Category: Adaptations

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Frankenstein


By Mary W. Shelley adapted by Martin Powell & Patrick Olliffe (Malibu Graphics Inc./ Moonstone/ CreateSpace)
ISBN: 0-944735-39-8 (TPB Malibu), 978-0-97129-379-3 (HB Moonstone)
978-1-47927-227-3 (TPB CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s gothic classic The Modern Prometheus was first published in 1818 and is still one of the most influential novels of popular fiction ever written. As is so often the case, it is the book rather than the many cinematic or other reinterpretations that best informs this impressive lost graphic gem from 1990.

Originally released as a 3-issue miniseries from Eternity Comics, it followed the success of author Powell’s Sherlock Holmes pastiches Scarlet in Gaslight and A Case of Blind Fear (collected by Moonstone as Sherlock Homes Mysteries Volume 1, ISBN: 978-0-97216-686-7), but rather than extrapolation, the author aimed for a more straightforward adaptation of the source material.

Although no true and faithful version yet exists – since most of the novel deals with the agonies, travails and travels of hellbent natural philosopher Victor Frankenstein and his interactions with his damned creation are relatively few (albeit torturous and telling) – this is an effective and often chilling interpretation made starkly memorable by illustrator Patrick Olliffe (Edgeworld: Sand, Amazing Spider-Man, 52, Dracula: Lord of the Undead, Hero Alliance).

Version 1.0.0

The chiaroscuric art-in-transition of the young artist perfectly establishes a mood of tortured humanism, with breathtaking resonances of Roy G. Krenkel and solid echoes of Berni Wrightson; but, oddly, not that latter’s own impressive treatment of Shelley’s text. Of the many, many versions of the tale, this ranks closest to the superb Mike Ploog version put out by Marvel in the early 1970’s (see The Monster of Frankenstein link please to October 15, 2022).

This is not a replacement for the novel – so please read that too – but a well-crafted addendum that deserves a larger audience. Oddly enough the Spanish and others abroad already agree with me as editions of this quintessentially English masterpiece have been available in their languages for decades.

¿Qué pasa? Quoi?
Script © 1990 Martin Powell. Artwork © 2006 Patrick Olliffe. All Rights Reserved.

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Lord of the Flies – The Graphic Novel


By William Golding, adapted and illustrated by Aimée de Jongh (Faber & Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-37425-0 (HB/Digital edition)

In 1954, after many disappointments, one philosophy teacher, sailor (and Royal Navy D-Day veteran), actor and musician finally sold his first novel. Strangers from Within was a reaction to R. M. Ballantyne’s Christian-centric children’s classic The Coral Island, seen through the lens of a sensitive school teacher who had seen man at his very worst and was recuperating during the earliest era of a growing Cold War.

The book was knocked back many times before one editor at Faber – Charles Monteith (who liked and published Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, P. D. James, Philip Larkin and Alan Bennett and so many, many more gifted individuals) – saw something there and decided to have a punt…

As Lord of the Flies, the book hit the shelves and steadily grew to become one of the most revered, beloved and inspirational stories of all time and one that has literally reshaped social thought and opinion. In this 70th anniversary year, the book will be re-issued in an exclusive deluxe hardback edition, but its status as milestone and groundbreaker deserved more. Thus award-winning graphic novelist Aimée de Jongh (The Return of the Honey Buzzard, Days of Sand) was commissioned to create this adaptation and visual synthesis to celebrate the initial publication. The result is truly remarkable…

Golding went on to write more amazing books – such as The Inheritors, The Free Fall, Pincher Martin, The Double Tongue, and Booker Prize winner Rites of Passage, and was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature, and it’s very likely this pictorial treat will garner a few more glittering citations and prizes…

You may not have read it, but sheer cultural osmosis means you already know Lord of the Flies to some degree.

A plane carrying a large group of pre-adolescent British schoolboys crashes into the Pacific Ocean and a number of survivors make the arduous swim to a desolate but lush mountainous island. Shocked, stunned and starving, the ineffectual gaggle initially unite to find food and water and quickly evolve processes and systems to stay alive. A reflection of their schoolboy experiences soon divide the group into leaders and followers, as much by confusion and inertia as ambition or duty. The search for sustenance and means of rescue is constantly marred by a growing unease that their prison harbours monsters…

All too soon oppressive regulation and the nascent rules of conduct and governance – like only speaking at gatherings when holding the “Conch shell” – creates entrenched opposing viewpoints, factionalism and inevitably escalating violence…

Adaptor de Jongh magnificently captures the dichotomy of a paradise that is also hell and the inexorable mounting pressure upon narrative beacons Ralph, Piggy, Simon and Jack Merridew as the drama unfolds…

This superb creation is not a substitute for the three film adaptations, many stage and radio plays or the novel itself: it’s just another sublime opportunity of accessing a milestone tale in an increasingly and regrettable post-literate era where direct visual information has largely augmented if not yet replaced the semantic and semiotic processing of prose. It is, however, just as compelling and evocative as Golding’s world-shaking masterpiece and you really need to read both. I don’t have the conch of speaking anymore, so it’s up to you to choose which you do first…

Lord of the Flies © William Golding 1954. Adaptations and illustrations © Aimée de Jongh 2024. All rights reserved.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Simply Unmissable …10/10

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Speed Racer Classics


By Tatsuo Yoshida, translated by Nat Gertler (Now Comics)
ISBN: 0-70989-331-34 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

During the 1960s when Japanese anime was first starting to appear in the West, one of the most surprising small screen hits in America was a classy little cartoon series entitled Speed Racer. It first aired on Japan’s Fuji Television from April 1967 to March 1968;  52 high velocity episodes that steered into US homes mere months after. Back then nobody knew the show was based on and adapted from a wonderful action/science fiction/sports comic strip created in 1966 by manga pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida for Shueisha’s Shōnen Book periodical.

The comic series was itself a recycled version of Yoshida’s earlier racing hit Pilot Ace.

The original title Mach GoGoGo was a torturously multi-layered pun, playing on the fact that boy-racer Gō Mifune – more correctly Mifune Gō – drove the supercar “Mach 5”.

“Go” is the Japanese word for five and a suffix applied to ship names whilst the phrase Gogogo is the usual graphic sound effect for “rumble”. All in all, the title means “Mach-go, Gō Mifune, Go!” which was adapted for US screens as and its assumed simpleton viewers Go, Speed Racer, Go!, initially running from 1967 and for decades in syndicated reruns…

In 1985 Chicago-based Now Comics took advantage of the explosion in comics creativity to release a bevy of full-colour licensed titles based on popular nostalgic icons such as Astro Boy, Green Hornet, Fright Night and the TV cartoon version of Ghostbusters, but started the ball rolling with new adventures of Speed Racer. Gosh, I wonder who owns the rights to all those great comics and if we’ll ever see them revived in modern collections?

The series was a palpable hit and in 1990 the company released this stunning selection of Yoshida’s original stories in a smart monochrome edition graced with a glorious wraparound cover by Mitch O’Connell. It was probably one of the first manga books ever seen in US comic stores. Although the art was reformatted for standard comic book pages the stories are relatively untouched with the large cast (family, girlfriend, pet monkey and all) called by their American TV nomenclature/identities, but if you need to know the original Japanese designations and have the puns, in-jokes and references explained, there are many Speed Racer websites to consult and there have been many more translated collections in familiar tankōbon style editions…

Pops Racer is an independent entrepreneur and car-building genius estranged from his eldest son Rex, a professional sports-car driver. Second son Speed also has a driving ambition to be a pro driver (we can do puns too, just so’s you know) and the episodes here follow the family concern in its rise to success, peppered with high drama, political intrigue, criminal overtones and high octane excitement (whoops!: there I go again)…

The action begins with ‘The Return of the Malanga’ as – whilst competing in the incredible Mach 5 – Speed recognises an equally unique vehicle believed long destroyed when running this same gruelling road-race. The plucky lad becomes hopelessly embroiled in a sinister plot of remote-controlled murder and vengeance after learning that the driver of the resurrected supercar crashed and died under mysterious circumstances years ago. Now, the survivors of that tragic incident are perishing in a series of fantastic “accidents”; are these events the vengeance of a restless spirit or is an even more sinister force at work?

