out there” before the first answers to all our questions are covered in ‘Scout’ Alexander, iella (The Ugly Duckling) & Campbell when a learned professor offers the hero a solution to unsuspected night terrors and performance anxieties. Of course sometimes it’s best to let such things alone…

With pin-ups and design sketches by Holder and Fin Cramb, this cheery, all-ages snappy Sci Fi superhero romp is the tantalising start of what promises to become a firm fan favourite in years to come…

© 2015 Jim Alexander and the respective artists.

App-1 #1 is available to buy at the Planet Jimbot shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/241056959/app-11

Assassin’s Creed: Trial by Fire #1

By Anthony Del Col, Conor McCreery, Neil Edwards & various (UbiSoft/Titan Comics)

I don’t normally cover actual comic issues but since somebody asked very politely, just this once I’m going to break my own rules. Although it’s not strictly small-press or self-published there’s nowhere else I can cover this first issue, so here goes…

Assassin’s Creed is a historical fiction action-adventure open world stealth video game, comprising, as of right now, nine main games and the usual wealth of multi-media supporting stuff. The games are available on almost every type of platform and are rather popular.

Apparently the core concept is derived from the 1938 anti-fascist historical/allegorical novel Alamut by Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol and incorporates concepts from the Prince of Persia series. Broadly speaking, the game concept details the eternal battle between two ancient secret societies: The Brotherhood of Assassins and The Templars.

This lends itself to an infinite variety of scenarios for all-action tales such as this one from Titan Comics in which bored and idle conspiracy theorist Charlotte de la Cruz suddenly finds herself in the middle of one, thanks to her unsuspected genetic inheritance coming to the fore after playing a certain video game for too long and too well…

All too soon she’s thigh deep in death and danger thanks to her sharing the scary gift of many members of the Brotherhood: the ability to tap the memories of past lives.

Now, with an awful lot of people trying to kill her in spectacular fashion, The Brotherhood have specifically recruited her because something in her head (from an ancestor who endured the horrific Salem Witch Trials in 1692) holds clues to a threat very much active in the present.

And of course it’s a secret an awful lot of people want to kill her to keep…

There’s little more I can disclose without spoiling it for you but it’s all slickly engaging – courtesy of writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery (Kill Shakespeare) and illustrator Neil Edwards (Doctor Who: Four Doctors) – as it races along and will certainly please fans of the game and the genre. I think I’ll wait until the book compilation comes out though…

™ & © 2015 UbiSoft. All rights reserved.

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The Story of Lee volume 2


By Seán Michael Wilson & Nami Tamura (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1 56163-973-1

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: A Fine Tale of Families Far Apart… 8/10

After far too long a wait here’s a supremely engaging sequel to an endearing romantic confection which delighted readers in 2011: a sweet transatlantic/transpacific shojo manga, which like its subject matter and stars was the happy product of more than one country…

As written by Scottish émigré and current resident of Japan Seán Michael Wilson and illustrated by Manga Shakespeare artist Chie Kutsuwada, The Story of Lee detailed the growing relationship of a restless Hong Kong girl who fell for a young celtic poet and teacher.

Lee endured frustrated dreams dutifully working in her father’s shop. The situation was uncomfortable: although the elder meant well, he disapproved of almost everything Lee did and never stinted in telling her so. His disparagement and constant pushing for her to achieve something (becoming a dentist) whilst staying true to his old-fashioned ideas was tearing her apart, and Wang, the nice, proper Chinese boy he perpetually forced upon her, was a really creepy turn-off.

What they never realised was that Lee was a closet poet and pop music junkie besotted with western culture, particularly myth-laden London. In those unwelcome fascinations she was clandestinely supported by her frail, aging grandmother and unconventional Uncle Jun, a globe-trotting playboy who long ago abandoned convention and tradition to follow his own dreams to America…

At 24 Lee was being gradually eroded away until she met gorgeous temporary teacher Matt MacDonald. Exotically Scottish, he was polite and charming: a sensitive, talented poet…

Lee quietly defied her father and her relationship with Matt deepened, but when tragedy struck and grandmother was no longer a factor, further upheaval occurred when Matt announced that he was returning to his home thousands of miles away.

…And then he dropped his bombshell and asked her to go with him…

With the second instalment – illustrated by British-based Japanese artist Nami Tamura – the tale resumes with the lovers in flight for the UK and, after a whirlwind tour of London, on a long and gloriously picturesque train journey to Edinburgh where Lee will study for a year on a student visa. It also happens to be Matt’s home town.

A minor skirmish with rude, rowdy but generally harmless lads travelling to Newcastle is not as distressing to the sheltered, culture-shocked waif as the baffling array of accents, dialects and slang which constantly overwhelm her plainly inadequate textbook understanding of English…

The city itself is a revelation: so many old and beautiful buildings, unlike HK where everything is always being torn down and rebuilt, and perhaps it’s just that dizzying cultural adjustment which makes her feel Matt is acting a little differently now that he’s in his on his own turf again…

Or maybe it’s the oddly intimate relationship he has with the old college chum they’re crashing with? Richard is warm, welcoming and coolly into all the right music, but she can’t shake the feeling that his relationship with her man might go beyond the bonds of friendship…

Over following days Lee’s apprehensions increase as Matt gleefully shows her around the nostalgic landmarks of his past and apparent proofs of Richard’s feelings begin to emerge. Moreover, her charming man seems to be changing too: his gentle patience evaporates; he’s snappish and even reacts jealously when other students – and even the local musicians she slavishly seeks out – pay attention to her…

One thing she cannot adjust to is the undercurrent of hostility and casual aggression expressed by the young men in Scotland…

Lee has never felt more vulnerable. She is a world away from home and security and increasingly wonders if she’s made the biggest mistake of her life. As tensions rise and the nurturing warmth the lovers shared deteriorates further, unexpected aid appears in the form of Uncle Jun who pops up for a visit and offers some startling advice…

Things boil over after a particularly savage argument and the boys steam off together to a party but what Lee sees when she returns and finds them together is beyond comprehension and seems to confirm all her worst fears…

To Be Continued…

Supplemented by a copious Glossary and Notes section defining the specific vagaries of accent and slang whilst offering geographical and historical perspective on the many actual locations depicted, this is a deliciously compelling drama playing with well-established conventions and idioms of romantic fiction and teen soap opera.

