Category: Adaptations

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Master of Kung Fu Epic Collection volume 2: Fight Without Pity


By Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy, Sal Buscema, Keith Pollard, Jim Craig, Dan Adkins, Jack Abel, Pablo Marcos, Mike Esposito, Sal Trapani, John Tartaglione, Duffy Vohland, Tom Sutton & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0135-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times Comic books have always operated within outworld popular trends and fashions – just look at what got published whenever westerns or science fiction dominated on TV – so when the ancient philosophy and discipline of Kung Fu made its mark on western entertainment, it wasn’t long before all those kicks and punches found their way onto four-colour pages of America’s periodicals. Early starter Charlton Comics added Yang and House of Yang to their pioneering Judo Joe title and Frank McLaughlin’s Judomaster; DC debuted Richard Dragon and rebooted Karate Kid; Atlas/Seaboard opened (and as quickly closed again) The Hands of the Dragon and Marvel converted an already in-development proposed literary adaptation into an ongoing saga about a villain’s son…

A month after it launched, a second orient-inspired hero debuted with Iron Fist: combining combat philosophy, high fantasy and magical forces with a proper superhero mask and costume…

Although largely retrofitted for modern times, inspirational Master of Kung Fu star Shang-Chi originated with lots of tricky baggage. He kicked off in the autumn of 1973, cashing in on the contemporary West’s craze for Eastern philosophy and martial arts action that had already generated an avalanche of “Chop Sockey” movies and a controversial TV sensation entitled Kung Fu. You may recall that the lead in that cowboy-set saga was a half-Chinese Shaolin monk, played – after much publicised legal and industry agitation – by a white actor…

At Marvel, no one at that time particularly griped about the fact that Shang-Chi was designed by editor Roy Thomas and artisans Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom as a naive innocent (also half Chinese, with an American mother) thrown into tumultuous modern society as a rebellious yet involved counterpoint to his father: an insidious scheming fiend intent on global domination. Back then, securing rights to a major literary property and wrapping new comics in it was an established practise. It had worked spectacularly with Conan the Barbarian and horror stars Dracula and The Monster of Frankenstein. The same process also brilliantly informed seminal science fiction icon Killraven in War of the Worlds and plenty more…

These days we comics apologists keep saying “it was a different era”, but I genuinely don’t think anyone in the editorial office paused for a moment of second thoughts when their new Kung Fu book secured the use of one of literature’s greatest villains as a major player. Special Marvel Edition #15 (cover-dated December 1973) launched to great success, with Fu Manchu an overarching villain already a global personification of infamy.

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward AKA Sax Rohmer’s ultimate embodiment of patronising mistrust and racist suspicion had been hugely popular since 1913’s The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. The prime archetype for mad scientists and remorseless “Yellow Peril” threatening civilization, the character spread to stage, screen, airwaves and comics (even appropriating the cover of Detective Comics #1, heralding an interior series that ran until #28), but most importantly, became the visual affirmation and conceptual basis for countless evil “Asiatics”, “Orientals” and “Celestials” dominating popular fiction ever since. In recent years we’ve all (well, mostly all) acknowledged past iniquities and Shang-Chi has been fully reimagined, with that paternal link downplayed and ultimately abandoned – as much for licensing laws as social justice. And cultural respect, naturally…

Like most comics companies, Marvel employed plenty of “Yellow Peril” knock-offs and personifications – including Wong Chu; Plan Tzu (AKA the Yellow and latterly Golden, Claw); Huang Zhu; Silver Samurai; Doctor Sun, ad infinitum: all birds of another colour that are still nastily pejorative shades of saffron. Perhaps this is just my white guilt and fanboy shame talking. These stories, crafted by Marvel’s employees were – and remain – some of the best action comics you’ll ever encounter, but never forget what they’re actually about -distrust of the “other”. Without making excuses, I should also state that despite the casual racism suggested by legions of outrageously exotic, inscrutable lemon-hued bad guys haunting this series at every level, Master of Kung Fu did sensitively address issues of race and honestly attempt to share non-Christian philosophies and thought whilst – most importantly – offering potently powerful role models to kids of Asian origins. So at least there’s that…

Packed with stunning exotic adventure and compellingly convincing drama, this collection gathers Master of Kung Fu #29-53 and Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 (spanning June 1975 to August 1977). Written entirely by Doug Moench and primarily showcasing the developing graphic realism of Paul Gulacy, surrendering to his love of spy fiction it opens without a preamble in the middle of a mighty struggle…

Previously: the series inauspiciously launched in bimonthly reprint title Special Marvel Edition as The Hands of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu, but by the third issue (April 1974) became exclusively his. The origin episode introduced a vibrant, brilliant young man raised in utter isolation in the style and manner of imperial China. Reared by monks and savants, the boy was the result of a match between a physically perfect American woman and “misunderstood patriot” Fu Manchu. The boy was raised to accept that his sire was a noble hero unfairly hunted and slandered by corrupt western governments and the communist usurpers now blasphemously controlling the world’s greatest empire.

Fu’s son was schooled to respect and obey his father, trained to perfection in martial arts and designed as the ultimate warrior servant: the doctor’s devoted personal weapon against lifelong enemies Sir Dennis Nayland Smith and Doctor Petrie.