In ‘Deadly Desert Race’ the Mach 5 is competing in a trans-Saharan rally when Speed is drawn into a personal driving duel with spoiled Arab prince Kimbe of Wilm. When a bomb goes off, second son Racer is accused of attempting to assassinate his rival and must clear his name and catch the real killer by traversing the greatest natural hazard on the planet whilst navigating through an ongoing civil war: a spectacular competition climaxing in a blistering military engagement…

After qualifying for the prestigious Eastern Alps Competition, our youthful road ace meets enigmatic Racer X: a masked driver with countless victories, a shady past and a hidden connection to the Racer clan before ‘This is the Racer’s Soul!’ reveals the true story of Pops’ conflict with Rex Racer when criminal elements threaten to destroy everything the inventor stands for.

After the riveting race action and blockbusting outcome, this volume concludes with a compelling mystery yarn as – in ‘The Secret of the Classic Car’ – Speed foils the theft of a vintage vehicle by organised crime before being sucked into a nefarious scheme to obtain at any cost a lost secret of automotive manufacture hidden by Henry Ford. When the ruthless thugs kidnap Speed, Pops catapults into action just as the gang turns on itself with the saga culminating in a devastating and insanely destructive duel between rival super-vehicles…

These are delightfully magical episodes of grand, old-fashioned adventure, realised by a master craftsman, well worthy of any action fan’s eager attention, so even if this particular volume is hard to find, other editions and successive collections from WildStorm, DC and Digital Manga Publishing are still readily available.

Go, Fan-boy reader! Go! Go! Go!…
Speed Racer ™ & © 1988 Colour Systems Technology. All rights reserved. Original manga © Tatsuo Yoshida, reprinted by permission of Books Nippan, Inc.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan® of the Apes volume 1


By Edgar Rice Burroughs, adapted by Roy Thomas, Pablo Marcos, Oscar González & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 987-1-50673-236-7 (HB) eISBN: 987-1-50673-335-7

This book includes historical Discriminatory Content.

Beginning with the October 1912 number, Tarzan of the Apes was serialized in anthological pulp magazine The All-Story before being collected into the world famous novel first released in June 1914. It and sequel tales were thereafter constantly adapted into plays, films and newspaper strip form: that last one beginning on January 7th 1929, and illustrated by Hal (Prince Valiant) Foster. A truly spectacular full page Sunday strip began on March 15, 1931, with artwork by Rex Maxon and carried on by some of the greatest illustrators in the business. United Feature Syndicate distributed the strip, which carried new Sunday material until 2002. The Daily strip had ended new material on 29th July 1972, when Russ Manning quit it to concentrate on the Sunday feature and Tarzan books for Europe. From 2003 even the Sundays switched to offering reprints of early classics – due more to the parlous state of US strips and newspapers than a loss of interest in the hero…

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fantasy epic has been a hugely appreciated and acclaimed property for more than a century. The character has enjoyed countless novel releases (23 official sequels by ERB and many “rogue” tales by others) in every language and in every medium of expression – even a bunch of ballets!

The jungle man is (arguably) a public domain figure these days, spawning a number of hotly-contested crossover team-ups and “unauthorised” exploits. Just over a decade ago, his story was celebrated and commemorated by a return to basics as we’ll see in this review.

As already stated, very soon after his prose debut, Tarzan became a multimedia sensation and global brand. More novels and many, many movies – all created or at least sanctioned by Burroughs and his family – followed. The American comic strip arrived in 1929, followed by a radio show in 1932, and the Ape-Man inevitably carved out a solid slice of television and comic book markets too, once those industries were established. His comic book exploits have been with us since the start: initially gathering newspaper strips until Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947) began a run of original material spanning Dell, Gold Key, Charlton, DC, Marvel, Blackthorne, Malibu, Dark Horse and Idaho Comics Group that is still unfolding.

… And that’s just the USA: Tarzan has been a global byword for adventure for most of the last hundred years, with many countries contributing to the oeuvre if not the canon. In Britain for a while in the 1950s, Michael Moorcock steered the course of Tarzan’s Adventures…

The book look today focuses on a compilation of the latest entertainment platform to go ape. As revealed in the ‘Introduction by Roy Thomas’ the formation of EdgarRiceBurroughs.com led to Thomas and Tom Grindberg reviving and expanding the Ape-Man’s canon via a webcomic – Tarzan: The New Adventures. Those online strips soon spawned a second string to the bow…

The parent company wanted more and Thomas’ solution was to re-adapt Burroughs’ original books as Foster had done in 1929, but by judicious editing of Tarzan of the Apes and its follow-ups, create at last a definitive, fully chronological biography of the immortal hero’s journey from birth to …whenever…

Thus he scoured the 24 canonical novels for revelatory moments, braiding them into a tapestry tracing the wild boy’s development over 127 Sunday instalments based on the material’s many flashback moments. Moreover, the feature would benefit from the experience of Peruvian master artist Pablo Marcos (James Bond 007, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Conan, Tales of the Zombie, Secret Society of Super-Villains) and designer/computer colour painter Oscar González.

By way of introduction, this version of Tarzan of the Apes opens in a bar where Edgar Rice Burroughs meets with a man with an extraordinary tale to tell…

It – and ‘Tarzan of the Apes: A Classic Adaptation’ – begins in 1888 as, following a shipboard mutiny, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and his wife Lady Alice are marooned on the African coast. At least they have their possessions, including books for their soon-to-be-born baby…

Against appalling odds they persevere, with Greystoke building a fortified cabin to shelter them from marauding beasts – particularly curious and savage apes roaming the region. Despite the birth of a son, eventually the jungle wins and the humans die. However, their son is saved by a grieving she-ape who adopts the infant to replace her own recently dead “Balu”…

Here the saga diverges, as incidents latterly revealed in short stories comprising ERB’s 6th book Jungle Tales of Tarzan are intercut with the ongoing adaptation. Tragic circumstance leads to the wild boy discovering he can swim whilst further moments see the foundling exercise his growing intellect and penchant for practical jokes against older apes like bullies like Tublat and Kerchak before the origin resumes. As the ugly hairless freak thrives under mother Kala’s doting attentions, he grows strong but increasingly aware of his differences. He only discovers the how and why after years of diligent effort when – through sheer intellectual effort and the remnants of his father’s books and papers – the boy teaches himself to read and deduces that he is actually a “M-A-N”…

These lone forays to the abandoned cabin also lead to a major rite of passage as the boy is attacked by a berserk gorilla and almost perishes in the process of making his first kill…

No sooner has Kala nursed him back to health than Tublat attacks her and the “the hairless one” (the meaning of the term “Tarzan”) scores his second magnificent bloody triumph…

The tale within a tale continues as the boy rises to prominence amongst his hirsute kin. Through observation, imagination and ingenuity he invents a lasso, creates warm protective clothing and masters the beasts of his pitiless environment: most by force but some – like the elephants (“Tantor”) by friendly mutual cooperation…

When cannibalistic natives settle in the area Tarzan has his first contact with creatures he correctly identifies as being M-E-N like him. The situation leads to the greatest tragedy of his life, as one of M’Bonga’s tribe kills beloved, devoted Kala, teaching Tarzan the shock of loss and bestowing an overpowering hunger for revenge – which he inflicts on the whole tribe with chilling ruthlessness. The punitive actions grant him mastery of another infallible weapon: a hunting bow and poisoned arrows…

Weekly instalments adapt more vignettes from Jungle Tales, beginning with ‘Tarzan’s First Love’, detailing how the adolescent is increasingly drawn to fetching young she-ape Teeka. Incomprehensibly, no matter what he does, the young maiden just isn’t interested in her ardent pink admirer yet somehow sees his friend Taug as ideal…

Clearly, the heart wants what the heart wants and Tarzan understands: even nobly saving his rival from the M’Bonga’s relentless hunger for bushmeat. They call Tarzan “Forest-Devil”, and ‘The Capture of Tarzan’ follows, revealing how overconfidence leads to his downfall but also how his relationship with elephants saves him.

