Category: Activism

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Ethel Carnie Holdsworth’s This Slavery


Adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard, edited by David Hine (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-435-5 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Published in 1925, and set in the cotton town of Great Harwood, near Blackburn at the Edwardian height of the Lancashire weaving industry, the prose This Slavery explored the ironclad imbalances of the feudal class structure the industry depended upon and did it in terms of a then-fashionable romance novel. It was dismissed in many quarters because of it. Its author Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (January 1st 1886 – December 28th 1962) was a poet, journalist, editor, educator, children’s author and novelist (with at least 10 books released in her lifetime, and whose fashionable gothic romances briefly outsold works by H.G. Wells!) and the first working class woman in Britain to have a book published – Miss Nobody in 1913.

Working class and self-made, she escaped the drudgery of her birth to become a socialist intellectual, foe of fascism, successful author and ardent campaigner. However, she was gradually and in her own lifetime erased from history and public consciousness – perhaps because this daring experiment was intended to reach beyond the intelligentsia on both sides of the cultural battlegrounds. Maybe – just perhaps – it happened because this story recognised that even though all workers were equal, female ones were supposed to be less equal than all the rest, before then challenging that apparently sacrosanct sacred cow and credo…

Divided into two Books, this saga is sparked by the aftermath of a fire at Barstock’s mill. This triggers another cycle of unemployment, privation and deaths for the weakest. Workers are paid a pittance and toil at the owners’ discretion with no salaried protections. Even skilled workers lives depend on the pennies weaving factories dole out whenever the owners need them to, and unemployment is common and frequent. Now, with their only livelihood destroyed with no sign of reopening, many men are leaving for more favourable climes. Of course, their wives and sweethearts must remain…

Hester and Rachel Martin live with their mother and grandmother, one a fierce and ferocious firebrand advocate of political and social change for all and the other a fair-faced, gifted musician in search of peace and security. Life for them is scrounging and performing for pennies or else perpetually borrowing to make do. When their granny dies, they don’t even have the money to bury her…

As their friends and lovers leave, existence becomes ever more onerous, and each achieves a shocking revelation regarding a woman’s place in the grand schemes, Thus each chooses a difficult way to survive…

The manner in which each “gets by” is moodily realised in grittily oppressive episodes beginning with ‘Chapter One: The Proposal’ and inexorably unfolding in a tapestry of tragedy comprising ‘The Denial’, ‘The Exile’, ‘The Struggle’, ‘The Secret’, ‘The Inevitable’, ‘The Undesirables’, ‘The Last Snap’ and ‘The Commitment’ all confirming that the war for freedom and equality is a three way battle: rich vs poor vs women…

As Hester and Rachel each make life-changing decisions, the illustration embraces and resonates with powerful natural forces of nature and darkness opposed to crushing streets, oppressive architecture and shining gleaming inescapable artificial light that emotionally ground down the workers – employed or otherwise. Moreover, as Book Two sees the situation escalate into inevitable mass violence, readers are not allowed to forget that police, “scab” workers, and the military always have paid work to do…
As the drama leads to an inevitable conclusion each sister rediscovers her true nature via ‘Chapter Ten: The Negotiations’, ‘The Strike’, ‘The Lost Opportunity’, ‘The Innocents’, ‘The Beasts of the Jungle’, ‘The Revelations’, ‘The Rebellion’, ‘The Decision’ and momentous moment ‘The Last Battle’…

Like any inspirational tale espousing change, there is the hint of happy endings and brighter futures for all depicted in an ‘Epilogue’ with the entire story reinforced by a candid and thoughtful Afterword from adaptors Sophie & Scarlett Rickard (Mann’s Best Friend, A Blow Borne Quietly, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, No Surrender).

Righteously strident, passionately polemical and powerfully enraging, engaging, this never-more-timely tale of the eternal injustice and biologically apologist is superbly readable, dramatically enticing and should be compulsory viewing for all – as long as we don’t force anyone …

© 2025 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2025 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2025 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.
Ethel Carnie Holdsworth’s This Slavery will be published on September 11th 2025 and is available for pre-order now.

Today in 1917, cartoonist/writer Frank Robbins was born. Among his many, many masterworks this character stands at the forefront.

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Barefoot Gen volume 10: Never Give Up


By Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-601-6 (TPB) 978-0-86719-840-9 (HB/School Edition)

Whilst we are all commemorating the 80th anniversary of VJ Day (the Americans hold theirs on September 2nd), it’s only appropriate to remember how that war ended and what victory and defeat meant to a world forever changed after the conclusion. In comics, that means Keiji Nakazawa and Hadashi no Gen. A standby of anti-nuclear movements since first release in 1983, new hardback editions combining two paperback editions per volume are underway and will be on sale from January 15th 2026 – if we manage to live that long. You could wait or even check out our past reviews or simply save your time & energy by buying the still-available 10 tank?bon set right now.

After many years of struggle the entire piecemeal epic semi-autobiographical saga was remastered as an unabridged and uncompromising 10-volume English-language translation by Last Gasp under the auspices of Project Gen: a multinational organisation dedicated to peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Constantly revised and refined by its creator until his death from lung cancer in December 2012, Barefoot Gen is the quintessential anti-war tract and plea to humanity for peace. The combined volumes are angry and uncompromising, and never forgive those who seek to perpetuate greed, mendacity and bloody-handed stupidity.

Hadashi no Gen was first seen in Japan in 1973, serialised in Gekkan Shōnen Janpu Jampu (Monthly Boys Jump) following an occasional 1972 series of stand-alone stories in various magazines which included Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Struck by Black Rain) and Aru Hi Totsuzen (One Day, Suddenly).