On reaching maturity, Shang – whose name means “the rising and advancing of a spirit” – was despatched to execute Petrie. However, after the obedient weapon completed his mission, he subsequently questions his entire life and the worldly benefit of killing an elderly, frail, already dying man. An emotional confrontation with Nayland Smith (who endured daily agonies from being maimed at the Devil Doctor’s command) further rattled the boy’s resolve and eventually Shang’s sublime education demanded he reassess everything his father had taught him…

After invading the villain’s New York citadel and crushing an army of freaks and monsters, Shang Chi faced his father and rejected all he stood for. The battle lines of an epic family struggle had been drawn. Banished from his cloistered childhood home and environs, the philosophically minded innocent adapted rapidly to the constant violence of the modern world. eventually accepting shelter with Nayland Smith in return for (espionage) services rendered…

Now, a turning point in his rising and advancement comes in MOKF #29 as Shang finds reason to abandon his pacifistic aspirations and get involved in western affairs after seeing firsthand the harm drugs cause, joining Nayland Smith’s team to cripple the drug trade. The unwelcome allies include veteran heavy Blackjack Tarr, and Petrie – not dead at Shang’s hand after all and subsequently rescued from his father’s clutches – working with British agent Clive Reston. He is, by his own account, a descendent of a famed “Consulting Detective” and a Double-0 operative “on Her Majesty’s Secret Service”)

The entire series was slowly morphing into a James Bond pastiche and with this mission to end effetely urbane drug dealer turned nuclear terrorist Carlton Velcro, illustrator Gulacy began a ballistic visual progression that would make him one of most watched and admired artists of the era as he referenced movie star and set pieces throughout the saga.

‘The Crystal Connection’ begins with Reston undercover at Velcro’s French coast fortress, playing heroin buyer Mr Blue until Shang & Tarr can infiltrate and secure the dope stocks. No one expected such massive defences; an army of killers led by deadly assassin Razor-Fist and a nuclear arsenal hidden below ‘A Gulf of Lions’ (#30, inked by Dan Adkins), with the pitched battle ranging far and wide as Razor Fist’s defeat leads to Shang clashing with whip-wielding panther woman Pavane before a truly explosive conclusion in ‘Snowbuster’…

‘Assault on an Angry Sea!’ was a hasty fill-in illustrated by Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito as Shang returns to London by ship and is drawn into the hunt for an undercover courier who is unaware that counteragents intend to intercept and end them. In this traditional mystery yarn, Chi finds too many suspects and can’t tell friend from foe from target, but triumphs nonetheless, before MOKF #33 resumes the Moench/Gulacy filmic fun-fest with ‘Wicked Messenger of Madness!’ This introduces seductive, conflicted agent Leiko Wu as both romantic interest and wedge between Shang Chi and his colleagues, and sees a robotic mannequin fail to assassinate Nayland Smith thanks to martial arts mastery but opens the door to a complex web of lies, double-dealing, insane artificial intelligences and a doomsday weapon.

The robot was a literal tool of missing agent Simon Bretnor, revealed far too late as narcissistic hired killer and would-be world conqueror Mordillo, who wants a space weapon using the ozone layer and sunlight to ravage sites on Earth. The plans for it are encoded in Wu’s brain, but by the time she realises her current boyfriend Bretnor is the bad guy, Leiko’s his prisoner on a manically murderous version of Fantasy Island…

As Shang & Reston race to the madly modified atoll-turned-playground-of-peril, Wu attempts to reason with the crazed Mordillo, but gets more sense from his Pinocchio-like AI robot sidekick Brynocki, who is trying to mediate a ‘Cyclone at the Center of a Madman’s Crown!’ She does, however, learn that her captor had a connection to Pavane and Velcro and now holds Chi responsible for a huge loss of face and fortune. Another spectacular conclusion comes when maniac and martial artist clash in the skies above the island as the villain briefly unleashes his stolen Solar Chute to rain destruction down on the island in ‘Death-Hand and the Sun of Mordillo’…

What feels like a reformatted leftover from the Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu era follows in #36 & 37 (January & February 1976, by Moench, Keith Pollard & Sal Trapani) with Shang entering a magical maze of mystery. He seeks to defend from ninjas and their leader Darkstrider a carnival of hapless freaks voluntarily living in ‘Cages of Myth, Menagerie of Mirrors!’ but is initially hard-pressed saving anyone from the villain who subtly weaves a ‘Web of Dark Death!’ Moench, Pollard, John Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland continue fantasy themes in Master of Kung Fu Annual #1 during a team-up with fellow transplanted warrior Iron Fist. Here Danny Rand and Shang are tricked into entering another dimension to invade ‘The Fortress of S’ahra Sharn!’ The culprit is trickster wizard Quan-St’ar, whose true goal is the destruction of immortal city K’un-Lun, but he makes one huge mistake…

At their creative peak Moench & Gulacy started an epic, ambitious, truly sophisticated and industry-changing run in MOKF #38 (March 1976). Here Shang Chi reluctantly accepts a rescue mission to extract an agent from Hong Kong, meeting lies, passion, disinformation and deadly love in ‘Cat’. Nayland Smith has again orchestrated events to satisfy his own agenda and saving Julia leads Chi into a ‘Fight Without Pity’ against an opponent who might well be his superior in combat ability… and also holds the moral high ground.

The landmark clash is simply prologue to an extended, character driven serial that opens at ‘The Murder Agency’ (#40 with Gulacy inking himself) as on-fire creators pioneer storytelling techniques later seen in Christopher Nolan’s Memento. A traitor in British Intelligence is murdering agents and the information Nayland Smith wanted from Julia should have given them vital advantage. However, as Shang again quits all “games of death and deceit” he, Tarr & Leiko Wu are attacked by (apparent) Chinese agents masquerading as “Oriental Expediters”.