Reworkings continue in ‘The Battle for the Balu’ as Teeka & Taug become incomprehensibly aggressive after the birth of their first balu, and build in ‘The God of Tarzan’ with the ever-curious jungle wonder overdosing on his dead dad’s books and suffering a brain-expanding religious experience. As a result, a search for divinity takes him all over his savage kingdom and into clashes with beasts and men…

Next comes ‘Tarzan and Black Boy’ (often retitled ‘Tarzan and the Native Boy’) with the young outsider experiencing paternal yearnings. After abducting a small human boy and learning guilt, folly and shame, the Ape-Man gains his first human arch-enemy by spoiling greedy fetish-man Bukuwai the Unclean’s scam to impoverish the distraught mother of his kidnapped prize Tibo…

To Be Continued

Supplemented by Creator Biographies of Thomas, Marcos and Gonzalez, this tome is a fascinating addition to the pictorial annals of the Ape-Man and a monument to romantic fantasy, wild adventure and comics creativity no lover of the medium, character or genre can do without.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan® of the Apes © 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2022 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks Tarzan®, Tarzan of the Apes™ and Edgar Rice Burroughs® are owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. and used with permission. All rights reserved.

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Tarzan and the Adventurers (Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library volume 5)


By Burne Hogarth & Rob Thompson with James Freeman, Dan Barry, Nick Cardy, Bob Lubbers & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78565-380-3 (landscape album HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

The 1930 and 1940s were decades of astounding pictorial periodical adventure. In the age before mass television, newspaper strips (and their bastard spawn comic books) were the only form of visually-based home entertainment for millions of citizens young and old, consequently shaping the culture of many nations. Relatively few strips attained nigh-universal approval and acclaim. The Gumps, Little Orphan Annie, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, Terry and the Pirates and Prince Valiant were in that rarefied pantheon but arguably the most famous was Tarzan.

Evolving from mock melodrama comedic features like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs or Carl Ed’s Harold Teen, the full-blown dramatic adventure serial truly started on January 7th 1929 with Buck Rogers and Tarzan debuting that day. Both were skilful adaptations of pre-existing prose properties and their influence changed the shape of the medium forever. The following years saw an explosion of similar fare, launched with astounding rapidity to huge success. Not only strips, but also actual fictive genres were born in that decade, still impacting today’s comic books and all our popular entertainment forms.

In terms of art quality, adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ immensely successful novels starring jungle-bred John Clayton, Lord Greystoke by Canadian commercial artist Harold “Hal” Foster were unsurpassed. The strip soon became beloved by the masses, supplementing and nurtured by the movies, books, radio show and ubiquitous advertising appearances.

As detailed in previous volumes of this sublime oversized (330 x 254 mm), monochrome/full -colour hardback series, Foster initially quit at the end of a 10-week adaptation of first novel Tarzan of the Apes. He was replaced by Rex Maxon, but at the insistent urging of author Burroughs, returned when the black-&-white daily expanded to include a lush, full colour Sunday page offering original adventures. Maxon was left to capably handle the weekday book adaptations, as Foster crafted the epic and lavish Sunday page until 1936: 233 consecutive weeks. He then left again for good: moving to King Features Syndicate and his own landmark weekend masterpiece Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur which debuted in February 1937. Once the 4-month backlog of material he had built up was gone, Foster was succeeded by a precociously brilliant 25-year old neophyte.

Burne Hogarth was a passionate graphic visionary whose superb anatomical skill, cinematic design flair and compelling page composition revolutionised action/adventure narrative illustration. His galvanic dynamism of idealised human figures and animals can still be seen in today’s comic books: all that impossibly body-positive perfection in motion can be directly attributed to Hogarth’s pioneering drawing and, in later years, educational efforts. Burroughs was a big fan and cannily used the increasingly popular comic strip to cross-market his own prose efforts with great effect.

This fabulous fifth & final tome encompasses Sunday pages from October 1949 to September 1950 and the equivalent Daily strips (September 1947 through September 1950), with Hogarth gradually easing out of the now-onerous job and employing a legion of gifted ghosts to fulfil his obligations. During this period, commercially-led format changes reduced the size and changed the shape of the Sunday strip from tabloid to landscape framing, but the contents suffered no loss of wonder, action or drama. The transition and repercussions are discussed with some academic frontloading and fitting further explanation in the form of extended essay ‘Transforming Tarzan’s Jungle’ by Henry G. Franke III. Fully briefed for our trek, we resume the fun with ‘Tarzan and the Adventurers’: Sunday pages #973 – 1010 as seen spanning October 30th 1949 to July 16th 1950. The saga was crafted by Hogarth, writer Rob Thompson and latterly James Freeman – who was forced upon Hogarth after the syndicate fired his preferred collaborator. It sees the Ape-Man visiting old ally Masai chief N’Kola just as white explorers Baker and Cleveland arrive, seeking the tribes’ help in locating a medicinal herb which might be a malaria cure.

In truth, the scurrilous duo are hunting lost treasure sunk in kingdom-demarcating Lake Dagomba, and need help in convincing Dagomba headman Mabuli to allow them access. This chief hates Tarzan but the impasse is ended when wicked witch doctor Chaka strikes a sinister side deal that triggers valiant efforts and vile betrayal, double cross, murder and bloody civil warfare incorporating spectacular chases, fantastic duels with beasts, mortals and the very landscape, captivating readers for months until the saga ended with explosive irony and tons of TNT…

The end was near for Hogarth and the Jungle Lord, and the Sunday association closed in a short serial finished by a comic book artist slowly making strips his career. Born in 1922, Robert Bartow “Bob” Lubbers drew a host of features before WWII, but other than The Vigilante and The Human Fly after hostilities ceased, mostly settled on newspaper stars like The Saint, Big Ben Bolt, Li’l Abner, Secret Agent X-9 and his own creations Long Sam and Robin Malone. That all occurred after a stellar run assisting/replacing Hogarth.

Ostensibly crafted by – and still signed “Hogarth”, ‘Tarzan and the Wild Game Hunters’ (#1011-1019: July 23rd to September 17th 1950) saw the vine-voyaging valiant aid cowboy-turned safari man Russ Rawson in capturing a rhino and gorilla for Winchester Zoo… but only after determining that Africa would be a far better place without these pair of particularly perilous rogue beasts…

Before switching to moody monochrome and standard single tier-per-diem layouts for the dailies section, Franke III explores ‘The Daily Grind’ in another erudite prose prologue preceding the accumulated serial sequences: providing context and background on writer Thompson and artistic aids/replacements Dan Barry, Nick Cardy & Lubbers, with John Lehti and Paul Reinman also getting a worthy mention.

Monday to Saturday storylines were relentless and tough to get right. No matter how good you are, there’s only so much progress to be made in 3-4 panels at a time, and savvy creators usually combined classic themes with familiar material whenever they could. Here that notion resulted in a (very) broad adaptation/reinterpretation of ERB’s prose pulp serial Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, which had been first serialised between September 1929 and March 1930 ,before becoming the 13th canonical novel in 1932. The strips comprising ‘Tarzan at the Earth’s Core’ (#2509 to 2616, September 1st 1947 through January 3rd 1948) were supervised by Hogarth & Thompson but limned primarily by Dan Barry (1911-1997).

He also began as a jobbing comic book guy. Like his own brother Seymour “Sy” Barry – who produced The Phantom newspaper strip for three decades – Dan worked in a finely-detailed, broadly realistic style, blending aesthetic sensibility with straightforward visual clarity and firm, almost burly virile toughness: a gritty “He-man” attitude for a new era, contemporarily christened “New York Slick”.