The scattered tales eventually led Shonen Jump’s editor Tadasu Nagano to commission 45-page Ore wa Mita (I Saw It) for a Monthly Jump special devoted to autobiographical works. Nagano clearly recognised that the author – an actual survivor of the world’s first atomic atrocity – had much more to say which readers needed to see and commissioned the serial which has grown into this stunning landmark epic.

The tale was always controversial in a country which still generally prefers to ignore rather than confront past mistakes and indiscretions and, after 18 months, Hadashi no Gen was removed from Jump, transferring firstly to Shimin (Citizen), then Bunka Hyåron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyåiku Hyåron (Educational Criticism). Just like his indomitable hero, Keiji Nakazawa never gave up and his persistence led to a first Japanese book collection in 1975, translated by the newly-constituted Project Gen team into Russian, English and other languages including Norwegian, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Indonesian, Tagalog and Esperanto.

Born in March 14th 1939 and changed forever on August 6th 1945, the hibakusha (“atom bomb survivor”) author first completed his account in 1985 and his telling testament of survival has since been adapted into live-action & anime films; operas; musicals and live television dramas; each spreading the message across every continent and all generations.

Today we’re looking again at the concluding volume which brings the story of irrepressible, ebullient Gen and his friends to a close. One last time we see the forceful vitality of a select band of bomb survivors pitted against the constant shadow of tragedy which implacably dogs them in the city slowly recovering from nuclear conflagration.

Here the indomitable idealistic individualist, having finally found a way to express his anger and effectively fight back against the idiocies and injustices of a world which lets Atom bombs fall but is seemingly incapable of learning from its mistakes, at last strikes back at the demagogues and monsters who still keep the bad old ways alive… even after their people suffered the most hideous of consequences…

Barefoot Gen: Never Give Up begins following an inspirational ‘Gen’s Message: A Plea for Nuclear Abolition’ by the Translators & Editors and – as previously – the other end of this monochrome paperback balances the essay with a biography of the author and invaluable data ‘About Project Gen’…

The graphic manifesto resumes in March 1953 as Gen prepares for his school graduation ceremony, despite seldom attending that hidebound institution over the past few years. Fellow bomb orphans Ryuta and quietly stolid Musubi – who have shared Gen’s shabby shack for years – are also in high spirits. They have been constantly selling dresses made by radiation-scarred outcast Katsuko on Hiroshima’s rebuilt street corners, diligently saving the proceeds until she has enough money to open a shop. Now the manager of one of the big stores wants to buy all the clothes they can manufacture to sell in his fashionable venues…

At the Graduation Ceremony Gen once again loses his temper when the faculty begin memorialising the past and celebrating the failed regime of the empire. Later, his savage confrontation with teachers and visiting dignitaries sparks a minor student revolution. For many of the juvenile delinquents it’s also an opportunity to inflict some long-delayed retribution on the educational bullies who have oppressed and beaten them for years…

Encouragingly, however, not all parents and attending adults take the teachers’ side, and a potentially murderous confrontation is (rather violently) defused by Gen. The boy’s life then changes forever when he bumps into a young woman and is instantly smitten. His pursuit of Mitsuko will bring him into conflict with her brutal father, former employer and unrepentant war-lover Nakao who is now a highly successful businessman going places in the reconstructed city…

Gen has been studying with elderly artist Seiga Amano, learning the skills his own father would have passed on had he not died in 1945. The mentor/father-figure encourages his protégé to pursue Mitsuko… and it costs them both their jobs. However, the seeming setback is in fact liberating and before long the star-crossed youngsters are in a fevered euphoria of first love. So engaged is Gen that he is not there when stolid Musubi is targeted by a cruel Yakuza honeytrap who addicts him to drugs before fleecing him of all Katsuko’s hard-earned savings…

With a happy ending so close he can touch it, Gen is dragged back down to earth by a trio of tragedies which leave him near-broken and all alone. The legacies of the bombing have again cost him almost everything…

After a horrendous bout of death and vengeance-taking, Gen seems to have nothing to live for, but the despondent young man is saved by aged Amano who rekindles his spirit and wisely advises him to get out of Hiroshima and start his real life in the world beyond it…

Keiji Nakazawa’s broad cartoon art style has often been subject of heated discussion; his simplified Disney-esque rendering felt by some to be at odds with the subject matter, and perhaps diluting the impact of the message. I’d like to categorically refute that.

The style springs from his earliest influence, Osamu Tezuka, Father of Anime & God of Manga who began his career in 1946 and whose works – Shin Takarajima/New Treasure Island, Tetsuwan Atomu/Astro Boy and so many more – assuaged some of the grim realities of being hibakusha, providing escape, hope and even a career path to the young illustrator. Even at its most bleak and traumatic the epic never forgets to shade horror with humour and counterpoint crushing loss with fiery idealism and enthusiasm.

As such the clear line, solid black forms and abstracted visual motifs act as tolerable symbols for much of the horror in this parable. The art defuses but never dilutes the horror of the tragedy and its aftermath. The reader has to be brought through the tale to receive the message and for that purpose drawings are accurate, simplified and effective. The intent is not to repel (and to be honest, even as they are they’re still pretty hard to take) but to inform, to warn.

Shocking. Momentous. Bleak and violent but ultimately astoundingly uplifting, Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen is without peer and its legacy will be pervasive and long-lasting. So now you’ve been warned, buy this old book. Buy the entire series. Buy the new editions as they come out. Tell everyone you know about it. Barefoot Gen is an indisputable classic and should be available to absolutely everyone.
© 2009 Keiji Nakazawa. All rights reserved.