After helping to defeat the attackers, Wu leaves on a similar extraction mission and suggests that the embattled operatives re-enlist disgraced former agent/current drunken sot James Larner. When they try, he’s got a new pal also boozing himself to death: lovelorn abandoned Clive Reston. That’s when another heavily-armed gang burst in guns blazing, laying down their lives simply to bait a trap the agents can’t afford to avoid…

With the spy saga solidly underway, everything suddenly screeched to a halt as a deadline crunch necessitated another fill-in moment, with Moench, Sal B & Esposito revealing a childhood moment in ‘Slain in Secrecy, and by Illusion!’ Here Shang recalls reluctant clashes with childhood companion M’nai – AKA Si Fan super-assassin Midnight – to prove Fu Manchu’s hallowed home harboured a thief and traitor…

Inked by Tom Sutton, the main event resumes in #42 in a welter of flashbacks, crosscuts and flash forwards as ‘The Clock of Shattered Time’ introduces a mechanically augmented, electrically-enhanced martial arts assassin who almost kills Chi. Shock-Wave has a strong but top-secret connection to Nayland Smith and nearly succeeds in blowing up the spy chief too…

As the MI5 mole and Shock-Wave set more bombs, MOKF #43 sees a changed and vengeful Shang win a rematch with the amplified assassin in ‘A Flash of Purple Sparks’. As Wu escorted her own living package across Europe with the Oriental Expediters chasing them all the way to an MI5 safehouse in Switzerland, Shang was waiting, but his triumph was short-lived as Leiko’s charge revealed who was behind all the deaths – and the Oriental Expediter organisation – and that, in London. another of his allies had fallen…

The drama kicked into overdrive with a long-anticipated event. Cover-dated September 1976, #44 heralded ‘The Return of Fu Manchu, Prelude: “Golden Daggers (A Death Run)”’ with the scattered British agents heading for home under a hail of gunfire and assorted ambushes. Crucially revealed now is how the Devil Doctor’s recalcitrant first-born Fah Lo Suee is at war with their father for control of his empire…

She originally debuted in third novel The Si-Fan Mysteries /The Hand of Fu-Manchu in 1917 (or fourth outing The Daughter of Fu-Manchu in 1931, depending on who you ask) and became a minor character here in Master of Kung Fu #26, but now steps into the full spotlight after Nayland Smith is finally downed… by his most trusted ally! On the back foot and losing, Fah Lo Suee seeks alliances and her brother’s aid in ‘Part One (Shang Chi): “The Death Seed!”’ while Fu Manchu is occupied with resurrecting his founding ancestor to be his new – loyal – son/enforcer.

In London, Larner saves Nayland Smith even as Reston, Shang & Wu reunite and rebuff the “daughter of the Devil”… and that’s when Clive makes a big mistake and is taken by Fah Lo Suee. Inked by Pablo Marcos, ‘Part Two (Clive Reston): “The Spider Spell!”’ splits attention between the British agent’s trial and eventual triumph and Fu resurrecting legendary warlord Shaka Kharn, before ‘Part Three (Leiko Wu): “Phantom Sand”’ details how she & Shang infiltrate a fantastic city at the north pole in advance of what’s left of the team joining them to destroy the citadel. Before that, though, the final clash between father and daughter again confirms the total mastery of the malevolent mandarin…

The true appalling scope of the Devil Doctor’s ambitions are exposed in ‘Part Four (Black Jack Tarr): “City in the Top of the World”’ as the schemer prepares to leave Earth and cull its population by 90%! Meanwhile Shang duels revived revenant Shaka Kharn, and battles his way aboard his sire’s space shuttle even as his companions destroy the base at the cost of another valiant soul in ‘Part Five (Sir Dennis Nayland Smith): “The Affair of the Agent Who Died!”’ The astounding saga – and Gulacy’s interior involvement – ends with #50 as the villain speaks for himself with his plans and perhaps his over-extended life ended for real in ‘Part Six (Fu Manchu): “The Dreamslayer!”’

Master of Kung Fu #51 saw Jim Craig join Moench & Marcos, taking over pencil duties for ‘Epilogue: “Brass and Blackness!” (A Death Move!!)’ infilling details of interments and getting back to Earth where our unhappy reluctant warrior again quits the spy world. The final tale here (#52, May 1977) is one more fill-in as Moench & Pollard reintroduce Groucho Marx knock-off Rufus T. Hackstabber who invites our baffled battler to ‘A Night at the 1001 Nights!’ in search of family (such as reprobate/WC Fields analogue Quigley J. Warmflash); riches and safety from mercenaries led by Si-Fan general Tiger-Claw.

Ernie Chan’s cover to MOKF #53 (which reprinted #20) leads into an bonus section including Gil Kane & Adkins’ covers to Savage Fists of Kung Fu tabloid collector’s edition; house ads: 10 pages of original art plus unused and modified covers. The published ones throughout were crafted by Kane, Adkins, Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Chan, Gulacy, John Romita Jr., Ron Wilson & Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia and Klaus Janson.

In recent years, Shang Chi’s backstory has been adapted and altered. His dad was understandably reinvented as Zheng Zu, Mr. Han, Chang Hu, Wang Yu-Seng and The Devil Doctor, so, depending on your attitude, you have the ultimate choice and sanction of not buying or reading this material. If you do – with eyes wide open and fully acknowledging that the past is another place that we can and should now consign to history – your comics appreciation faculties will see some amazing stories incredibly well illustrated: ranking amongst the most exciting, visually beguiling and enjoyable in Marvel’s canon.
© 2018 MARVEL.

Today in 1987 the final issue of British toddlers weekly Playhour was published, ending a 1700+ run that had commenced on 16th October 1954, whilst on this day back in 1982 cartoonist and master of minimalism Ernie Bushmiller (Mac the Manager, Fritzi Ritz, Nancy) died.