He drew masked hero fare like Airboy, Skywolf, Boy King, Black Owl, Spy Smasher, Doc Savage and more before joining the US Air Force and, on returning after the hostilities, drew monster hero The Heap and sundry genre shorts for titles like Crimebusters whilst running his own outfit producing educational/informational comics. Dan began his  gradual withdrawal from funnybooks as early as 1947, joining Hogarth’s studio and assuming art chores on the Tarzan daily for a year, whilst still gracing DC’s crime, mystery and science fiction anthologies until as late as 1954. He was offered Flash Gordon and quickly accepted, but that’s the stuff of another review…

In deepest, darkest Africa, the Jungle Lord is tracked down by explorer Jason Gridley who has been in contact with a man named David Innes, and resolved to save that lost soul. Innes is an adventurer who joined Professor Abner Perry in a giant drilling vehicle that took them deep inside the Earth. They are now trapped in an incredible antediluvian realm more than 500 miles below the world’s crust: a land of beast men, lost empires, dinosaurs and even more incredible things…

Tarzan is largely a spectator for this sequence as ERB’s prose adventures in Pellucidar are updated and recounted for readers before Lord Greystoke joins the rescue party using another mole machine – built by boffin Dr. Dana Franklin – to reach the exotic underworld. Adding romantic interest is Franklin’s glamourous daughter/assistant Doris as they voyage deep into a myriad of incredible adventures.

As well as saving Innes and Perry and reuniting the former with his own true love Dian the Beautiful, the newcomers face sentient pterodactyl tyrants (Thipdars if you’re au fait with the books), clash with cavemen and ape beasts (Sagoths), fight a macabre menagerie of long-extinct monsters, war with lizard warriors (Horibs) and get utterly lost and reunited in a land where time does not pass and night never comes…

The series is a paean to primitivism and is a boost to all those besotted with wild kingdoms. There are even pulchritudinous primeval pairings… Gridley to cavegirl princess Jana and Doris with Clovian cave chief Ulan…

The drama is divided into individual overlapping adventures until all the players eventually reunite for a big, big finale. With the aforementioned ghost artists deployed to augment Barry & Thompson, the saga concludes with episodes #2617-2640 of ‘Tarzan at the Earth’s Core’ (January 5th – 31st January 1948) as all the plot threads cleave together and those who want to return to the surface do so…

Although he was still involved in a mostly administrative capacity, Hogarth’s signature had been missing for some time when ‘Tarzan and Hard-Luck Harrigan’ #3361-3414: 22nd May – 22nd July 1950) began. The strip sported the name of new illustrator Nick Cardy; AKA strip veteran Nicolas Viscardi, who had drawn Lady Luck and other features for Will Eisner, and post-war became a DC mainstay on Gang Busters, Congo Bill, Aquaman, Teen Titans, Bat Lash, Batman/The Brave and the Bold and so much more. The tale itself was lighter fare with humorous overtones as Greystoke encountered a decrepit and devious old western prospector/snake oil peddler who had foolishly hitched his wagon to an African adventure… The affable scoundrel initially tried to capture Tarzan’s monkey pals before attempting to catch and sell the Ape-man himself before learning the error of his ways…

Sadly, old habits died hard. When the odd companions encountered desert raider El Mahmud dying of wounds, they were forced by the bandit’s devoted lieutenant Rambul to “cure” him with Harrigan’s bottled nostrum. That’s when the literal gold-digger spots the treasure the raiders possess and reverts to type, determined to enjoy one last lucky strike, no matter who he must betray…

Again demarcated by an artist change, ‘Tarzan and Hard-Luck Harrigan’ concluded with episodes #3415-3420 (24th – 29th July 1950) signifying the beginning of Lubbers 3½ year tenure, with a rowdily raucous big battle and the old coot’s redemption before moving briefly on to final inclusion ‘Attack of the Apes’ (#3421-3462: 31st July – 16th September 1950) with Lubbers benefitting from Hogarth’s last moments of oversight in a spooky yarn where a renegade troop of Great Apes (the fictious subspecies that reared Tarzan) begin attacking native villages…

After investigating in the primal manner of the lord of the forests, Tarzan gains a new anthropoid assistant in brutal Bay-At, learns who, why and what the true culprits are and renders his own judgement…

And that was that for Hogarth’s Tarzan until a flurry of new material appeared as graphic novel prototypes in the 1970s, which helped usher in a more mature view of the comics medium itself.

Tarzan is a fictive figure who has attained immortal reality in a number of different creative arenas, but none offer the breathtaking visceral immediacy of Burne Hogarth’s comic strips. These vivid visual masterworks are all coiled-spring tension or vital, violent explosive motion: stretching, running, fighting, surging rushes of power and glory where even backgrounds and landscapes achieve a degree of dramatic interactive expressionism. It’s a dream come true that these majestic exploits are available in full for ours and future generations of dedicated fantasists to enjoy.
Trademarks Tarzan® and Edgar Rice Burroughs® owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and Used by Permission. Copyright © 2018 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Planet of the Apes Archive volume 1: Terror on the Planet of The Apes


By Doug Moench, Mike Ploog, Tom Sutton, Herb Trimpe, Frank Chiaramonte, Virgil Redondo, Rich Handley & various (Boom! Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-60886-990-9 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-61398-661-5

The most effective and long-lasting exploration of human ambition failing and dystopia resulting is not the last 40 years of global government, but rather a film franchise built upon a seminal French science fiction novel released in 1963 – Peirre’s Boulle’s satirical La Planète des singes. A former secret agent and engineer, Boulle earned major accolades as an author. Your entire family has probable seen his other Oscar-winning blockbuster, never realising semi-autobiographical La Pont de la rivière Kwai was David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai…

Originally translated in 1964 as Monkey Planet, his other epic became – after a major rewrite by screenwriter Rod Serling – 1968 US movie sensation Planet of the Apes. It inspired four sequels and – from September to December 1974 – a television series which lived on in reruns and reedited TV movies for decades to come, an animated series, books toys, games, a home projector pack, records and comics.

… And that’s all before Tim Burton’s 2001 remake and the 2011 reboot of the still ongoing franchise…

There have been many comics adaptations, beginning with two manga interpretations (1968 & 1971); a 1970 Gold Key movie adaptation and assorted international versions. In 1974 – no doubt thanks to the impending TV show – a Marvel Magazine continuation, combining serialised comics adaptations of the movies, features and articles began. When Marvel abruptly cancelled PotA in December 1976 the franchise lay fallow until Malibu Comics picked it up in 1990 (reprints, new stories and franchise mash-up Ape Nation). Other companies also added new material over the years and much of that history is covered in erudite Introduction ‘Gorilla Warfare – and Tales of Terror’ by expert/editor/fan-addict Rich Handley…

This first monster compilation gathers a wholly new addition to the mythos, scripted in entirety by Doug Moench (Batman, Werewolf by Night, Moon Knight, Master of Kung Fu), who alternated these trenchant tales with two other Apes strands: “Future History Chronicles” and expanded comics adaptations of the five original films, which are the subject of a separate, future, review…

When Marvel secured the comics rights (also fully covered in Handley’s prose piece) they undertook to fabulously and fantastically expand upon the premise via a fantastic procession of scenarios. The most significant dealt with the much-strained friendship of two teens: a human named Jason and chimpanzee Alexander. They had grown up together in an idyllic integrated community of apes and humans, guided by benign spiritual leader The Lawgiver, but when the saint vanished on a pilgrimage, the garden of Eden began to rot…

The storyline had been devised by Gerry Conway, but his schedule couldn’t handle the increased workload and Moench took it all on. Initially, Terror on the Planet of The Apes was illustrated by Mike Ploog (Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, Kull the Destroyer, Frankenstein’s Monster, Weirdworld, The Spirit), who produced some of his very best work up to #19 – his longest continual run on any strip – after which Tom Sutton (Vampirella, Doctor Strange, Western Gunfighters, Grimjack, Star Trek) took over.

Sporting an August 1974 cover-date and on sale from June 25th of that year, Planet of the Apes #1 blended photos and articles with Part 1 (of 6) of an adaptation of the 1968 movie plus all new ape-ventures set at a time when humans were still sapient talkers and lived in notional harmony with equally erudite orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. That’s where this book – re-presenting Terror on the Planet of The Apes stories from PotA #1-4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 19-20, 23, 26-28 – starts off, following a Photo intro message.

