Author: NowReadThis

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How to Draw Disney’s Mulan


By uncredited (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-038-3

I haven’t covered a “How To” book for ages and as this one’s entertaining, wonderfully fit for purpose and readily available it would well serve any budding artists and prospective animators to seek it out and absorb…

Following a brief pr̩cis of the story Рinvolving a young girl who rose to prominence in the army of legendary Ancient China Рthe instructional portion begins with Equipment and Techniques, Designing Characters Рanimal and human, comedic, villainous and heroic. Costume Design, Staging the Action and Use of Props. This large scale, slim book concludes with a test РCreating a Scene: providing a chance to use the knowledge gained to have fun and practice.

Brilliantly colourful and with clear concise instructions covering the undeniable basics that every artist of any age needs to master, such as stylisation and basic anatomy, and including detailed step-by-step breakdowns and model sheet for every major character from the films this is an indispensable aid and a tremendously inspiring introduction for the aspiring Artist of Tomorrow.
© 1998 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Modesty Blaise: Death Trap


By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN 13: 1-84576-418-0

Modesty Blaise and her devoted deputy Willie Garvin were retired super-criminals who got too rich too young without ever getting too dirty and are now usually complacent and bored out of their brains. When approached by Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a British spy organization, they jumped at his offer of excitement and a chance to get some real evil sods. From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (see Modesty Blaise: the Gabriel Set-Up) the pair began a helter-skelter thrill ride that has pitted them against the World’s vilest villains…

The legendary femme fatale adventurer first appeared in the Evening Standard on May 13th, 1963 and starred in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, all in three panels a day. Her creators Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway (who had previously collaborated on Romeo Brown – a light-hearted adventure strip from the 1950’s and itself well overdue for collection) produced story after story until Holdaway’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero assumed the art reins taking the daredevil duo to even grater heights.

The tales are stylish and engaging spy/crime/thriller fare in the vein of Ian Fleming’s Bond stories (as opposed to the sometimes over-the-top movie exploits). Modesty and Willie are competent and deadly, but all too fallibly human.

Following an intriguing dissertation by fan and historian Lawrence Blackmore on how the strip was censored in America (entitled ‘Preserving Modesty’s Modesty’ ) this twelfth superb black and white volume, collecting strips which originally appeared in the between October 21st 1976 and January 20th 1978, kicks off in high style with the entrancing but ultimately tragic yarn ‘The Vanishing Dollybirds’ wherein the duo are drawn into a web of Arabic white slavery, administered by the frightfully British and thoroughly unpleasant Major Hamilton and his formidable wife Priscilla, not to mention their uniquely fey hitman and murder-artisan, Bubbles.

Combining high-octane drama with sly comedy and all the charms of the circus (Willie bought one when he was feeling bored…) this is a cracking, straightforward tale which acts as pace-setter for ‘The Junk Men’, a moody murder mystery set in Turkey. Willie is playing stuntman on a science fiction film before getting accidentally embroiled in a war between the police and the world’s three biggest drug lords. And whenever Willie is in trouble can Modesty be far away?

Closing the book is a truly sinister plot from a vengeance-crazed Warsaw Pact commissar determined to punish Modesty for past offences in the gripping, brutal thriller ‘Death Trap’. Comrade Director Breslin wants the retired super-criminal to suffer so he begins his campaign by murdering her current lover in the most appalling manner he could conceive of, but the ambitious politician could never imagine just how dangerous an angry Modesty Blaise could be…

Tightly plotted, with twist after turn, and cross after double-cross, this is no simple revenge story but a sharp, incisive romp that uses the madness of the Cold War “Mutually Assured Destruction” philosophy to great advantage and devastating effect…

In an industry where comic themes seem more and more limited and the readership dwindles to a slavish fan base that only wants more and shinier versions of what it’s already had, the beauty of such strips as Modesty Blaise is not simply the timeless excellence of the stories and the captivating wonder of the illustration, but that material like this can’t fail to attract a broader readership to the medium. Its content can hold its own against the best television and film. NCIS, Chuck Bartowski and Sydney Bristow beware – Modesty’s back to show you how it should be done…

© 2007 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.

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Jack of Fables: Jack of Hearts


By Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-628-3

In case you didn’t know, Fables are refugee fairytale, storybook and legendary characters who (which?) fled to our mundane Earth from their various mythic realms to escape a mysterious and unbeatable Adversary. Disguising their true natures from humanity they created enclaves where their immortality, magic and sheer strangeness (all the talking animals are sequestered on a remote farm in upstate New York) would not threaten the life of uneasy luxury they built for themselves. Many of these immortals wander the human world, but always under injunction never to draw any attention.

In Fables: Homelands the utterly self-absorbed and absolutely amoral Jack of the Tales (everyman hero of Beanstalk, Giant-killer, Be Nimble fame) did just that by stealing Fabletown funds and becoming a movie producer, creating the three most popular fantasy films of all time, based on (his version) of his life, consequently drawing physical power from the billions who inadvertently “believed” in him – and coining vast amounts of filthy lucre in the process.

A key tenet of the series is that the more “mundies” (that’s mundane humans like you and me… well, me anyway) who think about a fable character, the stronger that character becomes. Books TV, songs, all feed their vitality. In the first volume of his eponymous irreverent series Jack was brought low by the publicity-shy Fables Police: banished from Hollywood and ordered to disappear, with only a suitcase full of cash to tide him over.

