Author: NowReadThis

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Prison Pit volume 1


By Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-297-5

Johnny Ryan is a cartoonist with an uncompromising vision and a clear intention of producing shock and even revulsion whenever he wants to. In this latest book, derived from his fascination with casual violence, social decay and the mythology of masked wrestling as well as his appreciation of the “berserk” manga strips of Kentaro Miura, he presents a brutally child-like view of a different sort of Hell.

The Prison Pit is an extra-dimensional purgatory where the most violent felons are dumped to live or die, plagued with monsters, vile organisms and the worst specimens of humanity society has ever produced. Into this hellhole is cast C.F. a masked wrestler who’s not prepared to back down for anybody or anything.

What follows is non-stop excessive force and graphic carnage: a never-ending battle delivered in the raw primitivist art of an impassioned engrossed child…

Savage, cathartic and blackly funny this is violent juvenilia pushed beyond all limits into the darkest depths of absurdist comedy. Not for children, the faint-hearted or weak-stomached, this is extreme cartooning at its most visceral and pure.

© 2009 Johnny Ryan. All rights reserved.

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Rip Kirby: Buried Treasure Daily Strips 12 June -23 September 1950


By Alex Raymond (Pacific Comics Club)
No ISBN

Some strips are simply more addictive than narcotics or chocolate. After recently reviewing a giant-sized Rip Kirby collection (re-read after too many years in advance of an upcoming IDW compilation project promising to reproduce the entire saga) I simply couldn’t stop at just the one…

This complete softcover adventure follows immediately upon ‘Gunpowder Dreams’: released in 1980 and still occasionally available in shops and on the internet. You can’t miss it since the thing is a huge 340x245mm (that’s nearly 15 inches by 10) and its glossy white pages present another captivating tale of one of America’s most famous fictional detectives, drawn by one of the world’s most talented artists.

An intoxicating blend of 1950s style and fashion, this is another yarn that will suck you into a captivating world of adventure and resurgent post-war glamour, but this time with the added drama of a ruthless arch-enemy thrown into the mix, and all played against the backdrop of America’s post war fascination with the Italian glamour of La Dolce Vita…

During the 1930s Raymond made Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and Secret Agent X-9 household names all over the world, but when the USA joined the War so did he. On returning to civilian life, like Milt Caniff and his iconic post-war adventurer Steve Canyon rather than rekindle old glories Raymond wanted something new.

From King Features Editor Ward Greene’s concept and scripts he designed a different kind of private detective: a rather unique individual: retired marine; intellectual, easy-going, musically and artistically inclined but physically powerful and who preferred to use his mind rather than fists and guns.

His steady girlfriend Judith “Honey” Dorian and mousy but competent manservant Desmond (a reformed burglar) completed a regular cast with plenty of depth and scope. Remington “Rip” Kirby debuted on March 4th 1946, to instant approbation and commercial success.

Greene wrote the scripts until 1952 when he was replaced by journalist Fred Dickenson and Raymond drew it until September 6th 1956, when, aged only 46, he died in a car crash. John Prentice assumed the art duties with Dickenson writing until 1986 when he left due to ill-health, from which time Prentice did that too. The feature closed shop on June 26th 1999 when Prentice retired.

Slick, polished and so very chic, old friend and flighty heiress Margie Pelham has found the man of her dreams in an Italian Count. Her lawyers are less ecstatic and want Rip to thoroughly investigate the uppity foreigner, so Honey Dorian is dispatched to accompany her old friend on the ocean cruise to Sorrento, but no one is aware of a lurking menace.

The Mangler was a brutal gangster brought low by Kirby, and he’d been craving revenge ever since. Now hooked up with a Nazi deserter he’s on his way to Sorrento too, in search of stolen treasure buried by the German in the very teeth of the allied invasion. The cash could set up the Mangler in a new life and the thought of settling with Kirby and his friends makes the brutal thug’s fingers itch and his mouth water…

This is another brilliantly stylish caper, packed full of tension, romance and lots of tricky plot twists, with oodles of action, beautifully executed by an absolute master of brush and pen. Just imagine Alfred Hitchcock in panels not movie screens…

Your chances of tracking down this gem are admittedly quite slim, but well worth the effort if you’re an art-lover, as Raymond’s drawing at this size is an unparalleled delight, but in fairness I should mention than the lettering here is appalling. I can only assume the art was shot from foreign printed copies (the rest of the world has always appreciated graphic arts more than us or the Americans) and lettered back into English by well-meaning but unprofessional hands.