Chapter One ‘The Lawgiver’ introduces best friends Jason and Alexander who witness chief Peacekeeper Brutus (a gorilla chosen by The Lawgiver to safeguard everyone until his return) leading a murderous lynching and burning raid on the human sector. Despite being disguised by hoods and robes (this was a time when the Ku Kux Klan was constantly in the headlines for terrorising African Americans emboldened by Civil Rights successes), the youngsters see gorillas murder Jason’s parents in the opening gambit of a scheme to make their kind the dominant species on Earth. In Chapter Two’s ‘Fugitives on the Planet of the Apes’ the witnesses’ attempts to expose the atrocity lead to Brutus murdering his own wife and framing Jason and Alexander for the deed.

After they spectacularly escape the city, another recapping Photo Intro segues into ‘The Forbidden Zone of Forgotten Horrors!’ as Jason and Alexander spy on Brutus’ terrorist base and are almost caught. This prompts another murder spree that the Peacekeeper blames them for. Wounded and scared, in ‘Lick the Sky Crimson’ they head for the radioactive wastes of the Forbidden Zone in search of The Lawgiver and encounter weird mutants, bizarre machines and monsters. These terrors thrive in a buried city run by a gestalt of giant bottled brains calling themselves The Inheritors. Worst of all, the chimp realises his human friend is becoming a vengeance-hungry savage in many ways the equal of Brutus…

The power of mutual hate is further explored after Photo Intro 3 leads us to ‘Spawn of the Mutant-Pits’ where hideous drone-slaves pursuing them clash with gorillas Brutus has set on Jason’s trail. Inker Frank Chiaramonte supplements Ploog’s inspired pencils as they butcher each other, before Jason & Alexander are captured by the Forbidden Zone’s hidden overlords and despatched to ‘The Abomination Arena!’ to fight fresh terrors beside a surviving gorilla…

Another hairsbreadth escape leads them to the captive Lawgiver and a lucky rescue/breakout in a stolen flying craft before Part 4 details their flight, crash and rendezvous with ‘A River Boat Named Simian’. Here largely film-inspired antics take a big broad pause as we see how other parts of the Planet of the Apes recovered from Armageddon. Brutus strikes a deal with the cerebral Gestalt Commanders: securing futuristic tanks, energy weapons and drone battle fodder in return for destroying the Lawgiver’s city and civilisation. It’s a deal neither side intends to honour but in the interim the fugitives he’s actually intent on eradicating are recuperating thanks to river traders bringing unity to scattered communities.

Daniel Boone-inspired orangutan ‘Gunpowder Julius’, his human pal Steely Dan and a feisty, gloriously rowdy crew of frontiers-folk do much to soothe the poison brewing in Jason’s soul, but the healing halts as soon as Brutus’ forces catch them all celebrating. Launching a devastating assault kills many and instantly reignites the hate in the human’s heart…

Shot from Ploog’s pencils, Part 5 ‘Malagueña Beyond a Zone Forbidden’ sees the survivors encounter a happy band of ape and human Romani with Jason distracted and then beguiled by a beautiful young woman. Jealousy and hot heads might have led to catastrophe and damnation, but the duel for her hand is interrupted by Brutus and his multispecies army in ‘The Planet Inheritors!’, resulting in a deadly stand-off until Julius thrashes Brutus in a vicious personal duel…

With the Peacekeeper a prisoner, Jason, Alexander, their wise patriarch and Malagueña set out for the integrated home city, blithely unaware of how much has deteriorated since they’ve been gone. Now humans are second-class citizens and although many apes are unhappy with the tyranny of gorillas, trouble is brewing and will boil over ‘When The Lawgiver Returns…’

This dramatic point sees the true plans of both Brutus and Gestalt Commanders explosively exposed prior to Terror on the Planet of the Apes Phase 2 opening with the introduction of a new character in ‘The Magick-Man’s Last Gasp Purple Light Show’. Although seemingly defeated, Brutus escapes punishment and flees, with incandescently enraged Jason following him back into the wilderness to extract true justice. Along the way he meets archaeologist/ philosopher Lightning Smith, a human whose pursuit of the secrets of the Ancients has unearthed a stockpile of pre-disaster wonders and a lot of woolly misconceptions about the masters of science who once ruled the planet…

“Lightsmith” and faithful companion Gilbert (a mute but fully sapient gibbon) seek further revelations – including the location of legendary stockpile of lost wonders “the Psycho-drome”. Proselytising technology at every stop, they take Jason under their wing, ultimately bringing him to their secret mountain home in ‘Up the Nose-Tube to Monkey-Trash’. The base is a masterful example of acerbic satire, eventually revealing to us, if not the players, the last days of human hegemony. Meanwhile Alex and Malagueña have been tracking Jason, but sadly catch up just as savage, primitive “Assisimians” attack Lightsmith, leading to a shocking show of salvaged wonders and the obsessive hatred of tribal shaman Maguanus…

Brutus has not been idle: once again duping the Gestalt Commanders and taking their last technological armaments to end Jason and anyone else in the Peacekeeper’s way. The tyrant finally finds him as Maguanus’ minions are besieging them, and a tenuous double-dealing truce drives our beleaguered heroes into new territory to face ‘Demons of the Psychodrome’ (art by Ploog & Tom Sutton).

Tragically, the answers Lightsmith hungers for almost destroy him as the truth of the psycho-drome exposes an extraterrestrial component to the Ancients’ downfall and a terrifyingly patient ‘Society of the Psychodrome’ (Sutton art) waiting for Earth to be pacified for them…

As Jason, Alexander & Malagueña scrape from calamity to clash to catastrophe, Brutus almost claims total victory by stealing enough nuclear missiles to exterminate all humans. Thankfully he doesn’t know how to use them and when Jason once more foils the plot in ‘Messiah of the Monkey Demons’, an atomic inferno apparently ends the alien threat…

However, a new menace appears when The Lawgiver’s devoted young apprentice is co-opted by another technological faction to survive the fall of man. As our stars – safely transported a vast distance away whilst the nukes went up – cavort in snow for the first time, ‘Northlands!’ (art by Herb Trimpe & Virgil Redondo with tones by Rudy Mesina) sees them meet ape Vikings and witness another crime of ignorance and bigotry before heading back south in an ice-riding dragonship…

Waiting for them is seemingly unkillable Brutus, the last remnants of The Inheritors’ forces and new threat The Makers. These human holdovers are kidnapping gorillas to make cyborg slaves and their unleashed ‘Apes of Iron’ seem likely to control the world, However, as seen in last chapter ‘Revolt of the Gorilloids!’ (Trimpe & Virgil Redondo) Jason and his allies won’t go down without a fight…

Frustratingly, the saga stopped there and remains uncompleted, but in postscript ‘Still Apey After all These Years’ Handley offers more information and partial closure with his efforts to share Moench’s unpublished last scripts. He also posits what might have been had the author been allowed to complete the saga abruptly curtailed when the magazine was cancelled without warning. It left three separate story strands… well, stranded…

Also of interest is a section on unique permutations of Marvel UK’s weekly Planet of the Apes iteration (ask your grandad about “Apeslayer” and see the reaction …or just google it).

This first volume closes with a ‘Full colour painted cover gallery’ of issues #3, 4, 13, 17. 19 & 23 by Bob Larkin, #14 & 26 by Malcolm McNeill and #11 by Gray Morrow – all seen sans logos and livery.

In equal parts vivid nostalgia and crucial component of current comics expansion, this compelling and lovely treat is pure whacky fun no film fan or comics devotee should miss… and there’s more to come…
Planet of the Apes ™ & © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Stories and illustration ™ & © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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The Silver Metal Lover


By Tanith Lee, adapted by Trina Robbins (Harmony/Crown Books)
ISBN: 0-517-55853-X (Album PB)

In the 1980s, comics finally began fully filtering into the mainstream of American popular culture, helped in no small part by a few impressive adaptations of works of literary fantasy such as Michael Moorcock’s Elric or DC’s Science Fiction Graphic Novel line. In 1985 pioneering cartoonist, feminist, author and comics historian Trina Robbins (A Century of Women Cartoonists, It Ain’t Me, Babe Comix, Dope, The Legend of Wonder Woman, Choices: A Pro-Choice Benefit Comic Anthology for the National Organization for Women, Misty, Honey West) joined that small but proliferating throng with this deceptively powerful and effectively bittersweet romance adapted from Tanith Lee’s short tale about an earnest young girl in a spoiled, indolent world who discovers abiding love in the most unexpected of places….

