Author: NowReadThis

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Hellboy volume 3: The Chained Coffin and Others


By Mike Mignola with James Sinclair, Matt Hollingsworth & Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-091-5

Hellboy is a creature of vast depth and innate mystery; a demonic baby summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists at the end of World War II before being intercepted and subsequently reared by parapsychologist Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm. After years of devoted intervention and education, in 1952 Hellboy began destroying unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as the lead agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

This third epic collection gathers a number of shorter sagas: The Wolves of August originally serialised in Dark Horse Presents #88-91, Advance Comics/Hellboy: The Corpse and the Iron Shoes, Hellboy: Almost Colossus plus material from Dark Horse Presents 100 #2 and Hellboy: Christmas Special, communally spanning 1994-1997 and leads off with an enthusiastic appreciation from devoted fan P. Craig Russell in his Introduction. Mignola also offers directors’ notes on all the spooky stories contained herein…

The supernatural superstar was never conventional, especially in his publication schedule. Hellboy’s shorter adventures materialised in many different venues whilst his own title had the appearance of a succession of one-shots and limited series. Mignola, however, had a solid marketing plan from the start. The stories had an internal numbering system (if you’re that interested check it out on Wikipedia and leave them a donation while you’re at it) which allowed him to make stops back and forth along his proposed timeline and build years of continuity in mere months…

Thus this collection of brief, bold blockbusters opens with ‘The Corpse’ which first saw print in monochrome in Advance Comics catalog. Here an old Irish fairytale is expanded and remastered in full colour as Hellboy’s attempts to rescue a baby stolen by the Little People one night in 1959 results in the unlikely hero making a fool’s bargain.

All the graves are full but he must find a final and proper resting place for a very vocal cadaver before the sun rises…

The action-packed errand leads to confrontations with ghosts, devils and worse before our scarlet champion parks the body and gets back the bairn…

Immediately following is thematic epilogue ‘The Iron Shoes’ which rapidly relates another Celtic saga set two years later when Hellboy drags a goblin out of the holy site it’s defiling before laying it at the feet of Father Edward Kelly…

‘The Baba Yaga’ was created specially for this compilation and describes in dire detail how the legendary Russian witch lost her eye to Hellboy in their first confrontation. Thereafter, ‘A Christmas Underground’ (from 1997’s Hellboy: Christmas Special) offers eerie and ethereal miasmic horror in the best seasonal manner. England, Christmas Eve, 1989 and Hellboy is on a death-watch. Aged and ailing Mrs. Hatch talks of her long-lost baby girl Annie. Leaving her, the un-horned hero follows a trail to a graveyard and down beneath it. Soon he is attending a dark soiree to rescue the child, now the restless bride of a prince of the Pit. After a most brutal struggle Hellboy celebrates the nativity by setting two souls to rest…

In 1995 Dark Horse Presents 100 #2 debuted ‘The Chained Coffin’. Here Mignola has partially redrawn the tale and Dave Stewart has added colour to the story of Hellboy’s return to the English church where he first arrived on Earth in 1943. Fifty years of mystery have passed, but as the demon-hunter observes ghostly events replay before his eyes and learns the truth of his origins, Hellboy devoutly wishes he had never come back…

‘The Wolves of Saint August’ ran in Dark Horse Presents #88-91 during 1994 before being reworked a year later for the Hellboy one-shot of the same name. Set in 1994 it sees the red redeemer working with BPRD colleague Kate Corrigan, investigating the death of Hellboy’s old friend Father Kelly in the Balkan village of Griart. It’s not long before they realise the sleepy hamlet is a hidden den of great antiquity where a pack of mankind’s most infamous and iniquitous predators thrive…

Mignola has a sublime gift for setting mood and building tension with great economy. It always means that the inevitable confrontation between Good and Evil has plenty of room to unfold with capacious visceral intensity. This clash between unfrocked demon and alpha lycanthrope is one of the most unforgettable battle blockbusters ever seen…

The story-portion of this magnificent terror-tome concludes with the 2-part miniseries ‘Almost Colossus’ from 1997 wherein traumatised pyrokinetic BPRD agent Liz Sherman awaits test results.

During her mission to Castle Czege (Hellboy volume 2: Wake the Devil) her team uncovered a hidden alchemy lab with a stony homunculus inside. When she touched the artificial man Liz’s infernal energies rushed uncontrollably into the creature and brought it to life…

Now as her own gradually slips away, Hellboy and Corrigan are back in the legend-drenched region, watching a graveyard from which 68 bodies have been stolen…

Elsewhere the fiery homunculus is undergoing a strange experience: he has been abducted by his older “brother” who seeks through purloined flesh, blackest magic and forbidden crafts to perfect their centuries-dead creator’s techniques.

Before the curtain falls, Hellboy, aided by the ghosts of repentant monks and the younger homunculus, is forced to battle a metal giant determined to crown itself the God of Science and save the world if he can and Liz because he must…

Wrapping up the Grand Guignol show is another splendid and whimsical ‘Hellboy Gallery’, featuring stunning efforts from Kevin Nowlan, Matt Smith, Duncan Fegredo, Dave Johnson, Thierry Robin and B.C. Boyer…

Bombastic, lightning-paced, moody and astonishingly addictive, this will delight adventure and horror fans in equal amounts: an arcana of thrills and chills no comics fan should be without.
™ and © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2003 Mike Mignola. Introduction © 1998 P. Craig Russell. Hellboy is ™ Mike Mignola. All rights reserved.

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The Brave and the Bold Team-Up Archives volume 1


By Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher, George Roussos, Howard Purcell, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Bruno Premiani, Ramona Fradon, Charles Paris & Bernard Baily (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012- 0405-1

The Brave and the Bold premiered in 1955; an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales starring a variety of period heroes: a format mirroring that era’s filmic fascination with historical dramas. Devised and written by Robert Kanigher, issue #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, medieval mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. Soon the Gladiator was sidelined by the company’s iteration of Robin Hood, but the high adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning superhero revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like the astounding successful Showcase.

Used to launch enterprising concepts and characters such as Task Force X: the Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Strange Sports Stories, Hawkman and the epochal Justice League of America, the title then created a whole sub-genre – although barely anybody noticed at the time…

As related in the Foreword by Robert Klein and Michael Uslan, National Periodicals/DC Comics had for nearly a decade enjoyed great success pairing Superman with Batman and Robin in World’s Finest Comics and in 1963 looked to create another top selling duo from their growing pantheon of masked mystery men. It didn’t hurt that the timing also allowed extra exposure for characters imminently graduating to their own starring vehicles after years as back-up features…

This was at a time when almost no costumed heroes acknowledged the jurisdiction or usually existence of other costumed champions. When B&B offered this succession of team-ups, they were laying the foundations for DC’s future close-knit comics continuity. Now there’s something wrong with any superstar who doesn’t regularly join every other cape or mask on-planet every five minutes or so…

This sublime, compellingly quirky full-colour hardback extravaganza collects those first eight exploratory alliances from October/November 1963-April/May 1965: re-presenting The Brave and the Bold #50-56 plus #59 (issues #57-58 having diverged to debut solo sensation Metamorpho, the Element Man). This run resulted in two long-running series and would be followed by a further eight pairings… hopefully in a follow-up volume one day…

Those yarns included a return engagement for the kids – now dubbed the Teen Titans – two issues spotlighting Earth-Two colluding champions Starman & Black Canary; Wonder Woman teamed with Supergirl and, as an indication of things to come, Batman duelling hero/villain Eclipso in #64: an acknowledgement of the brewing TV-induced mania mere months away.

