Author: NowReadThis

Posted on

The Hunting Party


By Enki Bilal & Pierre Christin translated by Elizabeth Bell (Les Humanoid/Titan Books)
ISBN: hardback 978-0-96724-017-6,   softcover 978-1-85286-289-3

To highlight the Memoirs of a Cold Utopia exhibition plugged in our Noticeboard section here’s a fascinating graphic novel long overdue for a thorough revisit…

Here’s a masterpiece of subtle moody comics storytelling criminally out of print and long overdue for rediscovery in the frankly incomprehensible modern English language comics marketplace.

Enes Bilalović AKA Enki Bilal was born in Belgrade in 1951 and broke into French comics in 1972 with Le Bal Maudit for Pilote. Throughout the 1970s he grew in skill and fame and achieved English-language celebrity once his work began appearing in America’s Heavy Metal magazine.

Although best known for his self-scripted Nikopol Trilogy (Gods in Chaos, The Woman Trap and Cold Equator) I’ve always felt that his most effective art appeared in this contemplative Cold War drama. Partie de chasse – The Hunting Party – scripted by old comrade Christin is arguably Bilal’s most powerful and heartfelt effort. In recent years Bilal returned to contemporary political themes with his much-lauded self-penned Hatzfeld tetralogy…

As if writing one of the most successful and significant comics series in the world (the groundbreaking and influential Valérian and Laureline series) was not enough, full-time Academician Pierre Christin has still found time over the years to script science-fiction novels, screenplays and a broad selection of comics, beginning in 1966 with Le Rhum du Punch with Valérian co-creator Jean-Claude Mézières.

Christin has produced stellar graphic stories with such artistic luminaries as Jacques Tardi, Raymond Poïvet, Annie Goetzinger, François Boucq, Jijé and many others, but whenever he collaborated with the brilliant Bilal, beginning in 1975 with their exotic and surreal Légendes d’Aujourd’hui or in later classic tales such as The City That Didn’t Exist or The Black Order Brigade, the results have never been less than stunning.

In this, their best work, idealism and human nature have never been more coldly and clearly depicted…

As the Soviet system begins to crack, ten old men of the Party gathered at an exclusive Polish estate for an extended winter holiday of reminiscing and shooting. Stars and survivors in their own Warsaw Pact countries, the guests are all linked in deed and indebted to one charismatic man…

He is legendary figure and hard-line apparatchik Vassili Alexandrovich Chevchenko who has given his long life to the pursuit of the Communist ideal, but is now a doomed man; half-paralysed, rendered mute by a stroke and sidelined by the Politburo which is again repurposing itself, as it has so many times during Chevchenko’s life.

The aged politician’s long career has been one of surrendering self and sacrificing personal desire to serve the State and now he has gathered his closest colleagues about him for one last diverting weekend of vodka, chess, hunting and history…

As the festivities proceed the silent grandee is plagued with red-handed memories of the things he has done and the love he’d lost for the sake of the Dream, but his internal colloquy is balanced by the naïve questions and attitudes of the young and anonymous French Communist hired to translate for the other interloper among the old Comrades – reforming go-getter Sergei Shavanidze, who has been appointed Chevchenko’s successor and can’t wait to start pruning dead wood and outmoded ideas…

The entire history of the Movement is examined via the personal reminiscences of these creaking remnants of the system recalling past glories, old horrors and narrow escapes, but the bemused and bewildered Frenchman has no inkling as he absorbs the secrets of their socialist past of the part he will unwittingly play in its future…

This mesmerising, beguiling and utterly chilling thriller methodically skins the hide from an idealistic dream and spills the dark hot guts of guilt, arrogance and the pursuit of power in a sublime example of graphic narrative’s unique facility to tell a story on a number of levels.

In 1990 Titan Books released The Hunting Party in a captivating softcover album as part of their push to popularise European comics classics and in 1992 Humanoids Publishing published a sturdy oversized (12.6 x 9.4inches) hardback edition for the US market, either of which will delight any fan in search of a more mature and thought-provoking reading experience.
© 1990 Les Humanoides Associes. English language edition © 1990 Titan Books. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Desert Peach Collection book 1: Beginnings


By Donna Barr (Mu-Aeon/Atlantic Books)
Aeon no ISBN, Atlantic ISBN: 978-1-88384-713-5

In Acknowledgement of the upcoming Comics in Conflict event at the Imperial War Museum this weekend – see our Noticeboard for details – I’m going to be reviewing a few intriguing and hopefully pertinent classics beginning with this criminally neglected comics gem…

Donna Barr is one of the comic world’s most unique talents. She has constructed a fully realised fantasyscape to house her stories and tells them with a style and voice that are definitely one-of-a-kind.

Her most well known creations are Stinz Löwhard, the Half-Horse and the star of this particular volume, Pfirsich Rommel the outrageously out, homosexual brother of the legendary perfect German soldier dubbed “The Desert Fox”.

The stories are set in World War II Africa and effortlessly combine hilarity, surreality profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity.

Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel, like his Field Marshal brother Erwin, was part of the German invasion force in from 1940-1943. However, although as capable as his elder sibling, the gracious and convivial Desert Peach was a man who loathed harming anybody physically or emotionally and thus spent his days with the ever-so-motley crew of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps. trying to remain stylish, elegant and non-threatening to the men under his command, the natives and the rather trying British – not all of whom were party to the clandestine non-aggression pact he had made with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces…

Pfirsich was also wildly in love with Rosen Kavalier: manly Luftwaffe ace and the Peach’s fiancé…

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues from a number of publishers and was subsequently collected as eight graphic novel collections between 1988-2005, with a prose novel – Bread and Swans, a musical and an invitational collection by other artists entitled Ersatz Peach. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collects issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

However, this hard-to-find first softcover collection reprints issues #1-3, opening with ‘Who is This Man?‘ as Pfirsich inspects his tiresomely peculiar band of maverick military men (the 469th is where the real army transfers its problem cases) prior to losing a map crucial to the German army’s advance. Not that the Peach is particularly upset over the military ramifications… he just doesn’t want to get his beloved brother into trouble…

And of course that’s the very moment Erwin pops over for a visit…

The real star of these fabulous comedy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent officer in the army. As the broad and cunning farce unfolds the lost map leads inevitably to a confrontation with a bunch of British soldiers unaware of the unofficial truce, who then make the inexcusable gaffe of opening fire on Pfirsich and his desperately distressed subordinates.