The day saw the birth of Golden Age Superman artist Ed Dobrotka in 1917; Indian cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma (Billoo, Chacha Chaudhary) in 1938; realist action artist Paul Gulacy (Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, Master of Kung Fu, Batman: Prey, Black Widow, Slash Maraud, Six From Sirius, Sci-Spy, James Bond 007) in 1953; writer/Conspiracy historian Lamar Waldron (Lightrunner, M.I.C.R.A.: Mind Controlled Remote Automaton) in 1954; artist Terry Shoemaker (X-Men, Spellbound, Legion of Super-Heroes) in 1960 and “Bad Grrrl” artist Jim Balent (Catwoman, Purgatori, Vampirella, Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose) in 1963. Also blowing out candles today are Iron Man, XO Manowar, Elektra & Wolverine artist Sean Chen and quite rude Norwegian cartoonist Frode Øverli (Pondus, Riskhospitalet, Rutetid, Deep Shit Junkies) – both in 1968, and artists David Nakayama (City of Heroes, Big Hero Six, Proximity) in 1978 and Clay Mann (Magneto: Not a Hero, X-Men: Legacy, XO Manowar, Gambit, Heroes in Crisis) in 1990.

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Pigeons from Hell


By Robert E. Howard, adapted by Scott Hampton & lettered by Steve Vance (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-69-6 (Limited Edition Album HB), 978-0-91303-568-9 (Album TPB)

This book contains Discriminatory Content commonplace in less enlightened times. This book includes Discriminatory Content used for dramatic effect.

Robert Ervin Howard is justly celebrated for his burly, barbarian sword-&-sorcery creations such as Conan, Kull, Bran Mak Morn and others but as a successful jobbing writer in the heyday of pulp fiction he also turned his blazing typewriter to most of the other extant genres of the era. Moreover, as aficionados of his blistering fantasy fiction are well aware, he was a dab hand at creating tension, suspense and moody macabre horror.

During the too-brief time of his creative peak he crafted a select pack of chilling spooky supernatural stories set in the evocative southern milieu known as ArkLaTex – a doom- shrouded, decadence-driven Deep South meeting-point of the darkest corners of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and his beloved Texas. Deeply moved and inspired by old stories heard at his grandmother’s knee, Howard transformed oft-told anecdotes into timeless masterpieces of terror such as The Shadow of the Beast, Moon of Zambebwie, Black Hound of Death, Black Canaan and especially the yarn under scrutiny here: a chilling confection described by Stephen King as “one of the finest horror stories of our century”.

The tirelessly prolific Howard took his own life in 1936 and the prose Pigeons from Hell (unsold since its completion in 1932) was published posthumously in the May 1938 edition of premier pulp Weird Tales. It has become a classic not just of the genre but also a notional inclusion of the prestigious Southern Gothic movement of writers including Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Tennessee Williams and others.

In 1988 the original text was incorporated into a stunningly lush, lavishly painted deeply faithful adaptation by Scott Hampton and published by West Coast mavericks Eclipse Books, which, despite a later version by Joe R. Lansdale & Nathan Fox in 2008 (published by Dark Horse and reviewed here, remains one of the best horror graphic novels ever produced. This is in no small part due to its being printed on magnificently larger-than-life, glossy square white pages produced in the oversized European Album format of 285 x 220mm rather than the standard US proportions of 258 x 168mm.

Following an impassioned Introduction from Horrorist Supreme Ramsey Campbell the Depression-era exercise in the unnatural opens with ‘The Whistler in the Dark’ as a pair of perambulating New Englanders bumming their way across America on a motoring vacation reach the southlands region of Piney Woods and decide to spend the night in a dark, decrepit, abandoned antebellum plantation house.

Crashing out on the musty floor of the main downstairs room they sink into exhausted sleep, but in the middle of the night Griswell is awakened by bad dreams. They’d begun with replaying their arrival at sunset, discovery of the ramshackle edifice and all the oddly ethereal white birds their presence had disturbed. From there his visions had moved on to their quick, cold repast and weary lapse into slumber before shifting into nightmare feelings of disquiet. When Griswell roused, anxious and disturbed, it was with images of ghostly doves, hidden rooms concealing ancient hanging bodies and a sense that something was hiding just beyond his sight…

Trying to shake himself to full alertness, Griswell suddenly heard an eerie whistling and, helpless, watched his companion John Branner rise – as if sleepwalking – to ascend the grand staircase to the upper storey and into all-enveloping darkness. Incapable of movement, Griswell followed the sounds of Branner’s progress and suddenly, a hideous scream came…

Before he could move, Griswell heard Branner’s slow return. Then moonlight allowed a glimpse of his companion, and the sight was enough to send Griswold screaming helter-skelter into the night…

Reaching their automobile he found the vehicle infested with snakes and kept on running, convinced some unknown beast was at his heels. Careering ever on, he ran straight into a local lawman who instantly emptied his revolver into a shadow that pursued him…

‘Return’ fully introduces capable County Sheriff Kirby Buckner, who surprisingly accepts much of Griswell’s incredible tale and provides historical insight into the woeful tale and sinister reputation of Blassenville Manor as he and the terrified vacationer revisit – in full, comforting daylight – a scene of dreadful slaughter.

Swiftly ruling out the possibility of argument and murder amongst friends, Buckner begins searching the house for the true killer but comes up empty. Furthermore, knowing how bad things would look in a rational courtroom, he invites traumatised Griswell to help him get to the truth, by joining him and spending another night in the house…

‘The Snake’s Brother’ finds them preparing for that horrific prospect by researching the tragic history of the last of the Blassenvilles. In the years following the Civil War, three unwed daughters and a cousin, struggling to maintain the old pile, were eventually joined and chaperoned by their cold, brutal Aunt Celia, who had returned from the West Indies to watch over them.