Within two issues, following Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamorpho/Metal Men, B&B #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title and the lion’s share of the team-ups. With the exception of #72-73 (Spectre/Flash and Aquaman/Atom) The Brave and the Bold became “Somebody and Batman”: a place the Gotham Gangbuster invited the rest of the company’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

The ancient hero-histories commence with Brave and the Bold #50 which saw Ace Archer Green Arrow team-up in a book length adventure with the Manhunter from Mars. ‘Wanted – the Capsule Master!’ pitted the newly-minted Green Team in a furious fight with marauding extraterrestrial menace Vulkor; a fast-paced thriller by Bob Haney & George Roussos.

Haney scripted the majority of the stories in B&B, and followed up with a magnificently manic tale of eerie excitement for superb veteran artist Howard Purcell in ‘Fury of the Exiled Creature’ (#51, December 1963/January 1964) in which the fearsome Outcast of Atlantis turned mystical mutative powers against not just Aquaman but also new DC superstars Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

Superheroes were not the overarching force then that they became. DC’s war division was also spectacularly popular and Brave and the Bold #52 (February/March 1964) grouped Haunted Tank commander Jeb Stuart with Sgt. Rock and Navajo air ace Lt. Cloud as the 3 Battle Stars in ‘Suicide Mission! Save Him or Kill Him!’. Produced by Kanigher & Kubert, this superbly moody WWII combat-thriller saw Air Force, Armoured Cavalry and Infantry stars combine forces to escort and safeguard a vital Allied agent. Codename Martin had been sealed into a cruel and all-encompassing iron suit by the Nazis and in their rush to complete the mission nobody could spare the time to crack the spy out of the metal box…

Fast-paced, explosive and utterly outrageous, the chase across occupied France resulted in one of the best battle blockbusters of the era, and culminated in the revelation that the precious cargo had been a fourth war star in mufti all along…

One of the most memorable and visually evocative team-ups was ‘The Challenge of the Expanding World’ (#53, April/May 1964) in which the Atom and Flash strove valiantly to free a sub-atomic civilisation from mad dictator Attila 5 and simultaneously battled to keep that miniature planet from explosively enlarging into our own…

The concept of juvenile-hero teams was not a new one when a trio of kid sidekicks were assembled in a hip, fab and groovy ensemble as dedicated to helping kids as they were to stamping out insidious evil.

The biggest difference between wartime groups as The Young Allies, Boy Commandos and Newsboy Legion or such 1950s holdovers as The Little Wise Guys or Boys Ranch and the creation of the Titans was quite simply the burgeoning phenomena of “The Teenager” as a discrete social and commercial force. These were kids who could be allowed to do things themselves without constant adult help or supervision.

In the June/July 1964 issue (#54), Haney turned out a gripping mystic thriller superbly illustrated by unsung genius Bruno Premiani. ‘The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister’ united solo problem-solvers Kid Flash, Aqualad and Robin, the Boy Wonder in a desperate battle against a modern wizard and deranged Pied Piper who had claimed the teenagers of Hatton Corners in lieu of an ancestral debt. Our young champions had met in town by chance when students invited them to mediate in a long-running dispute with the adults…

In issue #55 (August/September 1965) Haney and illustrators Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris detailed the ‘Revenge of the Robot Reject’ which embroiled the Atom and Metal Men in deadly peril. When a series of suspicious lab accidents destroyed the Heavy Metal Heroes, distraught Doc Magnus was menaced by rogue robot Uranium and his silver-metal lover Agantha until size-changing champion Professor Ray Palmer intervened. Soon the scrap-heap scrappers were once more resurrected to end the evil automaton’s nuclear threat forever.

In #56 Haney and Bernard Baily flooded the 1964 World’s Fair with bizarre costumed antics as ‘The Flash and the Manhunter from Mars: Raid of the Mutant Marauders’ found the heroes battling an army of hybrids based on themselves and their Justice League comrades. Due diligence soon revealed that a lovesick artificial warrior and a haughty alien princess were responsible for the chaos, but not before the saga ended in tragedy…

Closing these epic annals is the landmark from The Brave and the Bold #59 (April/May 1965) which became the prototype of the title’s next twenty years. Illustrated by Fradon & Paris it found Batman and Green Lantern reliving the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo as they strived to foil ‘The Tick-Tock Traps of the Time Commander!’

Devious criminal scientist John Starr had tricked Bruce Wayne into clearing his name and stolen the Emerald Crusader’s power to fuel his chronal assault on Gotham but had severely underestimated his foes’ resilience and ingenuity…

With covers by Roussos, Purcell, Kubert, Bob Brown, Premiani, Fradon & Paris, Baily and Gil Kane and a full Biographies section, this is a stellar collection of groundbreaking Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction every fantastic action fan will adore.
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Yoko Tsuno Volume 2: The Time Spiral


By Roger Leloup translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-43-4

Arch-adventuress and scientific investigator Yoko Tsuno debuted in Spirou in September 1970 and is still going strong. As detailed by Roger Leloup, the astounding, all-action, uncannily edgy, excessively accessible exploits of the slim, slight Japanese techno-hero are amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created.

Leloup’s brainchild is an expansively globe-girdling, space-&-time-spanning series devised by the monumentally talented Belgian maestro after finishing his time as a studio assistant on Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin. Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings underpinned by authentic, unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, his illustrated epics were the forefront of a wave of strips changing the face of European comics in the mid-1970s.

They all featured competent, clever and brave female protagonists, revolutionising Continental comics and they are as timelessly engaging and potently empowering now as they ever were.