He was captured and escaped from a particularly horrific fate – metaphysical neutering by The Golden Bough, a clandestine organisation that had been “vanishing” Fables for centuries – and is now on the run from those selfsame forces (in the attractive shape of the Page Sisters, dedicated hunters of everything Fabulous and Uncanny) after instigating a mass-break-out of forgotten and abridged Fables…

This second volume (collecting issues #6-11 of the Vertigo comicbook) opens with ‘Jack Frost’ illustrated by Steve Leialoha, as the legendary blowhard links up with a few other escapees in snow-bound Wyoming, and “entertains” everyone with the story of how he once knocked-up Lumi, the Snow Queen, after which he then helpfully “borrowed” her role in the supernatural cosmology and almost destroyed the cycle of Seasons before the Queen’s sisters Summer Spring and Autumn brought him to book…

The sharp eyed might notice that although the two chapters smoothly follow one another the attendant reproduced covers indicate that the concluding part was actually #11, not #7. Yes. Correct. You’re not wrong. Chalk it up to the magical drama of deadlines and move on.

‘Viva Las Vegas’ illustrated by Tony Akins and Andrew Pepoy, opens in that legendary Sin City with Jack waking up hung over and married to a cutie who is also the billionaire heiress who will one day inherit much of that aforementioned modern Gomorrah. But things aren’t as great as they seem. For starters Jack has somehow been reunited with fellow escapee Gary, the engagingly peculiar but trouble-attracting Pathetic Fallacy. For another, nobody likes an obvious gigolo gold-digger and everybody is trying to kill him. Most importantly though, the disgustingly bloodthirsty Fable Lady Luck already secretly controls Vegas and doesn’t want someone like Jack around just when her lost magic horseshoe has finally, serendipitously returned to the city after being missing for decades…

Saucy, self-referential, darkly, mordantly funny, this series is a deliciously whimsical fairytale for adults concocted with much more broad, adult, cynical humour and sex than your average comicbook – so mothers and matrons be warned! This enchanting series is a wonderful view of how the world should be and every volume should be compulsory reading for jaded fantasists everywhere.

© 2007 Bill Willingham and DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Jiggs is Back


By George McManus (Celtic Book Company)
ISBN: 0-913666-82-3

Alternatively titled Maggie and Jiggs or Bringing Up Father the comedic magnum opus of George McManus ranks as one of the best and most influential comic strips of all time: a brilliant blend of high satire and low wit that drapes the rags-to-riches American dream with the cautionary admonition to be careful of what you wish for…

Recently this magnificent series was celebrated with a lavish hardcover collection reprinting the strip’s captivating beginnings (see George McManus’s Bringing Up Father: Forever Nuts – Classic Screwball Strips) but that book, wonderful though it is, only prints black and white daily episodes, whilst this colossal softcover from a few years back concentrates on the exceptionally beautiful Sunday colour pages – a perfect proving ground for the artist’s incredible imagination to run wild with slapstick set-pieces, innovative page design and a canny eye for fashion and pattern.

McManus was born on January 23rd of either 1882 or 1883 and drew from a very young age. His father, realising his talent, secured him work in the art department of the St. Louis Republic newspaper. At thirteen he swept floors, ran errands and drew when ordered to. In an era before cheap, reliable photography, news stories were supplemented by drawn illustrations; usually of disasters, civic events and executions: McManus claimed he had attended 120 hangings (a national record!) but still found time to produce cartoons: honing his mordant wit and visual pacing. His first sale was Elmer and Oliver. He hated it.

The jobbing cartoonist had a legendary stroke of luck in 1903. Acting on a bootblack’s tip he placed a $100 bet on a 30-1 outsider and used his winnings to fund a trip to New York City. He splurged his cash reserves but on his last day got two job offers: one from the McClure Syndicate and a lesser bid from Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

He took the smaller offer, went to work for Pulitzer and created a host of features for the paper including Snoozer, The Merry Marceline, Ready Money Ladies, Cheerful Charlie, Panhandle Pete, Let George Do It, Nibsy the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland (one of the earliest Little Nemo knock-offs) and his first big hit (1904) The Newlyweds.

This last brought him to the attention of Pulitzer’s arch rival William Randolph Hearst, who, acting in tried and true manner, lured him away with big money in 1912. In Hearst’s papers The Newlyweds became the Sunday page feature Their Only Child, and was soon supplemented by Outside the Asylum, The Whole Blooming Family, Spare Ribs and Gravy and Bringing Up Father.

At first it alternated with other McManus domestic comedies in the same slot, but eventually the artist dropped Oh, It’s Great to be Married!, Oh, It’s Great to Have a Home and Ah Yes! Our Happy Home! as well as his second Sunday strip Love Affairs of a Muttonhead to concentrate on the story of Irish hod-carrier Jiggs whose vast newfound wealth brought him no joy, whilst his parvenu wife Maggie and inexplicably beautiful, cultured daughter Nora sought acceptance in “Polite” society.

The strip turned on the simplest of premises: whilst Maggie and daughter feted wealth and aristocracy, Jiggs, who only wanted to booze and schmooze and eat his beloved corned beef and cabbage, would somehow shoot down their plans – usually with severe personal consequences. Maggie might have risen in society but she never lost her devastating accuracy with crockery and household appliances.