Nevertheless these are still strips every fan should experience; even in the meagre dimensions modern strips are reprinted. Any Rip Kirby collections are a treat you simply cannot afford to miss. Let’s hope we’re not waiting too long…

© 1950, 1980 King Features. All Rights Reserved. Book © 1980 Pacific C.C.

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The Big Kahn


By Neil Kleid & Nicholas Cinquegrani (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-561-0

When Rabbi Kahn died it shook the close-knit, devout community he had spent four decades building and guiding. But his funeral, where his first born son Avi delivered a eulogy and prepared to assume his father’s role, was a shambles. Rebellious and troubled daughter Lea preferred furtive sex in a synagogue broom-closet to her rightful place beside her grieving mother and young Eli was clearly in a state of shock.

So tempers naturally flared when the unsavoury gentile Roy Dobbs intruded upon the event demanding to see the body of his brother one final time…

With mixed emotions the surviving family and larger congregation are forced to confront a terrible truth. David Kahn, Holocaust survivor, brilliant rabbinical scholar, wise and loving parent and spiritual glue of an entire community for more than forty years, was in fact Donnie Dobbs: a two-bit grifter and con-man who came to the neighbourhood to fleece the yokels but found something better and stayed and grew and blossomed…

With his death everything has changed. The man they all knew was a lie, so doesn’t that mean that everything he said and did was too? Surely the children of David Kahn are tarred with same brush and destined to repeat his thoughts and deeds?

How the implications affect the Kahn children and their broken, bereft mother is a masterpiece of human scrutiny, related with deft skill and great understanding, and the discreet, masterfully underplayed black and white art is effective and compassionate, never intruding into the tale but always providing just what the reader needs to see.

Here’s an intriguing human drama that deserves the widest possible attention, so I’m stifling my usual impulse and pleading that somewhere a sensitive and creative independent film-maker has the sense to option it. The Big Kahn is a witty and powerful exploration of truths big and small set against the backdrop of a traditional Jewish American community, and cannily examines not only faith’s effect on individuals but how mortals shape religion…

Until such a time however you can enjoy one of the best dramas of the year just by picking up this lovely, thought-provoking book.

© 2009 Neil Kleid & Nicholas Cinquegrani.

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Elric at the End of Time


By Michael Moorcock, illustrated by Rodney Matthews (Paper Tiger)
ISBN: 1-85028 032-0

He doesn’t demonstrate it often enough but Michael Moorcock has a wicked, absurdist sense of humour. One occasion of this is marvelously captured and reinterpreted in this deliciously odd collaboration with fantasy illustrator and heavy metal/prog-rock art icon Rodney Matthews. The prose book this tale is taken from collects short stories of the doom-drenched last-Emperor of a dead race, with the titles tale deviating ever so slightly from the breast-beating norm…

Elric is a tragic incarnation of the Eternal Champion, reincarnated in every time, place and alternate dimension. His life is blood and tragedy, exacerbated by his dependence on a soul-drinking black sword and his sworn allegiance to the chimerical Lords of Chaos. But what happens when he is lost in a place where time has ended?

Misplaced from his proper situation he finds himself in the indulgent, entropic, oh-so-bored company of the Dancers at the End of Time where an effete and omnipotent group of beings are desperately trying to keep themselves amused until the inevitable finally happens.

Elric believes he’s been shanghaied to the realms of ultimate chaos – a belief his hosts are delighted to encourage – and only the duty-bound Una Persson, Top Agent of Time Central, cares about returning the lost Melnibonéan to his point of origin before all reality unravels…

This novella is a mock heroic, surreal delight, that revels in lancing its own pretensions, expanded to fill this lush 120 page album by the incredible, unique art work of Matthews who eschews sequential narrative for a panoramic series of (21) lavishly painted plates, spreads and vignettes and a further 11 illustrations ranging from cameos to spreads in eerie black and white.