With beguiling subtlety The Story of Lee uses powerful themes of cultural differences, mixed-race-relationships, family and friendship pressures and the often insurmountable barrier of different childhood experiences and expectations to weave an enchanting tale of independence, interdependence and isolation.

It all ends on a gentle cliffhanger and I can’t wait to see how it all resolves in the next volume… and so will you when you pick up on this evocative, addictive story of cultures in conflict and union…
© 2015 Seán Michael Wilson & Nami Tamura.

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Iznogoud the Relentless


By Goscinny and Tabary, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-181-5

For the greater part of his far-too-short lifetime (1926-1977), René Goscinny was one of the most prolific and widely-read writers of comic strips in history. He still is.

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

In the wake of the Suez crisis, the French returned Рby way of comics, at least Рto the hotly contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with hugely gifted Swedish ̩migr̩ Jean Tabary (1930-2011) Рwho numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips Рto detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah.

However, as is so often the case, it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud, who stole the show… possibly the conniving little blackguard’s only successful insurrection.

Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created for Record; the first episode appearing in the January 15th issue of 1962. A petite hit, the feature subsequently jumped ship to Pilote – a new comics magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little Tuareg toe-rag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Insidious Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to affable, easy-going Caliph of Ancient Baghdad Haroun Al Plassid, but the sneaky little second-in-command has loftier ambitions, or as he is always declaiming “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”…

The retooled rapscallion resurfaced in Pilote in 1968, quickly becoming a massive European hit, resulting in 29 albums to date, his own solo comic, a computer game, animated film, TV cartoon show and even a live-action movie.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on two 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 can revel in pun-filled, witty satires and superbly surreal antics.

This same magic formula made its more famous cousin Asterix a monolithic global phenomenon and, just like the saga of the indomitable Gaul, the appallingly addictive Arabian Nit was first adapted into English by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who make all that foreign stuff so very palatable to picky British tastes.

Following Goscinny’s death in 1977, Tabary began scripting his own tales, switching to book-length complete adventures rather than the short, snappy vignettes which typified his collaborations. Upon his passing, Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel and Nicolas took over the franchise.

The deliciously malicious whimsy is always 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.

Iznogoud l’acharné was originally released in 1974, the tenth outrageously exotic album compilation, offering another quintet of trend-setting tales with our ambitious autocrat scheming to seize power from his good but gullible Lord and Master, and following the traditional introductory page introducing our tawdry star and other regulars, the devious deceptions resume with ‘The Malefic Hopscotch Grid’.

The origins of that venerable children’s pastime is traced back to beleaguered Baghdad where ignoble Iznogoud has hired a sorcerer to turn the Caliph into a child, thereby making the Vizier the only choice for Regent. All the target has to do is skip the number-squares in the right order to be rejuvenated right out of office…

Sadly as everybody knows the urge to jump on the devilish design is irresistible and almost all of Baghdad tries the game before unlucky Iznogoud can get the Caliph to give it a go. Moreover all those pesky kids milling about make the Vile Vizier hopping mad…

It’s Haroun Al Plassid’s birthday and his legendarily miserly servant Iznogoud is scouring the bazaar in search of the cheapest piece of tat he can find for a present when he meets a strange merchant selling the oddest items. Of course the vizier plays his usual unfair haggling tricks so the vendor magically despatches him to ‘Souvenir Island’: a peculiar place packed with the absurdest absurdist trash of all the ages…

When a new charmer from India sets up in Baghdad, Iznogoud dashes straight over to see what the magician has in the way of obstacle-removers. Mumbaijumbo is ‘The Merchant of Forgetfulness’ and eventually remembers to flog the villainous vizier a perfume which causes instant amnesia, but of course getting the Caliph to sniff the sinister smelly-stuff is fraught with calamity and peril…

A far better weapon to advance Iznogoud’s evil ambition is ‘The Doggy Flute’ used by a Chinese mage to turn rude people, bullies and obnoxious boors into cute canines. Sadly Iznogoud, after fooling the wizard into parting with the flute and teaching him the tricky tune needed to operate it, loses the refrain and his frantic practising causes all manner of animal magic to run wild before justice catches up with him…

The sandy silliness reaches the summit of time-bending barmyness when another Indian magic-man arrives bearing ‘The Magic Catalogue’.

Uatsdhada (Mage) leaves the venal vizier his copy of the incredible grimoire Seers of Bombay from which the owner can summon items from all of time and space. There are drawbacks of course: only three items can be ordered and, although there are pictures and descriptions, a client’s basic knowledge limits what he can even recognise…

Thus instead of guns or bombs the nasty nabob summons such wicked-looking instruments of torture as exercise bikes to deal with imperial impediment Haroun Al Plassid, all the while blithely unaware that there is an actual plot against the Caliph by traitors who actually know what they’re doing and might get the job done as long as nobody gets in their way…

Such convoluted witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is common parlance for a certain kind of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and frequently insufficient in inches (or should that be centimetres?).

Desiring to become “Caliph in the Caliph’s place” is a popular condemnation in French, targeting those perceived as overly-ambitious, and since 1992 the Prix Iznogoud is awarded annually to “a personality who failed to take the Caliph’s place”.

Nominees are chosen from prominent French figures who have endured spectacular failures in any one year and been given to the likes of Édouard Balladur (1995) and Nicolas Sarkozy (1999). The jury panel is headed by politician André Santini, who gave himself one after failing to become president of Île-de-France in regional elections in 2004.