Bringing Up Father debuted on January 12th 1913, originally appearing three times a week, then four and eventually every day. It made McManus two fortunes (the first he lost in the 1929 Stock Market crash), spawned a radio show, a movie in 1928, five more between 1946-1950 (as well as an original Finnish film in 1939) and 9 silent animated short features, plus all the assorted marketing paraphernalia that fetches such high prices in today’s antique markets. The artist died in 1954, and other creators continued the strip until May 28th 2000, its unbroken 87 years making it the second longest running newspaper strip of all time.

McManus said that he got the basic idea from The Rising Generation: a musical comedy he’d seen as a boy: but the premise of wealth not bringing happiness was only the foundation of the strip’s success. Jigg’s discomfort at his elevated position, his yearnings for the nostalgic days and simple joys of youth are something everyone is prey to, but the real magic at work here is the entrancing blend of slapstick, social commentary, sexual politics and fashion delivered by a man who could draw like an angel. The incredibly clean simple lines and the superb use – and implicit understanding – of art nouveau and art deco imagery and philosophy – especially in colour – make this book a stunning treat for the eye.

This glorious rainbow of mirth includes an introduction from Pulitzer-winning author William Kennedy and an incisive analytical commentary from comics historian Bill Blackbeard for those that need or desire a grounding for their reading, but of course what we all want is to revel in the 48 magnificent, full page adventures; thoughtfully divided into ‘The Joys of Poverty’ from 1923, wherein the family suffered a reversal of fortune and became once more poor, but happy; ‘The Vacation’ (December 9th 1939 – July 7th 1940, a spectacular epic following the family, complete with new aristocratic English twit son-in-law, on a city by city tour of America, and ‘Maggie, Do You Remember When…’ (selected from the peak period of the feature ranging from 1933 to 1942): a shamelessly sentimental and dryly witty occasional series of bucolic recollections of “the good old days” that produced some of the most heart-warming and inventive episodes in the series’ 55 year history…

An added surprise for a strip of this vintage is the great egalitarianism of it. Although there is the occasional visual stereotype to swallow and excuse, what we regard as racism is practically absent. The only thing to watch out for is the genteel sexism and class (un)consciousness, although McManus clearly pitched his tent on the side of the dirty, disenfranchised and downtrodden – as long as he could get a laugh out of it… This wonderful, evocative celebration of the world’s greatest domestic comedy strip is a little hard to find but well worth the effort. Hopefully some sagacious entrepreneur will eventually get round to giving Bringing Up Father the deluxe reprint treatment it so deserves

© 1986 Celtic Book Company.

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Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Batman Team-ups Volume 2


By Bob Haney, Jim Aparo, Neal Adams, Nick Cardy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-813-3

Now settled on a winning format – pairing media superstar Batman with other luminaries of the DC universe in complete stand-alone stories – The Brave and the Bold proceeded to win critical as well as commercial kudos by teaming regular writer Bob Haney with the best artists available. At this time editors favoured regular if not permanent creative teams, feeling that a sense of visual and even narrative continuity would avoid confusion amongst younger readers. During this second collection (reprinting B&B #88-108 in crisp, efficient black and white) a number of stellar artists contributed before the comicbook finally found its perfect draughtsman…

Following a ground-breaking run by the iconoclastic and influential Neal Adams (see Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Batman Team-ups Volume 1) was always going to be a tough act but veteran Irv Novick – who would unfairly tread in Adams’ mighty shadow on Batman for years to come – did sterling work here on a gritty tale of boxing and Cold War mind-games when the Caped Crusader met Wildcat in ‘Count Ten… and Die!’ (B&B #88, February-March 1970).

Mike Esposito inked that tale before rejoining longtime collaborator Ross Andru for a brief return engagement that began with an eerie thriller pitting Batman against the mystery sensation Phantom Stranger in #89’s ‘Arise Ye Ghosts of Gotham!’ and then switching pace and genre for a time-bending science fiction thriller ‘You Only Die Twice!’ guest-starring interstellar champion Adam Strange.

Issue #91, ‘A Cold Corpse for the Collector’ is a true gem of a tale. Haney was always at his best with terse, human scale dramas, especially “straight” crime thrillers, and his pairing of the Gotham Guardian with Black Canary (transplanted from Earth-2 to replace the “de-powered” Wonder Woman in the Justice League) found the recently widowed heroine searching for the Earth-1 counterpart of her dead husband only to find imminent death in a masterpiece of ironic melodrama. It also signalled the advent of the superb Nick Cardy as illustrator: a run of beautifully drawn and boldly experimental assignments that are still startling to see even four decades later.

The artistic exploration continued in the next issue when Batman traveled to England, embroiled in a moody, gothic murder mystery with a trio of British stereotypes fancifully christened “The Bat Squad.” Although the scratch team never reappeared, ‘Night Wears a Scarlet Shroud!’ remains a period delight and a must for those who still remember when “Eng-ga-land Swung.”

At the end of the 1960s the Comics Code Authority ended its ban on crime and horror comics to allow publishers to exploit the global interest in the supernatural. This had instantly affected comics and more and more stories had macabre overtones. It even led to the revival of horror and suspense anthologies. One such was the venerable House of Mystery; and unquestionably the oddest team-up in B&B history.