In the far-flung, ferociously formal and crushingly civilised future everything is perfect – if you can afford it – but human nature has not evolved to match Mankind’s technological and sociological advancements. Plus ca change plus ca meme chose, right?

Jane has everything a 16-year old could want but is still unhappy. Her mother Demeta provides all she needs – except human warmth – whilst her six registered friends do their best to provide for her growing associative and societal needs. Of her carefully selected peer circle, Jane only actually likes flighty, melodramatic needily narcissistic Egyptia – whom Jane’s mother approves of but considers certifiably insane.

In this world people can live in the clouds if they want, with robots performing most manual toil and providing all those tedious but necessary services, but it’s far from paradise. Humans still get suspicious and bored with their chatty labour-saving devices and monumental Electronic Metals, Ltd strive constantly to improve their ubiquitous inventions…

One day Jane accompanies Egyptia to an audition where the fully made-up thespian is accosted by a rude man who mistakes her for a new android and persistently seeks to buy her.

Ruffled by the pushy lout’s manner, Jane’s attention is suddenly distracted by a beautiful metal minstrel busking in the plaza. The robot’s performance and his lovely song move and frighten Jane in way she cannot understand. When S.I.L.V.E.R. (Silver Ionized Locomotive Verisimulated Electronic Robot) affably introduces himself the flustered girl bolts, running for the relative security of the nearby home of sardonic friend Clovis, where the beautiful man-tart is in the process of dumping yet another lover.

He proves unsurprisingly unsympathetic to Jane’s confusion and distress, telling her to go home where, still inexplicably upset, she tries to talk the experience out with mother. Impatient as always, the matron simply enquires if Jane is masturbating enough before telling her to record whatever’s bothering her for mummy to deal with later…

Sulking in a bath, Jane is awoken from a sleep by ecstatic Egyptia who has passed her audition. Bubbling with glee the neophyte actress demands Jane join her at a big party, but whilst avoiding a persistent old letch creepily fixated on the fresh young thing, Jane stumbles again upon S.I.L.V.E.R. … and once more reacts histrionically to his singing.

As he profusely apologizes for the inexplicable distress he’s somehow caused her, Jane realizes the disturbing mechanical minstrel has been rented by Egyptia for quite another kind of performance later – a private and intimate one. With a gasp of surprise Jane finally understands what she’s feeling and kisses the alluring automaton before fleeing…

Her mother is as useless as ever. Whilst futilely attempting to explain her problem but failing even to catch Demeta’s full attention, Jane gives up and claims she’s in love with Clovis just to cause a shock. The next day the heartsick waif visits the offices of Electronic Metals, Ltd ostensibly to rent the droid of her dreams – as a minor she has to lie about her age – but is sickened when she finds him partially dissembled as techs try to track down an anomalous response in his systems…

Despondent, she is astonished when Machiavellian Clovis intervenes, renting S.I.L.V.E.R. for Egyptia and convincing the too, too-busy starlet to let Jane look after it for her…

Alone with the object of her affection, insecure Jane’s imagined affair quickly becomes earthily, libidinously real, but the honeymoon ends far too soon when Clovis informs her the rental period is over. Crippled by her burning love for the artificial Adonis, Jane begs her mother to buy him for her. When the coldly withholding guardian refuses, the obsessed child at last rebels…

When Demeta disappears on another of her interminable business trips, Jane sells her apartment’s contents, moves into the slums and desperately claims her dream lover with the ill-gotten gains…

Following a tragically brief transformative period of sheer uncompromised joy with her adored mechanical man, reality hits the happy couple hard when Demeta tracks Jane down and smugly applies financial pressure to force her wayward child to return. Undaunted, the pair become unlicensed street performers and grow even closer but as Jane grows in confidence and ability, and becomes fiercely independent, public opinion turns against the latest generation of far-too-human mechanical servants. When Electronic Metals recalls all its now hated products, the improper couple flee the city. However, the heartless auditors track them down and reclaim Jane’s Silver Metal Lover…

Lyrical and poetic, this is a grand old-fashioned tale of doomed love which still has a lot to say about transformation, growing up and walking your own path, with Trina Robbins’ idyllic and idealised cartooning deceptively disguising the heartbreaking savagery and brutal cruelty of the story to superb effect, making the tragedy even more potent.

Regrettably out of print for years, this is a comics experience long overdue for revival – perhaps in conjunction with new interpretations of the author’s later sequels to the saga of love against the odds…
Illustrations © 1985 Trina Robbins. Text © 1985 Tanith Lee. All rights reserved.

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Tarzan in the City of Gold (The Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library volume 1)


By Burne Hogarth and Don Garden (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-317-7 (HB)

Modern comics and graphic novels evolved from newspaper comic strips. These daily pictorial features were – until relatively recently – extremely popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation and profits. From the earliest days humour was paramount; hence the terms “Funnies” – and of course, “Comics”.

The 1930s saw an explosion of action and drama strips launched with astounding rapidity and success. Not just strips but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on not just today’s comic-books but all our popular fiction. Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924, but gradually moving through mock-heroics to light-action and becoming a full-blown adventure serial with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929), the majority of strips in production were feel-good humour strips with the occasional child-oriented fantasy.

The full-blown adventure serial strip started on January 7th 1929 with Buck Rogers and Tarzan launching on the same day. Both were adaptations of pre-existing prose properties – although the Ape-Man had already conquered the silver screen – and their influence changed the shape of the medium forever. In terms of sheer quality of art, the adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels starring jungle-bred John Clayton, Lord Greystoke by Canadian commercial artist Harold “Hal” Foster were unsurpassed, and the strip became a firm favourite of the reading masses, supplementing movies, books, a radio show and ubiquitous advertising appearances.

As fully detailed in Tarzan historian/author Scott Tracy Griffin’s informative overview ‘Burne & Burroughs: The Story of Burne Hogarth and Edgar Rice Burroughs’, Foster initially quit the strip after the10-week adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes. He was replaced by Rex Maxon, but returned (at the insistent urging of Edgar Rice Burroughs) when the black-&-white daily was expanded to include a lush, full colour Sunday page of new tales.

Leaving Maxon to cater the Monday through Saturday series of novel adaptations, Foster produced the Sunday page until 1936 (233 weeks) after which he momentously moved to King Features Syndicate and created his own weekend masterpiece. Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur debuted on February 13th 1937. Once a four month backlog of material he had built up was gone, Foster was succeeded by a precociously brilliant 25-year old artist named Burne Hogarth: a young graphic visionary whose superb anatomical skill, cinematic design flair and compelling page composition revolutionised action/adventure narrative illustration.

The galvanic modern dynamism of the idealised human figure in comic books is directly attributable to Hogarth’s pioneering drawing and, in later years, educational efforts.

When he in turn finally left the strip, Hogarth found his way into teaching as co-founder – with Silas H. Rhodes – of the Cartoonist and Illustrators School for returning veterans. This became the New York School of Visual Arts and Hogarth produced an invaluable and inspirational series of art textbooks including Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing, shaping generations of aspiring pencillers. I can see my own well-worn copies from where I sit typing this.

In the early 1970s, Hogarth was lured back to the leafy domain of legendary Lord Greystoke, producing two magnificent volumes of graphic narrative in the dazzling style that had captivated audiences more than 30 years previously. Large bold panels, vibrantly coloured, with blocks of Burroughs’ original text, leapt out at the reader in a riot of hue and motion as they retold the triumphant, tragic tale of an orphaned scion of British nobility raised to puissant manhood by Great Apes in Tarzan of the Apes and Jungle Tales of Tarzan.

Burroughs cannily used the increasingly popular strip feature to cross-market his own prose efforts with great effect. Tarzan and the City of Gold was first serialised in pulp magazine Argosy in 1932 and released in book form the following year. So by May 17th 1936, Foster’s new and unconnected Tarzan in the City of Gold could be described as a brand new adventure on one hand, whilst boosting already impressively book sales by acting as a subtle weekly ad for the fantastic fantasy novels.