When first released in Britain during the late 1970s and 1980s (and again in 1996 as a periodical comicbook) these tales made little impression, but at last this wonderfully beguiling strip has deservedly found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy connoisseurs…
Original edition © 2013 IMAV éditions by Goscinny – Tabary. All rights reserved. English translation © 2013  Cinebook Ltd.

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Gag on This: the Scrofulous Cartoons of Charles Rodrigues


By Charles Rodrigues, edited by Bob Fingerman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-856-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Sick, Sick, Sick – the ideal antidote to Seasonal Saccharine Overload… 9/10

Charles Rodrigues (1926-2004) is one of the most influential – and certainly most darkly hilarious – American cartoonists of the last century, but when papers and periodicals began abandoning en masse the grand tradition of spot gags in the 1980s he and his illustrious compatriots began to fade from cultural consciousness. Now it seems almost nobody remembers him but thankfully companies like Fantagraphics are doing their bit to recall and immortalise him and them…

Rodrigues’ surreal, absurd, insane, anarchic, socially disruptive and astoundingly memorable bad-taste gags and strips were delivered with electric vitality and galvanising ferocity in a number of magazines. He was most effective in Playboy, The National Lampoon (from the first issue) and Stereo Review – the pinnacle of a career which began after WWII and spanned nearly the entire last half of the 20th century in every type and style of magazine.

After leaving the Navy and relinquishing the idea of writing for a living, Rodrigues used his slice of the G.I. Bill provision to attend New York’s Cartoonists and Illustrator’s School (now the School of Visual Arts) and in 1950 began schlepping gags around the low-rent but healthily ubiquitous “Men’s Magazine” circuit.

He gradually graduated from girly-mags to more salubrious publications and in 1954 began a lengthy association with Hugh Hefner in his revolutionary new venture, whilst maintaining his contributions to what seemed like every publication in the nation buying panel gags: Esquire to TV Guide, Genesis to The Critic.

He even found time to create three strips for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate – Eggs Benedict, Casey the Cop and Charlie.

The quiet, genteel, devout Catholic’s lasting monument and undisputed magnum opus, though, was the horde of truly appalling sick, subversive, offensive and mordantly, trenchantly wonderful one-offs he crafted on a variety of favourite themes for The National Lampoon, whose editor Henry Beard sought him out in the earliest pre-launch days of 1969, and offered Rodrigues carte blanche, complete creative freedom and a regular full-page spot.

He stayed aboard from the 1970 debut until 1993, a mainstay of the legendary comics section with sickeningly brilliant results which were recently compiled preceding edition Ray and Joe…

Here bracketed by a copious and informative biography by Editor Bob Fingerman and a heartfelt ‘Introduction’ by brother-doodler and sometime Cartoon Editor at the shockingly indulgent Lampoon Sam Gross, this monumental monochrome collection – presented as a sturdy hardback digest tome – features a staggering selection of explosively hilarious, wittily twisted visual broadsides gathered into a smart procession of tawdry topics…

After starting out lambasting our most basic drives in ‘Dirty Cartoons for Your Entertainment’ and ‘A Peeping Tome’, focus soon shifts to weird fantasy in ‘Moon Madness’ and contemporary traumatic tropes in ‘Assassin’ before going too far, too soon with some ‘Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print’…

Because one can never get enough, it’s quickly back to basics with ‘Cartoons of a Sexual Nature’ after which other appetites are quashed with ‘Cuisine de Machine’ exposing the horrors only automats and vending machines can inculcate whilst ‘Would You Want Your Daughter to Marry One?’ deals with freaks and outcasts at their most intimate moments of weakness…

Some truly outrageous innovations are launched and sunk in a large section devoted to ‘Entrepreneurs’ before controversy is courted – and subsequently walks off with a huge settlement – in ‘Goddam Faggots!’ after which more societal hypocrisies are skewered in ‘Handicapped Sports’ and things get good and bloody in ‘Hemophunnies’.

Rodrigues was blessed (or cursed) with a perpetually percolating imagination and eye for the zeitgeist, so the contents of ‘The Celebrity Memorabilia Gallery’ are truly baroque and punishingly peculiar whereas ‘Hire the Handicapped’ merely offers genuinely groundbreaking solutions to getting the less-able back to work before this selection of Good Works concludes with much needed advice on ‘Good Ways to Kill: A Rock Performer!’…

Trenchant observation informs the visual catalogue of ‘Man in Morgue’ but it’s just sheer bad taste in play with follow-up chapter ‘Man in Toilet’ and macabre relationship counselling for ‘Men’s Liberation’ (in dealing with wives or mothers).

At the halfway stage of this colossal collection there’s time for ‘More Handicapped Sports’ before poking fun at the blind in ‘Out of Sight’, exploring the particular wrinkles of ‘Senior Sex’ and dutifully re-examining ‘The Seven Deadly & Other Sins’ – which you will recall include Pride, Envy, Anger, Covetousness, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Anti-Colostomyism, Conformity, Vomitry, Bitchiness and Dalmatianry – and then galloping off at a strangely artistic tangent to present ‘Sex Cartoons Drawn With a Hunt Pen’…

Scenes (never) overheard at the ‘Sex Change Clinic’ naturally segue into an itemised itinerary of disasters involving ‘Sex Robots’ and naturally culminate in ‘More Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print’ and another period of play for ‘Handicapped Sports’…

All aspects of human misbehaviour appealed to Rodrigues’ imagination and many are featured in ‘Sexentrics’ and its playful sequels ‘Sexports’ and ‘Sleazy Sex Cartoons’, all of which quite naturally lead to ‘Life on Death Row’…

Unwholesome variety (and a penchant for conspiracies) is the spice of ‘A Group of Cartoons Requested by S. Gross’ before deviating eastwards to expose ‘Soviet Sex’ and heading back to jail to walk ‘The Last Smile’.