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They Called Us Enemy (Expanded edition)


By George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steve Scott & Harmony Becker (Top Shelf Productions/IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-603094-70-2 (Expanded HB) eISBN 978-1-684068-82-1-
TPB ISBN: 978-1-603094-50-4

This book contains Discriminatory Content from less enlightened times included for historical and dramatic veracity.

Graphic biographies are still a relatively new form for English-language comics, but the wealth and variety of material already available is truly breathtaking and laudable. This so timely exemplary example is a subtly understated yet deeply moving chronicle exploring the events and repercussions of a truly shameful moment in US history, as recalled and relived by a global icon of popular culture. He also happens to be one of that embattled democracy’s most ardent advocates of diversity, justice and equality and top-level activist in the arenas of LGBTQ and Asian-American rights.

George Takei initially celebrated and commemorated his life in prose autobiography To the Stars, but here, in collaboration with writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and illustrator Harmony Becker, the Hollywood star deftly shifted focus to explore in painful and revelatory detail the early years of his life: a formative period spent as a non-person confined without cause behind barbed wire in his own country.

Recounted as non-linear, non-chronological episodes, the history and self-serving actions of American leaders – like Lt. General John L. DeWitt or Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, who systematically stripped all people of Japanese ethnicity of their rights, livelihoods, possessions and autonomy – are seen through the eyes of a small child. Those observations inevitably shaped the actor into a crusading defender of democratic principles of later life.

I’d love to say that’s simply a thing of the past, but kids are still being locked in cages and families split up. It’s apparently something we humans just can’t stop doing…

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941, on February 19th 1942, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, dividing the country into military zones and effectively declaring all American citizens of Japanese origins enemy aliens. This led to their internment for the duration of the war across 10 isolated camps between the West Coast and Mississippi river.

In surprisingly fond recollections of camp life, we share the notions of baffled children – George, brother Henry, sister Nancy Reiko and many new pals – and the lasting, post-war consequences of divisively authoritarian stunts such as legally-binding loyalty pledges de-fanged and counterpointed by modern day discussions and triumphant moments of past injustices finally addressed.

As well as exposing the true price of dog-whistle politics and human cost of bowing to baying demagogues we see here a shameful period of state-sanctioned, opportunistic profiteering and proud racism in a tale that is a testament to human endurance, perseverance and innate dignity. Amidst the stomach churning, mostly bloodless horror are moments of delightful warmth and genuine humour, bolstered by actions of unsung humanitarian heroes like Takei’s own parents and pioneering civil rights lawyer Wayne M. Collins. Their tireless fortitude and resistance to state-sanctioned oppression, along with the efforts of countless others, offers inspiration and hope for all suffering similar restraint and abuse while sadly proving that some battles may never end. Just look at any headline with the word seeker, refugee or asylum in it and the sheer cost of protecting migrants anywhere on Earth today…

Also offering touching afterword ‘Making History’ by Takei, Eisinger, Scott & Becker; a Takei family photo album; reproduced Civilian Exclusion orders, street maps of the internment camp and chilling “Final accountability rosters” for Camp Rohwer & Camp Tule Lake, this book includes a detailed look at the process of creating it, with candid team photos, script pages, roughs and layouts, as well as press and convention shots of George collecting the numerous awards for his efforts. At the close, there’s a feature on how the book has transitioned to becoming an educational standby, acknowledgements and the always welcome creator biographies.

They Called Us Enemy is a compelling, beguiling and harshly informative account of injustice and unchecked ignorance endured with plenty of points as pertinent now as they ever were.

In 2020 this expanded edition was released with 16 pages of extra material in both physical hardback and digital volume.
They Called Us Enemy Expanded Edition © 2020 George Takei. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: Superman – The First Superhero


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Paul Cassidy, Paul Lauretta, Wayne Boring, Dennis Neville, Creig Flessel, Bernard Baily, Bob Kane, Leo O’Mealia, Jack Burnley, Fred Guardineer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77952-833-9 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Here’s another stunning and timely compilation comprising the best of vintage comics in another astounding and epic DC Finest edition. These full colour treasure troves are chronologically curated themed tomes highlighting past glories from the company that invented superheroes and so much more. Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

Just over 87 years ago, Superman rebooted planetary mythology and kickstarted the whole modern era of fantasy heroes. Outlandish, flamboyant, indomitable, infallible and unconquerable, he also saved a foundering industry by birthing an entirely new genre of storytelling: the Super Hero. Since April 18th 1938 (the generally agreed day copies of Action Comics #1 first went on sale) he has grown into a mighty presence in all aspects of art, culture and commerce, even as his natal comic book universe organically grew and expanded. Within three years of that debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment that had hallmarked the early exploits of the Man of Tomorrow had grown: encompassing crime-busting, reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy and even whimsical comedy. However, once the war in Europe and the East seized America’s communal consciousness, combat themes and patriotic imagery dominated most comic book covers, if not interiors.

In comic book terms alone Superman was soon a true master of the world, utterly changing the shape of the fledgling industry as easily as he could a mighty river. There was a popular newspaper strip, a thrice-weekly radio serial, games, toys, foreign and overseas syndication and as the decade turned, the Fleischer studio’s astounding animated cartoons.

Moreover, the quality of the source material was increasing with every four-colour release as the energy and enthusiasm of originators Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster went on to inform and infect the burgeoning studio which grew around them to cope with the relentless demand.