Scripted by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams #93’s ‘Red Water, Crimson Death’ is a chilling ghost story with the added advantage of having the Dark Knight’s somber shtick counterbalanced by the musings of the sardonic laconic Cain, ethereal and hip caretaker of that haunted habitat…

Bob Haney, Nick Cardy and the Teen Titans returned for the powerful counter-culture bomb-plot ‘Rebels in the Streets’ whilst a forgotten mystery hero (I won’t spoil it for you) helped Batman get the goods on ruthless, fat-cat industrialist Ruby Ryder in ‘C.O.D. – Corpse on Delivery’, and – somewhat more palatable for continuity bugs – Sgt Rock’s second engagement was set in contemporary times rather than in WWII as the honourable old soldier became a bureaucrat’s patsy in an excellent espionage thriller ‘The Striped-Pants War!’

Haney clearly had a fondness for grizzled older heroes as Wildcat made another comeback in #97’s South-of-the-Border saga ‘The Smile of Choclotan!’, an epic of exploration inked by Cardy over the husky he-man pencils of the hugely underrated Bob Brown. The Phantom Stranger guested next in a truly sinister tale of suburban devil worship which found Batman thoroughly out of his depth in ‘The Mansion of the Misbegotten!’, illustrated by the man who would soon become the only B&B artist: Jim Aparo.

Brown and Cardy returned to draw the Flash saving the Gotham Gangbuster from ghostly possession in ‘The Man who Murdered the Past’ and Aparo illustrated the anniversary 100th issue as Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Black Canary had to take over for a Batman on the verge of death and trapped as ‘The Warrior in a Wheel-Chair’ as well as the outrageous murder-mystery ‘Cold-Blood, Hot Gun’ wherein Metamorpho, the Element Man assisted the Caped Crusader in foiling the World’s most deadly hitman.

Brave and the Bold #102 featured a true rarity: the Teen Titans again featured in an angry tale of the generation gap ‘Commune of Defiance’ which began as an Aparo job, but in a bizarre turnabout Neal Adams – an artist legendary for blowing deadlines – was called in to finish the story, contributing the last nine pages of the tension-packed political thriller. Bob Brown and Frank McLaughlin illustrated ‘A Traitor Lurks Inside Earth!’ a doomsday saga of military computers gone awry featuring the multipurpose Metal Men whilst Aparo handled the poignant story of love from beyond the grave in the eponymously entitled ‘Second Chance for a Deadman?’ from #104.

The aforementioned unpowered Wonder Woman returned after a long absence in Haney and Aparo’s superb revolutionary epic ‘Play Now… Die Later!’ wherein Diana Prince and Batman become pawns in a bloody South American feud exported to the streets of Gotham, and Green Arrow was sucked into a murderous get-rich-quick con in #106’s ‘Double Your Money… and Die’, featuring a surprise star villain.

Black Canary then featured in a clever take on the headline-grabbing – and still unsolved – D.B. Cooper hijacking of a airliner in ‘The 3-Million Dollar Sky’ from B&B #107 (June-July 1973. Inflation sucks: “Cooper” only got $200,000 when he jumped out of that Boeing 727 in November 1971, never to be see again…) and this volume ends with a wonderfully chilling tale of obsession as Sgt. Rock tried once more to catch the greatest monster in history on ‘The Night Batman Sold his Soul!’

These are some of the best and most entertainingly varied yarns from a period of magnificent creativity in the American comics industry. Aimed at a general readership, gloriously free of heavy, cloying continuity baggage and brought to stirring action-packed life by some of the greatest artists in the business, this is a Batman for all seasons and reasons with the added bonus of some of the most fabulous and engaging co-stars a fan could imagine. How could anybody resist? Seriously: can you…?

©1970-1973, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 2


By The Hernandez Brothers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-168-8

Like clockwork the second volume collecting the latest creations of Los Bros Hernandez appeared and proved well worth the wait, once more leading with the cleanly classical visual sophistication of Jaime’s ‘Ti-Girls Adventures Number 34.

This enchanting super-heroine homage bookends the volume beginning with ‘Part Three: Daughters of Doom’ and concluding with the delightful ‘Part Four: Mothers of Mercy’ which finds time and space for poignancy and (rather surreal) family relationships amidst a joyous, vicarious avalanche of costumed mayhem of the type we loved as kids in the 1960s. Not since Scott McCloud’s delicious tribute ‘Destroy!’ has the poetry of gauntleted fisticuffs been so memorably celebrated…

The central portion features Gilberto who contributed two longer pieces this time: the challenging ‘Sad Girl’ wherein young and pneumatic Killer takes an unorthodox and oblique revenge reminiscent of the heady days of Palomar whilst the boldly experimental graphic mime ‘Hypnotwist’ follows a lost and vulnerable young woman on an astonishingly bizarre voyage of discovery…

As with Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 1 these tales form part of an unfolding work-in-progress, and I’m praying that just as with the original series thirty years ago, some unseen connections will reveal themselves to my hungry eyes in the months to come. And even if they don’t, these are still some of the best drawn and intriguing comics tales of the last few years.

A mature fan’s secret delight, don’t miss these books…

© 2009 Gilberto, Jaime and Mario Hernandez. This edition © 2009 Fantagraphics Books.  All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase presents Green Lantern volume 4


By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Dennis O’Neil, Gil Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-322-3

Slightly slimmer than the usual phonebook-sized tome the fourth collection starring the Emerald Gladiator of Earth-1 (here reproducing in crisp, stylish black and white the contents of issues #60-75 of the groundbreaking comic book) is a kind of throat-clearing shuffle to allow a fifth volume to begin with the landmark O’Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow tales, but that doesn’t by any means imply that the superb collection here is unworthy of your attentions.