Shambling into the hilarious last lap we endure some ‘Tough Sex’, show ‘Cartoons About the Blind (The Kind They Wish They Could See)’ and get gritty in ‘Sons of the Beaches’ before heading to the ‘…Circus!’ and ending everything with ‘Those Darned Serial Killers!’…

These horrific and hilarious assaults on common decency celebrate and commemorate a lost hero of popular cartooning and consummate professional able to turn his drawing hand to anything to get the job done. This is another astoundingly funny gag-art grimoire brilliantly rendered by a master craftsman and one no connoisseur of black comedy will want to miss.
This edition © 2015 Fantagraphics Book. All strips and graphics by Charles Rodrigues © Lorraine Rodrigues. Introduction © 2015 Sam Gross. Biography © 2015 Bob Fingerman. All rights reserved. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books.

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The Complete Adventures of Cholly & Flytrap


By Arthur Suydam with John Workman, Chris Eliopoulos & Annie Parkhouse (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-767-1

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: Merry, Manic Mayhem… 8/10

Arthur Suydam comes from an impressive American dynasty of acclaimed artists harking back to the birth of the nation, but whereas they excelled in gallery painting and architecture, their polymath descendant has divided his time, talents and energies between sequential art and music.

Probably best known (unless you’ve seen him playing with Bruce Springsteen) today as a creator of stunning Zombie art, Suydam’s other signature graphic enterprise has been the perilously peripatetic and gorily satirical burlesques of an inseparable duo of legendarily post-apocalyptic weirdoes dubbed Cholly & Flytrap.

As noted in this lavish hardcover complete collection, the illustrator, author, designer, screenwriter and composer/musician has, since the 1960s, peddled his anarchically humorous, offbeat confections in such disparate venues as Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, Penthouse Comix and Epic Illustrated (where many of these brutally madcap little graphic novellas first appeared – specifically issues #8, 10, 13, 14 and 34); comicbooks like Tarzan, Conan, Batman, House of Mystery, Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies plus movie spin-offs Aliens and Predator.

He has also produced covers for novels including Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane’s collaborative Dead Street and Game-box art for Touch the Dead. Periodically the always-busy Suydam returns to his own uniquely skewed creative projects such as Mudwogs and the mirthfully militaristic muck-ups of his bombastically bloody buddies, teasingly releasing another snippet every so often…

Lavishly grotesque, wickedly wry and surreptitiously subversive, Cholly & Flytrap is a bold blend of dryly witty pastiches combining elements of Moebius’ Arzach, the sci-fi tinged cultural iconoclasm of Vaughn Bode and a surreal anti-war temperament as pioneered by EC Comics which imbues the constant and blackly comic ultra-violence with a hauntingly tragic and educative undertone.

Long ago the space-barge Exodus II crashed on an uncharted world. After untold ages the survivors have bred but never prospered, locked as they are in the constant struggle for survival. It’s not that the planet is particularly inhospitable… it’s just that the denizens – indigenous and not – adore war-making and love killing. Gosh, it’s so very much like Earth…

In the early 1970s Cholly began life as a bat-riding warrior: an inspiration (and eventually poster advert) for the animated Heavy Metal movie, but it was mysteriously transformed into a hot chick on a pterodactyl after acceptance (this sort of inexplicable conceptual metamorphosis happens a lot in film-land), leaving Suydam with the rights to a cool-looking visual and a lot of ideas…

Time passed, Marvel started a creator-owned, rights-friendly fantasy periodical in response to the success of Heavy Metal and that reinvented bat-riding, goggles-wearing avatar of conflict started popping up. Of course, he had evolved slightly whilst the chiropteran had become a colossal, dauntingly naked, bald fat Chinese man. Cholly still rode him like a seasoned Ace, though…

Augmented by a wealth of original art studies, sketches and finished paintings, the ‘Introduction by Max Weinstein’ offers contemporary background, history and critical expression before the exigent exploits (gathered in the order of the 2004-5 repackaged reprints from Image Comics) begin with ‘Chapter 0’ (plotted by Peter Koch) as the restless wanderers haul up at their favourite restaurant for a feed. Impatience, hunger, foreign food cooked by scurrilous talking bugs and honking big guns never make for a sedate evening…

This yarn is neatly stitched together with a later tale (originally entitled ‘A Little Love, a Little Hate!’ from 1981); a frenetic chase/duel between a foul-mouthed, flying-jacketed war-hawk and his slug-like arch-enemy, which showed Cholly’s streetwise cunning in spectacular, over-the-top, take-no-prisoners fashion.

That neatly segues into extended saga ‘The Rites of Spring‘ where Suydam expanded his cast and extemporized on the concept of mortals as organic war machines in a Horatian paean of Thermopylan courage on a world where combat is the natural order.

With Cholly and faithful, mute Flytrap stubbornly holding back a veritable horde of slug-troopers and colossal war-wagons, this is a smart and lusciously graphic feast of visual violence and sassy back-chat…

‘Flightus Interuptus’ follows; an airborne tussle (possibly started before the previous tale?) wherein the high-flying Cholly, sans his humanoid steed, harasses a massive mammary zeppelin-bomber in nothing more than a primitive tri-plane pulled and supported by a brace of the planet’s autonomous, levitating anti-gravity breasts – and no, that’s not a misprint…

Shot down in the throes of victory, the adaptable aviator finds a giant bat to ride (remember kids, recycling even of ideas and art is good for any planet). Sadly the noble beast doesn’t last long before ‘The End’ sees the unseated aviator tooling around the sky with a pair of those flying hooters strapped to his appreciative feet until he encounters a monolithic monster having a furious argument with his own outrageously outspoken boy-bits. Passions aroused and tempers flaring, Cholly is witness to a conflict resolution you simply don’t see every day…