As discussed and précised in ‘Hal Foster’s Tarzan in the City of Gold – the Story So Far’, the illustrator and regular scripter Don Garden’s final yarn began with the 271st weekly page: revealing how the wandering Ape-Man had stumbled upon a lost outpost built by ancient refugees from Asia Minor in a desolate region of the “Dark Continent”.

The city of Taanor was so rich in gold that the material was only useful for weather-proofing roofs and domes of houses, but when white ne’er-do-wells Jim Gorrey and Rufus Flint discover the fantastic horde they marshalled a mercenary army, complete with tanks and aircraft to plunder the lost kingdom. Tarzan, meanwhile, had become war-chief of noble King Dalkon and his beautiful daughter Princess Nakonia and determined to use every trick and stratagem to smash the invaders…

After 51 epic weekly episodes, Foster was gone and we pick up the story of ‘Tarzan in the City of Gold’ (episodes #322-343, 9th May to October 3rd 1937) as the drama takes a bold new direction when the embattled Jungle Lord leads a slow war of attrition against the invaders whilst simultaneously recruiting a bizarre battalion of beasts comprising apes, lions and elephants to crush the greedily amassed armaments of 20th century warfare with fang and claw, sinew and muscle…

In those halcyon days the action was non-stop and, rather than cleanly defined breaks, storylines flowed one into another. Thus, Tarzan allowed the victorious Taanorians to believe he had perished in battle and journeyed to familiar territory, revisiting the cabin where he had been born and the region where he was raised by the she-ape Kala – stopping to punish a tribe of humans hunting and tormenting his old family/band of apes. Then, Hogarth’s first full epic began.

‘Tarzan and the Boers Part I’ (pages #344-377, 10th October 1937 – 29th May 1938) sees the erstwhile Greystoke lured to the assistance of duplicitous chieftain Ishtak who craves the Ape-Man’s assistance in repulsing an “invasion” by white pioneers from South Africa.

It isn’t too long before Tarzan discovers Ishtak is playing a double game. Having sold the land in question to families led by aged Jan Van Buren, the avaricious king intends to wipe them out and keep his tribal territories intact…

When Tarzan unravels the plot he naturally sides with the Boers and, over many bloody, torturous weeks, helps the refugees survive Ishtak’s murderous campaign of terror to establish a sound, solid community of honest (white) farmers…

When Hogarth first took over he had used an affected drawing style mimicking Foster’s static realism, but by the time of ‘Tarzan and the Chinese’ (#378-402, 5 June – 20th November 1938) had completed a slow transition to his own tautly hyper-kinetic visual methodology, perfectly suited to the electric vitality of the ever-onrushing feature’s exotic wonders.

Here, after leaving the new Boer nation, Tarzan finds a vast, double-walled enclosure and – ever curious – climbs into a fabulous hidden kingdom populated by the descendants of imperial Chinese colonists.

Once again he was just in time to prevent the overthrow of the rightful ruler – firstly by rebels and bandits, then a treacherous usurper and latterly by invading African warriors – before slipping away to befriend another clan of Great Apes and be mistaken for an evolutionary missing link by Professor John Farr in ‘Tarzan and the Pygmies’ (#403-427, 27th November 1938 to 14th May 1939). However, the boffin’s nefarious guide Marsada knows exactly who and what the Ape-Man is and spends a great deal of time and effort trying to kill Tarzan, as payback for his destroying a profitable poaching racket years before. Most infuriatingly, the husky newcomer had caught the passionate fancy of Farr’s lovely daughter Linda…

Following an extended clash with actual missing links – a mountain tribe of primitive, bestial half-men – Tarzan and Linda fall into the brawny hands of magnificent (white) tree-dwelling viragos who all want to mate with a man who seems their physical equal. The trials and tribulations of ‘Tarzan and the Amazons’ (#428-437, 21st May-23rd July 1939) only ends when the jungle Adonis fakes his own death…

More relatively aimless perambulations bring the hero once more to the nascent homeland of his Afrikaans friends. ‘Tarzan and the Boers Part II’ (#438-477, 30th July 1939 – 28th April 1940) has him perfectly matched against cunning, truly monstrous villain Klaas Vanger. This wandering diamond hunter has discovered a mother-lode of gems on Jan Van Buren’s farm and, after seducing his way into the family’s good graces by romancing impressionable daughter Matea, he tries to murder them all. When this also fails, Vanger instigates a new war between settlers and natives, whilst absconding with a cache of diamonds and massacring a tribe of baboons befriended by Tarzan…

These vile acts lead to a horrific boom town of greedy killers springing up on Boer lands, compelling Tarzan, baby baboon Bo-Dan and hulking. tongue-tied lovelorn farmhand Groot Carlus to take a terrible but well-deserved vengeance on the money-crazed monster and his minions and rescuing crestfallen Matea from the seducer’s vile clutches…

Edgar Rice Burroughs was a master of populist writing and always his prose crackled with energy and imagination. Hogarth was an inspired intellectual and, as well as gradually instilling his pages with ferocious, unceasing action, layered the panels with subtle symbolism. Even vegetation looked spiky, edgy and liable to attack at a moment’s notice…

His pictorial narratives are all coiled-spring tension or vital, violent explosive motion, stretching, running, fighting: a surging rush of power and glory. It’s wonderful these majestic exploits are back in print – especially in such a lavish and luxurious oversized (330 x 254mm) hardback format – even if only to give us comic lovers and other couch potatoes a thorough cardio-vascular work-out. Nevertheless, I won’t be completely happy until all this wild wonderment is online too…

Beautifully rendered and reassuringly formulaic, these masterful interpretations of the utterly authentic Ape-Man are a welcome addition to any comics’ connoisseurs’ cupboard and you would be crazy not to take advantage of this beautiful collection; the first of five in the Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library.
Tarzan® & © 2014 ERB, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All images copyright of ERB, Inc 2014. All text copyright of ERB, Inc 2014.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novel #21: The Eye of Torment


By Scott Gray, Mike Collins, Jacqueline Rayner, Martin Geraghty, David A. Roach & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-673-1 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Timely Seasonal Treat… 8/10

Today is the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Here’s another Timey-Wimey treat to celebrate a unique TV and comics institution in a periodical manner …

We Brits love comic strips, adore “characters” and are addicted to celebrity. The history of our comics includes an astounding number of comedians, Variety stars and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Charlie Drake and so many more I’ve long forgotten and you’ve likely never heard of.

As much adored and adapted were actual shows like Ace of Wands, Timeslip, Supercar, The Clangers and countless more. If we watched or listened, an enterprising publisher made printed spectacles of them. Hugely popular anthology comics like Radio/Film Fun/TV Fun, Look-In, TV Comic, TV Tornado, and Countdown would translate light entertainment favourites into pictorial joy. It was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed strip property…

Doctor Who debuted on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with episode 1 of ‘An Unearthly Child’. Months later in 1964, TV Comic began a decades-long association, as issue #674 began ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – by an unknown author with the art attributed to illustrator Neville Main.

On 11th October 1979, Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. Turning monthly in September 1980 (#44) it’s been with us – via various iterations – ever since: proving the Time Lord is a comic star of impressive pedigree, not to be trifled with.

Panini’s UK division ensured his comics immortality by collecting all strips of every Time Lord Regeneration in a series of graphic albums – although we’re still waiting for digital versions. Each time tome focused on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer, with this one gathering almost a year’s worth of stories plucked from the annals of history and the Terran cover dates August 2014 to August 2015. These yarns all feature The Twelfth Doctor as played by Peter Capaldi in a collection of full-colour episodes all given hues from James Offredi and letters by Roger Langridge.

It all kicks off with eponymous shocker ‘The Eye of Torment’ (Doctor Who Magazine #477-480, October-December 2014). Written by Scott Gray and drawn by Martin Geraghty – with inks from infallibly rewarding David A. Roach – it finds a newly-minted incarnation of the Time Lord and capable companion Clara Oswald fetch up inside a spaceship traversing the surface of the sun.

