Author: NowReadThis

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I.R.$. volume 2: Blue Ice


By Vranken & Desberg, coloured by Coquelicot and translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-74-8

As I’ve frequently stated before, the most appealing aspect of European comics is the sheer breadth of genres, styles and age-ranges their efforts address and the audiences support.

Thus this quirky but exceedingly readable, deviously all-action Franco-Belgian thriller-series with a tantalising twist offers a deliciously different spin on the tried-and-true trope of the driven mystery-man superspy.

The unlikely champion of these sagas is a civil servant with the US government, which once upon a time started employing super-cool, infallibly effective special agents to go after the type of tax-dodger well beyond the reach of the law. These days, perhaps every nation should have one…

Belgian writer Stephen Desberg is one of the bestselling comics author in France. He was born in Brussels in 1954, son of an American lawyer (the European distribution agent for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer) and a French mother. Stephen began studying law at Université Libre de Bruxelles but dropped out to follow a winding path into the comics biz.

He began with plots and eventually scripts for Will (Willy Maltaite) on Tif et Tondu in Spirou, growing into a reliable jobbing creator on established strips for younger readers before launching his own in the Stéphane Colman illustrated Billy the Cat (a funny animal strip, not the DC Thomson superhero series).

Thereafter came 421 with Eric Maltaite, Arkel (Marc Hardy), Jimmy Tousseul (with Daniel Desorgher) and many others. During the 1980s he gradually redirected his efforts to material for older readerships (see for example The Garden of Desire) and in 1999 he created contemporary thriller IR$, with historical drama Le Scorpion added to his catalogue of major hits a year later.

Bernard Vranken was an award winning artist by the time he was fifteen. A year later he was working for Tintin. Whilst studying architecture at Saint-Luc he took some comics courses by legendary illustrator Eddy Paape at St. Gilles and his true career-path was set. Vranken was crafting short stories for A Suivre when he met Desberg and in 1996 they collaborated for the first time on epic romance Le Sang Noir. Three years later they traded love for money and launched I.R.$.…

The premise is simple and delicious, and Cinebook’s second translated English edition from 2009 once again doubles the bang for your buck by combining the third and fourth European albums – Blue Ice and Narcocratie – into one compelling compilation.

Blue Ice (originally released in 2001) opens with stylish American bean-counter Larry B. Max relaxing in his palatial home. The quiet start offers the observant reader a few hints into Larry’s past – and motivations – before he renews his odd, long-distance, anonymous relationship with favourite chat-line girl Gloria Paradise.

Larry hates complications in his life but there’s just something about her voice and attitude…

A little later he attends a piano rehearsal and promises his little sister he’ll be there for the recital on Friday. It’s just asking for trouble…

Meanwhile downtown, three very bad men are meeting excessively violent ends and at Los Angeles airport an American passenger from Mexico triggers a wave of security alerts. Typically, though, just too late for the inattentive security staff to do more than watch him spectacularly disappear into the city leaving two dead agents behind…

Later at DEA HQ, a high level meeting of numerous Federal agencies convenes to discuss Ryan Ricks. During his tour in Vietnam Ricks began managing the money of his platoon-mates and used it to make a killing on the Stock Exchange.

Slightly wounded, he then shipped out for home and was eagerly pursued by finance houses who saw he had a unique gift for using money and making it. He settled in at a major tobacco company and started creating wealth.

They didn’t notice – or perhaps care – that Ricks was making side-deals, nor that being utterly amoral he went where the money was to be easily found: terrorist nations…

When the IRS found out he was using dirty cash to make the company more money – and making himself fabulously rich at the same time – Ryan was fired. He claimed to have no understanding of why terrorist money was bad but profits from giving people cancer was good…

Ricks was a man ahead of his time. Even before the Cold War ended he was saying that New Capitalism would be beyond any laws and consequently followed that philosophy to its logical extreme. Specialising in creating off-shore accounts, he became the world’s greatest money-launderer and devised an international network for tax evasion.

That’s when Larry Max first encountered him, but the wily finance wizard simply vanished and a swathe of alphabetised American agencies has been waiting for him to turn up ever since…

Now twelve years later he’s back in USA so scores can be settled and pride regained. Some of the bigwigs however are unconvinced. With so many major players in the Monterrey Cartel gunned down in the street, the feds would rather concentrate on a clearly-brewing turf war than some nebulous cash-converter.

Late-arriving Larry is “only” a tax collector, not a true cop, but he can’t help wondering why they all think the events are unconnected…

Consulting his own researches, Mr Max coolly exposes a traitor in the cross-agency conclave and predicts things are going to get very dramatic for the Monterrey Cartel, but is fobbed off with only two agents to assist him. Hanson‘s shadowy spook-show has access to covert satellite surveillance and phone monitoring whereas Ella Hidalgo of DEA is a stone killer everybody call “Blue Ice”.

She’s going to be useful once the lead starts flying…

Across the border the prediction has already come true. Dion Monterrey, the aged, untouchable head of the clan, has begun cleaning house, eradicating all dissent before heading to LA for the most important meeting of his life…

Aided by cutting-edge covert spy technology, the hunt for Ricks moves into high gear and it’s not long before Larry and Hildalgo are quietly closing in on their target. Then a second traitor inadvertently tips his hand too soon and the astounded IRS agent has the key piece of information he needs to complete the puzzle…

Ultimate harbinger of unfettered Free Enterprise Ricks has returned to America because he’s acting as facilitator for the deal of the ages: selling off one of world’s biggest drugs cartels…

Larry is not satisfied. The facts just don’t add up and as he ponders the mystery and sweats the details Ricks is closing the deal and Dion is ensuring there’s no one left to contest the sale…

With every party understandably edgy the final handover is set to occur on the roof of a luxury shopping mall. With the fanatical Ricks describing the way business will be conducted in the until-now inefficiently managed, under-exploited market of modern coke consumption, the good guys quietly close in. They have all grossly underestimated the guile and paranoia of their targets though and soon the entire scene is a hellish firefight of lethal proportions…

As ever, the end result is a pile of bodies, massive collateral damage and Ricks a ghost in the wind, but this time Larry is on his tail…

Without a pause for breath the story concludes in Narcocracy as Max arrives in Tijuana, just as the next move in Ricks’ grand strategy goes live: acquisition and expansion…

Before dawn breaks in the seedy hell-hole many of the proud cartel hold-outs opposing the new order are gone and the game plan is clear. It’s not a consolidation or merger Ricks and his mystery backers have in mind for the already lucrative drug trade, it’s a hostile takeover…

The only fly in the ointment is a certain white-haired American who implacably follows the money magician everywhere and is proving utterly impossible to kill…

Help comes from a most unexpected quarter as the Mexican Federal Bureau of Narcotics picks up the taxman, claiming he’s about to blow a massive sting operation. Larry keeps his thoughts to himself as meets the country’s top brass and warns them of Rick’s current ambitious activities. After all, money talks, this is a country notorious for corruption and the wizard of wealth-creation has more cash than any other crook in the world…

Soon he is partnered up with the Bureau’s top investigators and chasing his elusive quarry but even though Larry knows a trap is waiting to spring somewhere he’s not quite sure when or who’s going to. Moreover, behind all the criminal double-dealing and staggering slaughter, he can perceive the kind of chicanery that only real, Harvard-style business types are capable of. All he has to do is find out who and prove it…

Inevitably the hammer falls and bodies begin to drop and just for a moment it looks like someone’s going to miss a piano concert…

Complex, fast-paced, suspenseful and incredibly violent, this yarn is pure movie blockbuster: a sleek, lean and lithe action-fest to seduce any devotee the thriller genre.

IR$ is a splendidly effective, stylishly gritty thriller series that will delight fans of modern mayhem in all its literary and artistic forms.