Controversial among fans who either love or hate it, this is still a terrific read, outré and startling, and one that fantasy and illustration fans should see. Well worth the effort needed to track it down.
© 1987 Dragon’s World Ltd. Text © 1981 Michael Moorcock. Illustrations © 1981 Rodney Matthews. All Rights Reserved.

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All and Sundry – Uncollected Work 2004-2009


By Paul Hornschemeier (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-285-2

In his relatively short artistic career Paul Hornschemeier has produced relatively little work, but all of it has been of phenomenal quality and boldly dedicated to deeper themes and compelling expansions of the medium of graphic narrative. Its also manages to be funny sad and pretty all at once. Don’t take my word for it: acquire The Collected Sequential, The Three Paradoxes. Let Us be Perfectly Clear and the incredible Mother, Come Home and see for yourself.

While you’re at it, the perfect accompaniment for that enviable investigation is this delicious collection of art and ideas ranging from the broadest sketches, prose and ideas to fully finished and coloured strips and stories gathered from such disparate sources as the experimental strip anthology Mome to the back up strips produced for Dark Horse’s comic interpretation of Michael Chabon’s brilliant novel The Escapist.

Also included are assorted commercial illustrations from magazines such as the Wall Street Journal, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and Nickelodeon Magazine, Penguin Books and many others, designs and typography for the numerous foreign editions of his creations and many other visual treats from this always enchanting and thought-provoking creator.

If you want – or need – a peek inside the head of a truly creative force, or just love great drawing and fine amusing, sad whimsy this is a book you must have.

© 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Paul Hornschemeier. All Rights Reserved. The Tick © & ™ Ben Edlund; The Worst Comic Book Heroes That Never Existed written by an © Michael Kupperman; The Escapist © & ™ Michael Chabon

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Batman: The Black Casebook


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-312-4

Despite having his name writ large on the cover the only thing Grant Morrison produced for this weird and wonderful collection is the introduction, so if he’s the reason you buy Batman you’re in for a little disappointment. However if you feel like seeing the incredible stories that inspired him, then you’re in for a bizarre and baroque treat as this collection features a coterie of tales considered far too outlandish and fanciful to be canonical for the last few decades but now reintroduced to the mythology of the Dark Knight as a casebook of the “strangest cases ever told!”.

Tales from the anodyne 1950s (with just a little overlapping touch of the 1960s) always favoured plot over drama – indeed a strong argument could be made that all DC’s post-war costumed crusaders actually shared the same character (and yes I’m including Wonder Woman) – so the narrative drive focuses on comfortably familiar situations and outlandish themes and paraphernalia: but as a kid they simply blew me away. They still do.

Starting things off is a ‘A Partner for Batman’ (Batman #65 June/July 1951) by Bill Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz and Charles Paris, wherein Batman’s training of a foreign hero is misconstrued as a way of retiring Robin, whilst a trip out west introduces the Dynamic Duo to their Native American analogues in ‘Batman… Indian Chief!’ (issue #86, September 1954, by France Herron, Sheldon Moldoff and Stan Kaye), and ‘The Batmen of All Nations!’ (Detective Comics #215, January 1955 by Edmond Hamilton, Moldoff and Paris) took the sincere flattery a step further by introducing nationally-themed imitations from Italy, England, France, South America and Australia, all attending a convention that’s doomed to disaster…

A key story of this period introduced a strong psychological component to Batman’s origins in ‘The First Batman’ (Detective Comics #235, September 1955) courtesy of Finger, Moldoff and Kaye, and the international knock-offs returned to meet Superman and a new shocking mystery hero in ‘The Club of Heroes’ (Worlds Finest Comics #89, July/August 1957 by Hamilton and the magnificent Dick Sprang and Stan Kaye).