Celia was a terrifying presence, as harsh with the girls as she was with remaining plantation staff and her own much-maltreated “mulatto” maid Joan…

The legend of the girls’ mysterious and sudden disappearance was common knowledge, but for more details Buckner and Griswold question an aged Negro who used to work on the plantation. When pressed, the still-mortally terrified dotard Jacob reveals a fantastic tale of brutal oppression, serpent worship, voodoo and appalling, unleashed, brooding vengeance… until he is hideously struck down by the power that lurks in the mansion…

Appalled, deeply shaken but more resolved than ever, Buckner and Griswold head for the Manor, mistakenly believing that they have a handle on what unquiet horror haunts the place and how to handle it in final chapter ‘The Call of Zuvembie’. They have jumped to a ghastly and tragic wrong conclusion…

Not only is the original prose work one of the best pieces of horror fiction ever written, but in this rare instance this adaptation – crafted over two long, meticulous years by Hampton – more than matches the power and all-encompassing mood of its source material. This is a classic of graphic narrative and fear fiction no fan will want to miss – but only with all the lights on…
© 1932, 1988 the Estate of Robert E, Howard, Glenn Lord Executor. Adaptation and painting © 1988 Scott Hampton. Introduction © 1988 Ramsey Campbell. Pigeons from Hell © 2008, 2009 Robert E. Howard Properties Inc. (“REHP”). All rights reserved.

Today in 1907 Antonia Yeoman was born: an Australian-Englishwoman cartoonist who became the only female member of Punch’s elite (male only) Toby Club. She shares the date with veteran colourist Gene D’Angelo (The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Blondie, Mandrake the Magician, Beetle Bailey, Superman Family, Action Comics, World’s Finest, Flash, Superboy, Justice League of America), born in 1924; Batman artist Lew Sayre Schwartz in 1926; artist Ricardo Villamonte (Doctor Strange, Saga of Crystar) in 1932; Australian cartoonist, sculptor, caricaturist and satirist Pat Oliphant in 1935. In 1947 Filipino artist Romeo Tanghal (New Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Men of War) arrived on Earth, joined in 1958 by writer/editor Bob Greenberger (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Doom Patrol, Who’s Who in the DC Universe, Star Trek, Suicide Squad), and one year later by Guyanese American illustrator Trevor Von Eeden (Black Lightning, Batman, Thriller), with Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Amazing Spider-Man, The Sandman, Orbiter) coming along in 1963.

British Superman Garth debuted today in 1943, in a Daily Mirror strip by Steve Dowling & John Allard that ran until 1997.

The day also saw the deaths of some major and much-beloved players, such as illustrator Lou Fine (The Ray, Black Condor, The Flame, Uncle Sam, The Spirit, Taylor Woe, Adam Ames) in 1971; All Ages All Star Warren Kremer (Richie Rich, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Little Audrey, Stumbo the Giant, Joe Palooka, Planet Terry, Count Duckula, Ewoks, Royal Roy, Top Dog) in 2003 and in 2012, Chilean cartoonist Themístocles Nazario Lobos Aguirre – AKA “Themo Lobos” – (Máximo Chambónez, Ferrilo, Nick Obre, Alaraco, with his most famous work being Mampato, Cucalón) and Indonesian comics author “R. A.” (Raden Ahmad) Kosasih (Sri Asih, Ramayana, Siti Gahara, Seri Mahabharata, Setan Cebol).

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Virginia Woolf’s Orlando – Adapted by Jules Scheele (Orlando: A Graphic Novel Biography)


By Virginia Woolf, adapted by Jules Scheele with Garry Mac (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-24-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Some stories don’t translate well from prose to other narrative media, whilst others are simply made for it. In October 1928, author Virginia Woolf published a heavily-satirical appraisal of English literature down the ages. However, her fantasy epic was simultaneously a not-even-barely-veiled dramatised account of her ongoing, uproarious relationship with an equally notorious member of the British aristocracy…

Everyone in the know knew Orlando: A Biography detailed Woolf’s affair with British High Society’s supreme scandal-instigator… Vita Sackville-West. You can look all that history stuff up elsewhere or read the concise contextual precis that comes with this glorious, striking adaptation in the Foreword by Musician, Diarist and Modern Dandy Dickon Edwards…

The original novel is smart, wry and a fabulous historical whimsy that has become a rallying point and clarion call for all matters Queer, Trans, and Proud, and here is even further enhanced by the fitting tactic of adding seductive pictures to form a sequential narrative…

The tale is simple yet compelling: a beautiful, young and so-innocent poet who is a contemporary (and eventually favourite) of Queen Elizabeth I does not age or die.

Enduring and surviving perilous royal favour, great wealth and privilege, personal beauty and vast creative gifts, the poet has many adventures – most of them amorous, but also involving espionage intrigues, great disasters and shady services to The Crown undertaken abroad – before settling in the beloved old family seat to spend the majority of time and effort writing a magnificent novel: The Oak Tree.

Over decades and centuries Orlando adapts and is transformed by love affairs, courtly adventures, travel and writing. At one point, possibly thanks to the ministrations of a Romani witch (the lore and reputation of “Gypsies” fascinated Vita and Virginia cheekily indulged her in these pages) or simply through benevolent evolution, Orlando becomes an equally enchanting and beguiling woman. She too is left largely untouched by the world – except for its arts and fashions – and continues a life of creative and romantic abundance peppered with affairs and dalliances spiked with memorable personal encounters into an unguessable, primarily creative future…

Preceded by a Dedication culled from Derek Jarman, director of the 1992 film adaptation, Jules Scheele’s necessarily arcanely abbreviated Orlando sidelines the book’s formal presentation for a free-flowing cascade of multi-level images and key incidents broken down into ‘Chapter One: Part One: Orlando as a Boy’ & ‘Part Two: Two Years Later…’; ‘Chapter Two: Part Three: Afflicted with a love of literature’ & ‘Part Four: Vanity Rebuked’; ‘Chapter Three Part Five: Some Kind of Miracle’ & ‘Part Six: Orlando Remained Precisely As He Had Been’; ‘Chapter Four, Part Seven: Life, and a lover’ & ‘Part Eight: The clothes that wear us’ with scenes including days at Court and elsewhere subdivided into ‘Whitehall’, ‘The Court of King James at Greenwich’, ‘The Poet’, ‘The Great Frost’, and ‘Time Passed…’ before the settled days and nights of ‘Life, a lover’ presage a reduction in betrayals and forced exiles as constant war with conformity gives way to creative fruition, personal power and security and the ponderous march of time via ‘Chapter Five, Part Nine: Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Female’ and ‘Chapter Six Part Ten: What, Then, is Life?’ prior to the pausing of passing years in ‘Part Eleven: A Single Self, A Real Self’…