Big mistake…

This first captivating excursion is capped off with a magical extra: cut-out paper-dolls of Pfirsich’s personal pilot von Drachenberg (whose plane is not, Not, NOT painted Pink, but actually a delightful shade of Peach) and his assorted uniform clothes…

In #2 after a gloriously experimental fourth-wall busting scratchboard sequence the military merriment continues unabated in ‘The Bar Fight’ as the urbane and generally peaceable Peach is provoked beyond all human endurance by a homosexual-hating Russian at the enlisted men’s unsanctioned watering hole…

Barr herself is ex-military and a devoted researcher in love with the often paradoxical minutiae of the martial life, so her scripts are rife with daft but true facts and circumstances, all utilised to enhance her brilliant tales, such as the knowledge that anti-communist Don Cossacks were allies of the Wehrmacht. One such, ultra-macho Semyon Bryonovich Givsonov, learns here to his temporary regret and eternal gratitude that some “fancy-boys” have a temper when pushed too far…

This spectacular boozy, bottle-busting battle yarn is followed by an utterly off-the-wall and indescribable exploit which nevertheless hangs together perfectly as Pfirsich commandeers Brother Erwin’s search for Allied submarines off the African coast to teach the Desert Fox the finer points of surfing in ‘A Day at the Beach’.

It doesn’t start too well but things quickly shape up once the work-shy Udo accidentally captures an American soldier from Hawaii who is convinced to give the gathered troops a few tips…

One note of warning for the usually squeamish hetero male readership: bathing suits were not standard issue for German soldiers during WWII so if exposed – but historically accurate – military buttockry is apt to unsettle, you might want to turn these pages carefully – although bluff old straight me personally found the Peach’s non-regulation swimsuit of svelte diaphanous pink (sorry, peach) ruffles a far more distracting notion…

Barr’s work is distinctive and honest but not to everybody’s taste, which is a shame as she has lots to say and a truly wondrous way of saying it.

Referencing the same vast story potential as Sgt. Bilko, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and even a little bit of Catch 22, the Desert Peach is bawdy, raucous, clever, authentically madcap and immensely engaging. These first tentative tastes of the fruits of combat were some of the very best comic tales of the 1980s and 1990s and still pack the comedic punch of a chartreuse howitzer, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn.

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style this book is a must-have for any history-loving, war-hating fun seeker and comes with an added attraction.

‘Ratzen’, scripted and drawn by Chuck Melville, is a clever vignette in which the assorted vermin of the 469th fall out over the definition of what is and isn’t a pet…

Beginnings and the 1998 reissue are pretty scarce these days but if you have a Kindle Robot Comics have just begun to release the individual comicbook issues for anybody who can get the hang of all this verfluchte new technology…
© 1988-1989, 1995 Donna Barr. Introduction © 1995 D. Aviva Rothschild. “Ratzen” © 1995 Chuck Melville. All rights reserved.

Posted on

The Crow Special Edition


By James O’Barr (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-85768-795-1

In 1989 just as the independent comics boom was coming to a halt a troubled writer/artist named James O’Barr re-interpreted the classic plot of revenge from beyond the grave to create a media sensation and work through a shattering personal trauma.

Produced as an inspired form of art therapy following the killing of his lover by a drunk driver O’Barr’s cathartic and emotive spirit of revenge debuted in 1989 in black and white anthology comic Caliber Presents #1, before graduating to his own title. Due to the downturn in comics sales the proposed 5-issue limited series was cancelled before its conclusion and the feature moved to Tundra, where it was reconfigured and re-released in 1991 as three volumes ‘Pain and Fear’, ‘Irony and Despair’ and the unseen double-length conclusion ‘Death’.

When Kitchen Sink Press absorbed Tundra in 1993 the saga was combined into one graphic novel (with even more new material). The seemingly-cursed series caught the public imagination a year later when actor Brandon Lee died during the filming of a movie adaptation and the franchise has since generated 3 further celluloid sequels, a TV series, prose novels and The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams – a collection of short stories by fantasy novelists such as Gene Wolf and Alan Dean Foster.

There were also numerous comics sequels by O’Barr and guest creators including The Crow/Razor: Kill the Pain, Dead Time, Flesh and Blood, Wild Justice and Waking Nightmares as well as a 10-issue ongoing series from Image Comics.

A new movie remake is in production…

This long-awaited remastered Special Edition is probably the final word on the original tale: a graphic Director’s Cut which restores much intended material dropped during the 1989-1991 run due to space considerations, cost and, as stated in the author’s introduction, O’Barr’s then-lack of ability and “limited visual vocabulary”.

As well as restored and reconceived graphic narrative sequences, this mostly monochrome volume also includes a colour cover gallery section, illustrated poems by Rimbaud, Rose Fyleman and Baudelaire, loads of extra art, an appreciation by John Bergin and an Afterword by A.A. Attanasio.

‘Book One: Lament’ opens the ‘Pain and Fear’ segment with the Caliber Presents short ‘Inertia’ wherein a leather-clad Goth/clown extracts some information from a very nasty street-thug, after which ‘Shattered in the Head’, rendered in grey tones and washes, follows a tragic young man as he rides a very special train and sees something truly horrific…

Book One proper then describes ‘Pain’ as a melancholy figure prowls an empty, desolate house before going out hunting. Five names resound in his head, a handful of men he has plans for…

Meanwhile one of those unlucky targets is going about his unlawful business, killing for sheer entertainment. When confronted in ‘New Dawn Fades’ Tin Tin doesn’t even remember the clown with the crow on his shoulder…

Intercut with flashes of a grievous crime and atrocity inflicted on a loving young couple, the drama proceeds with ‘Shadowplay’ as rising criminal star Top Dollar receives a visitor who decimates his gang before ‘The Kill’.

The vengeance taker is plagued by memories of his lost, perfect life in ‘The Anti-Architect Dreams’ before proceeding ‘…Like a Concave Scream’ with his hell-bent mission…

Second book ‘Fear’ briefly focuses on sadistic scumbag Tom Tom who is convinced to share valuable information with the implacable ghost in ‘Dead Souls’. When he was alive the sensitive soul was called Eric and here he makes a slight detour in ‘Submission’ to reclaim the engagement ring taken from his ravaged love’s dead finger before making an ally in the police force and continuing his death march in ‘Elegy: Irony & Despair’.