These tales have been reprinted many times, but this latest compilation might arguably be the best yet, offering the original stories in reading – if not strictly chronological publishing – order and spanning cover-dates June 1938 to December 1939. It features the groundbreaking sagas from Action Comics #1-25 and Superman #1-5, plus his pivotal first appearance in New York’s World Fair No. 1. Although most early tales were untitled, here, for everyone’s convenience, they have been given descriptive appellations by the editors.

Thus – after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding planet Krypton and offering a scientific rationale for his incredible abilities and astonishing powers in 9 panels – with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with Action #1’s primal thriller ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ Here, an enigmatic oddly-clad caped crusader – who secretly masquerades by day as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent – begins publicly averting numerous tragedies and righting injustices…

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up an abusive “wife beater”, the tireless paragon works over racketeer Butch Matson and consequently saves feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse at his hands. Then he exposes a lobbyist for the armaments industry bribing Senators on behalf of the greedy munitions interests fomenting the war in Europe…

One month later Action #2 offered the next breathtaking instalment wherein the mercurial mysteryman travels to that benighted war-zone to spectacularly dampen down hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Part 2’ before it’s back to the US where ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ finds the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in and landing the blame squarely on corrupt corporate practises, before cleaning up gamblers ruthlessly fixing games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential is explored in AC #5 as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pits the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which #6 sees canny chiseller Nick Williams attempting to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ (with Paul Lauretta adding inks to increasingly overworked Shuster’s art) even seeks to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off, but quickly learns a most painful and memorable lesson in ethics…

Although Superman starred on the first cover, National’s cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s lasting appeal and fell back upon more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here). The Man of Tomorrow’s – and Joe Shuster’s – second cover graced Action Comics #7 (on sale from October 25th but cover-dated December 1938) and sparked a big jump in sales, even as the riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ – with the mystery man crushing racketeers taking over the Big Top and illustrated by new kid Wayne Boring. Fred Guardineer produced genre covers for #8 & 9 whilst their interiors saw Siegel, Shuster & Lauretta’s ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity before latterly detailing how city cops’ disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference plays out in the Boring-inked ‘Wanted: Superman’. That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate and ambiguous relationship with the authorities that endured for years…

Action Comics #7 had been one of the publisher’s highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot, whilst Siegel’s smart story ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ limned by Shuster, Lauretta & Boring struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice and stacked odds, as the Man of Tomorrow infiltrated a penitentiary to expose the brutal horrors of State Chain Gangs. The next month saw a maritime cover by Guardineer whilst inside heartless conmen driving investors to penury and suicide rued the Metropolis Marvel intercession in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold” Swindle’ as illustrated by Paul Cassidy.

Guardineer’s spectacular cover of magician hero Zatara for issue #12 was a shared affair, incorporating another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring his presence inside each and every issue. Between those covers, Siegel, Shuster & Cassidy revealed how ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ – a hardhitting tale of joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all feel the wrath of the human dynamo after a friend of Clark Kent dies in a hit-&-run incident…

By now, the editors had realised Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the new industry, and in 1939 the company won a license to create a commemorative comic book edition celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair. The Man of Tomorrow naturally topped the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics at the forefront of such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and gas-masked vigilante The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, Siegel & Shuster’s ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’ describes how Lois and Clark are dispatched to cover the event, giving our hero an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to boot…

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued with Cassidy-rendered ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ as the tireless foe of felons faces murderous racketeers trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduces – in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first recurring nemesis The Ultra-Humanite…

Next follows a truncated version of Superman #1. This is because the industry’s first solo-starring comic book simply reprinted the earliest tales from Action, albeit supplemented with new and recovered material – which is all that’s featured at this point.

Behind the truly iconic and much recycled Shuster & O’Mealia cover, the first episode was at last printed in full as ‘Origin of Superman’, describing the alien foundling’s escape from doomed planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and eventual journey to the big city…

Also included in those 6 pages (cut from Action #1, and restored to the solo vehicle entitled ‘Prelude to ‘Superman, Champion of the Oppressed’) is the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the actual killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legend. Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘A Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page ‘Superman text story’, and ‘Meet the Creators’ – a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster. The landmark closed with a pinup of Superman breaking chains by breathing out: an image the tuned in will recognise as the basis of DC Studios’ animation ident…

Sporting another Guardineer Zatara cover, Superman in Action #14 (as realised by Cassidy) featured the return of a manic, money-mad supergenius deranged scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ as the mercenary malcontent switches his incredible intellect from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Steel. Whilst Cassidy concentrated on interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the hero tackles subsea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer then made some history as illustrator of an aquatic Superman cover for #15. He also produced the Foreign Legion cover on #16, wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ by Siegel, Shuster & Cassidy sees the hero save an embezzler from suicide before wrecking another wicked gambling cabal.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, with his own dedicated solo title. Moreover, a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year. The fictive Man of Tomorrow was the actual Man of the Hour and was swiftly garnering millions of new fans. A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing, and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s favourite hero…

Inked by Cassidy, overworked Siegel & Shuster’s second issue of Superman opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace clears the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, and coincidentally cleans all the scum out of the fight game, followed by ‘Superman’s Tips for Super-Health’, as ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ depicts the hero once more tackling unscrupulous munitions manufacturers and crushing a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas. The pictorial dramas end with ‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ which finds newshound Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, before committing his alter ego to conflict with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a contemporary ad and a ‘Superman Text Story’ bring the issue to a close…

Action #17 declared ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a vicious and bloody caper realised by Shuster & Cassidy, involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships, and featured their classic Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground. That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s final adventure cover – a bi-plane dog fight on #18, which fronted the Cassidy-limned ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ with both Kent and the Caped Kryptonian determinedly crushing a merciless blackmailer, Superman monopolised every cover from #19 onwards. That issue disclosed the peril of ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’ as the city reeled in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by Ultra-Humanite.