Glasgow-based illustrator Jules Scheele’s previous works have been for the educational and voluntary sectors, including the NHS, Scottish Government, UCL, University of Glasgow, LGBT Youth Scotland, Refugee Sanctuary Scotland, Edinburgh Arts Festival and others. His passion projects are fuelled by and stem from queer media, popular culture, and grass roots politics, and were previously seen via and expressed through DIY zine culture. With Dr. Meg-John Barker, Scheele has created numerous non-fiction graphic novels such as Queer: A Graphic History; Gender: A Graphic Guide and Sexuality: A Graphic Guide.
© Jules Scheele, 2026. All rights reserved.

Orlando – A Graphic Novel Biography will be published on June 18th 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

Today in 1934 Lee Falk’s magnificent epitome of wonder and superheroics Mandrake the Magician first appeared.

Today in 1949 British writer and oriental scholar Steve Moore (Rick Random, Laser Eraser & Pressbutton, Hulk, Doctor Who, Absalom Daak, Tales of Telguuth, Warrior, 2000 AD, Fortean Times) was born.

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The Michael Moorcock Library – Elric: the Eternal Champion Collection


Adapted by James Cawthorn and Philippe Druillet, & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78586-955-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Michael Moorcock began his career at age 15; writing and editing classic British comic strips like Dogfight Dixon, Jet Ace Logan, Captain Condor, Olac the Gladiator, Tarzan and many, many other weekly favourites. As the swinging Sixties dawned he made the transition to prose fiction where he single-handedly revitalised a genre via the creation of Elric and the high-concept notion of an Eternal Champion.

Debuting in 1961, Elric is a landmark of fantasy and particularly its Sword & Sorcery subdivision: the foretold, fore-doomed last ruler of pre-human civilisation Melniboné, a race of cruel, nigh-demonic sorcerers. These arrogant, dissolute creatures are at the end of a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over Earth. Albino Elric is physically weak, buoyed up by drugs, blood and dark magic, and of a brooding, philosophical temperament. He cares for little save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, who will die one day whilst he battles her loathsome usurping brother Prince Yyrkoon in service to a manipulative god of Chaos.

In this collection that day is right now as primary and premiere Elric artist Jim Cawthorne limns that final clash in a hugely personal adaptation from 1976, first and privately published by British concern Savoy Books in an edition that never really reached its natural audience…

“White Wolf” Elric doesn’t even want to rule, but it is his duty, and he is the only one of his debased race to see the (comparatively) freshly evolved race of Man as a threat to the Empire. He is owned if not actually possessed by terrible black sword Stormbringer: one of a matched pair of sorcerous weapons that steal the souls of their victims and feed that stolen life and vitality to the wielder…

Elric is a tragic incarnation of the restless Eternal Champion, reincarnated in every time, place and alternate dimension. His life is violence, blood and unending tragedy, exacerbated by dependence on that soul-drinking ebony blade and his sworn – if somewhat compelled and thus reluctant – allegiance to the chimerical Lords of Chaos.

Everybody knows all that, right?

The 13th volume in a proposed complete Michael Moorcock Library of comics adaptations (as well as reissue of the prose works), these yarns – chronologically at least – are the very first pictorial narratives of the doomed king; given an archival polish and pictorial upgrade by way of a brace of Introductions from Moorcock himself and Philippe Druillet. They are bolstered by a substantial contextual essay at the end. First, though, is time for a little history…

A migrated Tynesider lodged surreptitiously and contentedly in Ladbroke Grove at a time of great turmoil in the UK, James Cawthorn was an old friend, comics co-worker and always Moorcock’s preferred illustrator of the Last Emperor. Driven, solitary, universally respected and wedded to his craft, he wrote strips for Lion, Tiger and the UK weekly comics mill, painted murals and probably book covers; made backdrops for theatre productions; private art commissions; decorated apparel and/or instruments for musicians and bands like Hawkwind and Motörhead while toiling laboriously (and far too slowly and meticulously to be commercial) on beloved passion pieces like Stormbringer.

Cawthorne’s unique and potent adaptation of Moorcock’s epic book (a reworking of novellas Dead God’s Homecoming, Black Sword’s Brother, Sad Giant’s Shield and Doomed Lord’s Passing) was his masterpiece: released by admirers at Savoy because its owners Dave Britton & Michael Butterworth were prepared to pay in advance and wait for him to finish according to his own excoriatingly exaction standards. It was worth the wait when that epically huge cardstock album (600 x 430mm – 24 inches by 17!) finally blew away those lucky enough to get a copy. This reproduction gives readers everything they could want, but sadly cannot impart the wonderous sheer bloody size of it in your hands…

It was mostly missed here but hugely popular in German…

The complex convoluted story of that book’s creation holds even more revelations but are Moorcock’s to share, so let’s turn briefly to the tale itself.

Michael Moorcock’s irresistible blend of brooding Faustian tragedy and all-consuming action is (arguably) best enjoyed in his stories of Elric, but that restless imagination crafted many incarnations of his Eternal Champion able to stand on their own bloody merits and constantly shaped and reinterpreted by a vast and varied array of unique artistic visions. Elric is one doom-drenched, tragedy-attracting incarnation of the Eternal Champion, an aspect of a heroic force reincarnated in every time, place and alternate dimension. His specific life is bound to blood and self-torment, exacerbated by his dependence on a soul-drinking black sword and his sworn allegiance to callous and chimerical Lords of Chaos.