Another tender memory racks his conscience in ‘Atmosphere’ and the agonised angel finds time to save a little girl’s future before resuming his hellish campaign in ‘Velocity’ as the drug addicted, pain-immune Fun Boy is sent a message and becomes a living example for the remaining targets before we gain a further inkling into the role of the ever-present Crow in ‘Watching Forever’…

‘Book Three: Irony’ hints at the coming conclusion in ‘Immolation’ as Eric destroys the massed street-gangs employed by the harried targets as a final warning before some of the mysteries are revealed in a harrowing flashback ‘The Atrocity Exhibition: One Year Ago’ which opens ‘Book Four: Despair’. Closely following is the secret of Eric’s “survival” in ‘Head Trauma’ leading to the inescapable ‘Crescendo’…

The largest new segment ‘An August Noel’ precedes the beginning of the end and in ‘Angel, All Fire’ Eric makes his peace with life and dances one last ghastly pavane to his lost past before setting out for a gruesome ‘Hammer Party’…

‘Book Five: Death’ starts the final confrontation with last target T-Bird in ‘Gravity’ and, as another army of society’s worst dregs get in Eric’s way his bloody ‘Attrition’ at last begins to elicit some human response from the unrepentant monster. With bodies falling like red rain ‘Looking Down the Cross’ sees Eric become an unstoppable slaughter machine and ‘Steel Tide on an Asphalt Beach’ has the campaign of vengeance conclude the only way it could…

After the denouement a new postscript ‘Sparkle Horse’ offers some long-needed healing to augment the gory closure before order is restored in the elegiac ‘Passover’ and ‘Coda’.

Epic, simplistic, poetic and powerfully moving, this darkly uncompromising tale is a monolith of modern comics and this stellar compilation is the only way to truly experience it in all its gothic glory.

© 1981, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2011 James O’Barr.

Posted on

Axa Books 7 & 8


By Donne Avenell & Enrique Badia Romero (Ken Pierce Books)
Vol. 7 ISBN: 0-912277-29-7   Vol. 8 no ISBN: 0-912277-35-1

Tough ‘n’ sexy take-charge chicks were a comic strip standard by the time the Star Wars phenomenon reinvigorated interest in science fiction and the old standby of scantily-clad, curvy amazons in post-apocalyptic wonderlands never had greater sales-appeal than when Britain’s best-selling tabloid The Sun hired Enrique Badia Romero and Donne Avenell to produce a new fantasy strip for their already well-stacked cartoon section.

Romero’s career began in his native Spain in 1953, where he produced everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards, mostly in conjunction with his brother Jorge Badía Romero, eventually forming his own publishing house. “Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before successfully assuming the drawing duties on the high-profile Modesty Blaise adventure-serial in 1970 (see Modesty Blaise: The Hell Makers and Modesty Blaise: The Green Eyed Monster), only leaving when this enticing new prospect appeared.

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 1978 to her abrupt cancellation in 1986 – a victim of political and editorial intrigue which saw the strip cancelled in the middle of a story – and other than the First American Edition series from strip historian Ken Pierce and a single colour album, has never been graced with a definitive collection. It should be noted also that at the time of these books she was still being published with great success and to popular acclaim.

In those days it often appeared that only place where truly affirmative female role-models appeared to be taken seriously were those aforementioned cartoon sections, but even there the likes of Modesty Blaise, Danielle, Scarth, Amanda and all the other capable ladies who walked all over the oppressor gender, both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios, lost clothes and shed undies repeatedly, continuously, frivolously and in the manner they always had…

Nobody complained (no one important or who was ever taken seriously): it was just tradition and the idiom of the medium… and besides, artists have always liked to draw bare-naked ladies as much as blokes liked to see them and it was even “educational” for the kiddies – who could buy any newspaper in any shop without interference even if they couldn’t get into cinemas to view Staying Alive, Octopussy or Return of the Jedi without an accompanying adult…

The eponymous heroine was raised in a stultifying, antiseptic and emotionless domed city: a bastion of technological advancement in a world destroyed by war, pollution and far worse. Chafing at the constricting life of the living dead, Axa broke free and, ancient sword in hand, chose to roam the shattered Earth in search of something real and rue and free…

The seventh superb chronicle opens with ‘Axa the Mobile’ as the restless explorer dragged her footsore lover Matt and devoted robot assistant Mark 10 (obtained in Axa volume 3) through yet another trackless wasteland created in the aftermath of the Great Contamination that decimated human civilisation a century before.

When her sharp hearing discerns the sound of a petrol engine Axa stumbles into an ongoing cold war between rival sects both determined to bring back the ultimate icon of lost modernity – the motor car.

After rescuing a beautiful girl from a crashed dune buggy the trio is drawn into a tense situation where the debased descendents of assembly line workers dubbed “The Mechanics” dream of creating their own vehicles, despite the scorn and outright oppression of the autocratic “Automators” who trace their own lineage and technical superiority to the engineers who once designed the cars…

Siding with the downtrodden Mechanics Axa attempts to help them steal blueprints and secrets from the Automators, leading inexorably to a death-duel in reconstructed Formula One race-cars against the technocrats’ greatest driver…

As reward for her assistance in uniting the warring tribes Axa is given a car of her own…

Fast-paced and action-packed, this yarn from 1983 gave writer Don Avenell a happy opportunity to exercise his satire muscles with some telling side-swipes at manufacturing and industrial relations issues then surfacing in Britain.

‘Axa the Unmasked’ returned to more usual business and a startling fresh departure as the new vehicle takes them to a maintain range where a hidden enclave of apparently pristine perfection housing isolated ideal human survivors have just been visited by beings from another world.

The beauty-worshipping men and women call themselves Morphos and their leader Viktor is extremely taken with the wandering warrior-woman; inviting the stranded party to stay as they await some sign of life from the downed and still star-craft.

Free-spirit Axa is too much for any one man and despite’s Matt’s presence and crushed silence presence responds to Viktor’s overtures. However the Morphos are concealing a ghastly secret only hinted at when mutant underclass “the Grots” attack the saucer-ship and steal the deadly power-pack which fuels the vehicle and keeping the only survivor alive…

With a catastrophic countdown ticking away and a sublime being expiring by degrees Axa must expose all lies and find some way to repair the situation and reconcile Grots and Morphos before the entire Earth suffers the cataclysmic consequences…

Axa 8 once again dispenses with text introductions and dashes straight into the graphic action of ‘Axa the Castaway’ as the glorious gladiatrix and faithful Matt are marooned on an island following a colossal storm, after their car finally dies due to lack of fuel and maintenance. With Mark 10 lost at sea, the unhappy couple soon discover they are in constant peril from the wildly mutated flora and fauna of the deceptively Eden-like islet, but when Axa is abducted by a feral human raised by the deadly paradise’s rock apes the boiling sexual undercurrent violently erupts. And then, so does the dormant volcano the entire island sits upon…

This spectacular and light-hearted pastiche of Tarzan, The Blue Lagoon and dozens of other back to nature fantasy classics neatly segues into the revelatory ‘Axa the Seeker’ wherein the adventurous couple, reunited with mechanical Mark on the mainland, discover a jungle factory producing pharmaceutical drugs and recreational narcotics that are being shipped all over the devastated planet.