Soldier and human(ish) steed are reunited for ‘Chapter 6’ (with additional text by Bob Burden) as Cholly and a couple of fellow warriors battle slug-troopers to secure a downed freighter’s supplies and end up falling into the oddest sort of hell…

‘The Adventures of Cholly and Flytrap Part II’ commence with their explorations of the scarily Eden-like valley and its buxom, welcoming inhabitants. It’s almost a relief when the Devil pops up to deal with them, but happily Flytrap has a counter to his Final Solution…

The remainder of the comics extravaganza is dedicated to a vast and sprawling pseudo-noir pastiche entitled ‘Center City’, set in a brooding metropolis indistinguishable from 1930 New York or Chicago… except for the aliens, robots, mutants and monsters…

Vile, crippled gang-boss Emiel Luvitz runs the rackets and makes most of his money from the citizens’ gambling on his prize-fighting operation. It helps that he also owns the undisputed “Champ” – slow-witted, gigantic, super-strong Stanley Yablowski – who has never lost a bout or let an opponent live…

Cholly & Flytrap don’t care, they’re only in town long enough to scrape up some ammunition and get drunk, but when The Champ and his minders invade the dive they are patronising, things go south pretty quick.

The hulking bully wants some fun but when he forces the silent Chinaman into an arm-wrestling contest – and loses – all hell breaks loose…

Watching the brief but ferocious struggle is rival mobster and fight-promoter One-Lunger who instantly sees a way to topple Big Wheel Luvitz. Killing Cholly and shanghaiing Flytrap, the callous thug drags the protesting mute all over the world, training and building up the heartbroken yet still-resisting, silent giant into a successful, popular mystery contender who can possibly beat the Champ…

Center City soon becomes a Shakespearian nightmare as Luvitz, seeing foes all around him, begins a paranoia-fuelled campaign of terror, killing or alienating everyone around him even as One-Lunger and his over-the-hill robotic trainer Pop prepare their captive combatant for the grudge match that will settle the fate of the maddened municipality.

What nobody realises yet is that Cholly isn’t actually dead. Slowly stalking the unwary mobsters, he’s anticipating some extreme violence to get his beloved bosom buddy back…

Smart, devious and utterly compelling, this is a splendidly hilarious, wickedly gratuitous OTT tale to make Wagner or Brecht sit up and take notes…

Supplementing the graphic wonderment is a ‘Cover Gallery’, a vast portfolio of monochrome sketches, working drawings and finished paintings, a studious and multi-generational essay on ‘The Suydam Legacy in New York’ plus a photo-packed, celebrity stuffed ‘Biography’ of the dauntingly gifted Arthur…

This is a sumptuous, exuberant and entrancingly daft slab of eye-candy that will astound and delight all canny fantasists.
Cholly and Flytrap ™ & © Arthur Suydam 2015. All Rights Reserved. All other art and trademarks are the property of their individual rights holders.

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Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: the Art of Alfredo Alcala


By Heidi MacDonald & Phillip Dana Yeh with art by Alfredo Alcala (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80041-7

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: A Perfect, Old-School Craft-Book Prezzie… 9/10

We haven’t covered a “How To” book for ages and this is one of the most intriguing and rewarding I’ve seen in many a year.

There is a host of books both academic and/or instructional designed to inculcate a love of comics whilst offering tips, secrets and an education in how to make your own sequential narratives.

There are others intended to foster and further the apparently innate and universal desire to simply make art and make it proficiently and well (see for example the superb and lengthy list of Dover Books on Art Instruction and Anatomy at the back of this particular tome).

There are, however, precious few that do it with as much style, enthusiasm or perspicacity as this latest re-release from the culture-preserving heroes at Dover.

As much biography and philosophical treatise on work-ethic as training manual, Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: the Art of Alfredo Alcala resurrects a slim and informative monochrome package from 1994 compiled from the thoughts and especially a vast selection of gorgeous illustrations and examples from one of the most influential and meritorious masters of illustration Comics ever produced.

Following an effusive ‘Introduction by Gil Kane’ and passionate exhortations in ‘A is For Alfredo – a Personal Reminiscence by Roy Thomas’ the real meat of this tome is presented in ‘On the Road with a Real Artist by Phil Yeh’ wherein scribes Heidi McDonald and Yeh repackage the wit, wisdom and sheer gracious enthusiasm of the man we in the English-speaking world think of mostly as a superb inker, but who was so much more.

Alfredo P. Alcala (1925-2000) was born in Talisay, Negros Occidental: part of the chain of islands known as the Philippines. He lived through the Japanese Occupation of WWII (playing a small part in their defeat) and the years following when America supervised the country. An obsessed autodidact and self-taught artistic prodigy, he held a number of creative jobs before joining the extremely popular Philippines “Komiks” industry in 1948.

A phenomenal talent – and lightning fast – he quickly rose to prominence and started his own publishing house. When his period adventure serial Ukala was made into a hugely successful movie he was already at the peak of his powers, but he followed that with the groundbreaking Sword-&-Sorcery series Voltar and became influential on the world stage.

At the beginning of the 1970s horror boom he moved with a number of other Filipino stars to America where their florid illustrative styles and broad genre experience defined the look of US comicbooks for a decade.

Although he was a superbly versatile draughtsman and storyteller, Alcala’s most beloved and well-known contributions were made during sustained runs as inker on Conan, Batman, Swamp Thing and others and, when the industry moved away from the Filipino style, he and his compatriots moved to California and began excelling in the voracious, talent-consuming animation business…

Taken from memories of shared train journeys, this section offers insights and anecdotes interspersed with Alfredo’s real Secret Teachings of How to be an Artist as recalled by fellow traveller and creative fellow spirit Phil Yeh, packed with illustrative examples from published comics as well as intimate sketches and studies from a man who simply never stopped drawing…

The remainder of this evocative bible from a sublimely classicist illustrator and self-made wonder breaks down into a potent series of tutorials beginning with ‘The Art of Observation’ which is neatly subdivided into helpful guides to ‘Discovering Your Style’, the proper use of the correct ‘Tools’, the crucial mastery of ‘Anatomy and Proportion’ and the truth about ‘Composition’, all thoroughly backed up and supported by examples from Alcala’s vast back catalogue.