The very first stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bête’ and ‘Cap 351’ were brief introductory – and possibly beta-testing – vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her valiant but less able male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen properly hit their stride with premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange which began in Spirou‘s May 13th 1971 issue…

In the original European serialisations, Yoko’s exploits alternated between explosive escapades in exotic corners of our world and sinister deep-space sagas with the secretive, disaster-prone alien colonists from Vinea but, for the majority of the English translations thus far, the extraterrestrial endeavours have been mostly sidelined in favour of epically intriguing Earthly exploits. That changes with this particular tale as a new thematic strand of classic sci fi endeavour is convincingly introduced…

There have been 27 European albums to date and this one was first serialised in 1980 (Spirou #2189-2210 before being released the following year as compellingly gripping thriller album La Spirale du temps. It was chronologically the 11th album, yet due to the quirks of publishing reached us Brits as Yoko’s second Cinebook outing, offering enigma and mystery and three shots of global Armageddon…

Yoko is visiting a cousin and enjoying old childhood haunts in Borneo, with Vic and Pol along for the ride and – as ever – scouting film footage for another of their documentary projects. As the boys take to the skies in a helicopter their companion is befriending elephants and exploring an ancient, ramshackle and beloved temple. She is particularly taken with the bas-relief of a beautiful dancer on the wall of the crumbling edifice which has fascinated her since her earliest years…

This night, however, her bucolic routine is shattered by a strange sequence of events. Staying out later than usual, Yoko observes a bizarre machine appear out of thin air near the temple. As a young girl steps out of the contraption she is barracked by two men, one of whom then shoots her.

Instantly Yoko intervenes but when she decks the shooter he vanishes in an explosive swirl of light. Incredible explanations follow as the girl introduces herself as Monya, a time traveller from the 39th century. It’s hard to believe but she does have a gadget which closes and repairs her wound in seconds…

Monya has come back in time to prevent a scientific experiment currently running in the area which will result in Earth’s destruction in her era. In fact, the voyager from 3872 saw her father die and the planet turn to a cinder relative moments before arriving. Now she is intent on finding scientist Stephen Webbs and stopping his imminent test of an antimatter bomb…

Taking Monya to cousin Izumi‘s home, Yoko confers with Vic and Pol, who listen with astonishment to her story of future war, a devastated ecology and the planet’s destruction and how the fourteen year old has been tasked with ensuring that her reality never comes to pass. Monya’s attacker had been a man named Stamford: a fellow time-traveller who had gone off-mission and died because of it. Chrononauts cannot exist outside their own time without biological regulators to attune them to foreign times, and he must have damaged his when he tried to kill her…

A lucky chance then points them to a remote area where an Australian named Webbs has set up a site for an international telecomms company. The next morning our heroes are heading for the Dragon Mountain in two helicopters, although they are not sure what they will do when they get there: certainly not kill Webbs as Stamford wanted…

Bluffing their way in, Yoko and Monya leave the boys in the air as back-up and quickly discover the site has precious little to do with radio communications. It’s an old Japanese fortress from WWII, reconditioned to be utterly impregnable and manned by a private army. They even have a particle accelerator…

Whatever the researchers are up to, they don’t discount Monya’s story. Too many strange things have happened lately. Webbs was acquainted with Stamford; another colleague – Leyton – has gone missing and a rash of strange events has plagued the project. Before suspicious Webbs can explain further, and as if to underscore the point, a massive piece of machinery flies across the room and almost kills the girls…

Webbs is at his wits end, but Monya’s futuristic tech detects a strange energy field and leads Yoko to another fantastic discovery. On a tunnel wall sealed for decades she reads a military warning inscription. It is signed by her uncle, Toshio Ishida. An engineer and part of the occupation forces, he stayed and married a local after the war. Yoko is staying in his home with the colonel’s son Izumi…

Webbs is desperate to talk. Taking the girls aside he reveals what Monya already knows: he has isolated antimatter. What she didn’t know, however, is that the revelation was given to him by some unknown manipulator and only he can handle the material. Everybody else is held back by the kind of force that is causing objects to fly about and explode. Most terrifying of all, Webbs has uncovered evidence that the Japanese also had antimatter. If so, why didn’t they win the war…?

With no other option available Yoko decides she and Monya must travel back to 1943 to solve the mystery…

What they discover is a viper’s nest of criminality and intrigue, a scheme to unleash hell on Japan’s democratic enemies and an arcane horror which tests Yoko’s guts and ingenuity to the limit. Moreover, even after spectacularly defeating the threat in 1943, the alien menace remembers its enemies once they return to the present…

Complex, devious and superbly fast-paced, this mesmerising thriller is an onion-skinned marvel of clever plotting: a fabulous monster-hunting yarn which reveals more of Yoko’s past as she tackles a threat to today and saves a distant tomorrow.

Building to a thundering climax and uplifting conclusion, it again confirms Yoko Tsuno as an ultimate hero, at home in all manner of scenarios and easily able to hold her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or other genre-busting super-stars: as triumphantly capable facing spies and madmen as alien invaders, weird science or unchecked forces of nature…

As always the most effective asset in these breathtaking tales is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail.

The Time Spiral is a magnificently wide-screen thriller, tense and satisfying, which will appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devious derring-do.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1981 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Archie vs. Predator


By Alex de Campi, Fernando Ruiz, Rich Koslowski, Jason Millet & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-805-5

For nearly three-quarters of a century Archie Andrews has epitomised good, safe, wholesome fun, but inside the staid and stable company which shepherds his adventures there has always hidden an ingenious and deviously subversive element of mischief.

Family-friendly iterations of superheroes, spooky chills, sci-fi thrills and genre yarns have always been as much a part of the publisher’s varied portfolio as the romantic comedy capers of America’s cleanest-cut teens since they launched as MLJ publications in the Golden Age’s dawning.

As you probably know by now, Archie has been around since 1941, spending most of those seven-plus decades chasing both the gloriously attainable Betty Cooper and wildly out-of-his-league debutante Veronica Lodge whilst best friend Jughead Jones alternately mocked and abetted his romantic endeavours and rival Reggie Mantle sought to scuttle his every move…

As crafted over the decades by a legion of writers and artists who’ve skilfully logged innumerable stories of teenage antics in and around the idyllic, utopian small-town Riverdale, these timeless tales of decent, upstanding, fun-loving kids have captivated successive generations of readers and entertained millions worldwide.

To keep all that accumulated attention riveted, the company has always looked to modern trends with which to expand upon their archetypal brief. In times past they have strengthened and cross-fertilised their stable of stars through a variety of team-ups such as Archie Meets the Punisher, Archie Meets Glee, Archie Meets Vampirella and Archie Meets Kiss, whilst every type of fashion-fad and youth-culture sensation have invariably been accommodated into and explored within the pages of the regular titles.

That willingness to dip traditional toes in unlikely waters led in 2015 to the publishers taking a bold and potentially controversial step which paid huge dividends and created another monster sales sensation…

The genesis of this most unlikely cross-fertilisation of franchises is explained in great detail and with a tremendous sense of “how did we get away with it?” in Roberto Aguirre Sacasa’s ‘Introduction’, but just in case you’re new to the other participant in all this…

Predators are an ancient alien species of trophy-taking sporting types who have visited the hotter parts of Earth for centuries, if not millennia. They are lone hunters who can turn invisible and resort to a terrifying selection of nasty weapons. They particularly like collecting skulls and spinal columns…

Predator was first seen in the eponymous movie from 1987 and started appearing in comic book extensions and continuations published by Dark Horse with the 4-issue miniseries Predator: Concrete Jungle (June 1989 to March 1990). It was followed by 22 further self-contained outings and numerous crossover clashes ranging from Batman and Superman to Judge Dredd and Tarzan, steadily keeping the franchise alive and kicking whilst the movie iteration waxed and waned…

This spectacularly eccentric yarn pulls off the peculiar and miraculous trick of creating a hilarious and scary family-friendly teen-slasher flick which begins ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ as all the young cast regulars head to Costa Rica for Spring Break and are having the time of their lives, until Betty and Veronica have a particularly vicious spat over Archie which leads to a spooky confrontation and a curse uttered over what might be an actual voodoo dagger.