When Axa is captured by the technologically advanced “Dispensers” she is dragged into a political struggle in a hidden super-city and learns that she has a shattering personal connection to the unscrupulous monsters who run the enterprise, consequently learning her own true history… where she actually came from and why her life and personality are so at odds with the all the worlds around her…

Once Axa ended Romero returned to the barnstorming Modesty Blaise strip (from September 1986) staying on until it ended with creator Peter O’Donnell’s retirement in 2001. Since then the artist has produced Modesty material for Scandinavia and a number of projects such as Durham Red for 2000AD.

These stirring tales of an unbreakable free spirit are superb examples of the uniquely British newspaper strip style: lavishly drawn, subversively written, expansive in scope and utterly enchanting in their basic simplicity – with lots of flashed flesh, emphatic action and sly, knowing humour. Eminently readable and re-readable (and there’s still that dwindling promise of a major motion picture) Axa is long overdue for a definitive collection. Here’s hoping there’s a bold publisher out there looking for the next big thing…
©1985-1986 Express Newspapers, Ltd.

Posted on

The Perishers Omnibus book 1


By Maurice Dodd & Dennis Collins (Daily Mirror Books)
ISBN: 0-85939-031-4

Although written almost entirely by Maurice Dodd throughout its 48 year history, the National Treasure that is (Are? Am?) The Perishers was actually created in 1957 by artist Dennis Collins, writer Bill Witham (who went on to huge success with the innocent everyman Useless Eustace) and cartoon editor Bill Herbert. The daily exploits of a bunch of typical kids was first published in the Manchester edition of the Daily Mirror in February 1958 but after only a couple of frankly mediocre months the wacky adventures of Maisie and Marlon were withdrawn and retooled.

Jack-of-all-trades, budding artist and advertising whiz-kid Dodd was approached by ex-paratroop service comrade and drinking buddy Herbert and promptly jumped at the chance to reinvent the characters in what was a meandering but beautifully illustrated all-ages feature simply stuffed with untapped potential.

Drawing on his own life (he would describe it as shamelessly pilfering) Dodd created a plethora of new characters, animal and human – although with this strip the distinctions are loose and hard to defend – and rescued an early 1958 casualty in the unkempt and ill-maintained person of laconic orphan and philosophical dilettante Wellington: a street urchin who lived on his wits but still attended school and endured all the daily trials and indignities of British youth.

Relaunched in October 1959 in the London and national editions, the revamped strip quickly caught on and became a morning mainstay for generations of Britons, blending slapstick and surreal comedy with naive charm, miniaturised modern romantic melodramas (Maisie loves Marlon, Marlon loves fashion and “inventing” and Wellington loves sausages), liberally laced with sardonic cultural commentary – especially a wonderfully twisted faux misperception of contemporary politics and the burgeoning advertising and commercial media.

Even in its earliest days the strip was superbly illustrated, conjuring up in a few judicious lines and cannily applied tones a communal urban wonderland we all knew as kids: a familiar post-war wonderland of shops and streets, building sites and overpasses, alleys and parks and fields where we could get on with our adventures and no adults could interfere or spoil the fun.

The major protagonists of the series are Wellington and Boot, his old English Sheepdog (sort of: the wily, hairy chancer and raconteur considers himself a Manorial Milord sufferin’ under the curse of a Gypsy wench). They are ably unsupported by the formidable Maisie, a thoroughly modern miss torn between her passion for the boy of her dreams, sweets, and unrelenting violence and the aforementioned Marlon himself. Cool, suave and debonair are just three of the words he doesn’t know the meaning of, but lots of the girls at school fancy him anyway. If he grows up he wants to be a brain surgeon or a bloke wot goes down sewers in great big gumboots…

Being on his own Wellington takes every opportunity to support himself with sordid scavenging and shoddy schemes –usually involving selling poorly constructed carts and buggies to Marlon who far more money than sense: to be honest Marlon has more noses than sense… Maisie is a shy beautiful maiden waiting for true beloved to sweep her off her feet – and if he doesn’t she gives him a thorough bashing up and nicks his sweets…

Other unreasonable regulars introduced here include Baby Grumplin’ – Maisie’s toddler brother and a diabolical force of nature, Plain Jane – a girl who asks too many questions and the dapper Fiscal Yere, smugly complacent go-getting son of a millionaire and another occasional sucker for Wellington’s automotive inexpertise.

On the anthropomorphic animal front the extremely erudite Boot regularly encounters stroppy ducks, militant squirrels, socialist revolutionary Fred the Beetle and his long-suffering wife Ethel, Asiatic bloodhound journalist B.H. Calcutta (Failed) and latterly, a nicotine-addicted caterpillar who stunted his growth and became Fred’s inseparable comrade in the struggle against canine oppression but implacable rival for any food or dog-ends the Bolshevistic bugs might find…

Every day notable events in this madcap melange include Wellington gentrifying out of the large concrete pipe that he used to live in to take up residence in an old railway station abandoned after the Beeching Cuts decimated the train infrastructure and the first couple of kids-only, unaccompanied camping holidays to the seaside (such innocent times) to encounter sun, surf and the rock-pool crabs who worshipped the uncannily canine “Eyeballs in the Sky” which annually manifest in their isolated “Pooliverse”…

Utterly English, fabulously fantastical and resoundingly working-class, the strip generated 30 collections between 1963 -1990, 4 Big Little Books, 5 novels and 2 annuals as well as an audio record and an immensely successful animated TV series.

The tome under review here was released in 1974; the first of a series of extra-sized recapitulations, and containing most of the contents of the first four Perishers collections (covering 1959-1965) and superbly sets the scene for newcomers with a glorious extravaganza of enchanting fun and frolics, liberally annotated by Dodd himself.

Dennis Collins magnificently and hilariously illustrated the feature until his retirement in 1983, after which Dodd himself took up the pens and brushes. Eventually artist Bill Melvin took over the art chores whilst Dodd scripted until his until death in 2006. Once the backlog of material was exhausted The Perishers finished on June 10th 2006.