The truncated contents of Superman #3 offer only the first and last strips originally contained therein, as the other two were reprints of Action Comics #5 and 6. “The Superman Studio” was constantly expanding to meet spiralling demand and Dennis Nevillie inked Shuster on ‘Superman and the Runaway’ – a gripping, shockingly uncompromising exposé of corrupt orphanages, after which – following a cartoon briefing on ‘Attaining Super-Health: a Few Hints from Superman!’ – Lois finally goes out on a date with hapless Clark – but only because she needs to get close to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily, Kent’s hidden alter ego is on hand to rescue her in bombastic gang-busting style in ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’ by Shuster & Cassidy…

Cover dated January 1940 and on sale from November 24th 1939, Action Comics #20 notionally opened a new decade and, although Siegel & Shuster had very much settled into the character by now, the buzz of success still fired them, Innovation still sparked and crackled amidst the exuberance and drudgery of churning out more and more material. Moreover, Shuster’s eyesight was failing, demanding his sure signature touch be parcelled out parsimoniously and judiciouly. Collabotative creativity was the order of the day in the Superman Studio …

This conveyor belt process was absent in ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ as Cassidy pencilled and inked a moving masterpiece wherein beautiful actress Delores Winters is revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim – and organic ambulatory hideout – of aged male menace Ultra-Humanite who perfected his greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

This is followed with an immediate sequel from Shuster & Cassidy as “Delores” seeks to steal another scientist’s breakthrough and oblierate the Action Ace with ‘The Atomic Disintegrator’ before #22 loudly declares ‘Europe at War (Part One)’: a tense, thinly disguised call to arms to a still neutral USA. It too was a continued story – almost unheard of in those early days of funnybook publishing and spectacularly concluded in #23 with ‘Europe at War (Part Two)’.

Cover-dated Spring 1940, Superman #4 featured four big new adventures, and the debut of more creative stars in the making, beginning with a succession of futuristic assassination attempts in ‘Superman versus Luthor’ by omnipresent author Siegel, Shuster & Bernard (The Spectre) Baily. After an educational cartoon vignette on ‘Attaining Super-Strength’, the original Man of Might battles dinosaurs and bandits in ‘Luthor’s Undersea City’, by Shuster, Cassidy & Creig (The Sandman) Flessel, before saving the whole world from financial and literal carnage by ferreting out ‘The Economic Enemy’: a prophetic espionage yarn about commercial sabotage instigated by an unspecified foreign power and artistically crafted by Shuster, Cassidy and Bob Kane – yes, that Bob Kane…

The issue closed with a tale of gangsters intimidating Teamsters and union workers in Siegel, Shuster & Cassidy’s‘Terror in the Trucker’s Union’.

Simultaneously, in Action Comics #24,‘Carnahan’s Heir’ (Shuster & Cassidy) becomes Superman’s latest social reclamation project when the Metropolis Marvel promises to turn a drunken wastrel into a useful citizen, whilst in #25 Cassidy rendered the tale of ‘Amnesiac Robbers’ compelled to crime by an evil hypnotist, before this initial DC Finest compilation closes with the contents of Superman #5: a superb combination of human drama, crime and wickedly warped science augmented by a flurry of gag cartoons by the burgeoning Superman Studio.

As ever scripted throughout by Siegel, it begins with our crimebusting hero crushing ‘The Slot Machine Racket’ (Cassidy, Boring & Lauretta) before pausing to promote health and exercise, via feaurette ‘Super-Strength: Rules for Summer Living’. Without pausing for breath he then – couertsy of Cassidy – foils a rival newspaper’s ‘Campaign Against the Planet’. Limned by Shuster & Boring, the awesome, insidious threat of ‘Luthor’s Incense Machine’ is similarly scuttled, before finally Big Business chicanery is exposed and severly punished whilst a decent simple chemist is cleared of a felonius frame-up in Cassidy’s ‘The Wonder Drug Racket’.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Siegel & Shuster and their merry band who collectively and until now largely anonymously set the funnybook world on fire, this chronicle compellingly recaptures the sheer thrill of those pioneering days. As fresh and absorbingly addictive now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics perfectly display the savage intensity and sly wit of Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Superhero means – whilst Shuster formulated the basic iconography for all others to follow.

The crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartically exuberant exploits of The First Superhero reveals a righteous, superior champion of the helpless and outmatched dispensing summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation. Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains lay years ahead of Superman, these primitive, raw, captivating tales of corruption, disaster, moral deviancy and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak as powerfully of the tenor of the times then and now. Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment. What comics fan could possibly resist them?
© 1938, 1939, 1940, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Second Shift


By Kit Anderson (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-20-9 (TPB)

The world has gone to crap and work sucks. This is the eternal verity wherever and whenever you are. Not much can be done about the world – except maybe make or find another one – but here’s a way to at least handle the work part of that equation…

Grand Master of short form graphic narratives – you can just call them comics if you want – Kit Anderson (Safer Places) originated in Boulder, Colorado but now lives near Zürich. Ceaselessly making graphic stories long before earning an MFA from The Center for Cartoon Studies in 2022 – Anderson’s earlier stuff – can be seen at Parsifal Press and The Rumpus and for greater elucidation and edification you could get check out Comics — Kit Anderson…

Here Anderson dives deep into the contemporary by employing a future setting, exploring our increasingly uncertain/presumed/predicted fate in terms of the proverbial Human Condition – especially our self-destructive, double edged sword capacity to simultaneously doubt and trust – in a tale also exploring memory, imagination, inner worlds, nature, secrets, self-help solutions and isolation…