Next comes a most crucial treatise on the disciplines specific to graphic narrative entitled ‘Thinking About Comics’, again augmented with cogent and beautiful visual back-up and biographical minutiae from ‘Ukala’, ‘Conan’ and the superbly impressive historical commemoration ‘The Gift‘.

This is followed by an in-depth 20-page reiteration of all that’s gone before, using Alcala’s groundbreaking Voltar as model and exemplar, complete with critical deconstruction by the master himself, and everything wraps up a with quick lesson on ‘Painting’, using one of Alcala’s own murals as the basis for a stringent and informative Q & A session.

This glorious paperback is aimed squarely at the progressing cartoonist, rather than total neophyte, and provides as much a philosophy of creativity as strict instruction, but the sheer profusion of Alcala’s magnificent monochrome will satisfy comics fans as well as budding artists and storytellers.

If you already have the urge to make pictures but want a little encouragement, this wonderful celebration will offer a steadying hand and all the support you could dream of.
© 2015 Dover Publications, Ltd. Introduction © 1994 Elain Kane. Introduction © 1994 Roy Thomas. Conan the Barbarian art © 1994 Marvel Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.

Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: the Art of Alfredo Alcala will be released November 27th 2015 and is available for pre-order now. Check out www.doverpublications.com, your internet retailer or local comic or bookshop.

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Melusine volume 2: Halloween


By Clarke (Frédéric Seron) & Gilson, coloured by Cerise and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-34-2

Teen witches have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Spirou in 1992.

Mélusine is actually a sprightly 119 year old who spends her days working as an au pair in a vast monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau whilst diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School…

The long-lived feature offers everything from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales on supernatural themes detailing her rather fraught life, the impossibly demanding master and mistress of the castle and her large circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

Collected editions began appearing annually or better from 1995, with the 24th published in 2015 and another due next year. Thus far five of those have transformed into English translations thanks to the fine folk at Cinebook.

The strip was devised by writer François Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humorist Frédéric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue… and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and, as Bluttwurst, Les Enquêtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Château Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes and apparently is free from the curse of having to sleep…

Halloween was the eighth M̩lusine album, originally released in 2001, and gathers a wealth of stunning seasonally sensitive strips, making it a great place for newcomers to start as the majority of the content is comprised of one or two page gags starring the sassy sorceress who Рlike a young but hot Broom Hilda Рmakes excessive play with fairy tale and horror film conventions and themes.

When brittle, moody Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, or ducking cat-eating monster Winston and frisky vampire The Count, she’s avoiding the attentions of horny peasants, practising her spells or consoling and coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

Mel’s boyfriend is a werewolf so he only bothers her a couple of nights a month…

Daunting dowager Aunt Adrezelle is always eager and happy to share the wisdom of her so-many centuries but so, unfortunately, is family embarrassment cousin Melisande who spurned the dark, dread and sinisterly sober side of the clan to be a Fairy Godmother; all sparkles, fairy-cakes, pink bunnies and love. She’s simplicity, sweetness and light itself in every aspect, so what’s not to loathe…?

This turbulent tome riffs mercilessly on the established motifs and customs of Halloween where kids fill up to lethal levels on sweets and candies, monsters strive to look their worst, teachers try to keep the witches-in-training glued top their books and grimoires even as their over-excitable students experiment most unwisely on what to do with pumpkins – including how to grow, breed or conjure the biggest ones – whilst the fearfully pious local priest and his flock endeavour to ruin all the magical fun…

Even Melisande gets in on the party atmosphere in her own too nice-to-be-true manner, lightening the happy shadows with too much sunshine and saccharine before the collection ends with the extended eponymous ‘Halloween’ wherein Melusine and Cancrelune learn the true meaning of the portentous anniversary when they inadvertently join the creaking clacking cadavers of the Risen Dead as they evacuate their graves on the special night to fight and drive away for another year the Evil Spirits which haunt humanity…

Wry, sly, fast-paced and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a great taste of the magic of European comics and a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read before bedtime and don’t eat any hairy sweets…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2000 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.

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The Rugger Boys volume 1: Why Are We Here Again?


By Béka & Poupard with colour work by Sylvain Frecon & Murielle Rousseau, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-33-5

Human beings – and apparently a huge variety of our pets and animal housemates – seem obsessed with and are delighted by chasing balls about. So much so that we/they even apply a range of convoluted sets of rules to the sheer exhilaration of the process, just to make things more difficult and artificially extend proceedings.

We call it sport and when it’s not hugely thrilling and deadly serious it can be hilariously funny…

Comics over the decades and throughout the world have often mined our obsession with assorted games for secondary entertainment value and this Cinebook compilation gathers a fine bunch of strips starring a dedicated amateur team of French gladiators all painfully enamoured of the manly (and British-originated) ball-based pastime called Rugby…

Les Rugbymen: was created in 2005 by writing partnership Bertrand Escaich & Caroline Roque under their collaborative nom de plume Béka (Studio Danse, Les Fonctionnaires) in conjunction with self-taught illustrator Alexandre Mermin, who generally labours under the pseudonym Poupard (Chez Gaspard, Les Brumes du Miroboland).

The resulting flurry of short sharp gags and yarns have filled an even dozen albums thus far. There’s even a junior league spin-off which began in 2010 entitled Les Petits Rugbymen…

On n’est pas venus pour être là! was the third Euro-volume but the first to be translated by Cinebook – probably because it features a brief sporting tour of England – and perfectly encapsulates the passion, toil and sheer testosterone-idiocy which can warp normally rational folk.