‘The Man who Ended Batman’s Career’ introduced the malevolent Professor Milo (Detective Comics #247, September 1957, Finger, Moldoff & Paris) who used psychological warfare and scientific mind-control to attack our heroes. The same creative team brought him back for an encore in Batman #112, in ‘Am I Really Batman?’

France Herron scripted one of Sprang and Paris’ best ever art collaborations in the incredible, spectacular ‘Batman… Superman of Planet X!’ (Batman #113, February 1958) and Finger, Moldoff & Paris introduced the Gotham Guardian’s most controversial “partner” in ‘Batman Meets Bat-Mite’(Detective Comics #267, May 1959), but ‘The Rainbow Creature’ (Batman #134, September 1960) is a rather tame monster-mash from Finger and Moldoff which only serves to make the next tale more impressive.

‘Robin Dies at Dawn’ is an eerie epic which first appeared in Batman #156, June 1963 by Finger, Moldoff & Paris (supplemented by, but not dependent upon, a Robin solo adventure sadly omitted from this collection). In it Batman experiences truly hideous travails on an alien world culminating in the death of his young partner. I’m stopping there as it’s a great story and plays a crucial part in the latter day sagas Batman: R.I.P., and The Black Glove. Buy this book and read it yourself…

But wait: There’s more! From the very end times of the old-style tales comes the inexplicably daft but brilliant ‘The Batman Creature!’ (Batman #162, March 1964) by an unknown writer, Moldoff and Paris, wherein Robin and Batwoman must cope with a Caped Crusader transformed into a rampaging giant monster. Shades of King Kong, Bat-fans!

Even though clearly collected to cash in on the success of the modern Morrison vehicle these stories have an intrinsic worth and power of their own, and these angst-free exploits from a different age still have a magic to captivate and enthrall. Do not dismiss them and don’t miss this book!

© 1951, 1954-1960, 1963, 1964, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Squirrel Machine


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN:  978-1-60699-301-9

¡Perfect Present Alert!  For him or her – if they’re “Of Age”

Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in many different arenas since the early 1990s, beginning with self-published mini-comics and graduating to full-sized, full-length epics as well as dabbling in film, music, gallery works and even performance art. A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with the controversial graphic novel Chloe, and has since spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals.

He has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered and open to wide interpretation. His preferred oeuvre is the imagery and milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which provided such rich fantasist pickings for Poe, Lovecraft and Derleth, and his meticulously clear line is a perfect counterpoint to the cloud of mystery and cosmic confusion engendered by the protagonists of his latest book The Squirrel Machine.

The brothers Edmund and William Torpor live in a secluded 19th century New England town but have never been part of the community. Raised alone by their artist mother they are quite different from other kids, and Edmund especially is obsessed with arcane engineering and assembling musical instruments from utterly inappropriate components.  Fantastic dream-like journeys and progressions mark their isolated existence, which is far more in tune with a greater metaphysical cosmos, but as puberty gradually moves them to an awareness of base human sexuality they find the outside world impacting theirs in ways that can only end in tragedy and horror…

Moreover, just where did the plans for the Squirrel Machine come from…?

Visually reminiscent of the works of Rick Geary, this is also a uniquely surreal and mannered design, a highly charged and subtly disturbing delusion that will chill and upset and possibly even outrage many readers but it is also compelling, seductive and hard to forget. As long as you’re an adult and braced for the unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this decade.

© 2009 Fantagraphics Books. Contents © 2009 Hans Rickheit. All Rights Reserved.

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Plunder Woman Must Go! Socialist Cartoons from Militant


By Alan Hardman with commentary by Lynn Walsh (Miltant/Mentorn)
No ISBN:

I thought I’d combine controversy and nostalgia by reviewing this now just in case the titular subject of the brilliantly bitter satire and vitriolic graphic commentary within finally pops her clogs and whatever meagre pretension to good taste I possess subsequently scuppers me from ever doing it.

Along with sex, religion and fighting, politics has always been the grist that feeds the cartoonist’s mill, and like many other creative people I often bemoan the fall of the Thatcher regime (it’s still hard to call it a government as those are systems of management purportedly run for people and society) because – and only because – it deprived us all of spectacularly worthy targets.