Only death and taxes are inescapable, and Larry B. Max offers either or both in one suavely, economical package…
Original edition © 1977 Editions du Lombard (Le Lombard/Dargaud SA) 2001-2002 by Desberg &Vrancken. English translation 2008 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Essential Amazing Spider-Man volume 7


By Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Len Wein, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1879-4

After a shaky start in 1962 The Amazing Spider-Man quickly rebounded, soon proving a sensation with kids of all ages and rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Soon the quirky, charming, action-packed comicbook soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old costumed-crimebusters of previous publications.

You all know the story: Peter Parker was a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider during a school science trip. Discovering he had developed astonishing arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, finding, to his horror, that it was the selfsame felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others…

Since that night the Wondrous Wallcrawler has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

The Amazing Spider-Man was always a comicbook that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base and this seventh exceedingly enthralling monochrome compilation of chronological web-spinning adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero through one of the most traumatic periods of his career.

By the time of these tales Lee’s hand-picked successor Gerry Conway was giving way to fresher authorial hands. Nevertheless, scripts continued to blend contemporary issues (which of course often feel quite outdated from here in the 21st century, Man!) with soap opera subplots to keep older readers as glued to the series as the outrageous adventure and bombastic battle sequences beguiled the youngsters.

Thematically, there’s further decline in the use of traditional crimes and gangsters, overwhelmed by outlandish villains, monsters and capers, but the most sensational advance was a super-science plot which would reshape the nature of the web-spinner’s adventures for decades to come…

Nevertheless the Wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth; defining being a teenager for young readers of the 1970s, tackling incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations.

High School nerd Peter Parker had grown up and gone to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggled there too, developed a stress ulcer but found true love with policeman’s daughter Gwen Stacy…

This volume, spanning November 1974 to September 1976, collects Amazing Spider-Man #138-160, Annual #10 and incorporates team-up tales from Giant-Size Spider-Man #4-5. Eagle-eyed completists might notice the third Giant-Size issue has been omitted: that’s because there the Wallcrawler met Doc Savage and Marvel no longer hold the license to publish the magnificent Man of Bronze…

With no particular fanfare the action opens with Conway still very much in charge as ‘Madness Means… the Mindworm!’ – illustrated by Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt – finds Parker relocating downmarket to Queens in time to encounter a macabre psychic parasite feeding of the denizens of the district. Then issue #139 introduces a bludgeoning brute with a grudge against J. Jonah Jameson on the ‘Day of the Grizzly!’ When Spidey intervenes he is beaten and handed over to the costumed crazy’s silent partner the Jackal who melodramatically reveals he knows the hero’s true identity. Even though Peter escapes his diabolical trap in ‘…And One will Fall!’ the maniac flees and remains at large…

A long-running comedy thread ends as the ridiculous Spider-Mobile ends up in the river, but the Wallcrawler barely has time to care as an apparently dead enemy returns in #141’s ‘The Man’s Name Appears to be… Mysterio!’

Despite the psychological assaults escalating and Pete continually questioning his own sanity, the mystery is solved in ‘Dead Man’s Bluff!’ before Giant-Size Spider-Man #4 (April 1975 and inked by Mike Esposito) which sees an eagerly-anticipated reappearance of Marvel’s most controversial antihero in an expanded role.

‘To Sow the Seed of Death’s Day’ finds the Webslinger forced into one of the Punisher‘s cases when ruthless arms dealer Moses Magnum perfects a lethal chemical-weapon and begins testing it on randomly kidnapped victims.

Tracking down the monster in ‘Attack of the War Machine!’, the unlikely comrades infiltrate his ‘Death-Camp at the Edge of the World!’ before summary justice is dispensed… as much by fate as the heroes’ actions…

The Lone Gunman was created by Conway, John Romita Sr. and Andru; an understandably muted response to popular prose anti-heroes like Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner: the cutting edge of a bloody tide of fictive Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime in the early 1970s.

Although one of the industry’s biggest hits from the late 1980s onwards, the compulsive vengeance-taker was an unlikely and uncomfortable star for comicbooks. His methods were always excessively violent and usually permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Black Widow or Wolverine come readily to mind) Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public simply shifted its communal perspective; he never toned down or cleaned up his act…

That same month in Amazing Spider-Man 143 ‘…And the Wind Cries: Cyclone!’ saw Peter in Paris to deliver a ransom for the kidnapped Jameson and battling a hyper-fast French super-villain. The story was average but the real kicker was the overly-fond farewell casual chum Mary Jane Watson expressed: a kiss that finally shifted traumatised, depressed Peter’s thoughts from his beloved and recently murdered Gwen…

Conway, Andru, Giacoia & Hunt capitalised on the situation when Pete returned as #144 launched ‘The Delusion Conspiracy’ and #145 exposed a baffled girl’s confusion and terror at everyone’s reactions when she comes home and the entire world screams ‘Gwen Stacy is Alive …and, Well…?!’

With Gwen somehow resurrected and Peter on the edge of a breakdown, Aunt May was hospitalised just in time for another old foe to strike again in ‘Scorpion… Where is Thy Sting?’, but the real kick in the tale was irrefutable scientific reports which proved the increasingly bewildered Miss Stacy was not an impostor…

Giant-Size Spider-Man #5 (July 1975, inked by Esposito again) offers a strange yet welcome break from the mental tension as ‘Beware the Path of the Monster!’ sees Parker despatched to Florida to photograph the macabre Man-Thing only to discover the lethal Lizard is also loose and hunting ‘The Lurker in the Swamp!’ It takes all the web-spinner’s power and the efforts of a broken man in sore need of redemption to set things right in the climactic conclusion ‘Bring Back my Man-Thing to Me!’…

Back in the Big Apple for #147, Peter finds some answers as further tests prove Gwen is a clone – remember, this was new and cutting-edge stuff in 1975 – but all too soon he’s distracted by another foe bad-guy with a grudge and hungry to prove ‘The Tarantula is a Very Deadly Beast’ (Andru, Esposito & Hunt).

It’s all part of a convoluted revenge scheme and the hero is ambushed by a mesmerised Gwen at the behest of an archfiend as ‘Jackal, Jackal, Who’s Got the Jackal?’ at last shares some shocking truths about one of Peter’s most trusted friends before the Delusion Conspiracy explosively concludes with #149’s ‘Even if I Live, I Die!’ (Andru & Esposito).

Learning he and Gwen had been cloned by their biology teacher Miles Warren, the Amazing Arachnid has to defeat his alchemical double in a grim, no-holds-barred identity-duel, with neither sure who’s the real McCoy. The battles eventually results in the copy’s death… maybe…

That moment of doubt over who actually fell informs anniversary issue Amazing Spider-Man #150, as Archie Goodwin, Gil Kane, Esposito & Giacoia take the hero down memory lane and up against a brigade of old antagonists to decide whether ‘Spider-Man… or Spider-Clone?’ survived that final fight, before new regular scripter Len Wein joins Andru & John Romita Sr. to launch a new era of adventure…

After disposing of his duplicate’s corpse in an incineration plant, Spider-Man finds time to let Peter Parker reconnect with his long-neglected friends. However a jolly party is soon disrupted as blackouts triggered by a super-menace lead the Wallcrawler into the sewers for a ‘Skirmish Beneath the Streets!’, resulting in our hero almost drowning and nearly being ‘Shattered by the Shocker!’ (Andru, Esposito & Giacoia) in the conclusive return engagement…

A moving change-of-pace tale sees a blackmailed former football star give his all to save a child in ‘The Longest Hundred Yards!’ (Andru & Esposito) but it is left to Spider-Man to make the computer-crook culprits pay, after which #154 reveals ‘The Sandman Always Strikes Twice!’ (art by Sal Buscema & Esposito) – but with little lasting effect – until murder-mystery ‘Whodunnit!’ cunningly links three seemingly unconnected cases in a masterful “Big Reveal”…

A long-running romance-thread resulted in the oft-delayed wedding of Pete’s old flame Betty Brant to reporter Ned Leeds, but the nuptials are interrupted by a new costumed crook in ‘On a Clear Day, You Can See… the Mirage’ (Andru & Esposito), even as a sinister hobo who had been haunting the last few yarns came fully into the spotlight…

Much of the previous Essential Spider-Man volume was taken up with a protracted struggle for control of New York with Spidey and elderly May Parker caught in the middle. The devilish duel concluded with a nuclear explosion and the seeming end of two major antagonists but #157 exposed ‘The Ghost Who Haunted Octopus!’ when the debased long-limbed loon turned to Aunt May for his salvation.