With inescapable flavours of Armando Iannucci’s 2020 comedy sci fi vehicleAvenue 5, the good ship Pollyanna is manned solely by women working for gigajazillionaire Rudy Zoom: a rich, over-achieving narcissist in love with his own legend. Surprisingly, he’s not the actual problem: that would a semi-sentient predatory alien infection imprisoned eons ago by Sol’s gravity. “The Umbra” mimic humanoid form: magnifying and feeding on despair. Once the horror broaches Pollyanna’s invulnerable hull, it/they start picking off the crew until the newcomers find a way to stop it/them and escape…

The epic yarn leads directly into the ‘The Instruments of War’ (DWM #481-483, January-March 2015) wherein writer/artist Mike Collins, ably assisted by Roach) deposit the time travellers in Earth’s Sahara just as German General Erwin Rommel is preparing to finish the Afrika campaign. Sadly, that’s when an agent of the Rutan Horde finally disinters a world-reshaping weapon long lost by their eternal arch-enemies The Sontarans…

Forced to ally with a few of the Sontaran clone-warriors, assorted Germans of various philosophies, righteously rebellious Tuaregs and the living enigma of an honourable warrior fighting for the wrong side, The Doctor and Clara are initially separated but soldier on to save everyone with a degree of success…

Skipping #484, we next arrive as south as we can get for some ‘Blood and Ice’ served up by Jacqueline Rayner, Geraghty & Roach, with actual schoolmarm Clara and the tall, rude one claiming to be Ofsted inspectors giving a college at the bottom of the world a cautious once-over. It’s 2048, the Antarctic Treaty protecting the polar continent from resource exploitation is about to expire and something strange is happening at Snowcap University: something Dr. Patricia Audley is very unhappy to acknowledge and a situation she is working very hard to remedy. However, even with fatal accidents, mutants appearing and students vanishing, both our heroes are a bit off their game. Fans will recall that on TV, Clara had been splintered into a million alternate versions scattered throughout the timestream and finding one of herself at Snowcap has truly unsettled her. The Doctor also has qualms: last time he was here it was a military base filled with cybermen and resulted in the death of his first generation (First Doctor William Hartnell, keep up, keep up!) and first re-generation…

The disorientation doesn’t stop them solving the riddle of the place, but not before a lot of people are dead or worse…

The dramas conclude in fine style and traditional form as a holding pattern allowing the TV Doctor’s debut to catch up with his print incarnation allows DWM #475-476 to deliver a Gallifreyan-adjacent sidebar saga from Gray, Collins, Roach, Offredi & Langridge. Set during London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 ‘The Crystal Throne’ is an untold adventure of “The Paternoster Gang” (Silurian Madame Vastra, her human wife Jenny Flint and their butler Sontaran Strax) who – with assorted associates – oppose weird terror, scurrilous sedition and deranged genetic meddler Lady Cornelia Basildon-Stone for rule of the British Empire. The battle at “The Crystal Palace” is made harder by their ruthless foe, who remakes men into insectoid monsters; employing stolen Silurian technology…

Supplemented with fascinating insights from all the creatives involved in each tale and augmented by tons of sketches and other pre-publishing artwork in the Commentary section, this is a splendid book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another go…
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv 2015. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. All other material © 2017 its individual creators and owners. Published 2015 by Panini. All rights reserved.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novel 24: Emperor of the Daleks


By Dan Abnett, Paul Cornell, Warwick Gray, Richard Alan, John Ridgway, Lee Sullivan, Colin Andrew & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-807-0 (TPB)

Somewhere in time, it’s always that moment just before the TV got turned on and the Time Lord was born. This year is the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Here’s another Timey-Wimey treat to celebrate a unique TV and comics institution in a periodical manner …

We Brits love comic strips, adore “characters” and are addicted to celebrity. The history of our comics includes an astounding number of comedians, Variety stars and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Charlie Drake and so many more I’ve long forgotten and you’ve likely never heard of.

As much adored and adapted were actual shows like Ace of Wands, Timeslip, Supercar, The Clangers and countless more. If we watched or listened, an enterprising publisher made printed spectacles of them. Hugely popular anthology comics like Radio/Film Fun/TV Fun, Look-In, TV Comic, TV Tornado, and Countdown regularly translated light entertainment favourites into pictorial joy. It was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed strip property…

Doctor Who debuted on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with episode 1 of ‘An Unearthly Child’. Months later in 1964, TV Comic began its decades-long association, as issue #674 began ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – by an unknown author with the art attributed to illustrator Neville Main.

On 11th October 1979, Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. Turning monthly in September 1980 (#44) it’s been with us – via various iterations – ever since: proving the Time Lord is a comic star of impressive pedigree, not to be trifled with.

Panini’s UK division ensured his comics immortality by collecting all strips of every Time Lord Regeneration in a series of graphic albums – although we’re still waiting for digital versions. Each time tome focused on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer, with this one gathering stories plucked from the annals of history and the Terran recording dates November 1992 and July 1995. These yarns all feature Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy in a collection offering both monochrome and full-colour episodes. It all kicks off with sinister espionage thriller ‘Pureblood’ (from Doctor Who Magazine #193-196: November 1992 to January 1993) by writer Dan Abnett & artist Colin Andrew. Here the devious Time Lord and his formidable companion Benny save the last survivors of the Sontaran race from extinction at the hands of their immortal enemies the Rutan – despite hostage humans and a spy in the embattled clone-warriors’ midst. Why save a deadly enemy? Ah well, The Doctor has a rather convoluted plan…

The epic yarn leads directly into the ‘Flashback’ (Doctor Who Winter Special 1992, by Warwick Gray & John Ridgway) as we glimpse First Doctor (William Hartnell, keep up, keep up!) having a potentially universe- shattering falling out with his best friend: a proudly arrogant young Gallifreyan called Magnus (any guesses who he regenerates into?)

The main meat of this massive collection is eponymous epic ‘Emperor of the Daleks’ (DWM #197-202) reuniting the time meddler with his deadliest foe and their deadliest foe: Abslom Daak, a deranged maniac in love with a dead woman and determined to die gloriously exterminating Daleks…

Written by Paul Cornell and John Freeman with art from Lee Sullivan (and a chapter in full-colour courtesy of Marina Graham), the sprawling saga shows civil war between the murderous pepperpots’ creator Davros and their current supreme commander, with the Doctor (two of them, in fact) and a motley crew of allies stirring the bubbling mix and nudging the feuding megalomaniacs in a certain direction…

When the dust settles, Richard Alan & Sullivan provide a salutary epilogue in ‘Up Above the Gods’ (DWM#227, July 1995) as The Doctor explains his actions to Davros – or so, at least, the deluded devil believes…

Warwick Gray & Colin Andrew introduce a universe where The Doctor perished in his Third Regeneration: leading to a cross dimensional incursion by ours – plus Benny and Ace – to foil the ‘Final Genesis’ of Silurian/Sea Devil renegade Mortakk (from DWM #203-206) before full-colour fun returns in ‘Time & Time Again’ (#207, Cornell, Ridgway and hues-smith Paul Vyse) with all seven incarnations of the Gallivanting Gallifreyan in action to retrieve the Key to Time and stop the Black Guardian recreating the universe in his own vile image…

Abnett & Ridgeway return to the black & white days of 1840s Kent for ‘Cuckoo’ (#208-210) as Ace and Benny understandably revolt when The Doctor seeks to steal the limelight from the first woman palaeontologist Mary Anne Wesley. His motives are quite pure: what the young scientist has found is not a missing link in human evolution but something alien that its descendants are prepared to kill for…

The dramas conclude in fine style as Gray & Ridgway expose the ferocious spleen of the Doctor in full indignant mode when he is an ‘Uninvited Guest’ (DWM #211) delivering judgement and punishment to a soiree of indolent and callous timeless beings who enjoyed making sport and playing games with “lesser” creatures. They soon painfully learn that such valuations are all a matter of perspective…

Supplemented with commentaries by the original creators, this is a splendid book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another go…
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv 2014. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. All other material © 2017 its individual creators and owners. Published 2017 by Panini. All rights reserved.