By the time this selection of stories began DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (for which, in comic-book terms read “new, young writers”) being given greater headway than ever before: an influx of new kids unseen since the very start of the industry, when excitable young artists and writers ran wild with imagination…

Green Lantern #60 (April 1968) was however an all-veteran outing as Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene introduced a fantastic new foe in ‘Spotlight on the Lamplighter!’, a power-packed, crime-busting morality play that foreshadowed a spectacular team-up classic in the next issue.

Mike Friedrich penned ‘Thoroughly Modern Mayhem!’ but mercifully the story was as wonderful as the title is not, since it cut to the quick of a problem many a kid had posited. If the power ring was so powerful why not just command it to banish all evil? When the old and weary Emerald Crusader of Earth-2 does just that, it takes both him and his Earth-1 counterpart to remedy the shocking consequences…

Issue #62 replaced Kane with Jack Sparling for Fox’s clever scientific mystery ‘Steal Small… Rob Big!’ and Denny O’Neil’s metaphysical, history-warping thriller ‘This is the Way… The World… Ends!’ in #63: whilst Mike Sekowsky and Joe Giella illustrated the O’Neil scripted ‘Death to Green Lantern’ wherein a long-forgotten foe almost destroyed the Green Guardian’s reputation before ending his life. Social historians might like to note the inclusion of benevolent and necessary (plus favourably depicted and written) hippies/flower children acting as more than mere comedic asides: Those times they really were a-changin’…

There was a return to straight superhero drama with Fox, Sekowsky and Giella’s doomsday thriller ‘Dry Up… and Die!’ which apparently ended the criminal career of Doctor Polaris whilst John Broome took GL back to the future for another planet-saving sci-fi romp in #66’s ‘5708 AD… A Nice Year to Visit – But I Wouldn’t Want to Live Then!’

Issue #67 featured two shorter tales, the first of which ‘Green Lantern Does his Ring Thing!’ was a delightful old-school conundrum as old enemy Bill Baggett wrested mental control of the ring away from the Emerald Gladiator (by Fox, Dick Dillin and Giella) whilst ‘The First Green Lantern!’ by Fox and Sid Greene revealed how the Corps began in the first (and only, I think) of a projected series: Tales of the Power Ring.

Contemporary space opera was the order of the day in the intriguing action thriller ‘I Wonder Where the Yellow Went!’ scripted by O’Neil and featuring the wonderfully welcome return of a rejuvenated Gil Kane, aided and abetted by Giella. Kane’s last efforts on the hero he visually created was to be a eye-pooping run of beautiful, dynamic classics, and none more so than the youth-rebellion parable ‘If Earth Fails the Test… it Means War!’, cleverly scripted by Broome and inked by the incomparable Wally Wood.

Vince Colletta inked the less impressive Broome/Kane space spoof ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Earth’, but honour and quality were restored with the tense countdown to disaster mystery ‘The City that Died!’ (Broome, Kane and Giella): one of two tales in #71, and one that reintroduced Olivia Reynolds – a love interest whose subconscious mind was a planet-shattering energy source. The second story was another jolly Jordan Brothers yarn, from Broome, Dillin and Murphy Anderson, but ‘Hip Jordan Makes the Scene!’ was a regrettably old-fashioned tale of a grifting hippie way out of tune with its readers’ sensibilities – and that’s a shame because it is quite funny…

‘Phantom of the Space Opera!’ by O’Neil, Kane and Giella is a visually magical but rather heavy-handed co-opting of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs, transposed to deep space, but this was more than compensated for by the brilliant two-parter that followed.

‘From Space Ye Came…’ in Green Lantern #73 and its climactic conclusion ‘Lost in Space!’, by Mike Friedrich, Kane and Anderson was an unforgettable clash of ultimate enemies as Sinestro, the renegade Green Lantern, made a brutal attempt on our hero’s life using his foe’s unrequited love for Carol Ferris as a psychological wedge. However the alien mastermind was unaware of just how unstable Ferris was in her dual identity of the gem-possessed Star Sapphire…

With #76 Denny O’Neil would become sole scripter and in collaboration with comics genius Neal Adams completely redefined contemporary superhero strips with relevancy-driven stories. But to complete this book and the first chapter of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern’s chequered career comes the glorious swan-song ‘The Golden Obelisk of Qward!’ as the Emerald Crusader and a desperate doctor invaded the anti-matter universe to save Olivia Reynolds and destroy a weapon capable of demolishing our galaxy. Broome, Kane and Giella went out on a high note blending modern sensibilities with the plot-driven sense of wonder and high-octane action that made Green Lantern such an all-pervasive hit and the very foundation stone of DC mythology.