With Peter in attendance, the many-handed menace seeks to escape a brutal ghost but their combined actions actually liberate a pitiless killer from inter-dimensional limbo in ‘Hammerhead is Out!’, leading to a savage three-way showdown with Spidey ‘Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm with Doctor Octopus’ to save the horrified Widow Parker…

A new insectoid arch-foe debuted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #10, courtesy of plotter Wein, scripter Bill Mantlo and artists Kane, Esposito & Giacoia as ‘Step into my Parlor…’ depicts obsessed Spider-hater Jameson hiring unscrupulous biologist Harlan Stilwell to create a tailor-made nemesis to eradicate the Wallcrawler.

Elsewhere that detested hero is breaking up a vicious hostage situation manufactured by psychotic Rick Deacon, but when the killer escapes and breaks into a certain lab he is rapidly transformed into a winged wonder-man hungry for payback on the web-spinner in ‘…Said the Spider to the Fly!’

This copious compendium then concludes with the opening shot in an extended epic as a criminal inventor who is one of the web-spinner’s oldest enemies recovers Spidey’s ditched vehicle and tricks it out to hunt down its original owner if #160’s ‘My Killer the Car!’ (Wein, Andru & Esposito)…

Despite some qualifications this is still a superb selection starring an increasingly relevant teen icon and symbol. Spider-Man at this time became a crucial part of many youngsters’ existence and did so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow.

Blending cultural veracity with glorious art whilst making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and sense of powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive prime time melodrama moments, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.

The tales in this again proved Spider-Man was bigger than any creator and was well on the way to becoming as real as Romeo and Juliet, Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan.
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2011 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Tamsin and the Deep


By Neill Cameron & Kate Brown (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-77-3

In January 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a traditional anthology comics weekly aimed at under-12 girls and boys which revelled in reviving the good old days of picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

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 people who really count – the astoundingly engaged kids and parents who read it…

Like the golden age of Beano and Dandy the magazine masterfully manages the magical trick of marrying hilarious humour strips with potently powerful adventure serials such as the subject of this latest compilation: a wondrous seaside sorcerous saga with intriguing overtones of The Little Mermaid, by way of the darker works of Alan Garner.

Written by Neill Cameron (Mega Robo Bros, How to Make Awesome Comics, Pirates of Pangea) and beguilingly illustrated by Kate Brown (Young Avengers, Manga Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Fish + Chocolate), the fishy tale opens with a ‘Prologue’ on the Cornish coast as a young girl berates her older brother Morgan. He promised to teach her how to surf but is just messing about with his mates.

Fed up, she leaves her dog Pengersek on the sands, swipes a bodyboard and paddles out alone. After all how hard can it be?

When the big wave hits and she goes down for the final time, she’s sure she feels a grip on her foot and sees a green fishy face…

The story proper starts when ‘Tamsin’ drags herself ashore coughing and gasping. Somehow she’s drifted miles down the coast and with nobody there to help has to make her own way home. Her leg hurts and the bus driver won’t let her on (she’s soaking wet and without cash) but at least she’s still got that old stick she picked up somewhere to lean on…

There are even more surprises when she finally staggers home. Mum goes absolutely crazy and Morgan is clearly scared. Maybe it’s because their dad was lost at sea nine years ago, but it’s probably the fact that Tamsin vanished a month ago and has been declared drowned…

The police have loads of questions she can’t answer but as far as Tamsin knows she was only gone a few minutes, so eventually life settles back into a normal routine – apart from Morgan acting oddly and her own increasingly nasty dreams.

Things get bad again a few nights later. Awakening from a particularly vivid nightmare, Tamsin discovers she’s clutching that stick and riding a surfboard… hundreds of feet above the town! Moreover, from her shocking vantage point, she can see Morgan. He’s slowly walking into the sea…

Without pausing, she zooms into the roaring brine and yanks the sleepwalker out, blithely unaware that hostile, piscatorial eyes are angrily watching…

Morgan is shattered. He’s been having nightmares too, and sleepwalking. It’s probably from guilt but every time he wakes up he’s been heading for the sea…

‘A Nice Day Out’ sees Tamsin taking a little “me time”. Finding a secluded spot to practise flying with the aid of what is clearly a magic stick, she revels in her new gifts but from high above she sees Morgan is still unsettled. He’s sworn not to go near the water and even quit the local surfing competition but he’s clearly scared of something. Later, to cheer up her kids, mum drags them to the beachside amusements where Morgan meets an enigmatic girl who convinces him to re-enter the event…

Tamsin meanwhile has had another strange encounter: after having her ice cream stolen by a pixie thing, she meets a cocky Blackbird (he says he’s a Chough) who snidely and loquaciously tells her it was an Undine before warning her to keep Morgan well away from water…

She’s almost too late: her brother has wiped out in the early heats and is being pulled under by a gloating mermaid when Tamsin blasts into the depths on her board. She explosively rips him free of her clawed clutches, hurtling them both high into the air before landing in a terrified heap on the beach…

With the sorcerous she-wight fuming below the waves and planning further mischief, in the sunshine Tamsin shares her secret with traumatised big brother before discovering a little ‘Family Mythology’ after that smug bird returns…

Knowledge comes at a steep price however and her learning curve involves an awful lot of fighting against a lot of awful creatures before Tamsin is ready to save Morgan from a horrible fate hundreds of years in the making…

Apprised of a fantastic heritage and now fully prepared to combat a generational curse that has seen all the males of her line swallowed by ‘The Deep’, Tamsin prepares herself for a fantastic battle against the finned demon, but the foe is impatient and launches her own monstrous invasion of the surface-world which soon has the entire town in uproar…

Once the foam settles triumphant Tamsin tries to ease back into a normal routine but that ill-omened bird returns for an ‘Epilogue’, explaining that she now has a mission for life – protecting Cornwall from all mystic threats – and her next crisis has already started…

This yarn is a fabulous blend of scary and fabulous, introducing a splendid new champion for kids of all ages to cheer on with the promise of more to come in the forthcoming Tamsin and the Dark…

Boisterous, bold and bombastically engaging, this is a romp of pure, bright and breezy supernatural thrills just the way kids love them, leavened with brash humour and straightforward sentiment to entertain the entire family.

Text © Neill Cameron 2016. Illustrations © Kate Brown 2016.
Tamsin and the Deep will be released on February 4th 2016 and is available for pre-order now.

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Scarlett Couture


By Des Taylor (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-062-7

During the early 1960s the world went crazy for suave and stylish superspies like James Bond, Napoleon Solo & Ilya Kuryakin, Matt Helm and Derek Flint. They even accepted – to a lesser degree – such distaff operatives as Modesty Blaise, Honey West and April Dancer (The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.).

Now with our multimedia-mad world again embracing the astonishing entertainment value of espionage extravaganzas there’s a healthy new crop of shadowy spooks, urbane operatives and ferocious femmes fatale vying for our attention but none more sleekly eye-catching than this late entry from triple-threat creator Des Taylor…

Simple, straightforward and as on-target as a sinister sniper sortie, this eye-catching yarn deftly blends the ultra-glamorous worlds of high fashion and movie blockbuster spy-craft; with this initial compilation collecting first 4-issue foray ‘Project Stardust’.

As is so often the case, the drama begins with a beautiful woman being tortured by a maniac…

She is no ordinary victim, however, but one of a number of high profile supermodels from the Chase Couture Agency, abducted during gigs in Las Vegas. The story is soon top of the news all over the world, but all those fervid journalists would be even more strident if they knew the truth.