Our stars are a few dedicated souls faithfully enjoying the trials of club rugby (and that’s Rugby Union, right?) as played by the stalwarts of fictional south-western French town side Paillar Athletic Club, affectionately known to their frankly obsessive fans as The PAC…

As seen on the introductory page, the usual suspects generally manifest as intellectually compromised Hooker Lightbulb, Herculean Prop Fatneck, 2nd Row star The Anaesthetist, dashing sex-crazed Back Romeo and Scrumhalf/Captain The Grumpster, all regularly adored and vilified by The Coach who never lets his speech defect get in the way of a good insult to the dozy slackerrrs…

All you need to know is that these guys are bold, sturdy and love to eat and drink as much as they do smashing each other into the mud…

The exploits are generally delivered as single page sequences, lavishly, lovingly and outrageously illustrated and jam-packed with snippets of off-kilter slapstick to supplement the main gag and the material. Content is almost everything you’d expect from such a fixture: big beefy blokes in very small towels, lots of booze-fuelled gaffes, eating eccentricities, knob jokes and the mutual sportsmanlike skulduggery which permeates all games Real Men compete in…

However also on display are a profusion of smartly-planned running gags and little comedic gems such as the well-meaning meatheads’ ongoing efforts to help Lightbulb find “love”, Romeo’s constant comeuppances from husbands, boyfriends and employers unhappy with his off-pitch conquests and The Coach’s eternal battle to whip his band of idiots into a team he can be proud of…

As previously mentioned, this collection also contains a wry, preconception/prejudice-confirming international excursion when The PAC accept an offer to play a friendly match against British college side Camford. As well as a chance to pummel the despised English, there’s the promise of seeing a Six Nations match to offset the unbearable pain of living on the foreigners’ appalling food and pathetic beer…

Fast, furiously funny and splendidly boisterous, these are the kind of cartoon antics that might even inspire dedicated couch-potatoes to get out of the house – unless they order books and dinner online…
© BAMBOO EDITION, 2006 by Béka & Poupard. All rights reserved. English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Dan Dare Dossier


By Norman Wright, Mike Higgs & various (Hawk Books)
ISBN: 978-0-94824-812-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: For everybody with Stars in their Eyes… 8/10

Launching on April 14th 1950 and running until 26th April 1969, Eagle was the most influential comic of post-war Britain, and possibly in our nation’s history.

It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was increasingly concerned about the detrimental effects of American comic-books on British children and wanted a good, solid, middle-class Christian antidote.

Seeking out like-minded creators he hoiked a dummy edition around British publishers for over a year with little success until he found an unlikely home at Hulton Press, a company that produced general interest magazines such as Lilliput and Picture Post.

The result was a huge hit which soon spawned age and gender-specific clones Swift, Robin and Girl which targeted the other key demographic sectors of the children’s market.

A huge number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures worked on the weekly, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as the star, many other strips were as popular at the time, and many even rivalled the lead in quality and entertainment value. Eagle‘s sensational pantheon – which included PC 49, Captain Pugwash, Jeff Arnold/Riders of the Range and the inimitable Harris Tweed – quickly became stars as well of radio series, books, toys, games and all other sorts of ancillary merchandising.

At its peak Eagle sold close to a million copies a week, but inevitably changing tastes and a game of “musical owners” killed the title. In 1960 Hulton sold out to Odhams, who became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. In cost-cutting exercises many later issues carried cheap Marvel Comics reprints rather than British originated material. It took time but those Yankee cultural Invaders won out in the end. With the April 26th 1969 issue Eagle was subsumed into Lion, eventually disappearing altogether. Successive generations have revived the title, but never the success.

There is precious little that I can say about Dan Dare that hasn’t been said before and better. What I will say is that everything you’ve heard is true. The vintage Dan Dare strips by Frank Hampson and his hand-picked team of dedicated artists are a high point in world, let alone British comics, ranking beside Tintin, Asterix, Tetsuwan Atomu, Lone Wolf & Cub and the best of Kirby, Adams, Toth, Noel Sickles, Milt Caniff, Elzie Segar and Carl Barks.

If you don’t like this stuff, there’s probably nothing any of us can do to change your mind, and all we can do is hope you never breed.

Accepting that there is a part of national culture which is Forever Dare, here’s a long overdue peek at an item which will delight all boys of a certain age which – despite its own vintage – is happily still readily available through internet vendors…

The colourful, magnificently oversized (333 x 242 mm), resolutely hard-backed Dan Dare Dossier was published in 1990 and offers everything any devotee could wish to know and see. It is absolutely packed with mouth-watering artwork and photos, tantalising examples of memorabilia, classic strips and even unseen/new material by a phalanx of the original creators.

Heavily illustrated throughout, it all begins with ‘The Rise of Dan Dare’, detailing the history of science fiction, development of comics – and especially Eagle – and offering a potted biography of Hampson, his team and Dan’s serried exploits.

Simultaneously those great big pages present unseen monochrome strip adventure ‘Dan & Donanza’ by the master himself, wherein our doughty heroes go haring across the solar system in pursuit of a fallen dictator who has turned the moon into a giant bomb…

Following that is an expansive itinerary of the major characters involved over the years in ‘Actors against a Solar Backdrop’ before ‘The Hardware File’ offers an eye-popping selection of plans, designs and extracted strip illustrations displaying the vast wealth of ships, kit and tech invented by the assembled strip-creators over the decades and paying especial attention to Space Transports and Dan and Digby’s venerable runabout Anastasia.

More bravura virtuosity is celebrated in ‘Aliens & Their Worlds’ as pertinent and beautiful clips and snippets highlight the amazing variety of extraterrestrial races and species.