Last year The Mirror began reprinting classic sequences of the strip to the general approval of everyone, so perhaps it’s not too much to hope that eventually all the classic collections will once more be freshly available to one and all…
© 1974 IPC Newspapers Limited.

Posted on

The Minotaur’s Tale


By Al Davison (Gollancz)
ISBN hardback: 978-0-57505-189-8   softcover: 978-0-57505-283-3

During the 1990s, following the stunning success and huge mainstream sales of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus, graphic novels were finally accepted by the publishing industry as a viable and valuable market for adults after decades in which sequential narrative had been deemed a ghetto for children and idiots – the works of Raymond Williams and others of his pioneering ilk notwithstanding.

When the likes of HarperCollins, Macmillan/Pan and Gollancz finally caught wise they did it in fine style with challenging works like Doris Lessing & Charlie Adlard’s Playing the Game or The City by James Herbert & Ian Miller.

Gollancz was probably the first to fully embrace the nascent form, creating the VG Graphics imprint and going all out by releasing a game-changing selection of mature and challenging confections by comics glitterati Alan Moore & Oscar Zarate, Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean and fantasy stalwarts M. John Harrison & Ian Miller and Ian McDonald & Dave Lyttleton. A fifth commissioned volume was crafted by relative newcomer and unique authorial voice Al Davison who had first come to the industry’s attention with his incredible autobiography The Spiral Cage: Diary of an Astral Gypsy in 1988.

His story of a life spent daily triumphing over a body wracked by Spina bifida and a society that couldn’t handle cripples who didn’t know their place is a stunning testament to human courage and the liberating power of creativity (originally published by Renegade Press and re-issued in revised and expanded editions by Titan Books in 1990 and Active Images in 2003) and led to Davison being invited to contribute to the VG roster.

Davison writes, illustrates and letters this darkly enchanting parable, similarly examining the themes of disability, alienation, perception and inclusion, which opens in a prologue with a rather nonconformist if not confrontational interpretation of the myth of Minos of Crete and the bestial murderous Minotaur from a wilful little girl named Etty-Mae Brown.

Years later in ‘Transmissions’ the dystopian urban night is shattered by a pain-drenched wail. The deformed dosser everybody calls Banshee is screaming again, but the skinheads, hookers, winos and other human trash have better things to do than listen to the mad bastard. Still, after a night of mindless aggression the thugs still have a bit of time and energy left to give ugly freak a bit of a kicking…

Barely able to stand on his own malformed feet at the best of times, Banshee is found collapsed in the street by recovering drug-addict Etty who gets him into a hospital. He awakes from terrifying dreams of the orphanage and the vile nuns who ran it to find himself in a clean bed and immediately panics, subsequently barricading himself in the toilet.

All his life Banshee has been called a freak, a mistake, a monster or worse but Etty knows she can help him and shows him her version of the Minotaur legend, encouraged by the sympathetic Dr. Sparks – who has a secret shame of her own which she conceals at all costs…

In ‘Preparations’ we travel back to ancient Greece to see the story of Theseus and the man-bull told from the Minotaur’s point of view – a tale of bigotry, pride and prejudice, rewritten by the self-aggrandizing pretty-boys who always seem to get the last word… The unjust tragedy of Minos’ humiliatingly deformed child inspires Banshee’s recovery and the solitary misfit is adopted by Etty and her lover.

In ‘Revelations’ whilst safely ensconced in the only house he has ever known, Etty’s baby daughter Josie cuddles the hideous man-thing. It is the first hug Banshee has ever experienced…

In this welcoming environment Banshee experiences many magical, educational moments and evolves, becoming a free creature at last, after which ‘Transmissions (A Slight Return)’ reveals a different truth to the myth of Theseus whilst Banshee finds a way to share his newfound state of grace and return a favour to Dr. Sparks resulting in a perfect miracle…

Even the most twisted and lonely need love and human contact and from isolated places of darkness and the horrors of life there is always the promise of a better life…

Despite being of sublime quality none of the VG Graphics titles really caught on and the experiment was soon terminated. A US edition of The Minotaur’s Tale was published in 1995 by Dark Horse Comics, with as little commercial success, but nearly twenty years later perhaps the audiences have broadened and grown enough so that this superb and enchantingly beautiful pictorial homily can at last find the readership it deserves.

In a perfect world some wise publisher would re-release the modern myth in a new edition, but if you can’t wait – and why should you? – the original lavishly full-colour 80 page tale is still readily available in both hardback and softcover versions.
©1992 Al Davison. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Modesty Blaise: Million Dollar Game


By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-675-0

Titan Books’ marvellous serial re-presentation of the classic British newspaper heroine continues as Enric Badia Romero returned to the strip after his years away drawing the controversial and racy science fiction serial Axa for The Sun, replacing permanently the subtly effective Neville Colvin…

Modesty and devoted platonic partner Willie Garvin are ex-criminals who retired young, rich and healthy from a career where they made far too many enemies. They were slowly dying of boredom in England when British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant offered them a chance to have fun, get back into harness and do a bit of good in the world. Accepting, they have never looked back…

This volume begins with a classy modern western and mystery pastiche as Modesty and Willie vacation in cowboy country, intending to visit an old ghost town only to find Cordite City has been renovated into a top tourist trap. Getting ready to mosey on the pair spot that the tea-time re-enactment gunfight is actually lethally authentic…

Saving the life of one of the actors draws them into a crafty criminal scheme wherein a pretty young thing is menaced by the ghosts of infamous dead outlaws, an ancient Shoshone warrior holds the secret to a vast fortune and sneaky owlhoots are ruthlessly  attempting to pull off a very contemporary land grab in ‘Butch Cassidy Rides Again…’

The eponymous ‘Million Dollar Game’ (which originally ran in the London Evening Standard from 13th February-8th July 1987) delves into a long-hidden secret vice of World’s Greatest Adventure Heroine before coming bang up-to-date when an old friend asks for Modesty’s assistance in documenting the extent of ivory poaching in East Africa for the World Wildlife Fund.

However the vast profits generated by the vile trade tempts even the most trustworthy men and when Modesty and companion are shot down in the Bush Willies must rush to find them before the heavily-armed poachers do…

The volume concludes with another devilishly tongue-in-cheek taste of the not-so-supernatural in ‘The Vampire of Malvescu’ (July 9th – December 3rd 1987) as one of Willie and Modesty’s periodic extreme challenges leads the dynamic duo into a sinister plot and terrifying danger in the darkest heart of Transylvania, Women may be turning up naked and drained of blood but can it be Nosferatu?