The celebrated cheesecake-and-clothes club is actually a highly specialised CIA front dating back decades to when luscious Chase Carver created “The Showroom” for “The Company”: building a bevy of beautiful, glamorous patriotic honey-traps extensively trained to get information from powerful but ultimately fallible and predictable men…

Now the project is a very visible (quasi) legitimate concern, Chase is the indomitable matriarch of a fashion empire and her daughter Scarlett is the business’ extremely formidable Chief of Security. Some of the most accomplished girls on their books are still proper spies though…

Scarlett is a girl with a past. As a teenager she was kidnapped herself: held for more than a week until rescued by some very special agents who then became her teachers in a number of unique disciplines and skill-sets. Now they also work for mommy dearest…

Tonight the daughter is hot on the trail of her missing employees and has tracked them to a warehouse in Brooklyn, but as she breaches the seedy building all her suspicions are confirmed as a lethal trap closes around her…

The over-zealous gunmen are no match for Scarlett or her support team, but the nasty surprise the crazy torturer left on one of the captive girls almost ends the investigation before it’s begun…

And as the ultra-rich masterminds behind the scheme confer it becomes clear what the stakes are in a truly high risk game: one that has a shocking connection to the Couture family line…

When a third SC model is found executed in her own New York apartment Scarlett and her handler at Covert Investigations Group back-trace her to Vegas too, and attentions switch to Sin City “businessman” Dante Ramon just as the rest of the world’s focus is on the US Secretary of Defense’s visit to the city…

And that’s only the opening gambit in this rollicking, rollercoaster romp set solidly in the style of the Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan Bond extravaganzas, involving shady pasts, sinister cabals, crazy radical terror groups, Machiavellian Get-Super-Rich-Quick villains, sunken planes, Nazi-bio-weapons and a proper sting in the tale; all the tried-and-true tropes of sexy spy thrillers from Charlie’s Angels via Emma Peel to La Femme Nikita…

Delivered in a superbly enticing animation-based illustrative style, this deceptively enticing spicy package also includes Special Bonus material such as ‘Dossiers & Mission Log’ offering profiles on ‘Scarlett Eva Carver’, her mega-mysterious mum ‘Chase Elizabeth Carver’, tutors/sidekicks ‘Spencer Kelly’ and ‘Trent Wayland’ as well as crusty curmudgeon/NYC cop dad ‘Lt. Jack Andrew Gillis’.

Adding to the attractions are a mocked-up photo-cover of ‘Hot Profile Magazine: The Chase Couture Collection Issue’, ‘Somebody Call Security’ a faux fashion-mag interview with Scarlett and a plus-sized ‘Gallery section’ featuring covers, photos (of actual model Viktoria Dobos – the visual inspiration for her), sketches, promo artwork, unused cover art and a selection of book covers from a proposed run of novels entitled ‘Scarlett Couture Pulp Designs’

Glitzy, fast-paced, inviting and superbly seductive, this is an action-packed asset to secure the undying attention of every red-blooded armchair operative.

Scarlett Couture will return in…
Scarlett Couture is ™ and © 2015 Des Taylor.

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Yakari and the Stranger


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-27-4

European children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who’d begun his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs), working on Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Spirou. Together they created the well-received Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure gold two years later with their next collaboration.

Debuting in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a little Sioux boy on the Great Plains; sometime between introduction of horses by the Conquistadores and the coming of modern White Men.

Stuffed with bucolic whimsy, the beguiling all-ages series celebrates the existence of noble wanderers in tune with nature and free of strife, punctuated with the odd crisis but generally resolved without fame or fanfare – usually by a little lad who is compassionate, smart, valiant and can converse with all animals…

As “Derib”, de Ribaupierre – equally excellent in both the enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style and also with devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustration – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators, crafting such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic about AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne). Many of his stunning works over the decades feature his beloved Western themes, built on magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes, and Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the feature which primed the gun.

With the boldly visual story under review here, the steady transition to his more epic milieux has never been more evident…

Yakari et l’Etranger was first released as a European album in 1982 and became Cinebook’s 5th Yakari volume in 2007, but that as ever won’t be a problem for chronology or continuity mavens as the tale works perfectly read in isolation: wondrously welcoming and easily accessible for young kids and/or their adult minders meeting the bold little Brave for the first time…

One day in the woods, the beavers are beginning a major construction project under the stern foremanship of Thousand Mouths, with Yakari and his faithful pony companion Little Thunder gleefully watching when a strange bird with a huge beak crash-lands in their midst. It is very large, very clumsy and has the worst cold anybody has ever seen.

In between earth-shaking sneezes the stricken visitor explains that he is a White Pelican who flew far too high and got lost, catching this awful affliction in the process…

After their usual bout of squabbling with each other the hospitable beavers offer to put him up until he gets better, but after one night of continual ear-shattering sneezes the mammals are all sleep-derived and tetchy, so Yakari smuggles the bird into his people’s encampment.

This is not an ideal solution either, but does give the little lad an idea: curing that colossal cold by treating the pelican to a night in a sweat lodge…

The camp’s sacred building is out of bounds but the weary beavers are happy to construct their own affair and, after a steamy night, the heat treatment seems to do the trick. However, before the day is out the cold returns with greater force and even bigger sneezes.

The real problem is that the stranger is weak from lack of food, but Yakari’s pals the ever-playful otters are happy to catch a few fish for him. None of them have ever seen how much a pelican can eat though, and before long the entire stream is empty even though the snuffling bird is still starving.

Moreover, a night in the open results in every animal in the forest being kept awake by thunderous sneezing…

The next morning, Yakari is confronted by a horde of frazzled creatures all demanding he get rid of the feathered nuisance. Disappointed and angry Yakari furiously storms off with his unfortunate new friend and as he and Little Thunder carry the weakened bird away, the boy brave has an inspiration; he will take his patient upriver to visit his old friend the grizzly bear.

It’s spawning season and the shallows are overflowing with salmon which the jolly colossus is delighted to share with a fellow fish aficionado. The nourishment soon works its magic and the big white bird makes a rapid and complete recovery. Soon he’s arcing through the air and determined to settle accounts.

Despite the churlish way they acted, the grateful pelican pay back the animals for the way he’s been treated. Soaring down, he scoops up a bucket-sized beak-full of fish from the stream just as the otters are about to catch one…

The solitary pelican has thanks not vengeance in mind however as he dumps enough fish to feed the whole family: a day’s worth of hunting in one minute. He’s equally generous with the beavers, giving spectacular, sky-soaring rides to each one in return for their taking him in.

His gratitude expressed the lost bird rests, but good deeds beget good deeds and sculpting genius Thousand Mouths is inspired to express his own talents with a series of statues starring the sneezing bird: a new and novel landmark which catches the eyes of a passing flock of big-beaked fishing birds who have been looking for a lost comrade…

Depicted with stunning skill and verve, incorporating just the right amount of pathos to leaven the bonhomie and dry humour, Yakari and the Stranger is a compelling fable about hospitality and friendship which demonstrates the meaning and rewards of generosity with Job’s whimsical story allowing Derib another glorious opportunity to prove his astonishing mastery of comics-staging and Earth’s natural wonders …

The evergreen exploits of the valiant little voyager who speaks with animals and enjoys a unique place in an exotic world is an unmissable celebration of marvellously moving and enticingly entertaining adventure, honouring and eulogising an iconic culture with grace, wit, wonder and especially warmth.

These gentle sagas are true landmarks of comics literature and Yakari is a strip no fan of graphic entertainment should ignore.
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard s.a.) 2000. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Serenity – Firefly Class 03-K64 volume 1: Those Left Behind


By Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-449-4

For those far-too-few folks who actually saw it, Firefly remains one of the best Science Fiction TV shows ever created. It was cancelled after one season. Buy the box-set or seek it out from an on-demand, streaming media outlet as soon as you possibly can.

That crushed yet select fanbase were eventually reassured and delighted by the superb Serenity – one of the best science fiction movies ever released.

Rent it, buy it, watch it however you can.