These tales of wit and courage, illustrated with astounding dynamism defined the Silver Age of comics and they are still as captivating and engrossing now as they ever were – perhaps even more so. If you love the sheer gloss and glamour of superhero fiction, then it never gets better than this…

© 1968, 1969, 1970, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Lone Sloane: Delirius


By Philippe Druillet (Dragon’s Dream/Heavy Metal)
ISBN: 2-205-00632-0

The seminal fantasy icon Lone Sloane revolutionised graphic fiction not so much in his own country but in Britain and America when his adventures began appearing in the adult fantasy magazine Heavy Metal, which combined original material with the best that European comics had to offer. In 1975 French comics collective Les Humanoides Associes began publishing the groundbreaking magazine Métal Hurlant, but one of their visual mainstays had begun nearly a decade earlier…

Philippe Druillet, born in Toulouse in 1944, and raised in Spain, is a photographer and artist who started his comics career in 1966 with an apocalyptic science fiction epic Le Mystère des abîmes (The Mystery of the Abyss) which introduced a doom-tainted intergalactic freebooter and wanderer called Lone Sloane in a far distant future: a tale heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft and A.E. Van Vogt. Later influences included Michael Moorcock’s doomed anti-hero Elric (and I’m pretty sure I can see some Barry Windsor-Smith also tinting the mix…)

He began working for Pilote in 1969, and revived his cosmic and deeply baroque star-rover in a number of short pieces which were gathered together in 1972. Prior to the large scale (310mm x 233mm) 1991 collection from NBM (see The Six Voyages of Lone Sloane) this cool and memorable album was the only place they could be found in an English translation, and yet they are merely a prelude for the fantastic fantasy that makes up the rest of Lone Sloane: Delirius.

So by way of recapitulation those Six Voyages were ‘The Throne of the Black God’ wherein Sloane is captured by a demonic chair and dumped on a desolate world to await possession by a cosmic god of chaos, whilst in ‘The Isle of the Doom Wind’ he thwarts space pirates. In ‘Rose’ he is trapped on a world of robotic junk and faces oppressive piracy in ‘Torquedara Varenkor: the Bridge over the Stars’.

In ‘O Sidarta’ Sloane regained control of his long-lost super-spaceship and began a quest to return to Earth and overthrow the despotic Imperium, a quest that culminated in startling revelations of his destiny in ‘Terra’: a portentous prelude before the main event…

‘Delirius’ was scripted by celebrated comics writer Jacques Lob (Jerry Spring, Ténébrax, Blanche Épiphanie and Superdupont among others) and in a jarring cacophony of visual Sturm und Drang pitched the intergalactic vagabond into the midst of a power struggle between the Imperator of all Galaxies and his own clergy, the deeply fundamentalist Red Redemption.

Delirius was a useless mudball until the supreme overlord found a way to make it pay. By converting the entire world into a highly-taxed cash-cow of legal debauchery “The Planet of a Hundred Thousand Pleasures” became a perfect way to placate the populace and generate revenue for further conquests. Now the priests have approached Sloane with a perfect plan to steal all the cash and thereby remove the planetary governor: but priests can’t be trusted, nothing can be planned for on a world of utter licentious chaos and Sloane always has his own agenda…

This is a graphic odyssey of truly Byzantine scale and scope: the twists and turns, the visual syntax and tone created here dictated the shape of science fiction – especially in movies – for the next two decades. Character and plot were winnowed to bare essentials so that Druillet could fully unleash the startling graphic innovations in design and layout that seemed to churn within him, and which exploded from his pen and brain.

As the scheme went inevitably, utterly awry the sheer energy of the artist’s cosmic Armageddon achieved levels of graphic energy that only Jack Kirby has ever equalled. This is a tale crying out for re-release in large format and with all the bells and whistles modern technology can provide, but until then this book will have to do – and do very well. Luckily for you it’s still widely available and remarkably inexpensive…
© 1972, 1973 Philippe Druillet/Dargaud Editeur.

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Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 1


By The Hernandez Brothers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-951-7

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the clichéd, stereotypical ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. Most prominent in destroying the comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario (occasionally) and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology comics magazine that featured the slick, intriguing, originally sci-fi tinted larks of punky young things Maggie and Hopey – las Locas – and the heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasy of Palomar. The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, entranced us all with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics, kids TV, the exotica of American Hispanic pop culture to German Expressionism and masked wrestlers. There was also perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll – or at least alternative music and punk.

The result was pictorial and narrative dynamite.

Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions but the slick and enticing visual forays by Jaime explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Bright Young Things and Gilberto created the super-hyper-real landscape of Palomar: a playground of wit and passion created for the extended serial Heartbreak Soup. Here was a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast.

Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen its meta-fictional environs, and did, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences in a deceptively effective primitivist art style incorporating the mythologies of comics, music, drugs, strong women, gangs, sex and family using a narrative format informed by everything from Magical Realism to Saturday morning cartoons.

Despite gaining huge critical acclaim but little financial success the brothers temporarily went their own ways but a few years ago creatively reunited to produce annual collections of new material. This initial volume of 112 pages finds Jaime once more pastiching female superheroes and the Mexican Masked Wrestler phenomenon in the captivating ‘Ti-Girls Adventures Number 34 Part One: The Search for Penny Century’ – an extended whimsical romp featuring Maggie and clashing dynasties of lady crime-fighters all trying to subdue an old friend crazed by her gifts and the pressures of modern motherhood. The second part ‘Penny is found’ closes the volume but the story is so big that it continues into the 2009 volume…

Brother Beto opted for a selection of shorter tales ranging from the quirky newspaper strip parody ‘The Funny Pages’, the graphic parable of ‘Papa’, whose Job-like faith and determination were singularly tested and ‘The New Adventures of Duke and Sammy’ – a broadly absurdist spoof of the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis team, whose outer space exploits are as wacky as any of their 1950s DC comics outings.