Here that angst-filled destiny come crashing around the hero’s head as brief moments of domestic contentment are washed away in blood when the eternal war between the Lords of Chaos and Order leads to the abduction of his human wife Zarozinia and Elric taking up the black blade for the final times. He reunites with old companion Moonglum and hunts down Jagreen Lern, Theocrat of Pan Tang as he attempts to conquer the world for his allies, the Dukes of Hell. The battles are long, savage, brutal and fantastical and result in the end of all that exists. However, it’s never been about when or where one dies but how and why…

Admit it, you should read more books, right?

Counterpointing that epic comics narrative is a contemporaneous appreciation from across the channel, where Europe also caught the cosmic zeitgeist of the era..

In the 1960s Elric’s oeuvre was translated by Moorcock & author Maxim Jakubowski introducing an up and coming illustrator to the world of Heroic Fantasy. Comics and fantasy storytelling took a huge leap forward in 1975 when Gallic comics collective Les Humanoides Associes began publishing groundbreaking magazine Métal Hurlant. However, one of their future visual mainstays had begun breaking borders and boundaries almost a decade earlier.

Photographer/artist Philippe Druillet started his comics career in 1966 with apocalyptic science fiction epic Le Mystère des abîmes (The Mystery of the Abyss) which introduced doom-tainted intergalactic freebooter and nomadic wanderer Lone Sloane in a tale of a far distant tomorrow thematically influenced in equal measure by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and A.E. Van Vogt. We will get to his other works in the courses of times…

Born in Toulouse in 1944, Druillet was raised in Spain, and his comics work was grandiose, panoramic, deeply baroque and overwhelmingly cosmic in scope. He also pretty much rejected standard formats and panels layouts in favour of boldly shocking graphics. Druillet began working for Pilote in 1969 and revived his star-rover in numerous shorter pieces, initially published together in 1972 as The Six Voyages. This collection, however, focuses on his brief but inspirational dealings with Moorcock’s primary ill-fated cosmic traveller…

After preliminary tentative spreads in Moi Aussi, in 1969, a 21-plate portfolio entitled La Saga d’Elric le Necromancien was published. In 1973 Moorcock’s reworking of Michel Demuth’s text for the portfolio became Elric: The Return to Melniboné as published by Unicorn Bookshop in 1973. Its influence was far-reaching: just ask American creators like Keith Giffen, who repatterned his entire drawing style on what he saw…

Reproduced in its original monochrome, the brief interlude spectacularly and mind-alteringly details how the former Emperor reclaims his throne and position from apparently-ascendant rival Prince Yyrkoon and reacquaints himself with his bride-to-be Cymoril. Elric has no conception that the Lords of Chaos are closely watching and laying their plans for his future…

Closing the arcana and antiquities is ‘Elric and the Artists’ an incisively informative briefing by John Davey, detailing earlier efforts to visualise the Last Emperor, concentrating on his prose debuts, before going on to summarise and scrutinise the long history of graphic novel and comics interpretations.

Moorcock and his visual collaborators changed the comics world forever, This is how that all started…

Adapted from the works of Michael Moorcock related to the character of ELRIC © 2021, Michael & Linda Moorcock. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are TM & © Michael Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.
Elric the Return to Melniboné was first published by Unicorn Bookshop, 1973. Stormbringer was first published by Savoy Books in 1976.

EC horror and romance maestro Jack Kamen was born today in 1920, and shares the date with eco-activist cartoonist Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld) from 1951; editor and scripter Jim Salicrup in 1957; British comics veteran/educator Nigel Kitching (Sonic the Comic) in 1959 and The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder in 1974.

Today in 1960 an era ended with the final page published of Warren Tufts’ Lance.

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The James Bond Omnibus volume 001


By Ian Fleming; adapted by Anthony Hern, Peter O’Donnell, Henry Gammidge & John McLusky (Titan Books)
ISBN: 987-1-84856-364-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s sad to admit but there are very few British newspaper strips to challenge the influence and impact of classic daily and Sunday “funnies” from America, especially in the febrile but slowly expiring the field of adventure picture-fiction.

The 1930’s and 1940’s were rich in popular, not to say iconic, creations. You would be hard-pressed to come up with homegrown household names to rival Popeye, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, let alone Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon, or the likes of Little Lulu, Blondie, Li’l Abner, Little Orphan Annie or Popeye and yes, I know I said him twice, but Elzie Segars’s Thimble Theatre was funny as well as thrilling, constantly innovative, and really, really good.

What strips can you recall to equal simple popularity let alone longevity or quality in Britain? Rupert Bear? Absolutely. Giles? Technically, yes. Nipper? Jane? The Perishers? Garth? Judge Dredd? Scorer?

I’d like to hope so, but I doubt it. The Empire didn’t quite get it until it wasn’t an empire any more. There were certainly very many wonderful strips being produced: well-written and beautifully drawn, but that stubborn British reserve plus a completely different editorial view of the marketplace (which just didn’t consider strips infallible, readership-attracting magnets, as American did) never seemed to be in the business of creating household names – until the 1950’s. Something happened in ‘50s Britain, but I’m not going to waste any space here discussing it. It just did.

In a new egalitarian spirit that seemingly craved excitement and accepted previously disregarded, comics (as well as all tawdry “entertainment” media from radio serials to paperback novels) got carried along on the wave. Just like television, periodicals such as Eagle, the regenerated Dandy and Beano and girls’ comics in general all shifted into creative high gear… and so at last did newspapers.

And that means that I can properly extol the virtues of a graphic collection with proven crossover appeal for once. Debut 007 novel Casino Royale was published in 1953 and was subsequently serialised – after much dithering and nervousness on behalf of author Fleming – as a strip in The Daily Express from 1958. It was the start of a beguiling run of novel and short story adaptations scripted by Anthony Hern, Henry Gammidge, Peter O’Donnell and Kingsley Amis, before Jim Lawrence, a jobbing writer of US features (and who’d previously scripted the aforementioned Buck Rogers) came aboard for The Man With the Golden Gun, completing the transfer of the Fleming canon to strip format. Thereafter Lawrence was invited to create new adventures, which he did until the strip’s demise in 1983.