You don’t really need to, but it will be fun and afterwards you’ll be even more properly primed to enjoy this delightful digest-sized full-colour paperback continuation which bridges the period between the show’s end and the film, offering further details and moments in the eventful lives of reluctant freedom fighter Malcolm Reynolds and his oddball crew of reprobates aboard an independent trader starship of the Firefly class.

Collecting the 3-issue miniseries, Serenity: Those Left Behind, this is the first volume of comic adventures starring the nomadic, semi-piratical outlaws, and if you aren’t au fait yet – did I mention the live action iterations are readily available and extremely entertaining? – here’s a little help.

After they used up Earth, humanity migrated to the stars and settled another star-system packed with hundreds of more or less hospitable planets and satellites. Now it’s the 26th century and mankind is living through the aftermath and reconstruction period of a punishing internecine conflict known – by the victors – as the Unification War.

This still-fresh, tender and, for far too many, unconcluded clash saw the Outer Colonies crushed after attempting to secede from the authoritarian Alliance of first-settled inner planets. Reynolds fought valiantly on the Rebel/losing side and now spends his days eking out a living on the fringes of an increasingly repressive and dangerous universe: a fiercely free agent skippering a small cargo vessel.

Hopefully that’s just shipping cargo and people from world to world and trying to avoid the ever-expanding Alliance’s representatives and security forces, but occasionally survival means bending the law a mite….

It’s hard, risky work: often illegal and frequently dangerous – especially as the outer regions are where the insane cannibal berserker savages dubbed Reavers restlessly prowl.

Life changed forever after Serenity gave passage to fugitive Alliance doctor Simon Tam: on the run after stealing his apparently psychic sister River from a top secret research project.

The Government spared no effort or expense to get her back, hounding the fugitives from pillar to post until Mal and his crew finally resolved to push back. After too many close shaves and at the cost of too many friends, Reynolds and Co finally uncovered the horrific secret the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden and broadcast it to the entire ‘Verse…

Before that moment, however, for this yarn the unhappy wanderers are back at the daily grind of getting paid and not getting caught, as scripters Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, illustrator Will Conrad, colourist Laura Martin and letterer Michael Heisler, open this stellar rollercoaster ride with the rovers indulging in a spot of bank robbery on a frontier world, only to stumble upon a much nastier gang of desperadoes with the same idea…

All too soon Malcolm’s party have surrendered the loot to their far-more-bloodthirsty rivals and are fleeing for their lives from the irate homesteaders to make another astounding hairsbreadth escape, but as the captain apologizes once again to long-term passenger Inara the Companion for the slow, agonizingly torturous and oft-diverted passage to her intended destination, they have no conception that more Alliance manhunters have just latched onto their trail…

The stalkers have devious plans which involve recruiting another deadly maniac Reynolds has made a lasting impression upon, but by then the oblivious crew of Serenity are already embroiled in another bad idea. Vile criminal fixer Badger has convinced them to go after millions in lost cash, left to rot amongst the uncounted dead and wrecked, vacuum-blasted ships lost in the cataclysmic and legendary Battle of Sturges…

And in a hidden bunker, the hunters of River Tam inspect the ship that maimed, mad Agent Dobson plans to use in killing Reynolds and Serenity and feel extremely confident that their prize will soon be back in their hands…

Voyage time aboard the Firefly passes as it usually does, with crew and passengers sniping, sparring or just plain fighting, but all too soon the ship eases into the horrific debris field and the amiable bandits-turned-grave-robbers are cautiously searching for the loot. At that moment Dobson launches his blistering attack and the Alliance hunters make their own move, surreptitiously boarding Serenity to capture River.

They know all about her incredibly lethal capabilities and think they’re ready for anything, but have severely underestimated the power of a brother’s love or engineer Kaylee’s devious ingenuity…

As that particular Alliance plan goes to crap, back amongst the dead men, Dobson and his cohorts are so obsessed over settling accounts with Reynolds they completely forget how dangerous his shambolic, cantankerous crew can be…

This power-packed good thing in a small package is supplemented with stunning cover-art portraits of the crew from John Cassaday, Joe Quesada, Tim Bradstreet, Brian Hitch, JG Jones, Jo Chen, Leinil Yu, Josh Middleton and Sean Phillips plus a wistful, funny Introduction from Nathan (the man Reynolds himself) Fillion and comes sporting a tone and sensibility that is pure Jonah Hex (back when the bounty-hunting gunfighter was as blackly funny, sardonic and socially critical as he was thrilling, scary and action-packed), delivering astoundingly terse dialogue and winning characterisation plus all the intoxicating bonhomie and sense of wonder any starstuck reader could want.

This is a book no lover of space opera shoot ’em ups can afford to miss.
Serenity © 2005, 2006 Universal Studios. Firefly™ and Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64™ Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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As You Were volume 4: Living Situations


By various, compiled and edited by Mitch Clem & Avi Ehrlich (Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club/Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-822-5

Speaking as a doddering survivor of the first Punk Uprising, I admit to still hankering for those frenzied days of youthful indiscretion, impatient passions, a sense of being completely tangential to most folk around me and a clear idea of who “The Enemy” was.

At least I’m still utterly angry and discontented over inequality, political arrogance, corporate smugness, bigotry of every type and the First World’s poisonous assumption  that we all adhere to their vile philosophy of I’m-all-right-Jackery…

So it’s bloody wonderful to see some of those attitudes still surviving into this century: even if the issues are more about personal liberty and freedom of expression and lifestyle, rather than Fighting the Power or just being listened too…

As You Were is a periodic collection of strips by contemporary cartoonists who self-identify as “punk” and this fourth instance is dedicated to the precarious prospect of daily existence, gathered under one cardboard roof by Mitch Clem (creator of Nothing Nice to Say – arguably the first online punk comic) and Avi Erlich, designated adult of San Franciscan arts collective Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club, who worked in conjunction with Last Gasp to produce this starkly monochrome digest-sized anthology collection.

Behind the Kriss Stress cover and following a fabulously illuminated contents section embroidered with a border by Autumn Ballard, the domestic diatribes (produce of more than one country) open with a frenetic depiction of ‘Tuesday Night at the Rad House’ from Liz Suburbia after which Ben Passmore details the fantastic rules controlling all dealings with ‘The Punklord’ and Shannon Knox examines the lives of the poor, abused cleaning utensils so seldom used by any house occupant in ‘Takes from the Kitchen Sink’.

‘I Grew Up in a Haunted House’ relates Liz Prince’s odd preoccupation with one room in a certain home after which James the Stanton visually and viscerally recalls a party which was out of this world in ‘Gnartoons’, Brad Dwyer and his partner find some ‘Common Ground’ in the raising of their kids and Evan Wolff vs Campus P.D. finds the author not-so nostalgic about college housing and student crash-pads in ‘One Time at the Hot Tub House’…

Wondering if it’s booze or Ska music making everything so swirly in Mel’s ‘This Only Works When Everyone is Drunk’, we stagger on to enjoy Jim Kettner’s gleefully elegiac ‘Tales from the Bookhouse’, recounting the unique selling points of past temporary dwellings before Meg Has Issues realises ‘All Roommates are Asshole’ and Chris (Comics of Mass Distraction) Mindtree details a happy ending resulting from ‘2 Guys 1 Apartment’…

‘Homecore’ by Josh PM Frees reveals the trials of two gentle scholarly souls searching for shelter whilst Andra Passen exposes herself in ‘Crowded thoughts and crooked teeth’ before the perennial new-student dilemma (no contraceptives!!!) surely evokes pained, fond memories for many of us as Steve Thueson remembers ‘July 2009’…

Sam Grinberg shares a rowdy party experience in ‘Quiet’ before Rick V hilariously ‘Draws A Comic About Every Human He Has Lived With’ and Nomi Kane totally steals the show with ‘Nightmare on Milwaukee Avenue’ as the housemates have to deal with “that guy”: the lazy, shiftless one who has problems with the very concept of menstruation and other girl stuff…

Steve Larder offers a uniquely British outlook whilst recalling his time staying in ‘The Hippy House’ and Emily “Buckwheat” Timm scales flights of fantasy in ‘A Girl Can Dream’ with Joshum sustaining the escapism in fabulous pantomimic sci fi fable ‘Coming Home’.