‘Victory Dance’ is an enigmatic, obscurantist offering on one of life’s Big Questions, after which Mario returns to script ‘Chiro el Indio’, a barbed satire on Catholic/white treatment of native South Americans cunningly disguised as a cartoon sitcom for Gilberto to draw, whilst ‘Never say Never’ is another highly adult cartoon spoof from Beto alone starring a gambling kangaroo, which acts as palette-cleanser for the sheer graphic exuberance of ‘?’; a free-ranging, visual free-association trip.

With the aforementioned ‘Ti-Girls Adventures Number 34 Part Two: ‘Penny is found’

closing out this volume on a cliffhanger, it’s only fair to state that initial response to this new work was mixed and guarded when it first appeared. However with the hindsight of a second edition released and a third on the way it’s safe to assume that Los Bros still know exactly what they are doing and that the magic is unfolding as it should…

Stark, charming and irresistibly seductive, Love and Rockets: New Stories is a grown up comics fan’s dream come true and remains – just as it predecessors have been – the forge of the cutting edge of graphic narrative.

© 2008 Gilberto, Jaime and Mario Hernandez. This edition © 2008 Fantagraphics Books.  All Rights Reserved.

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Essential X-Men volume 2


By Roy Thomas, Werner Roth, Don Heck, Steranko & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2116-9

X-Men was never one of young Marvel’s top titles but it did secure a devout and dedicated following, with the freakish energy of Jack Kirby’s heroic dynamism comfortably translating into the sheer, sleek prettiness of Werner Roth as the blunt tension of hunted outsider kids settled into a pastiche of the college and school scenarios so familiar to the students who were the series’ main audience.

The core team still consisted of tragic Cyclops, ebullient Iceman, wealthy golden boy Angel and erudite brutish geek Beast in training with Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the gradually emerging race of mutant Homo Superior. But by the time of this massive black and white tome (collecting issued #25-53 and the crossover Avengers #53) change was definitely in the air.

Jean Grey, Marvel Girl had recently left the team to attend university – although she still managed to turn up in every issue – and since Roy Thomas had replaced Stan Lee as writer a much younger atmosphere permeated the stories. ‘The Power and the Pendant’ (X-Men #25, October 1966, with inking by Dick Ayers) found the boys tracking a new menace, El Tigre; a South American hunter visiting New York to steal an amulet which granted him god-like powers, before returning to the Amazonian San Rico with the mutant heroes in hot pursuit for a cataclysmic showdown in ‘Holocaust!’

Issue #27 saw the return of some old foes in ‘Re-enter: The Mimic!’ as the mesmerising Puppet Master pitted the power-duplicating Calvin Rankin against a team already split by dissention, whilst in ‘The Wail of the Banshee!’ Rankin joined the X-Men in a tale which also introduced the sonic-powered mutant (eventually to become a valued team-mate and team-leader) as a deadly threat in the opening instalment of an ambitious extended epic which featured the global menace of the sinister organisation Factor Three.

John Tartaglione inked the bright and breezy thriller ‘When Titans Clash!’ as a power duplicating Super-Adaptoid nearly absorbed the entire team before ending the Mimic’s career, whilst Jack Sparling and Tartaglione illustrated ‘The Warlock Wakes’ wherein Merlin (an old Thor foe) got a stylish upgrade to malevolent mutant menace, and #31 (Roth and Tartaglione) had Marvel Girl and the boys tackle an Iron Man clone who was also an accidental time bomb in ‘We Must Destroy… the Cobalt Man!’

A somewhat watered down version of the counter-culture had been slowly creeping into these tales of teenaged triumph and tragedy, mostly for comedic balance, but they were – along with Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man – some of the earliest indications of the changing face of America. ‘Beware the Juggernaut, My Son!’ and its conclusion ‘Into the Crimson Cosmos!’ (guest-starring Doctor Strange and his mentor the Ancient One) extended that experience when the Professor was abducted by Factor Three and the kids were forced to stand alone against an unstoppable mystic monster.

Dan Adkins in full Wally Wood appreciation mode memorably illustrated #34’s ‘War… In a World of Darkness!’ as the team’s search for Xavier took them into the middle of a subterranean civil war between Tyrannus and the Mole Man, and he also inked Werner Roth on ‘Along Came A Spider…’ as everybody’s favourite wall-crawler was mistaken for a Factor Three flunky by the increasingly desperate X-Men. ‘Mekano Lives’ (with art from Ross Andru and George Roussos, nee Bell) found the team delayed in their attempts to follow a lead to Europe by a troubled rich kid with a stolen exo-skeleton super-suit…

Don Heck stepped in as inker over Andru’s pencils with #37, ‘We, the Jury…’ when the mutants finally found Factor Three – allied to a host of their old mutant foes – and ready to trigger an atomic war. Heck assumed the penciller’s role for ‘The Sinister Shadow of… Doomsday!’ (inked by “Bell”), before concluding the saga with the Vince Colletta embellished ‘The Fateful Finale!’

Werner Roth had not departed the mutant melee: with issue #38 a classy back-up feature had commenced, and his slick illustration was perfect for the fascinating Origins of the X-Men series. Inked by John Verpoorten ‘A Man Called… X’ began the hidden history of Cyclops, also revealing how Xavier began his relationship with FBI agent Fred Duncan… The second instalment ‘Lonely are the Hunted!’ displayed humanity in mob mode as terrified citizens rioted and stalked the newly “outed” mutant Scott Summers: scenes reminiscent of contemporary race-riots that would fuel the racial outcast metaphor of the later Chris Claremont team.