Moreover, what possible part can Modesty’s old technical armourer and his pregnant young bride play in the unfolding nightmare?

Originally the heroine of a newspaper strip created by Peter O’Donnell and drawn by the brilliant Jim Holdaway, Modesty Blaise – and her ubiquitous, charismatic partner in crime and crime-busting Willie Garvin – has also starred in 13 prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, a radio play and nearly one hundred comic strip adventures between 1963 and the strip’s conclusion in 2002. She has been syndicated world-wide, and Holdaway’s version has been cited as an artistic influence by many major comic artists.

As always this volume contains detailed story introductions (here from Blaise historian Lawrence Blackmore) and a complete checklist of adventures and creator credits.

These are unforgettable stories from a brilliant writer at the peak of his powers revelling in the majesty of his greatest creation; timeless action romps and tales of sexy dry wit, more enthralling now than ever, which never fail to deliver maximum impact and total enjoyment. It’s never too late to find your Modesty…

© 2011 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.

Posted on

The Giant Holiday Fantasy Comic Album


By various, edited by Mike Higgs (Hawk Books)
ISBN 0-948248-06-8

Being almost universally anthology weeklies, British comics over the decades have generated a simply incomprehensible number of strips and characters in a variety of genres ranging from the astounding to the appalling. Every so often dedicated souls have attempted to celebrate this cartoon cornucopia by reprinting intriguing selections and in 1990 the splendid Hawk Books released this delightfully cheap and cheerful compendium that is still readily available for connoisseurs of the wild and wonderful British oeuvre…

As is so often the case creator credits are nonexistent and although I’ll hazard the odd guess now and then, a lot of these marvellous concoctions will have to remain annoyingly anonymous until someone more knowledgeable than me pipes up…

With little ado the monochrome madness began with a magically whacky superhero tale featuring supernatural warrior Thunderbolt Jaxon who promptly mopped up a gang of saboteurs in ‘The Flying Wreckers’.

Plucky lad Jack Jaxon could transform into the invincible mini-skirted muscleman because he wore the magic belt of Thor, and as comprehensively revealed in Steve Holland’s superb Bear Alley articles, the character was originally designed in 1949 by Britain’s publishing powerhouse Amalgamated Press as an export feature for Australian publisher Kenneth G. Murray after WWII. The strips were commissioned by Editor Edward Holmes and realised by writers TCH Pendower, Leonard Matthews, plus Holmes, with prolific artist Hugh McNeill the original illustrator. The export-only hero soon began appearing in UK comics Comet and Knockout with later stories limned by Geoff Campion, Robert Roger & Ian Kennedy.

Next here is a charming tale of ‘The Space Family Rollinson’ by Graham Coton: a series which ran in Knockout from 1953-1958 and was successfully syndicated in France. Your average Mum, Dad and four kids on a trek across the universe, here stopping to save the natives of Skandok from a hideous space spider and its interplanetary jelly-webs, after which a moodily engrossing adventure of outlandish Victorian escapologist Janus Stark finds the man with rubber bones thwarting a gang of kidnappers in a stirring extravaganza by Tom Tully & Francisco Solano López .

A stunning strip The Jungle Robot debuted in the first issue of Lion in 1952, created by E. George Cowan & Alan Philpott, before vanishing until 1957. On his return he became one of the most popular heroes of the British scene. Reprinted here from the early days after his comeback is ‘Robot Archie and the Mole Men’ illustrated, I suspect, by Ted Kearnon, pitting the amazing automaton and his hapless handlers Ted Ritchie and Ken Dale against a bunch of subterranean bandits plundering Paris in an incredible burrowing machine – a complete 14 week adventure delivered two pages at a time.

Next up is ‘The Men from the Stars’ a complete 60 page sci fi epic originally presented in AP’s digest Super Detective Library #14. In this grand old invasion romp, test pilot and “Special Agent in Space” Rod Collins endured the World’s first contact with a marauding and incomprehensible race of flying saucer people before spearheading Earth’s inevitable resistance and narrow victory, after which paranormal detective ‘Maxwell Hawke’ and plucky girl Friday Jill Adair investigated ‘The Ghost of Gallows Hill Manor’ – a creepy, condensed shocker probably drawn by a young Eric Bradbury.

Knocker White and Jinx Jenkins were ‘The Trouble-Seekers’; two-fisted construction workers who had to add giant monsters to the list of obstacles threatening to delay the completion of South American super city Futuria, after which action-man cover star of Smash! Simon Test narrowly survived ‘The Island of Peril’ in another moody masterpiece of all-ages action-adventure illustrated by Bradbury.

One of the most fondly remembered British strips of all time is the strikingly beautiful Steel Claw. From 1962 to 1973 Jesús Blasco and his small family studio thrilled the nation’s children, illustrating the breakneck adventures of scientist, adventurer, spy and even costumed superhero Louis Crandell. Created by novelist Ken Bulmer, the majority of the character’s exploits were scripted by Tom Tully.

Crandell was a bitter man, missing his right hand, which was replaced with a gadget-packed prosthetic. Moreover, whenever he received an electric shock he became invisible.

After going on a deranged rampage Crandell’s personality shifted and by the time of ‘The Return of the Claw’ (which first saw print in Valiant from 5th June 1971-22nd April 1972) the super-agent was a tired and broken emotional burn-out dragged out of retirement to foil an alien invasion wherein disembodied invaders the Lektrons possessed the bodies of children, turning them into demonic, energy-blasting monsters.

More than any other strip the Steel Claw was a barometer for British comics reading fashions. Starting out as a Quatermass style sci-fi cautionary tale the series mimicked the trends of the outer world, becoming in turn a Bond-like super-spy saga complete with outrageous gadgets, a masked mystery-man romp when Bat-mania gripped the nation, and eventually a Doomwatch era adventure drama combating eerie menaces and vicious criminals.

The thrills of the writing are engrossing enough, but the real star of this feature is the artwork. Blasco’s classicist drawing, his moody staging and the sheer beauty of his subjects make this an absolute pleasure to look at.