Pensive, genteel and quietly suspenseful, with action reduced to the participants’ downtime entertainment, Second Shift takes its emotional lead from contemplative classic science fiction movies like Silent Running and Soylent Green by tracing the revelations of live-in labourer Birdie Doran. At a time where human beings are pragmatically honed into useful components for megacorporations, she – like a few “lucky” others – toils for Terracorp, living on a hostile planet shepherding complex machines as they terraform the environment when not harvesting cometary material in mind-numbingly repetitive tasks that one day others will benefit from. It’s a living…

She spends her downtime in ‘Dropout’, indulging in the rich fantasy life provided and recommended by Company Exclusive DreamSpace: an engaging VR/AI environment replacing mundane travails with immersive escape routes (wizard’s worlds, haunted houses, cyber-realities, Knights & Ladies, alien mindscapes, fresh starts). Even when not suspended in economically sensible life stasis, Birdie hardly ever interacts with her human workers, like her brother Heck and standoffish Porter. Most of her conversations are with avatars of monitoring AI algorithm Station… and those are about work and her operating efficiency…

Toil and rest don’t leave much room for stimulating conversation and playing in the Station provided ‘Ruined Castle’ leaves Heck and Birdie increasingly bored and anxious. So, when he picks up an inexplicable ‘Signal’ Station cannot convince Heck to ignore it, and soon Birdie must trek out into the ever-changing icy wilds to fetch him back…

Her trudging trek eventually finds him staring at another – abandoned – station outpost, similar to but also utterly different to the cloying womb they live in. Unable to resist exploring, they discover wonders and eventually the VR menu of whoever worked there. What particularly grips then is something labelled “Wildlife”…

Torn over whether to report what they’ve found, and almost killed on their return journey by an inexplicable and highly suspicious event, the Dorans’ discovery increasingly divides whilst intellectually invigorating the siblings. Soon the shared secret is disrupting their efficiency and they clandestinely ‘Return’ to the lost outpost. It soon it becomes apparent that life for them has forever changed and nothing can stop what lies ahead…

Revelations and realisations come quietly but inescapably as the mystery intensifies in ‘Debris’, ‘Drop-In’ and ‘Payload’ before resolution arrives in ‘Museum Hall’, but can even enhanced awareness and growing knowledge help change this world? Whatever the outcome, it’s one only Birdie alone can achieve…

Beguiling, subversive, intensely absorbing and asking all the right questions on where the world or work is taking us – how do you feel about trading up to guaranteed food, lodging and being coddled and coshed by VR babysitters in return for surrendering liberty and your own opinions and questions? – Second Shift is socially-charged speculative fiction in the grand manner and a sublime, layered read you’ll return to over and again.
© Kit Anderson 2025. All rights reserved.

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This Land is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story


By Julio Anta, Jacoby Salcedo, Francesco Segala, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: ?978-1-77952-282-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

¡Hola! Feliz Cinco de Mayo. And a happy Early May Bank Holiday to the rest of us too…

Published by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939, The Blue Beetle first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1. The character was mostly created by Charles Nicholas (AKA Charles Wojtkowski, in the collaborative shop environment of that era) as a pulp-style mystery man, but clearly had adaptability, evolution and change hardwired into his chain-mailed manly torso. He was also a born survivor and habitual nomad. Over years and crafted by a Who’s Who of creators, the Beetle was inexplicably popular and hard to kill: surviving the collapse of numerous publishers before ending up as a Charlton Comics property in the mid-1950s.

After a few issues sporadically published over years, the changing tastes and his latest company shelved him until the superhero revival of the early 1960s when Joe Gill, Roy Thomas, Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico revised and revived the character in a 10-issue run (June 1964-February 1966). Cop-turned-adventurer Dan Garrett was reinvented becoming an archaeologist, educator and scientist who gained superpowers whenever he activated a magic scarab and uttered the trigger phrase “Khaji Da!” (Those stories are slated to be reprinted in August of this year in a DC Finest TPB collection and you’ll get my verdict pretty soon after that)…

Months later, Steve Ditko (with scripter Gary Friedrich) utterly reimagined Blue Beetle. Ted Kord was an earnest and brilliant researcher who’d been a student and friend of Professor Garrett. When his mentor seemingly died in action, Kord trained himself to replace his hero: acting as a purely human inventor/combat acrobat, bolstered by advanced technology. This version joined DC’s pantheon in 1985 during Crisis on Infinite Earths, winning a solo series before gaining quirky immortality after partnering with Booster Gold in Justice League International and beyond…

When Kord was murdered in the run up to Infinite Crisis, it heralded all-out war across realities and at the height of the linked catastrophes El Paso high schooler Jaime Reyes found a weird blue jewel shaped like a bug. That night, as he slept, it crawled inside him, turning him into a bizarre insectoid warrior. Suddenly, shockingly granted incredible powers, his perilous Hero’s Journey revealed how some are remade, not born – especially when a sentient scarab jewel affixes itself to your spine to transform you into an armoured bio-weapon and fifth column for alien invaders. Almost instantly, Jaime was swept up in the chaos, joining Batman and other super stars in a climactic space battle to save Earth.

When inexplicably returned home, Jaime revealed his secret to his family and tried to do some good in his hometown, but had to rapidly adjust to huge changes. Best bud Paco had joined a gang of super-powered freaks, the hero learned the local crime mastermind was the foster-mom of his other best bud Brenda, and scary military dude named Christopher Smith (The Peacemaker) started hanging around. He claimed the thing in Jaime was malfunctioning alien tech, not life-affirming Egyptian magic…

That led to a secret war against an alien collective of colonizing conquerors called the Reach whose shady dealings and defeat have been covered in Blue Beetle: Jaime Reyes volumes 1 & 2. You should get those. They’re very good.