Science-whiz Dilton is occupied with his telescope watching and everybody is blissfully unaware that they’ve piqued the attention of something patient, invisible and completely alien…

When they all head home they have no conception that some of their number are already trophies on a wall…

With the youngsters back in Riverdale Archie and his companions settle back into their routine but soon realise that something has followed them when a beloved adult is decapitated in plain sight. Soon the community is cut off and they are all waiting ‘To Live and Die in a Small Town’…

Convinced their meddling with the occult has brought on the killing-spree, Betty and Veronica testily consult sorcerous expert Sabrina (the Teenage Witch) but that ends in another welter of scarlet and screaming and the first sighting of the thing from the stars…

Thing get grim and crazy as the rapidly depleting posse of teens meet the Government agents tasked with covertly countering the Predators but continue to fall until Dilton rolls out the weird science and Archie dons a ‘Full Metal Varsity Jacket’…

Soon the beloved cast is down to the barest essentials and the last few resistors face their final curtain in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’…

After a surprisingly gripping and gory conclusion that will astonish and delight everyone an ‘Afterword’ by series Editor Brendan Wright gives more insight into the impetus and creative process behind this inspired tale, but there are still plenty of treats in store.

Scripter Alexi de Campi also got to play with others creators’ toys in a series of Bonus Crossovers, which rounded out the comics issues. Here follow quirky, perky little one and two page vignettes such as the eerily satisfying ‘Sabrina Meets Hellboy’ with art and colours by Robert Hack, lettered by Clem Robins, and the fabulously bizarre ‘Li’l Archie and his Pals meet Itty Bitty Mask’ by Art Baltazar.

Philosophical and physical depths are plumbed as ‘Jughead meets Mind MGMT’ (Matt Kindt) and the girls have fun when ‘Josie and the Pussycats meet Finder’ illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil, with colours from Jenn Manley Lee and letters from the ubiquitous de Campi.

By all accounts, when news of this project got out an army of eager professionals clamoured to get involved. The miniseries offered a wealth of covers-&-variants – some scattered about and acting as chapter-breaks by Ruiz, Koslowski, Millet, Dan, Parent, Gisèle, Maria Victoria Robado and Andrew Pepoy. The rest are gathered in a massive Variant Cover Gallery displaying varying degrees of gore, whimsy and humour from Eric Powell, Francesco Francavilla, Colleen Coover, Darick Robertson with Millet, Pepoy with Millet, Dennis Calero, Patrick Spaziante, Robert Hack with Stephen Downer, Dustin Nguyen, Kelley Jones with Michelle Madsen, Paul Pope with Shay Plummer, Faith Erin Hicks with Cris Peter, Joe Quinones, Tim Seeley, Richard P. Clark, Ruiz with Anwar Hanano, Koslowski as full illustrator and even more.

Also on view are samples of ‘Promo Art’ prepared for the comics convention circuit and a large section of Ruiz’s developmental ‘Character Studies’ plus a feature on the ‘Art Process’ from rough pencils through to finished colour pages.

But wait, there’s still more as ‘Unused Covers’ offers eight final tantalising ideas which never made it off the drawing boards of Ruiz, Pepoy, Gisèle and Faith Erin Hicks.

This book is one of those “Pitch hooks” Hollywood producer types thrive by. All you need is the three word title and a graphic acronym to know whether you’ll love this yarn.

Archie Versus Predator….

AVP.

Another Victorious Pairing.

Astounding.
Visual.
Perfection.

Archie vs. Predator © 2015 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Archie™ and © 2015 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Predator™ and © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All guest material ™ and © 2015 its creators or copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Captain Pugwash Comic Book Collection


By John Ryan (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84780-384-9

John Ryan was an artist and storyteller who straddled three distinct disciplines of graphic narrative, with equal qualitative if not financial success. The son of a diplomat, Ryan was born in Edinburgh on March 4th 1921, and undertook his military service in Burma and India. After being de-mobbed and attending the Regent Street Polytechnic from 1946 to 1948, he took up a post as assistant Art Master at Harrow School from 1948 to 1955. It was during this time that he began contributing strips to Fulton Press publications.

On April 14th 1950 Britain’s grey, post-war gloom was partially lifted with the first issue of a new comic that literally gleamed with light and colour. Avid children were soon understandably enraptured; blown away by the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, a charismatic star-turn venerated to this day as well as a host of other spectacularly illustrated stories strips and features.

The Eagle was a tabloid-sized paper with full-colour inserts alternating with text and a range of various other comic features. “Tabloid” is a really big page and you can fit a lot of material onto each one. Deep within, on the bottom third of a monochrome page, was an 8-panel strip entitled ‘Captain Pugwash – The story of a Bad Buccaneer and the many Sticky Ends which nearly befell him’ delivered with dash and aplomb by the aforementioned Mr. Ryan.

The indefatigable artist’s quirkily effective, welcomingly spiky style also lent itself to the numerous spot illustrations required throughout the comic every week and he even found time to regularly produce ‘Lettice Leefe, the Greenest Girl in School’ for Eagle‘s distaff companion comic Girl.

Pugwash, his harridan of a wife and the useless, lazy crew of the Black Pig ran until issue #19 when the feature disappeared.

This was no real hardship as Ryan had been writing and illustrating the incomparable and brilliantly mordant ‘Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent’; a full page (tabloid, remember, upwards of twenty cram-packed and meticulously detail-stuffed panels per huge page, per week) from The Eagle #16 onwards.

Tweed ran for three years as a full page until 1953 when it dropped to a half-page strip and was repositioned as a purely comedic venture.

In 1956 the indefatigable old salt (I’m referring to Horatio Pugwash, but it could so easily be Ryan: an unceasing story-peddler with a big family, he still found time to be head cartoonist at the Catholic Herald for four decades) made the jump to children’s picture books and animated features for television.

The not-so-scurvy seadog washed up next in A Pirate Story: a proper illustrated children’s book and the first official first Pugwash chronicle. It was originally published by Bodley Head before the budding franchise switched to children’s publishing specialist Puffin. It was the first of a vast (sorry nautical puns are contagious, they really, really Arrr!) run of children’s books on a number of different subjects. Pugwash himself starred in 21 tomes; there were a dozen books based on the animated TV series Ark Stories, as well as Sir Prancelot and numerous other inspired creations.