Thomas, Heck and George Tuska ushered in a new era for the team with #40’s ‘The Mask of the Monster!’ as, now clad in individual costumes rather than superhero school uniforms, they tackled what seemed to be Frankenstein’s unholy creation whilst in the second feature Scott Summers met ‘The First Evil Mutant!’

‘Now Strikes… the Sub-Human!’ and the sequel ‘If I Should Die…’ introduced the tragic Grotesk, whose only dream was to destroy the entire planet, and who introduced the greatest change yet. I’m spoiling nothing now but when this story first ran the shock couldn’t be described when the last page showed the death of Charles Xavier. I’m convinced that at the time this was an honest plot development – removing an “old” figurehead and living deus ex machina from a “young” series, and I’m just as certain that his subsequent “return” a few years later was an inadvisable reaction to dwindling sales…

From the rear of those climactic issues ‘The Living Diamond!’ and ‘The End… or the Beginning?’ (this last inked by neophyte Herb Trimpe) signalled the beginning of The Xavier School for Gifted Children as the Professor took the fugitive Scott Summers under his wing and began his Project: X-Men. Issue #43 began the reinvention of the mutant team with ‘The Torch is Passed!’ (Thomas, Tuska & Tartaglione) as arch-nemesis Magneto returned with reluctant confederates Toad, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to ensnare the bereaved heroes.

This was supported by a back-up tale ‘Call Him… Cyclops’ which revealed the secrets of his awesome eye-blasts, whilst the next issue ‘Red Raven, Red Raven…’ saw the Angel escape and encounter a revived Golden Age Timely Comics hero in a stirring yarn from Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Heck, Roth and Tartaglione. This was accompanied by the opening of the next Origins chapter-play when ‘The Iceman Cometh!’ courtesy of Friedrich, Tuska and Verpoorten.

X-Men #45 led with ‘When Mutants Clash!’ as Cyclops also escaped only to encounter the highly conflicted Quicksilver; a battle that concluded with Magneto’s defeat in Avengers #53 ‘In Battle Joined’ by Thomas, John Buscema and Tuska, whilst back in #45 Iceman’s story continued in ‘And the Mob Cried… Vengeance!’

‘The End of the X-Men!’ occurred in issue #46, with the reading of Charles Xavier’s will. Agent Duncan reappeared and ordered the team to split-up, to monitor different parts of the country for mutant activity just as the unstoppable Juggernaut turned up once more, and Iceman’s origin concluded with ‘…And Then There were Two!’

Friedrich was joined by Arnold Drake to script Beast and Iceman’s adventure ‘The Warlock Wears Three Faces!’ as the ancient mutant Merlin once more re-branded himself: this time as the psychedelic guru Maha Yogi, and Drake, Roth and Verpoorten explained the cool kid’s powers in the info feature ‘I, the Iceman.’ As full scripter Drake penned The Cyclops and Marvel Girl tale, ‘Beware Computo, Commander of the Robot Hive’, a pacy thriller with a surprise guest villain, whilst ‘Your’s Truly the Beast’ wrong-footed everybody by explaining his powers before actually telling his origin epic.

X-Men #49 gave a tantalising taste of things to come with a startling and stylish Jim Steranko cover, behind which Drake, Heck, Roth and Tartaglione revealed ‘Who Dares Defy… the Demi-Men?’: nominally an Angel story but one which reunited the team to confront the assembled mutant hordes of Mesmero and Iceman’s new girlfriend – the daughter of Magneto! This shocker was supplemented by ‘A Beast is Born.’

Drake, Steranko and Tartaglione reached incredible heights with the magnificent ‘City of Mutants’ in #50; a visual tour de force that remains as spectacular now it did in 1968, but which was actually surpassed by Magneto’s return as ‘The Devil had a Daughter’ in #51 before the saga concluded in the disappointing ‘Twilight of the Mutants!’

Don’t misunderstand me, however: This isn’t a bad story, but after two issues of Steranko in his creative prime, nobody could satisfactorily end this tale, and I pity Heck and Roth for having to try.

The Beast origin chapters in those issues were ‘This Boy, This Bombshell’, ‘The Lure of the Beast-Nappers!’ and ‘The Crimes of the Conquistador!’, and that particular epic of child exploitation and the isolation of being different ended in #53’s ‘Welcome to the Club, Beast!’ but that issue’s main claim to notoriety was the lead feature which was drawn by another superstar in the making.

Hard to believe now, but in the 1960s X-Men was a series in perpetual sales crises, and a lot of great talent was thrown at it back then. ‘The Rage of Blastaar!’ was illustrated by a young Barry Smith – still in his Kirby appreciation phase – and his unique interpretation of this off-beat battle-blockbuster from Arnold Drake, inked by the enigmatic Michael Dee, is memorable but regrettably brisk.

These tales perfectly display Marvel’s evolution from quirky action tales to the more fraught, breastbeating, convoluted melodramas that inexorably led to the monolithic X-brand of today. Well drawn, highly readable stories are never unwelcome or out of favour though, and it should be remembered that everything here informs so very much of today’s mutant mythology. These are stories for the dedicated fan and newest convert, and never better packaged than in this economical tome. Everyone should own this book.

© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.