Here however, we’re exploring a fresh permutation of the unfolding legend, incorporating much of the Reyes/Latinx flavoured iteration (as well as the recent movie), whilst very much going its own way: exploring contemporary themes of pressing immediacy and toxic nature, not just in America but across the entire planet.

In El Paso, high schooler Jaime Reyes is a dutiful son deeply concerned about the growing hostility facing his family, people and culture. Unlike his fiery friend and classmate Brenda he’s no firebrand, just an astronomy geek who would far rather spend his time watching the skies than defending the streets and fighting for his community’s rights. However, once the President closes the border and very publicly scapegoats refugees and immigrants – and by inference non-whites – for the nation’s woes, tensions rise across the city. All over the usual troublemakers exploit the situation to target anyone they don’t consider to be “Real Americans”. As they are so fond of screaming “This Land is Our Land!!”…

Opportunistic trouble seekers apparently have particular problems with the local native American and Hispanic peoples whose cultures predate the coming of the white colonisers, rather than the immigrants they purportedly protest against…

Distracted from his true passion – following a fascinating asteroid that behaves in ways no stellar object should – Jaime is increasingly burdened by the difficulties the border closure causes his father’s auto repair business and rise of hate-speak, vandalism and intolerance all around him. When an old pal from elementary school returns to the area and joins his high school class Jaime’s initial joy gradually sours once he learns former BFF Riley is being radicalised by online hate groups. Brenda and Paco are all for confrontation and direct action, but Reyes just can’t believe his old friend is truly beyond redemption…

Just when everything seems utterly unbearable Jaime’s situation overloads after a strange bug fossil he finds in an alley is revealed as alien and intelligent when it attaches itself to his spine and starts talking to him. The scarab is a means for the mighty Reach and their unctuous Ambassador to prepare Earth for first contact and what comes after, but every conversation with Jaime feels more dubious and untrustworthy to the troubled teen…

However, Reyes and the power-bestowing bug itself – which calls itself Khaji Da – quickly form a close bond. The scarab is meant to make Jaime an intermediary and agent of the extraterrestrials rapidly approaching Earth: the face of their promise to fix all humanity’s problems. Only, Jaime’s suspicions cannot equate all the facts. After all, if their intentions are honourable, beneficial and peaceful why are all their gifts deadly weapons?

As the interstellar voyagers draw closer and steer Reyes through early attempts to master his new abilities, the bug in his back switches sides. Unaware – and probably uncaring – of the potential doom from the skies, human-on-human tensions escalate and erupt into more violence. Concerned citizens Brenda, Paco and Jaime lead a street protest where locals hope to confront the race hate instigators, who have converged from all over America to make their own “statement”. As a bloodbath seems inevitable in the streets, disaster is abruptly forestalled by the appearance of a mighty bug-winged figure seeking to separate the rioting parties, but can even he be enough when that struggle is interrupted by the spectacular arrival of the Reach…?

Cherry picking the very best elements of traditional continuity to reinforce a timely tale affecting All Americans right now, This Land is Our Land is a powerful, sensitive, brave remarkably even-handed and desperately needed exploration of big issues aimed at readers of 13 and up that could teach most adults a better way to deal with hostility, aggression and intolerance. Blending important issues with compelling characters and a surprising degree of fun, author Julio Anta (Frontera, Si, Se Puede) and illustrator Jacoby Salcedo (Frontera, It’s Only Teenage Wasteland, Legion of Bloom, Young Men in Love) – along with colourist Francesco Segala, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have crafted a must-read modern classic.

This glorious celebration of youthful passion and growing agency is supplemented by an extract from edgy sister release, The Strange Case of Harleen & Harley by Melissa Marr & Jenn St-Onge.
© 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Diary of a FEMEN


By Michel Dufranne & Severine Lefebvre, translated by Allison M. Charette (Europe Comics)
No ISBN digital-only edition ASIN B0C1JG2L7L

Women everywhere have been deprived of functional equality in all areas of their own lives for millennia: eternally reduced to prized-but-dehumanised sectional aspects by males even when they profess to be onside and supportive. Female human beings are conditioned to be commodities with a mild, non-argumentative disposition, perhaps a degree of money-making potential or just being good at housekeeping. For most of that time, whether males have instituted liberal or repressive socio-cultural diktats regarding nudity, the ruling gender have always enjoyed looking at their tits and bums.

Countries like Great Britain have long mastered the art of exploiting both wickedly wrong and socially nice naked bodies in our mass entertainments…

In 2008 a group of Ukrainian activists weaponised and utilised that male proclivity for glimpsing a bit of skin by forming the FEMEN movement. The initial thrust was to irresistibly capture male media attention and focus it on the nation’s reputation for sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

These “radical feminists” declared war on the Patriarchy and “dictatorship of religion”, especially targeting the sex industry, Pro-Life groups, Marriage Agencies (selling “mail order brides” abroad), FGM, Sharia Law and all opposition to gay marriage. Their official website mission statement read “FEMEN – is sextremism serving to protect women’s rights, democracy watchdogs attacking patriarchy, in all its forms: the dictatorship, the church, the sex industry”.