World traveller Aimée Pijpers thoughtfully details her ‘Living Arrangements: a Timeline’ before true Brit Rob Cureton amuses and outrages with his ‘INFOMERCIAL’ for a very special old folks home after which Alex Barrett exposes the idiocy of the Tallahassee cops in ‘GCF’ and Rachel Dukes depicts a moment of pure romance in ‘Good Morning, Dracula’…

Alex Krokus then shares a ‘House Meeting’ like so very many others and Sarah Graley intimately recalls ‘Elly’s Room’ after which Wyeth Yates gloriously predicts a happy future in the ‘Horse Latitudes’ before Ben Snakepit apologises for his many sins as a ‘Roomate from Hell’

‘Buying the Baron’s House’ is Erin K. Wilson’s silent tale told in two timeframes, relating the history of a home and its fate today whilst ‘There and Back Again’ finds Carolina Porras daydreaming as she packs up for another move. After Andy Warner graphically catalogues a ‘House Party’, Will Laren recapitulates a modern manifesto with ‘The People’s System’ before Lindsay Anne Watson pantomimically advocates that we ‘Settle Down’ to close this conference of cartoons.

With a full biography/contact section (for when you want to see more… and where) this is a wonderful collaborative colloquium of cartoon free expression to delight lovers of the comics game, but if your new to all this, British and of a certain age or maybe simply a devotee of anarchic comedy, the (long and disinfectant-dosed) handle you’re reaching for regarding much of this material is Mayall & Edmonton’s The Young Ones or Bottom, possibly by way of John Belushi in Animal House…

However, whatever your age, stance or orientation, this splendid collection of funny, raucous, whimsical and thought-provoking graphic narrative is a delicious way of seeing how those kids you claim not to understand think – and surely that’s no bad thing?
Collection © 2015 Silver Sprocket. Contributions © 2015 by the individual authors.

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Long John Silver volume 4: Guiana-Capac


By Xavier Dorison & Mathieu Lauffray, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook) ISBN: 978-1-84918-175-4

British and European comics have always been far more comfortable with period-piece strips than our American cousins and much more imaginative when reinterpreting classical fiction for jaded comicbook audiences. The happy combination of familiar exoticism, past lives and world-changing events blended with drama, action and, most frequently, broad comedy has resulted in a uniquely narrative art form suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes.

Our Franco-Belgian associates in particular have made an astonishing success out of repackaging days-gone-by – generally in comedic form – but this particularly enchanting older-readers yarn forgoes broad belly-laughs whilst extending the adventures of literature’s greatest rogue into a particularly engaging realm of globe-girdling thriller with one hell of a twist.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was originally serialised from 1881-1882 in Young Folks magazine as Treasure Island or, the mutiny of the Hispaniola, as pseudonymous penned by “Captain George North”.

It was collected and published as a novel in May 1883 and has not been out of print since. A landmark of world storytelling, Treasure Island has been dramatised too many times to count and adapted into all forms of art. Most significantly, the book created a metafictional megastar – albeit at best an anti-hero – as immortal as King Arthur, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan or Superman. Almost everything the public “knows” about pirates devolves from the book and its unforgettable, show-stealing one-legged antagonist…

Writer Xavier Dorison was born in Paris in 1970 and graduated business school before moving into storytelling. He works as an author, film writer, lecturer and movie script doctor. His comics works include West, Sanctuary and The Third Testament and in 2006 he began the award-winning Long John Silver in conjunction with preferred collaborator Mathieu (Prophet) Lauffray, with this last volume released in Europe in 2013.

Lauffray is also Parisian; born in 1970. He spends his days illustrating, drawing comics, crafting games and concept designing for movies. His art has graced international items as varied as Dark Horse’s Star Wars franchise, games like Alone in the Dark, the album Lyrics Verdun, February 21, 1916 – December 18, 1916, Tarzan and much more…

Their collaborative exploration of the piratical prince’s later years is a foray into far more mature arenas set decades after the affair of the Hispaniola and ranges far and wide: from foggy, oppressive England to the vast, brooding inner recesses of the Amazon and into the darker deeps beyond

What Has Gone Before: in 1785 treasure-hunting Lord Byron Hastings found the lost bastion of Guiana-Capac but needed further funds to exploit this fabulous City of Gold.

In England, his profligate and wanton wife Lady Vivian had been enjoying herself too much and was with child by a lecherous neighbour. With a baby in her belly and a husband three years gone, she was considering having Byron declared dead and undertaking a hasty remarriage…

Suddenly shattering those plans her despised brother-in-law turned up with an aged, garish tribesman named Moxtechica bearing both message and map from her long-lost husband. Prudish and cruel, Royal Naval officer Edward Hastings gleefully told the despicable scheming strumpet his brother had succeeded and demanded she sell everything – including all the treasured family possessions, manor house and lands she had brought to the marriage – to finance his return…

Byron named Edward sole Proxy and the martinet delighted in giving high-born trollop Vivian her marching orders. He even urged her to confine herself to a convent and save them all further shame and disgrace…

The Lady considered numerous retaliatory tactics before settling upon the most bold, dangerous and potentially rewarding. After announcing to the stunned Edward that she would accompany him to the Americas and reunite with her beloved husband, the fallen noblewoman sought out a certain doctor to help care of her problem…

Dr. Livesay was a decent, god-fearing soul who led a quiet, prosperous life ever since his adventures on Flint’s Island. However, it was not just her condition which brought Vivian to the physician’s door, but also persistent tales of a former acquaintance; a formidable, peg-legged rogue with a reputation for making life’s difficulties disappear…

Against his better judgement, Livesay capitulated to Vivian’s urgings and introduced her to retired sea-cook John Silver. Amidst the (alleged) ex-pirate’s inner circle of scary-looking confederates she spun the story of the Spaniard Pizarro’s discovery of a City of Gold and how, centuries later, her husband had reclaimed it.

She wanted to travel there with capable men and make those riches her own, but needed Silver and his associates to infiltrate Edward’s crew, seize the ship he’d chartered and complete the voyage under her command…

Unable to convince Vivian to desist or Silver to reject her offer, Livesay reluctantly joined them in vain hopes that he could keep the debased woman from mortal harm. Nobody was aware Silver concealed a debilitating, soon-to-be-fatal affliction as the rascal orchestrated his own hiring and thereafter packed the Neptune with suitable scoundrels – but only after compelling Lady Vivian to sign a sacrosanct Pirate’s Contract.

With each schemer believing their own plans were proceeding satisfactorily, the ship sailed, but at the last moment Silver suffered a major setback when rival rogue Paris inveigled his way onto the crew…

As the tense voyage progressed, Silver’s men, Paris’ contingent and even Hastings’ innocent hires all slowly succumbed to the sea cook’s glib tongue and bombastic tales of the Red Brotherhood.

Only Hastings’ lieutenants Dantzig and Van Horn had any inkling of the battle of wills below decks, but even that shaky détente shattered when Lady Vivian’s maid Elsie was murdered. Painfully aware that everybody aboard was gripped by gold-fever, Hastings had been ruling with a rod of iron and full naval discipline. Settling upon Jack O’Kief (Paris’ protégé, but beloved by Silver) as responsible for her death, Hastings had the boy brutally flogged.

A prolonged battle of wills followed, pushing the crew to the edge of mutiny. Hastings delayed final landfall off the tantalisingly close South American coastline and strained tempers exploded just as a colossal storm pushed the Neptune inexorably towards its foregone destination. Inevitable mutiny erupted, resulting in appalling bloodshed and a red-handed settling of many scores…

Literally above it all, old shaman Moxtechica rode out both tempests, patiently waiting to see what dawn might bring…

In the ghastly aftermath of the twin maelstroms the becalmed and battered Neptune drifted idly off-shore and survivors reeled aimlessly on her decks until Silver’s ferocious tongue-lashing brought them to life.