Ryan worked whenever he wanted to in the comic world and eventually the books and the strips began to cross-fertilise.

When A Pirate Story was released in 1957, the BBC wisely pounced on the property, commissioning Ryan to produce a series of 5-minute black-&-white cartoon episodes (86 in all from 1957 to 1968, which were later reformatted in full colour and rebroadcast in 1976). In the budding 1950s arena of animated television cartoons, Ryan developed an entirely new system for producing cheap, high-quality animations to a tremendously tight deadline.

Naturally he began with Pugwash, keeping the adventure milieu, but replaced the Captain’s shrewish wife with a tried-and-true boy assistant. Tom the Cabin Boy is the only capable member of an astoundingly affable and inept crew which included such visual archetypes as Willy, Pirate Barnabas and Master Mate (fat, thin and tall – all dim and not at all bloodthirsty) instantly affirming to the rapt, young audience that grown-ups are fools and kids do, in fact, rule.

Ryan also drew a weekly Pugwash strip in the Radio Times for eight years, before going on to produce other animated series including Mary, Mungo and Midge, The Friendly Giant and Sir Prancelot, plus adaptations of some of his many children’s books. In 1997 an all new CGI-based Pugwash animated TV series began. There was even a thematic prequel in Admiral Fatso Fitzpugwash, in which it was revealed that the not-so-salty seadog had a medieval ancestor who became England’s First Sea Lord, despite being terrified of water…

John Ryan returned to pirate life in the 1980s, drawing new Pugwash storybooks. In swift succession he released The Secret of the San Fiasco, The Battle of Bunkum Bay and The Quest of the Golden Handshake, all joyously gathered in this resoundingly ample (194 x 254 mm) full-colour paperback…

The first Pugwash storybooks were traditional in format, with blocks of text and single illustrations illuminating a particular moment. By 1982 however the entire affair had evolved into lavishly painted comic strips, with standard word balloons on splendid panoramic double-page spreads or informative and complex layouts of as many as eight panels per page.

A fitting circularity to his careers and a nice treat for us old-fashioned comic drones, this trio of tales finds the master at his most exceptional and opens with The Secret of the San Fiasco, as the somewhat shaky stalwarts of the Black Pig fetch up in not-so-scenic Bogle Bay on Scotland’s wind-lashed Atlantic coast.

Ostensibly in search of a little holiday-break, the lads are actually hunting a fabulous treasure lost since the days of the Armada, when a gold-packed Spanish galleon apparently vanished into a solid cliff-face.

Many clever, greedy people have failed to find the treasure ever since 1588, but Pugwash is certain he will succeed. However as he and the crew check into draughty Bogle Castle, they are struck by the forbidding nature of the place and the sinister aspect of the only attendant, McGroggie the caretaker. They’re not amiss in their suspicions: as he terrifies them with spooky tales they are blissfully unaware that the old scoundrel is working with Pugwash’s arch-enemy Cut-Throat Jake…

After a night of terrifying noises and spooky events the cowardly Captain, Willy, Barnabas and Master Mate are quivering wrecks but intrepid Cabin Boy Tom is on the case and has tracked down the imprisoned Laird, heard the full true story of the San Fiasco’s end and deduced the treasure ship’s final resting place.

Sadly, as he leads his shipmates to the hidden trove, Jake and McGroggie are ready to pounce, but after the villains get away Scot free, the rogues fall out as rogues so often do…

The Pugwash stories are gloriously adrift sometime in the 18th century, never too closely bound by continuity whilst benefiting from many of the most momentous moments of a deliciously pick-&-mix grasp of history.

The wily Captain next bobs up during (another) war between England and France. The Battle of Bunkum Bay sees the seedy seamen sailing to the Pajamah Islands in search of a foundered Spanish bullion ship, but said wreck is slap-bang in the middle of two warring fleets. As has been previously noted, Pugwash is good at plans and sourcing loot, but terrible at keeping secrets, and his endeavours have again been observed by Cut-Throat Jake who follows the treasure-hunters at a cautious distance.

When they all reach the Pajamah Islands, the vile buccaneer hijacks Tom’s brilliant trick to sneak between the combative fleets of British Admiral Sir Splycemeigh-Mainbrace and his French rival Admiral the Marquis de Frilly de Pommes-Frites, but just this once canny Tom has overlooked a flaw in his usually impeccable thinking…

Jake leaves the hapless heroes in a dire death-trap and sails off, only to get calamitously caught up in the middle of the legendarily embarrassing Bunkum Bay maritime disaster, allowing Tom time to save the day and lead the Captain to an unaccustomed profit on his schemes…

Closing the piratical peregrinations is The Quest of the Golden Handshake, wherein our querulous, quivering Captain finds a genuine treasure map at an auction. All too soon though, a bidding-war with nefarious nemesis Cut-Throat Jake turns into a full-blown riot in which the coveted chart is torn a-twain…

Never knowingly daunted, Pugwash and company steal Jake’s half of the map that night but on returning to the safety of the Black Pig are horrified to discover that their rival has had the same idea…

Luckily the brilliant cabin boy had anticipated the move and copied their portion of the priceless document. Heartened and enraptured by thoughts of vast wealth, the crew hastily set sail for the Americas, determined to plunder the fabled Lost Treasure of the Stinkas…

Devious Jake, however, smuggles himself and a burly accomplice aboard, planning to let Pugwash do all the heavy lifting whilst awaiting a golden moment to claim revenge and the loot…

Packed with in-jokes, glorious tom-foolery and daring adventure, the voyage to the New World in a “haunted” ship culminates in a splendid battle of (half) wits before Tom, as usual, saves the day in his quiet, competent and deucedly clever way…

Gripping, hilarious and packed with gloriously effective and educational art of the most eye-catching quality these magically wry and enchantingly smart yarns are amongst Ryan’s very best: a humorous hoard of comic gems for fans of all ages.

We don’t have that many multi-discipline successes in comics, so why don’t you go and find out why we should celebrate one who did it all, did it first and did it well? Your kids will thank you and, if you’ve any life left in your old and weary adult fan’s soul, you will too…
© 1983, 1984, 1985, 1992, 2012 the Estate of John Ryan. All rights reserved.

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Gil Kane’s UNDERSEA Agent


By Gil Kane, Steve Skeates, Gardner Fox & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-444-3

The 1960s was the era when all the assorted facets of “cool-for-kids” finally started to coalesce into a comprehensive assault on our minds and our parents’ pockets. TV, movies, comics, bubble-gum cards and toys all began concertedly feeding off each other, building a unified and combined fantasy-land no kid could resist.

The history of Wally Wood’s legendary comics Camelot is convoluted, and once the mayfly-like lifetime of the Tower Comics line folded, not especially pretty: wrapped up in legal wrangling and lots of petty back-biting. None of that, however, diminishes the fact that the far-too brief run of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was a benchmark of quality and sheer bravura fun for fans of both the still-reawakening superhero genre and the popular media’s spy-chic obsession.