Over 90 pages long ‘The Return of the Claw’ alone is worth the price of admission – even with the terribly poor quality printing of this volume. Just imagine the impact when somebody finally completes the deluxe reprinting of this classic series begun in The Steel Claw: the Vanishing Man…

After the main course there’s a few short dessert items to end this feast of nostalgic fun, beginning with an engaging vintage alien invasion chiller ‘The Marching Trees’ after which the light-hearted ‘Toby’s Timepiece’ propels errant schoolboy Toby Todd into a mediaeval nightmare and an epic adventure with an extraterrestrial chrononaut before ‘Thunderbolt Jackson and the Golden Princess’ closes the memorable montage of comics wonderment in a simply splendid tale of Amazonian lost cities and rampaging dinosaurs.

This is a glorious lost treasure-trove for fans of British comics and lovers of all-ages fantasy, filled with danger, drama and delight illustrated by some of the most talented artists in the history of the medium. Track it down, buy it for the kids and then read it too. Most of all pray that somebody somewhere is actively working to preserve and collect these sparkling and resplendent slices of our fabulous graphic tradition in more robust and worthy editions.

Maybe we need a Project Gutenberg for comics…
© 1989 Fleetway Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Johnny Red: Falcon’s First Flight


By Tom Tulley & Joe Colquhoun (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-033-8

In acknowledgement of the upcoming Comics in Conflict event at the Imperial War Museum this weekend – see our Noticeboard for details – I’m reviewing another captivating combat classic.

Britons have been enamoured of fighting aviators since the earliest days of popular fiction, but wonderful and thrilling as Biggles, Paddy Payne, I Flew with Braddock or Battler Britton might have been, the true hellish horror of war in the air didn’t really hit home for comics readers until strip veterans Tom Tully and Joe Colquhoun began crafting the epic career of a troublesome working class maverick pilot kicked out of the RAF at our time of greatest need, only to carve a bloody legend for himself in the blistering skies of the Eastern Front.

Johnny Red debuted in January 1977, in #100 of the increasingly radical war comic Battle Picture Weekly and Valiant, swiftly becoming a firm fixture for the next 500-odd issues, before finally calling it a day in 1987. Even then the strip continued as a reprint feature in Best of Battle until Fleetway stopped publishing comics.

Falcon’s First Flight collects chapters 1-37 of the long-running aerial epic in a lavish monochrome hardcover which also features an effusive introduction from starry-eyed fan Garth Ennis and a fascinating historical essay from Jeremy Briggs. Genesis of a Hero provides some intriguing perspective as well as revealing the incredible story of the pilot who was the real life inspiration for Johnny Red.

The racing breakneck action (utterly unavoidable since almost all Battle instalments were between three and four pages long) opens on September 1941 as young Liverpool oik Johnny Redburn helplessly watches Stukas and Junkas strafe and bomb the merchant ship he’s working on. The Empire Cape is part of a relief convoy en route to Murmansk with supplies for Britain’s hard-pressed Russian allies.

Scared and helpless Redburn recalls the incident which got him cashiered from RAF training (originally striking an officer but later retconned into accidentally killing an instructor) and banned from flying. He doesn’t miss the snobs and stupid rules but Johnny was a natural flier and is still hungry for the skies…

Unable to provide fighter escorts or aircraft carriers, the Navy at this time outfitted some freighters with a catapult-launched plane. The Cape has one of these insane contraptions: a single Hurricane which would be launched into enemy-filled skies with a few hours’ fuel and a pilot expected to do whatever he could until German bullets or the seas claimed him. Convoy ships had no landing facility and if the flier survived the dogfights he was expected to ditch in the sea or crash…

When the aviator is killed on the way to launch Johnny takes his place and against all odds shoots down enough attackers to allow the crew of the Cape to successfully abandon ship. Now he faces a unique dilemma. He is an illegal pilot in a stolen plane he can’t land. Having no faith in British military justice or the cold cruel waters below Redburn decides to try for the Russian mainland and a proper landing field…

Typically though, it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the freezer as lethal weather conditions close in. Miraculously escaping fog, storm and ice he lands in a hidden base only to be mistaken for a German by the starving and desperate air fighters of the 5th Soviet Air Brigade… the “Falcons”.

These are patriotic but damned men, ordered to resist to the last in creaky biplanes against the overwhelming forces of the Luftwaffe. As the embattled communists close on Johnny the Germans attack and a unique bond of comradeship is formed as his skill and modern Hurricane wreaks havoc amongst the complacent Nazis.

With nowhere else to go Johnny joins the squadron of the doomed, galvanising them into a competent unit of rule-breaking, triumphant aerial killers risking everything to save their beleaguered homeland.

Ill-supplied and written off by their own leaders the Soviet airmen are convinced by “Johnny Red” to steal whatever food, replacements and weapons they need from their own retreating forces, quickly becoming a cohesive and credible threat to the once unstoppable Germans.

The warrior’s spectacular revival causes its own problems. Johnny is hiding from all contact with the British, convinced that only jail or the gallows awaits him, whilst beyond the close brotherhood of his fellow Falcons, successive Soviet military bureaucrats such as demented political officer Major Alexie Kraskin – a martinet who loves executing his own troops if they won’t obey suicidal orders – or cowardly, carpet-bagging Comrade Colonel Grigor Yaraslov, politically appointed to lead the resurgent squadron, all seem far too eager to get rid of the humiliatingly competent foreign interloper…

In sortie after sortie Johnny Red tackles privation, exhaustion and the enmity of his superiors whilst clearing Russian skies of fascist predators, but as this first volume closes he faces his greatest challenges.

With the Falcons posted to the frozen hell of Leningrad during the worst part of the German siege Johnny is increasingly plagued by the recurring effects of an old head-wound causing sporadic fits of blindness whilst a kill-crazy psychopathic replacement to the Falcons is determined to murder the Englishman, for stopping the strafing of Germans after they have surrendered…

These gritty, evocative tales are packed with historical detail, breathtaking passion and a staggering aura of authenticity. The classic theme of a misfit making good under incredible adversity has never been better depicted and Tom (Kelly’s Eye, Steel Claw, Roy of the Rovers, Raven on the Wing, Harlem Heroes, Mean Arena) Tully’s visceral scripts are perfectly realised by miracle worker Joe Colquhoun. The artist quit writing and drawing Roy of the Rovers to perfect his mastery of aviation war-stories on the long-running but more traditional Paddy Payne in Lion (from 1959 until the feature folded) before co-creating Johnny Red in late 1976. He illustrated 100 episodes before moving on to his greatest work Charley’s War.