They really started making waves and getting airtime across all media (and arrested) after instituting the policy of protesting topless…

Ukraine back then was one of those repressive states that reacted hard to public female nudity and repeated rounds of protests and arrests led to FEMEN co-founder Inna Shevchenko being deported. With the movement very visibly swelling and taking hold internationally, she sought asylum elsewhere, eventually setting up shop in France where the movement’s exploits and activities enthralled many.

Among the avid followers were open-minded bande dessinée creators Michel Dufranne (Dracula L’Immortel, O.D.E.S.S.A.) & Severine Lefebvre (Les Aventures de Huckelberry Finn, L’Ami colocataire) who were moved to craft a fictionalised account of one young woman who joined that ever-growing movement. The result of that collaboration was first published in 2014 as Journal d’une Femen and, as Belgian-born writer Dufranne explains in his Foreword, is designed to explore what the term FEMEN and the international movement it defines really means to individual women navigating a world where the enemy has all the power – hard, soft, political, financial and emotional…

Following the 2016 Wikipedia definition of what FEMEN is, our tale begins with Appoline enduring the daily gauntlet of unwanted male attention as she rushes to work. Late again, and alternately ignored, gaslit and sidelined (by colleagues and superiors) all day, the nadir comes when the boss orders her to show a little cleavage for a client and afterwards rebukes her for not buttoning up fast enough once he’s left…

Her return home is just as filled with scary, entitled intruders encroaching on her peace of mind and when she meets the family for an event, her mother is right on her for letting her looks go, not having a boyfriend, better job or kids like her perfect “Stepford Wives” sister. Fully fed up Appoline retaliates with a lie: telling the grandchild-hungry maternally bullying bigot that she’s birthed a lesbian…

Fuming and isolated, Appoline retreats to watch some late night TV, catching a late report about bare-chested women arrested outside an embassy. She’d heard of them before but thought they were fools. Now she starts to really listen and thinks again. After more days just like or worse than the first, Apolline goes online and downloads a membership application…

What follows is a fascinating tale of awakening, renewal and acceptance of personal power. She joins the French group, undergoing the rigorous training necessary to stand in front of screaming dangerous men and equally vituperative women whilst non-violently making your voice heard and/or your point seen…

Illustrated in a stylish, fashion-conscious line with a restricted colour palette and vivid verve, this clever rite of passage tale gouges deep into societal hypocrisies to expose how giving men what they think they want can work to actually get some attention and make real changes, whilst also showing that the dangers of Fighting the Power never go away and can have lasting effects, consequences… and repercussions.
© 2016 – LE LOMBARD – by Dufranne & Lefebvre. All rights reserved.

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Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery (10th Anniversary edition)


By Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece, with Clem Robbins (Berger Books/Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-564-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-50670-591-0

What’s prejudice? How does bigotry and unthinking fear and hatred of otherness work? What happens when haters can’t tell the difference between “us” and “them”?

Those are frankly disturbing and astonishing questions first asked in 2008 in an Original Graphic Novel released by DC’s Vertigo imprint which made a lot of noise and changed some lives. The book won acclaim and awards and its subject matter started conversations in exactly the right places: classrooms where it became a selected text for high schools and colleges. The questions have not gone away and the issues have not been resolved but the book and its sequel remain to carry on asking them.

This 10th Anniversary edition reprints the original tale in all its moody monochrome glory, backed up by a contextualising Author’s Note (‘I grew up a black boy who looked white’) and Afterword plus a copious sketchbook section featuring designs by Warren Pleece and ‘Reading Group Guide/Questions & Topics for Discussion’.

The tale itself is set in the segregationist South of the early 1930s and opens at a social gathering in Tuscaloosa with families all cheerfully gathering to see a black boy strung up. As the attendees patiently queue for a picture with the “strange fruit”, a newcomer takes their names and addresses. It’s only when the commemorational photographer denies hiring him that Zane Pinchback of (New York City’s African American newspaper) The New Holland Herald realises that he’s pushed his luck and needs to run for his life now.

Sadly, however, not before a visiting bigwig from the Ku Klux Klan gets a good look at him and starts wondering…

Safely back north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Pinchback’s latest headline grabber upsets liberals and shames the perpetrators, but the journalist is still unhappy. His exposés change nothing and he feels a fraud: a proud black man who makes a living pretending to be white. He can’t even use his own name – hence his byline “Incognegro” – or face on his widely syndicated columns: that would instantly negate the genetic advantage of a negro who can “pass” for white. Things are liberal enough in Manhattan that he and his debonair wastrel pal Carl can intermingle with most folk and go drinking in swish clubs, but Zane knows things can go bad easily enough and resolves to quit and go legit…

His editor staunchly refuses to accept, instead offering him a deal: one more undercover assignment. He’s certain Zane will accept. The negro jailed in Tupelo, Mississippi accused of killing a white woman is someone he’s known his entire life. Heading off in a hurry and readying himself to play the high stakes game of his life, Zane has no idea how complex and convoluted this job will be, or that blithely incautious Carl has invited himself along to a place where his kind of playful idiocy has lethal consequences…

Author Mat Johnson took inspiration from his own childhood and exploits and activities of Walter White (ultimately Chief Exec of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) who began his career investigating lynchings because of the same genetic quirk as Zane Pinchback.

Still available in hardcover, trade paperback, digital editions and even in the original DC/Vertigo edition, Incognegro is smart, funny where it can be and devastatingly effective whenever it needs to be. As well as the racial injustice so savagely skewered here, this is a cunning and engrossing murder mystery with plenty of twists, which even finds room to have a stab at the still largely unaddressed problems of women’s independence and transgender acceptance. If you love great storytelling underpinned by real-world issues, this is something you must see.
Incognegro ™ & © 2008, 2018 Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece. All rights reserved.