In the early 1960s James Bond movie mania was going from strength to strength, with action and glamour utterly transforming the formerly understated espionage vehicle. The buzz was infectious: soon A Man like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action, even as television shanghaied the entire trope with the irresistible Man from U.N.C.L.E. (which premiered in September 1964), bringing the genre into living rooms across the world.

Before long, wildly creative cartooning maverick Wood was approached by veteran MLJ/Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit – Tower Comics.

Woody called on some of the biggest names in the industry to produce material in the broad range of genres requested (as well as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, its spin-offs Dynamo and NoMan and associate title U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, there was the magnificent war-comic Fight the Enemy and youth-oriented comedy Tippy Teen).

Samm Schwartz and Dan DeCarlo handled the comedy book – which outlasted all the others – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown and more crafted landmark and benchmark tales for the industry’s top talents to illustrate in truly innovative style. It didn’t hurt that all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80 Page Giant format: there was a huge amount to read in every issue!

Tapping into the Swinging Sixties’ twin entertainment zeitgeists – sub-sea adventure and spy sagas – Tower supplemented their highly popular acronymic star-turn, The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves (T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents) with a United Nations Department of Experiment and Research Systems Established at Atlantis: an aquatic vehicle employing U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent against crooks, aliens, monsters, enemy agents and the inimical forces of the environment they operated in.

Unlike the dry-land series, however, U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent began with their strong, solid stories (by D. J. Arneson, Steve Skeates and Don Segall) being illustrated in a traditional manner by industry veteran Ray Bailey – plus occasional stints from Mike Sekowsky, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Frank Bolle, Manny Stallman and Sheldon Mayer.

According to this collection’s appreciative Foreword by Greg Goldstein and reiterated in Michael Uslan’s fact-filled Introduction, that old school stuff didn’t sit well with the kids and in issue #3 Gil Kane moved over from T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents  and came aboard to inject his unique, hyper-energetic human dynamism to the watered-down project.

Just a personal aside here: Although I bow to no one in my admiration for Kane and applaud this superb hardback compilation of his U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent contributions, I also adore the other stuff – especially Bailey’s workmanlike, Caniff-inspired renditions – and eagerly anticipate the day someone finally gathers the entirety of the six-issue run in one commemorative tome…

This superb book however – compiled to celebrate the astounding transformation in Kane’s own artistic endeavours which sprang from his brief time at Tower – reprints the breakthrough material which led to his sudden maturation into a world-class Auteur.

Kane was then a top-rated illustrator but would soon become one of the pivotal players in the development of the American comics industry, and indeed the art form itself. Working as an artist and, after this, an increasingly more effective and influential one, he has drawn for many companies since the 1940s, on superheroes, action, war, mystery, romance, movie adaptations and most importantly perhaps, Westerns and Science-Fiction tales.

In the late 1950s he was one of editor Julius Schwartz’s key artists in regenerating the superhero. Yet by the mid 1960s, at the top of his profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by the juvenile strictures of the industry that he dreamed of bold new ventures which would jettison the editorial and format bondage of comicbooks for new visions and media.

In U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent #3-6 (spanning June 1966 to March 1967) he was allowed to ink his own pencils for the first time in decades and encouraged to experiment with form, composition and layout – and write too – and Kane discovered a graphic freedom which opened up the way he told stories and led directly to his independent masterpieces His Name is Savage and Blackmark…

(His Name Is Savage was an adult-oriented black-&-white magazine about a cold and ruthless super-spy in the Bond/Helm/Flint mould; a precursor in tone, treatment and subject matter of many of today’s adventure titles. Blackmark not only ushered in the comic book age of Sword and Sorcery, but also became one of the first Graphic Novels. Technically, as the series was commissioned by fantasy publisher Ballantine as eight volumes, it was also envisioned as America’s first comics Limited Series.)

So what have we here? Lieutenant Davy Jones is the U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, a skilled diver who, whilst working at the international science lab Atlantis, had an accident which gave him magnetic powers that had to be controlled and contained by a hi-tech belt. His boss was affably brilliant boffin Professor Weston and Jones had a young, impetuous apprentice seaman as sidekick.

Skooby Doolittle joined him in tackling monsters, amok experiments and a remarkable number of crooks, mad masterminds and spies who thought pickings were easier under the sea…

Kane’s contributions commence with ‘The Will Warp’ – from UA #3 and written by Skeates – wherein our dashing heroes have to contend with the diabolical Dr. Malevolent who has perfected a ray that controls minds. Soon the vile villain has taken over Atlantis but has not reckoned on the speed of reaction and sheer determination of Jones and Doolittle…

Skeates also scripted Kane’s tale in #4 wherein Skooby has an unfortunate lab accident and is transformed into a colossal ravening reptilian. Amidst a storm of destruction and with his best friend now an actual danger to shipping, Davy is forced to extreme measures ‘To Save a Monster’…

‘Born is a Warrior’ (#5 and written by Kane’s long-time collaborator Gardner Fox) sees hero and partner go above and beyond in their efforts to overthrow an undersea invasion by aliens, before the astounding adventures conclude with a potent, extra-length tale of triumph and tragedy.

‘Doomsday in the Depths’ (#6, by Fox) finds Jones lost at sea and swept into a utopia beneath the sea floor. Trapped forever in the paradise of Antor, he finds solace in his one true love: the sumptuous scientist Elysse. Sadly, Davy is forced to abandon the miracle city and girl of his dreams to save them all from a horrific monster. Although ultimately victorious, he cannot find his way back…

A glorious cascade of scintillating fantasy action; these yarns – accompanied by a cover gallery by Kane – hark back to a perfect time of primal and winningly uncomplicated action adventure. This is a book to astound and delight comics fans of any stripe or vintage.
Gil Kane’s UNDERSEA Agent © 2015: UNDERSEA Agent © 2015 Radiant Assets LLC. All rights reserved.

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Small Press Sunday


I started out in this game when marks on paper were considered Cutting Edge, 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 still gets me going in ways that threatens my tired old heart…
With that in mind, here’s a selection of tantalising treats that have landed in my review tray recently…
A few days before I began a major writing project with an insane deadline, I reviewed the magnificent GoodCopBadCop collections (still readily available and waiting to make your existence worthwhile…). In the same package was the first issue of the latest storyline and now that my day job’s back to normal – and with deepest apologies to Jim and the lads – here’s that promised review of the new follow-up case…

GoodCopBadCop Casebook #3.1 ‘Only Pigs and Horses’ Part 1
By Jim Alexander and Aaron Murphy, with Chris Twydell & Jim Campbell (Planet Jimbot Comics)

As well as mind-boggling graphic albums, independent publisher Planet Jimbot (Jims Alexander & Campbell with an ever-shifting pool of graphic talent) also delivers proper black-&-white comicbooks: none better than the continuing exploits of the most challenging rozzer in the history of crime.