Now completely in charge, the old pirate makes Dantzig (the only trained pilot/navigator left) second-in-command, despite the Navy Man swearing he’ll see them all hang one day…

Boldly sailing the ship straight into the cliffs, Silver and Dantzig navigated a barely discernible channel through the stony walls and brought the Neptune into a sedate, beguiling tributary of the Amazon. With time taken to repair and recover, however, the men soon resort to their old ways. Dead are buried, some old scores settled and Jasper, a new rival to Silver’s authority, began to assert himself. Seeing the way things were going, Vivian stepped in, employing wiles and cunning…

Seducing the entire crew with her story of Emperor Viracocha and his City of Gold, she tells of how her husband claimed it and won them over by revealing how they would take it from him…

The wary mariners impatiently and so-slowly sailed up the vast river in an epic voyage through labyrinthine courses and jungle backwaters. Each time they stalled, Moxtechica was there, silently divining their route to Guiana-Capac.

This sparked growing suspicion in Vivian. Her brutal, impatient husband was never given to trusting or inspiring loyalty – even in other Englishmen – and she harboured grave doubts over the shaman’s true motives…

Those same thoughts plagued Silver and his wily shipmate Olaf as the river grew perilously shallow, especially after the voyagers discovered the foundered, rotting hulk of Hastings’ ship The Nimrod in the shallows abutting a vast overgrown, jungle-smothered city…

As Silver readied the depleted contingent to begin searching the ruins, Vivian surprised him by requesting to be put aboard Nimrod. Perhaps her husband’s ship held answers to the many questions vexing her. As she scanned his grimy journal, aboard Neptune nobody really cared that Moxtechica was missing… but they should have…

This epic conclusion commences as Vivian is taken and reunited with her husband. Lord Byron is a much altered man with a new overarching passion…

Meanwhile, at the gates of the city Silver and his small scouting party – which includes Doctor Livesay – are confronted by the gloating shaman before being set upon by gigantic iguanas. Forced to plunge deep into the sinister metropolis to save themselves, their hasty explorations uncover a map crafted by the Conquistadors. It does not depict where gold is stored but rather where the Christian warriors set huge stores of gunpowder in an attempt to destroy the infernal god-forsaken citadel…

Silver is undaunted: he came for treasure and will not be thwarted, but as the Englishmen continue their search they discover a procession of robed natives ascending to a temple and cautiously follow.

Vivian is still reeling at the changes to her husband and the disclosures he fervently shares. He evangelically recounts the story of his own voyage and reveals that he came not for gold but in search of an ancient god.

He was successful…

This was also what the Conquistadores came for, but they failed in their quest to destroy the profane entity and now its long-foretold coming is imminent. Its latest high priest then reveals it is currently feeding one-by-one on the captured crew of the Neptune, but what it really craves and requires is the baby in Vivian’s belly…

The appalled Lady reels, realising at last that the entire venture has been a Byzantine ploy to bring her to the city where the God will use the results of her sins to finally come to Earth…

Equally aghast are Silver and his party: they have stumbled upon a colossal chamber in time to see Olaf beguiled and sacrificed. Helpless to save him they swear terrible vengeance. Vivian is of the same mind as she drives a great sword through the body of her smug, uncomprehending and astounded husband…

Too furious even to plot, Silver goes on a rampage and whilst slaughtering priest-natives discovers the rest of his crew. Leaving his companions to rouse the drugged or ensorcelled shipmates and get them back to the Neptune, Silver storms on. Followed by Livesay the rogue eventually finds an inner chamber rigged with more barrels of gunpowder. It’s also packed floor to ceiling with glittering gold…

As the seamen make a valiant last stand against the enraged and innumerable warriors of Guiana-Capac, Vivian stumbles upon Silver and Livesay moments before Moxtechica find them. Knowing the value of her child to the pagan maniacs she holds her own life hostage until the pirate and doctor can get away…

As the outnumbered buccaneers sell their lives dearly across the city, Vivian is taken to the sacrificial chamber for the consummation of centuries of arcane anticipation, but inveterate villain Silver finds himself acting completely against his nature, aligning with the doctor in a most uncharacteristic manner to foil the hellish natives, frustrate a god and still claim the treasure his entire life has been dedicated to winning…

And as a man-made apocalypse descends upon the infernal city, the slightest whim of fate and steadfast determination of the unlikeliest of heroes saves a small fraction of the doomed company to tell the tale…

Suspenseful, eerily compelling, spectacularly powerful and magnificently realised, this final exploit of Long John Silver sets the seal on a modern masterpiece of adventure fiction worthy of Stevenson’s immortal adventure (and perhaps even the works of Clark Ashton Smith or H.P. Lovecraft). They might even convince a few more folks to actually read the originals.

This is unmissable stuff which could only be improved upon by bundling all four albums into one single treasure-trove volume…
© Dargaud, Paris, 2013 by Dorison & Lauffray. All rights reserved. English translation © 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Vampires

New expanded review

By Joss Whedon, various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-749-3

Although debuting as a motion picture starlet, Buffy the Vampire Slayer only really found her high-kicking feet after migrating to the small screen. Soon after securing her status as a certified media sensation, she won her own comicbook in 1998, with smart, suspenseful, action-packed yarns (in a monthly series and graphic novels, fully supplemented by spin-off miniseries and short stories in showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents) which perfectly complemented the sensational, groundbreaking and so culturally crucial TV show.

And just like in the TV arena, many of those spin-offs had plenty going for them in their own right: not just character-driven vehicles like Angel or Spike and Drusilla, but also more anthological and tangential fare such as this intriguing, cleverly-themed collection of bloodsucking short tales notionally scattered throughout the “Buffyverse”. Interweaving vignettes with an overarching in-continuity story these episodes – which originally appeared as part of one-shot Drawing on Your Nightmares Halloween Special and 5-issue miniseries Tales of the Vampires from September 2003 to April 2004 – are mostly coloured by Michelle Madsen with lettering primarily by Annie Parkhouse.

It all eerily opens with eponymous introduction ‘Tales of the Vampires’ by Joss Whedon, Alex Sanchez & Derek Fridolfs as a rather select school party visits some most peculiar historical sights…

Deep underground, four precocious children are brought to interview a long captive vampire. The aspiring Watchers – who will one day witness and war against all the forces of supernatural horror – are smugly conscious of their abilities, but have never truly imagined a vampire like Roche. The enchained Nosferatu is pleased: he can share stories of his kin and wait for his moment…

‘Father’ begins a triptych of tales written by Jane Espenson. Illustrated by J. Alexander it starts in Hollywood, circa 1922 and ends in 2003, tracing the strange relationship of boy grown old beside his evergreen last blood-kin whilst ‘Spot the Vampire’ (lavishly limned by Scott Morse) playfully and poetically offers some sage advice to monster-hunters at Christmas before ‘Dust Bowl’ (Jeff Parker) settles in 1933 Kansas; a land sucked dry and desolate, but where one family has found an inexhaustible supply of something refreshing, thanks to a wandering stranger…

A strange relationship is developing between raconteur and his deceptively dangerous listeners as Roche recounts the story of ‘Jack’ – by Brett Matthews & Vatche Mavlian – which sheds new light on events in Whitechapel in 1888, whilst ‘Stacy’ (Whedon & Cameron Stewart with colours by Chip Zdarsky) reveals the innermost thoughts of an imaginative lass who believed in magic and so wanted to be different. Then ‘Some Like it Hot’ (Sam Loeb & Tim Sale, with letters from Richard Starkings and Comicraft) comedically considers the outcomes when a mad doctor meets a vampire fed up of living in the dark…

Of much darker mien is ‘The Problem with Vampires’ (Drew Goddard & Paul Lee) as Spike returns to Prague to rescue his insane inamorata Drusilla from a human determined to torture her to second death after which ‘Taking Care of Business’ by Ben Edlund & the Nick of Time Crew (with Fridolfs inks and colours by David Nestelle), offers a moment of devotion as a centuries old-vamp who specialises in eating clergymen has a gas station “road to Damascus” moment after meeting a little man who says he’s God…