The best political cartooning comes from outrage and the Tory administrations of the 1980’s provided one bloated, bile-filled easy mark after another. Just look at TV’s Spitting Image which grew fat and healthy off that government’s peccadilloes, indignities and iniquities (as well as Reagan’s America and the Royal Family) in just the way that millions of unemployed and disenfranchised workers, students and pensioners didn’t.

From 1980 comes this starkly powerful collection of incisive images by justifiably vitriolic socialist cartoonist Alan Hardman (still fighting the good fight to this day) which originally appeared in Militant, the periodical of the Marxist-leaning portion of the Labour party, just before the internal crisis in the mid-80’s led to expulsions of the hard Left and the creation in 1997 of the Socialist Party. The infamous and demonized faction Militant tendency was named after the newspaper.

Militant began after the successful 1964 election of Labour as a four page monthly publication, growing into a 16 page weekly by the late 1970s, outlining policies of the Militant tendency and publicising its activities and campaigns.

Content in the newspaper usually carried a by-line stating, author, his or her Party branch, and/or the trade union branch. Militant never employed professional journalists. There was even a quarterly sister publication: the journal, Militant International Review, dedicated to more substantial analysis of global economic and political events. It became Socialism Today in 1995. Militant was renamed The Socialist when the Militant tendency changed its name.

None of which really matters now, but these cartoons have stood the test of time and surely deserve another look, not just because of their power and passion but also because a really great villain can always stand another good kicking.
© 1980 Alan Hardman.

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Dungeon: The Early Years volume 2: Innocence Lost


By Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim, art by Christophe Blain, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-564-1

This slim tome is another part of the eccentric, raucous and addictively wacky franchise that adds a starkly adult whimsy to the fantastic worlds of fantasy fiction. This second volume of Early Years fills in some historical gaps that might have puzzled readers of Dungeon Parade, Zenith, Monstres and Twilight. There’s this magic castle, in a fantastic land of miracles, see, and it’s got a dungeon…

But before that Castle was built there was the debauched, bureaucratised and grimly frenetic urban hellhole of Antipolis. In it Dungeon Keeper-to-be Hyacinthe prowls the night as masked vigilante The Night Shirt but his midnight adventures are being seriously curtailed by his unrequited love for the fair Gabrielle, not to mention the unpleasant and lingering aftereffects of some prior requiting with the serpentine lady-assassin Alexandra…

When Gabrielle is falsely arrested by over-officious rabbits Hyacinthe must engineer her release, which involves leaving the relative comfort zone of the City for the wilds of rabbit-infested frontier town Zedotamaxim and the charnel hamlet of Necroville…

A second story After the Rain is set many years later when the now dissolute Hyacinthe is a middle-aged, unhappily married roué. Set in his ways and unhappy the former Night Shirt is enticed into making a comeback by the clever Doctor Cormor who must battle greed and the establishment itself to stop a subway being dug through the unstable pile of detritus that forms the very bedrock of the city. Perhaps it is less the noble quest than the return of slinky Alexandra that fires up the weary hero, but when inevitable disaster strikes will Hyacinthe be ready or able to cope?

The inhabitants of this weirdly surreal universe include every kind of anthropomorphic beast and bug as well as monsters, demons, mean bunnies, sexy vamps and highly capable women-folk who know the true (lack of) worth of a man. This is an epic saga played as an eternal and highly amusing battle of the sexes, with tongues planted firmly in cheeks – and no, I won’t clarify…

Comprising two translated French albums ‘Une Jeunesse Qui S’Enuit’ and ‘Apres La Pluie’ this is a delightfully surreal, earthy, sharp, poignant and brilliantly outlandish contemporary comedy that’s a joy to read with vibrant, wildly eccentric art moody as Dark Knight and jolly as Rupert Bear.