Sharing a few pages with new black-&-white comedic strip ‘Digby – the Guinea Pig’ is a rundown of some of ‘The Artists’ who toiled collaboratively to produce the stunningly painted two pages per week (Hampson, Harold Johns, Eric Eden, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell, Desmond Walduck, Frank Bellamy and Keith Watson); followed in turn by a fascinating trivia and memorabilia stuffed appreciation of the dauntless chaps’ five years on radio in ‘Dan Dare, Pilot of the Airwaves’…

Wisely taking a break from all that factual stuff, ‘Full Colour Adventure: Dan Dare in The Planulid’ reprints a rousing tale of a monstrous invasion of Earth (first seen in The Dan Dare Space Annual 1963) before the rousing envy-fest resumes with a grand examination of the breathtaking wealth of ‘Merchandise & Ephemera’ the strip generated.

On view is a procession of numerous ray guns and rocket pistols, games, puzzles, buttons, badges, stencil-kits, apparel, models, action-figures, home picture-film strips and projectors, walkie-talkies, all manner of books and print novelties and so much more…

Adjacent and in parallel with a full ‘Dan Dare Chronology’ is the immensely rare and sadly unappreciated Newspaper Strip ‘Mission to the Stars’ by William Patterson & Don Harley, which ran every Sunday in The People from April to October 1964, all capped off by the demise of the dream thanks to changing tastes and commercial mismanagement as detailed in ‘Changes – the Long Decline’…

Downhearted spirits are properly revived by another ‘Full Colour Adventure’ from The Dan Dare Space Annual 1963, specifically ‘The Planet of Shadows’ wherein our gallant lads uncover a lost civilisation on a new world after which ‘Dan Dare – to Date’ describes our hero’s 1977 resurrection in the pages of apocalyptic, dystopian 2000 AD. Reimagined as a bombastic rebel, the article tracks his slow rehabilitation and transition to the newly revived 1982 Eagle, before neatly segueing into a delightful reprint of one of those 80’s retro-exploits as ‘Dan Dare by Keith Watson’ depicts a hazardous mission by the Space Fleet stars to transport Earth’s radioactive waste stockpiles to the depths of space. It’s hard enough as is but things get particularly dicey when arch-nemesis The Mekon raises his giant green head…

Big, bold, beautiful and ruthlessly nostalgia-driven, this epic tome will utterly enchant veterans of the Baby-boomer years and sci fi fanatics in general, but it’s also packed with enough top flight comics material to beguile any kid or newcomer to our medium in search of a little simple, awestruck wonder…
This edition © 1990 Hawk Books Ltd. Dan Dare © 1990 Fleetway Publications.

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The Juggler of Our Lady – the Classic Christmas Story


By R. O. Blechman with a Foreword by Jules Feiffer and Introduction by Maurice Sendak (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80030-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A truly immaculate confection… 10/10

Christmas is not just about shiny new toys and sparkly knitwear. It’s just as much about unearthing or revisiting old, beloved and almost totally forgotten treasures.

Here’s a superb case in point – finally back in print after far too many years away – thanks to the perspicacious souls at Dover Books…

Oscar Robert Blechman is a glittering star in America’s graphic arts firmament and an international superstar. Brooklyn-born in 1930, he has excelled as cartoonist, illustrator, author, animator/Director, editorial cartoonist, Editorial Director and ad-man.

He’s won awards for his commercials and TV specials and been venerated in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art. His anti-Vietnam cartoons graced The Village Voice through the early 1970s whilst his cartoons and illustrations appeared in such prestigious vehicles as Punch, The New Yorker, Trump, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Show, Theater Arts and Humbug.

He’s also produced fascinating graphic narratives such as Georgie and can reasonably claim to have produced one of the very first English-language Graphic Novels… which is the subject of today’s lecture…

In 1952 Blechman used his groundbreaking and soon-to-be phenomenally influential minimalist line-style – deftly augmented with judicious watercolours – to make a much-told tale all his own.

The Juggler of Our Lady was his first book: initially published by Henry Holt, and superbly fetishized and commemorated through brother-cartoonist Maurice Sendak’s fondly emotional Introduction in this sublime new pocket hardback edition. The slim tome became a landmark in graphic narrative and is beloved by generations.

Anatole France’s 1892 tale Le Jongleur de Notre Dame is probably the most widely accepted version of the original medieval religious-miracle legend but there have been so many others that the story is as much part of most people’s seasonal landscape as Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Blechman’s reinvigoration managed to retain all the awe and wonder, whilst adding such a potent blend of wry humour, pitiful humility and gentle hope to the mix that it can make a grown man weep. In 1958 his book became an animated Terrytoons TV short with a huge impact when it was adapted by Al Kouzel & Gene Deitch and narrated by that legendary Christmas Spirit Boris Karloff…

You know the story: Cantalbert is an itinerant juggler who loves his work. He feels that if more people juggled there would less time for war and misery and folk would act better, feel better and be better.

Nobody, however, will listen and the despondent performer – hungry for spirituality – joins a monastery. Even here he does not fit in and is saddened by his lack of suitable talents to venerate The Lord and especially The Virgin Mary…

Everything comes to a head on Christmas Eve when the monks all display the magnificent presents they have made for the Madonna and poor Cantalbert has nothing worthy to give.

Later, when all is quiet, the sad juggler offers the only thing he knows and loves to the statue of The Virgin and something wonderful happens…

Deftly deconstructed and wondrously appreciated in a Foreword by Comics and Cartooning Titan Jules Feiffer, The Juggler of Our Lady is a masterpiece of graphic dexterity and an utterly beguiling experience no lover of the storytelling arts should be without.

Text and illustrations © 1997 R. O. Blechman. Foreword © 1997 2015 Jules Feiffer. Introduction © 1980 Maurice Sendak. All rights rserved.
The Juggler of Our Lady – the Classic Christmas Story will be released November 27th 2015 and is available for pre-order now. Check out www.doverpublications.com, your internet retailer or local comic or bookshop.