As little Edna slowly comes to the conclusion that Roche has more in mind than mere storytelling, the vampire relates how a bloodsucking gambling addict met his match thanks to ‘Dames’ (Brett Matthews & Sean Phillips) in Depression-era Las Vegas and before the monstrous Roche makes his move against those sweet little kids (sarcasm alert!) he tells them of when puissant Vlad Dracula clashed with Buffy Summers, Kira, Xander and other newly activated Slayers in ‘Antique’ (Goddard & Ben Stenbeck) whilst redeemed vamp Angel was feeling ‘Numb’ (Matthews & Cliff Richards) from recollections of the evil acts he had so recently committed…

And then Roche makes that move… and Edna makes hers…

If you’re a Buffy fan this collection featuring the kinds of beasties that she so adroitly despatched is for you. If you’re a devotee of kick-ass action/horror comics you’ll love this too. And if you’ve just been a fan of the television show this is your chance to get addicted to comics ’cause this one’s so terribly hard to put down.
Tales of the Vampires ™ & © 2004 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved.

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Paleo: the Complete Collection


By Jim Lawson, with Stephen R. Bissette, Peter Laird & various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80356-2

It’s a rare hominid that hates dinosaurs. Sure, the occasional chimpanzee might prefer a nice kitten or peanut, but most of us soft, hairy two-leggers can’t get enough of our antediluvian predecessors. Apart from the cool way they look and the marvellous variety they came in, it’s pretty clear they concentrated on eating their surroundings and/or each other and never once tried organised sports, or to appropriate more deckchairs than they could use, or wreck the planet…

Seriously though, there’s an irresistible, nigh-visceral appeal to all manner of saurians; small or super-sized. Most of us variously and haphazardly evolved hairless apes seem obsessively drawn to all forms of education and entertainment featuring monster lizards from our primordial past. That’s especially true of comics.

Most nations and many languages have filled countless pages with illustrated stories featuring cretaceous cameos and lizardly line-ups, but America has proudly gone one stage further than most by evolving a true sub-genre. As eruditely and loving explained by Stephen R. Bissette in his scholarly overview and Introduction ‘The Paleo Path: Paleo and the History of Dinosaur Comics’, the terrifying thunder lizards have been visitors and antagonists in literature and the arts for decades but it was comics – specifically a minor back-up feature in Turok, Son of Stone #8 (August 1957, by Paul S. Newman & Rex Maxon) – which finally gave them a voice of their own.

What’s a Dinosaur Comic? One set in the creatures’ own times and scenarios, with no human intrusion or overblown authorial invention. They are scientifically credible tales about animals living and dying on their own terms and in their own context: no cavemen, aliens, time machines or human heroes. All Then, All Lizard, All the Time…

There have been precious few – and Bissette lists them all, including his own wonderful Tyrant – but for us devotees, paramount amongst them is the far-too occasional Paleo: Tales of the Late Cretaceous by Jim Lawson.

Since 2001 the exceptionally gifted, prolific and apparently tireless Lawson has relaxed from his day jobs (most impressive of which are the thousands of pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he has written and drawn for more than two decades) by crafting a string of 8 black-&white comics detailing the fictionalised natural history and dramas of the big beasts.

Now Dover has republished Lawson’s 2003 graphic novel compilation, with the added attraction of two more unpublished issues: three all-new stories produced in collaboration with Bissette, Peter Laird and other equally dedicated devotees.

In case the name still seems familiar, Lawson’s other interests include motorcycles – one day I’ll review his outrageous debut series Bade Bike and Orson – and fantastic fantasy. His other cartoon forays include Rat King, Planet Racers (with TMNT co-originator Laird) and in 2013 he began new project Dragonfly…

This mammoth monochrome collection begins with that aforementioned Introduction before quickly thundering on to the meat we all crave, opening with Book One (inked and lettered by Laird) which focuses attention on a key moment in the life of a Triceratops seventy million years ago…

These “Tales from the Late Cretaceous” are all delivered with the earnest veracity and unsentimental authenticity of a show on Animal Planet, or perhaps the better Disney wildlife films of the 1960s and 1970s, and the spectacular, eye-popping narrative takes the form of informed observation as a young, leathery, three-horned cow interacts with or avoids Quetzalcoatalus, egg-stealing proto-rodents and voracious Daspletosaurs, getting into a fix which nearly ends her young life. Nearly…

Lawson inked his own pencils on Book Two where an alpha male Dromeosaur deals with a pushy young male in the female-heavy pack. Status quo re-established, the hunters collaboratively take down a massive Tsintaosaurus but when an apex predator Albertosaur claims the kill, the pack’s hierarchy again becomes an issue of survival…

This issue was supplemented with ‘Gratitude… A Paleo Short Story’ wherein the most experienced female of the pack examines her precarious place in the world…

Book Three examines a strange case of maternal transference as a baby Stegoceras loses one mother and believes a roosting Quetzalcoatalus might be a likely substitute whilst Book Four reviews ‘A Busy Day in the life of a Plotosaurus’ with the colossal sea lizard coming in-shore to scavenge from Aublysodons and later making the kill of a lifetime in deep water after boldly attacking a much larger Thallassomedon Plesiosaur…

It’s a time of snow and deadly cold in Book Five as an aging Albertosaurus takes a bad wound from the Styracosaur he planned on eating. As the world slowly turns white, the hunter finds himself regarded as prey…

There’s a shift in focus and look at the true top killers in Book Six as a herd of feeding Corythosaurs idly watch a dragonfly pass. The insect which is the epoch’s most efficient hunter then makes a mistake for the ages when it lands on the wrong tree at the right moment…

Lawson is at his dramatic best depicting a night hunt in ‘A Paleo Short Story’: a stark, wordless, dramatically chiaroscuric duel to the death in the dark…

Book Seven offers layers of passionate empathy as a Tyrannosaurus Rex battles a host of lesser beasts taking advantage of her seeming defeat by an unconquerable enemy – viscous mud flats – before Book Eight lingers lovingly on the lives of the era’s biggest beasts as a brace of Alamosaurs provide smaller herbivores such as Lambeosaurs and Edmontosaurs a safe, sheltering, mobile feeding environment. But what happens when one disappears and the other is no longer passive…?

The lengthy new material begins with ‘Easy’ (story by Bissette, art Lawson & lettered by Thomas Mauer) as a healthy young male meat-eater succumbs to the pressure of the breeding impulse, heedless of the deadly consequences, after which the same creative team craft ‘Floater’ with a baffled tyrannosaur unable to tear himself away from a tantalising carcass in the river. She’s long dead. She should just be food, but why is her belly still heaving and moving?

This catalogue of carnosaur carnage and herbivore history closes with ‘Loner’ – an all-Lawson affair – as an adolescent Tyrannosaur is driven away by his mother and sisters and learns the cost of being alone. Why then would such a solitary survivor after years alone adopt another rejected young male at he risk of his life?

This book superbly opens a window onto distant eons of saurian dominance and provides a profound panorama that focuses on a number of everyday experiences which simply have to be exactly how it was, way back then…

As in all these tales, the astoundingly rendered and realised scenery and environment are as much characters in the drama as any meat and muscle protagonists and all the other opportunistic scavengers and hangers-on that prowl the peripheries of the war, ever eager to take momentary advantage of every opportunity in a simple battle for survival…

Lawson’s love for his subject, sublime feel for spectacle and an unmatchable gift for pace coupled to a deft hand which imbues the vast range and cast with instantly recognisable individual looks and characters, always means the reader knows exactly who is doing what.

This is book no lover of lizards and comics fan should miss.
© 2003, 2016 Jim Lawson. All rights reserved.

Paleo: the Complete Collection is available in comic shops and online around the world now. It can be pre-ordered online for a February 26th release in the UK.