Definitely for grown-ups with young hearts, Dungeon is a near-the-knuckle, illicit experience which addicts at first sight, but for a fuller comprehension – and added enjoyment – I’d advise buying all the various incarnations.
© 2001-2006 Delcourt Productions-Tronfheim-Sfar-Blain. English translation © 2009 NBM. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: Past and Future


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-074-1

In the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DCU, time travel became a really big deal. So when the Metropolis Marvel did break the fourth dimension, as in the superb Superman: Time and Time Again the gimmick became as big a deal as the plot. But there was a period when all history and the implausible future was just a short spin away…

Superman is the comicbook crusader who started the whole genre and in the decades since his debut in 1938 has probably undertaken every kind of adventure imaginable. With this in mind it’s tempting and very rewarding to gather up whole swathes of his inventory and periodically re-present them in specific themed collections, such as this delightful confection of time-busting escapades from the many superb writers and artists who have contributed to his canon over the years.

The fun begins with a tale from Superboy #85 (1960) which reiterated an iron-clad cosmic law of the Silver Age: “History Cannot Be Changed”: as the Smallville Sensation tragically discovered in ‘The Impossible Mission!’ (by Jerry Siegel and George Papp) when he traveled to 1865 to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, fate will always conspire to make events unfold along a predestined course…

A different theory was in play in 1947 when the Man of Steel broke the time barrier for the first time to collect famous signatures for an ailing boy in ‘Autograph, Please!’ (Superman #48, by Siegel and John Sikela), whilst in ‘Rip Van Superman’ (Superman #107, 1956 by Bill Finger Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye Siegel) an accident placed the hero in a coma, trapping him in a future where he was redundant…

The 1960s were the heyday of time travel tales with the Man of Tomorrow and his friends nipping forward and back the way you or I (well me, anyway) would pop to the pub. In the brilliantly ingenious ‘Superman Under the Red Sun!’ (Action Comics #300, 1963 by Edmond Hamilton and Al Plastino) our hero is dispatched to the far, far future where the sun has cooled, and undergoes incredible hardship before figuring out a way home.

In ‘Jimmy’s D-Day Adventure!’ the boy reporter travelled to World War II to solve a bizarre mystery only to end up a trusted member of Hitler’s inner circle, (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #86, (1964, Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan and George Klein) whilst his Daily Planet colleague almost ripped apart the fabric of reality by nearly becoming Superman’s mum in ‘Lois Lane’s Romance with Jor-El!’ (Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #59, 1965, by Hamilton and Kurt Schaffenberger)

One of the boldest experiments of the decade occurred when Hamilton, Swan and Klein introduced us to ‘The Superman of 2965!’ (Superman #181, November 1965) for a series of adventures starring the Man of Steel’s distant descendent. A two-part sequel appeared the following summer in Action Comics #338-339, ‘Muto… Monarch of Menace!’ and ‘Muto Versus the Man of Tomorrow!’ and a postscript tale appeared in World’s Finest Comics #166 entitled ‘The Danger of the Deadly Duo!’ teaming that era’s Batman and Superman against Muto and the last in a long line of Jokers.

For Superman #295, Elliot Maggin, Curt Swan and Bob Oksner produced ‘Costume, Costume – Who’s got the Costume?’ (1976) a neat piece of cross-continuity clean-up that featured DC parallel worlds including those of Kamandi and the Legion of Super-Heroes. From that same year ‘Superman, 2001!’, by Maggin, Cary Bates Swan and Oksner is an imaginary Story (a tale removed from regular continuity) featured in the anniversary issue Superman #300, and posited what would have happened if baby Kal-El’s rocket had landed in the Cold War era of 1976 – an intriguing premise then which looks uncomfortably like the TV series Smallville to my jaded 21st century eyes.

This fascinating collection concludes with ‘The Last Secret Identity’ (from 1983’s DC Comics Presents Annual #2, by Maggin, Keith Pollard, Mike DeCarlo and Tod Smith, which introduced the first incarnation of Superwoman, when a time-travelling historian landed in Metropolis only to become the subject of her own research.

These tales are clever, plot driven romps far removed from today’s angst-heavy psycho-dramas and unrelentingly oppressive epics. If you’re after some clean-cut, wittily gentle adventure there’s no better place to go – or time…

© 1947, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1976, 1983, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.