City of Glasgow Police Inspector Brian Fisher is a worthy, weary, dedicated public servant with the oddest partner an honest copper could ever imagine – his own ruthless, rule-less crazy-man bad side…

Following directly on from the last book collection (GoodCopBadCop Casebook volume 2) this deceptively moody yarn finds Fisher about to start work again after a long period of sick leave. He’s been stood down ever since he caught catching a macabre, mutilating serial killer who left his bloody mark on the seemingly inoffensive Inspector.

Also out of sorts is his assistant Detective Sergeant Julie Spencer, who’s presently kipping on his couch. She was starting to piece together the truth about Fisher’s condition, but just stopped caring when her mother died…

Before he was a quietly effective Detective, Fisher learned his trade in the mounted police division and spent many educational hours doing community policing for the Violence Reduction Unit, visiting schools where the kids were more ruthlessly ferocious than any full-grown bad guy. Moreover, Brian’s condition is not a total secret. Certain higher-ups know that he goes off the rails but no one important has complained yet and the clean-up rate is phenomenal…

Those halcyon days on horseback come back to haunt Brian here and now as a ghastly atrocity is invoked when a new nutter hits the streets and, with astounding overkill, butchers two beat coppers.

Back in the saddle, Brain immediately makes a connection to the events at the Tannoch police stables thirteen years previously and heads to Barlinnie jail to interview an old lag who knew the original perpetrator “Peter the Horse”.

For a sordid and risky moment of quid pro quo, Michael offers Brian the full SP on the maniac – including the fact that he’s been dead for year…

He also reveals that Peter had an acolyte: another Peter the Horse in the making and one that been out in the real world for six months now…

To Be Continued…

This is another beautifully paced, chillingly unfolding mystery soaked in chilling complexity and shocking moments, tailor made to be a movie or late-night Scandi-style drama serial…

This deftly underplayed, chillingly believable and outrageously black-humoured serial is a magnificent addition to the annals of Tartan Noir: smart, compelling, compassionate and fiercely engaging. If you like your crime yarns nasty and your heroes deeply flawed, GoodCopBadCop is a series you must not miss.
GoodCopBadCop Casebook #3.1 © 2016 Jim Alexander (story) and Aaron Murphy (art.)

Planet Jimbot has a splendid online shop so why not check it out?

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The Louvre Collection: Cruising Through the Louvre


By David Prudhomme translated by Joe Johnson (NBM ComicsLit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-841-3

Some years ago the Louvre Museum in Paris began an intriguing and immensely rewarding collaboration with the world of comics, and their latest beguiling translated bande dessinée is now available in English, courtesy of those fine folks at NBM.

Cruising Through the Louvre is a multimedia paean to the art of drawing; a beautiful, oversized hardback graphic art narrative which follows the artist on a bewildering tour of the galleries as he searches for his beloved Jeanne.

As he searches for her, he realises that the pictures on the walls, the statues in the halls and the mementoes of world history all form a perfect sequential narrative like his own comics works.

…And then he grasps how the art and the observers are all locked in a mirror-clear relationship feeding off and entertaining each other…

Author/artist Davis Prudhomme was born in Tours in 1969 and, after studying at the École de l’Image in Angoulême, began his cartooning career with Ninon Secrète in 1992, collaborating with Patrick Cothias. Whilst producing that series he worked on solo projects ‘La Tour des Miracles’ (adapted from George Brassens’ book), ‘L’Oisiveraie’, ‘Voyage aux Pays des Serbes’ and ‘Port Nawak’.

Amongst his most notable award-winning efforts are La Marie en plastique, Rébétiko and this fabulous graphic rumination of the creation and situation of art, which first debuted in 2012 as La Traversée du Louvre.

The book in question, which manages to be beguiling, expansive and charmingly funny by turn, is produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking authorities of the Musée du Louvre, but this is no gosh-wow “Night-at-the-Museum” thinly-concealed catalogue of contents from a stuffy edifice of public culture. Rather, here is a sedately seductive, introspectively loving examination of the power of art and history to move the masses and especially the creatively inclined…

Supplementing the voyage of narrative interaction is a fact-packed data-file section detailing the accoutrements and educational and scientific achievements of the institution (how many other art museums have their own functioning particle accelerator?), subdivided into mind-boggling details about ‘The Building’, ‘The Works’, ‘The Visitors’ and ‘The Agents’, plus all the traditional Additional Information and dedication addenda you’d expect and hope to see.

This is another astounding and marvellously magical comics experience no art lover or devotee of the visual narrative medium can afford to miss…
© Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions 2012. © NBM 2016 for the English translation.

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Dreamworks Dragons – Riders of Berk volume 3: The Ice Castle


By Simon Furman, Jack Lawrence, Stephen Downey & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-078-8

DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk and its follow-up Defenders of Berk are part of one of the most popular cartoon franchises around. Loosely adapted from Cressida Cowell’s gloriously charming children’s books, the show is based upon and set between the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Of course if you have children you are almost certainly already aware of that already.

Having wowed young and old alike across the globe, the series has also spawned a series of comic albums and this third digest-sized collection features two stellar incendiary serpentine sagas scripted as ever by the ever-enthralling Simon Furman.

In case you’re not absolutely au fait with the exhilarating word of winged reptiles: brilliant but introverted boy-hero Hiccup saved his island people from being overrun by hostile dragons by befriending them. Now he and his unruly kid compatriots of the Dragon Rider Academy gleefully roam the skies with their devoted scaly friends, getting into trouble and generally saving the day.

When not squabbling with each other, the trusty teens strive to keep the peace between the vast variety of wondrous Wyrms and isolated Berk island’s bombastic Viking homesteaders.

These days, now that the dragons have all been more-or-less domesticated, those duties generally involve finding, taming and cataloguing new species or protecting the village and farms from constant attacks by far nastier folk such as Alvin the Treacherous and his fleet of piratical Outcasts and, occasionally, fresh unknown horrors…

As usual, before the action takes wing there’s a brace of handy information pages reintroducing Hiccup and his devoted Night Fury Toothless, as well as tom-boyish Astrid on Deadly Nadder Stormfly, obnoxious jock Snotlout and Monstrous Nightmare Hookfang, portly dragon-scholar Fishlegs on ponderous Gronckle Meatlug and the terribly dim yet jovially violent twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut on double-headed Zippleback Belch & Barf…

The eponymous epic of ‘The Ice Palace’ (illustrated by Jack Lawrence with the colouring wizardry of Digikore and lettering from Jim Campbell) sees the Berk islanders dealing with another deep-snow winter whilst welcoming unsavoury fur-trader Arngrim Dammen to show his wares. The skins he brings are warm, varied and fabulous, but Astrid is not impressed – until she feels the quality of the merchandise. Her earlier suspicions quickly return, though, once the trader starts asking too many questions about her dragon.