This premiere collection is a grand moment in the transition of comics from boy’s own bravado in a Toff’s World to mature, mercurial yet moving adventures starring ordinary working class heroes. Johnny Red was at the forefront of this invasion of extraordinary commoners during a war that almost abolished the class system forever.

However, whatever your dogma or preferred arena of struggle, there’s no question that these magnificent war-stories are among the Few: the cream of British comics well worth your avid time and attention.

Johnny Red © 2010 Egmont UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Introduction © 2010 Garth Ennis. Genesis of a Hero © 2010 Jeremy Briggs.

Posted on

Darkie’s Mob: The Secret War of Joe Darkie


By John Wagner & Mike Weston (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-442-8

To celebrate this weekend’s Comics and Conflict symposium at the Imperial War Museum and to kick off a Now Read This “Best of British Week here’s a piece about one of the greatest and most impressive war strips ever created…

Britain has always had a solid tradition for top-notch comic strips about the Second World War but the material produced by one radically different publication in the 1970s and 1980s surpassed all previous efforts and has been acknowledged as having transformed the entire art form.

Battle was one of the last great British weekly anthologies: an all-combat comic which began as Battle Picture Weekly on 8th March 1975 and through absorption, merger and re-branding became Battle Picture Weekly & Valiant, Battle Action, Battle, Battle Action Force and finally Battle Storm Force before itself being combined with the too-prestigious-to-cancel Eagle on January 23rd 1988.

Over 673 gore-soaked, epithet-stuffed, adrenaline drenched issues, it gouged its way into the bloodthirsty hearts of a generation, consequently producing some of the best and most influential war stories ever, including Major Eazy, D-Day Dawson, The Bootneck Boy, Johnny Red, HMS Nightshade, Rat Pack, Fighter from the Sky, Hold Hill 109, Fighting Mann, Death Squad!, Panzer G-Man, Joe Two Beans, The Sarge (star-artist Mike Western’s other best work ever), Hellman of Hammer Force and the stunning and iconic Charley’s War among many others.

The list of talented contributors was equally impressive: writers Pat Mills, John Wagner, Steve McManus, Mark Andrew, Gerry Finley-Day, Tom Tully, Eric & Alan Hebden, with art from Colin Page, Pat Wright, Giralt, Carlos Ezquerra, Geoff Campion, Jim Watson, Mike Western, Joe Colquhoun, Carlos Pino, John Cooper, Mike Dorey Cam Kennedy and many others.

One of the most harrowing and memorable series was an innovative saga of group obsession and personal vengeance set in the green hell of Burma in the months following the Japanese invasion and rout of the entrenched British Empire in Spring 1942.

Darkie’s Mob by John Wagner & Mike Western is a phenomenally well-regarded classic of the genre, wherein a mysterious maniac adopts and subverts a lost, broken, demoralised and doomed squad of British soldiers, intent on using them to punish the Japanese in ways no man could imagine…

This glorious oversized monochrome hardback 112 page compilation collects the entire uncompromising saga – which originally ran from 14th August 1976 to 18th June 1977 – in a deluxe edition which also contains ‘Dead Men Walking’ – an effusive introduction by unabashed fan Garth Ennis and a comprehensive cover gallery.

The tale opens as a frantically fast-paced mystery-thriller beginning in 1946 when Allied troops discover the blood-soaked combat journal of Private Richard Shortland, reported missing along with the rest of his platoon during the frantic retreat from the all-conquering Japanese. The first entry and the opening initial episode are dated May 30th 1942, describing a slow decent into the very heart of darkness…

Beaten and ready to die, the rag-tag remnants of the British Army are rescued from certain death by the uncompromising, unconventional and terrifyingly brutal Captain Joe Darkie who strides out of the hostile Burmese foliage and instantly asserts an almost preternatural command over the weary warriors. The men are appalled by Darkie’s physical and emotional abuse of them and his terrifying treatment of an enemy patrol he encounters whilst leading them out of their predicament.

They’re even more shocked when they discover that he’s not heading to safety but guiding them deeper into Japanese-held territory…

Thus begins a guerrilla war like no other as Darkie moulds the soldiers by brutal bullying and all manner of psychological ploys into fanatics with only one purpose: hunting and killing the enemy.

In rapid snatches of events culled from Shortland’s account we discover that Darkie is a near-mythical night-terror to the invaders, a Kukri-wielding, poison-spitting demon happy to betray, exploit and expend his own men to slaughter his hated foes, well-known to the enslaved natives and ruthlessly at home in the alien world of the Burma jungles and swamps. What kind of experiences could transform a British Officer into such a ravening horror?

The answer quickly comes when Shortland intercepts a radio communication and discovers that the Army has no record of any soldier named Joe Darkie, but the dutiful diarist has no explanation of his own reasons for keeping the psycho-killer’s secret to himself…

For over a year the hellish crusade continued with the Mob striking everywhere like bloody ghosts; freeing prisoners, sabotaging Japanese bases and engineering works and always killing in the most spectacular manner possible. Eventually after murdering Generals, blowing up bridges and casually invading the most secure cities in the country the Mob become the Empires’ most wanted men as both Britain and Japan hunt the rogue unit with equal vehemence and ferocity.

Darkie wants to kill and not even Allied orders will stop him…

The mob are whittled away by death, insanity and fatigue as Darkie infects them with his hatred and nihilistic madness until all the once-human soldiers are nothing more than Jap-hating killing machines ready and willing to die just as long as they can take another son of Nippon to hell with them…

The descent culminates but doesn’t end with the shocking revelations of Darkie’s origins and secret in Shortland’s incredible entry for October 30th 1943, after which the inevitable end inexorably approached…

This complete chronicle also includes a heavily illustrated prose tale from the 1990 Battle Holiday Special and I’m spoiling nobody’s fun by advising you all to read this bonus feature long before you arrive at the staggering conclusion…

A mention should be made of the language used here. Although a children’s comic – or perhaps because it was – the speech of the characters contains a strongly disparaging and colourful racial element. Some of these terms are liable to cause offence to modern readers – but not nearly as much as any post-watershed TV show or your average school playground, so please try and remember the vintage and authorial directives in place when the stories were first released.

Battle exploded forever the cosy, safely nostalgic “we’ll all be alright in the end” tradition of British comics; ushering an ultra-realistic, class-savvy, gritty awareness of the true horror of military service and conflict, pounding home the message War is Hell. With Darkie’s Mob Wagner and Western successfully horrifyingly showed us its truly ugly face and inescapable consequences.

Darkie’s Mob © 2011 Egmont UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Dead Men Walking © 2011 Garth Ennis.