Arngrim blusters on into the small hours, drinking and telling tales to the village men, but there’s something in his manner which also makes smith and armourer Gobber anxious…

Next morning those feelings are proven right when Astrid finds Stormfly has been stolen. The village is in turmoil and the council of war fraught. The seas are vast and the number of islands the thief could head for countless. However, Gobber recalls one detail of the plunderer’s interminable tall-tales and guesses where the scoundel is headed…

As two ships full of angry warriors and Dragon Riders close on their quarry, Hiccup and Astrid take to the skies on Toothless and see a huge number of vessels all on the same heading…

Their destination is clearly Balder Bay, but the Berk longboats can’t sail straight in amongst all those clearly hostile ships. They need to sneak up somehow. Then Gobber directs them to around the island to a terrifying natural feature: a massive wall of lethal jagged icicles known as the Ice Needles…

As Hiccup’s father Chief Stoick leads the men of Berk in the daunting task of scaling the Needles, the Dragon Riders head out on a reconnaissance mission and discover an incredible castle of ice in a vast crater, with Arngrim inside preparing to make the sale of a lifetime. Unfortunately some of that stolen booty is deadly dragon eggs and they’re ready to hatch…

Ending in a fast and furious fight scene of epic proportions, this rip-roaring yarn is a tense and suspenseful action-packed delight.

Cleansing the palate after all that drama is a humour-drenched episode starring brash, testosterone-soaked Snotlout who is forced by Gobber to be a ‘Litter Sitter’ for a day.

With art by Stephen Downey, colours from John Charles and letters by Campbell, the trials of the burly brute as he watches over a rambunctious brood of baby Monstrous Nightmares is a splendid blend of slapstick and sloppy, sticky sentiment…

Despite being ostensibly aimed at excitable juniors and TV kids, this sublimely sharp tome is the kind of smart and engaging fantasy romp no self-indulging fun-fan of any vintage should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly habit-forming.
© 2015 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

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Von Doogan and the Great Air Race


By Lorenzo Etherington (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-82-7

These days, young kids are far more likely to find their formative strip narrative experiences online or between the card-covers of specially tailored graphic novels rather than the comics and periodicals of my long-dead youth.

Once upon a time, however, the comics industry was a commercial colossus which thrived by producing copious amounts of gaudy, flimsy pamphlets covering a multitude of themes, subjects and sub-genres, all further subdivided into a range of successful, self-propagating, seamlessly self-perpetuating age-specific publications.

Such eye-catching items once generated innumerable tales, delights (and cherished memories) intended to entertain, inform and educate such well-defined target demographics as Toddler/Pre-school, Younger and Older Juvenile, General, Girls, Boys and even Young Teens. Today, sadly, Britain seems only capable of maintain a few paltry out-industry, licensed tie-ins and spin-offs for a dwindling younger readership.

Where once cheap and prolific, strip magazines in the 21st century are extremely cost-intensive and manufactured for a highly specific – and dying – niche market, whilst the beguiling and bombastic genres that originally fed and nurtured comics are more immediately disseminated via TV, movies and assorted interactive media.

There are one or two venerable, long-lived holdouts such as The Beano and 2000AD but overall the trend has been downwards for decades.

That maxim was happily turned on its head back in January 2012 when Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched The Phoenix: a traditional-seeming anthology comic weekly aimed at girls and boys between 6 and 12 which revelled in reviving the good old days of picture-story entertainment Intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and Content.

Still going strong, each issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. In the years since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only ones who really count – the astoundingly engaged kids and parents who read it…

The Phoenix was voted No. 2 in Time Magazine‘s global list of Top Comics and Graphic Novels and is the only strip publication started in the UK in the last forty years to have reached issue #100. It is now rapidly approaching its double-century. The magazine celebrated its first anniversary by developing a digital edition available globally as a tablet app and is continually expanding its horizons.

It is, most importantly, big and bold and tremendous fun.

On the other hand, whilst comics companies all seem to have given up the ghost, in this country at least, old-school prose publishers and the newborn graphic novel industry have evolved to fill their vacated niche. With a less volatile business model and far more sustainable long-term goals, book sellers have prospered from magazine makers’ surrender, and there have never been so many and varied cartoon and comics chronicles, compilations and tomes for readers to enjoy.

Naturally The Phoenix is part of that growing market, with a superb line of graphic albums repackaging and re-presenting their Greatest Bits.

The one we’re looking at today is The Phoenix Presents… Von Doogan and the Great Air Race: a dazzling display of cartoon virtuosity and mind-mangling comic challenges composed by Lorenzo Etherington, originally seen as captivating, addictively challenging weekly instalments of The Dangerous Adventures of Von Doogan.

The serial combined captivating cartoon narrative with observational tests, logic puzzles and other kids’ favourite brain-teasers, craftily taking readers and participants on a magnificently constructed progressive voyage of adventure and discovery in 37 clue, game, maze and mystery-packed episodes.

Our hero is a brilliant and intrepid young explorer with a keen sense of justice and an insatiable thirst for action. Here, following his previous exploit, Von Doogan is in the World Adventurers’ Club with the profits of the Golden Monkey caper burning a hole in pocket. Realising he is incredibly bored, he seeks out a fresh a challenge and is soon off and away…

Recovering, decoding and accepting an invitation to a global Great Air Race, our hero sets out in a hurry, gathering on the way supplies, a plane and a pilot in the form of very bad waitress Abby “Ace” Poontoon.

Then it’s a mad dash to decipher routes, maps and clues en route from one clandestine destination to the next; perpetually tackling – with your help – all manner of conundra (each with a daunting icon reckoning its “impossibility level”) as our heroes zero in on the goal.

As if puzzles such as ‘Secret Sandwich’, ‘The Big Choke’, ‘Cockpit Lockout’ and ‘Blazing Maze’ aren’t enough to challenge the keenest intellectual daredevil, there’s also the knotty problem of a saboteur amongst the intrepid contestants slowing and winnowing out the competition at every stage…

‘Doogan’s Discovery’ …

Naturally we aren’t all as smart as Von Doogan or a six-year old so this spectacular colourful cornucopia comes with a page explaining ‘How the Book Works’, an expansive ‘Equipment Checklist’ and a fulsome secret section offering extra help with ‘The Clues’ and – thankfully – it all wraps up with graphically glitzy explanations in ‘The Solutions’.

There’s even a free printable download page providing your own handy dandy copy of ‘Doogan’s Danger Kit’ to stop you cutting up the one in this mesmerising manuscript of mystery.

Story! Games! Action! … and all there in the irresistible form of entertaining narrative pictures. How much cooler can a book get?
Text and illustrations © Lorenzo Etherington 2016. All rights reserved.

To find out more about The Phoenix or subscribe, visit: www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk
Von Doogan and the Great Air Race will be released on April 7th 2016.