The art on the feature was always of the highest standard. Initially John McLusky handled the illustration until 1966’s conclusion of You Only Live Twice and, although perhaps lacking in flash or verve, the workmanlike clarity of his drawing easily coped with a daunting array of locales, technical set-ups and sheer immensity of cast members, whilst satisfying the then-novel directive of advancing a plot daily whilst ending each episode on a cliff-hanging hook every time.

McLusky was succeeded by Yaroslav Horak, who debuted on Man with the Golden Gun, offering a looser, edgier style, at once more cinematic and with a closer attention to camera angle and frenzied action that seemed to typify the high-octane 1960’s. Horak limned 26 complete adventures until 1977 when The Daily Express axed the Bond feature with a still-running adventure suddenly switching to The Sunday Express from January 30th until conclusion on May 22nd. Later adventures had no UK presence at all, and only appeared in syndication in European papers. This state of affairs continued until 1981 when British paper The Daily Star restored the feature to Britons with ‘Doomcrack’.

Titan Books re-assembled those scarce-seen tales – a heady brew of adventure, sex, intrigue and death – into addictively accessible monochrome Omnibus Editions, (sadly not available digitally at present) with a dedicated band of creators on top form proving how the world’s greatest agent never rests in his mission to keep us all free, safe, shaken (if not stirred) and thoroughly entertained…

This premier no-nonsense paperback gem adapting 11 of Fleming’s best, frantic derring-do and dark, deadly diplomacy commences with ‘Casino Royale’ as British operative Bond is ordered to gamble with and bankrupt Le Chiffre: a communist agent who has insanely embezzled away his Soviet masters’ operating capital.

The moodily compelling tale of tension that results depicts torture and violent death as well as oppressively suspenseful scenes of graphic gambling, heady stuff for newspaper readers of 1958, when it first ran.

Without pausing for breath or a fresh martini, the Bond briefing segues straight into ‘Live and Let Die’ which sees 007 and US agent Felix Leiter tackle Mr. Big, another scurrilous commie agent/devious genius who rules the Harlem underworld through superstition, voodoo and brutal force. Then, ‘Moonraker’ details the attempt by ex-Nazi officer Hugo Drax to drop a guided missile on London, a task made far simpler since the maniac has infiltrated the British aristocracy…

These newspaper strips come from a period when dependable John McLusky was developing a less formal approach, before going on to produce some of his best work. ‘Casino Royale’ was the opening strip in a near 25-year run, and the somewhat muted artwork shows an artist still not completely comfortable with his task. It was adapted and scripted by Anthony Hern, who had won the author’s approval after writing condensed prose versions of the novels for the Daily Express. Live and Let Die and Moonraker were both adapted by Henry Gammidge.

As McLusky settled in for the long haul, he warmed to the potentialities of the job with cracking tales of Cold-War intrigue and fast, dangerous living set in a multitude of exotic locales, and provides here a welcome return to public gaze of some of the most influential – and exciting – comic strips in British history.

The adaptation of ‘Diamonds are Forever’ pits Bond against an insidious diamond smuggling criminals, in an explosive if uncomplicated all-action romp before shifting into terse, low-key thriller ‘From Russia With Love’ (both courtesy of Gammidge & McLusky). The artist hit a creative peak with ‘Dr No’ – perhaps because of the sparkling script from Peter O’Donnell before he sloped off to create the amazing Modesty Blaise. As Bond returns to Jamaica and investigates the disappearance of two operatives he stumbles upon a plot to sabotage the US rocketry program. These stories come from an age at once less jaded but more worldly; a place and time where readers lived daily with the very real threat of instant annihilation. As such, the easy approachability of the material is a credit to the creators.

‘Goldfinger’ faithfully adapts Fleming’s novel of the world’s most ambitious bullion robbery, so if you’re only familiar with the film version there will be some things you’ve not seen before. The action fairly rockets along and tense suspense is maintained throughout this signature tale. Following that is ‘Risico’ as 007 is tasked with stopping heroin smugglers whose motive is not profit but social destabilisation. Next is ‘From a View to a Kill’: a traditional, low-key Cold War thriller with Bond trailing gangsters stealing state secrets by ambushing military dispatch riders…

In the Roger Moore film incarnation Risico was folded into ‘For Your Eyes Only’ but here you get the real deal with a faithful adaptation of Fleming’s short story, wherein Bond is given a mission of revenge and assassination. Set in Jamaica with Nazi war-criminal Von Hammerstein as culprit and target for the man licenced to kill, it’s a solid piece of dramatic fiction that again bears little similarity to the celluloid adventure.

The volume concludes with the then-controversial ‘Thunderball’ adaptation. That particular tale was savagely censored and curtailed at the behest of Daily Express owner Lord Beaverbrook. Five days of continuity were excised but what remains is still pretty engrossing comic fare and at least some effort was made to wrap up the storyline before the strip ended. In case you don’t recall: When Bond is sent on enforced medical leave, he stumbles into a deadly plot to steal nuclear weapons by a subversive organisation calling itself Spectre…

These grand stories are a must for not only aficionados of Bond but for all thriller fans, as an example of truly gripping adventure uncluttered by superficial razzamatazz. Get back to basics, and remember that classic style is never out of fashion.
All strips are © Ian Fleming Publications Ltd/Express Newspapers Ltd 1987. James Bond and 007 are ™ & © Danjaq LLC used under license from Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.

In 1915 prolific scripter Hank Chapman was born, with artistic maestro John Cullen Murphy (Prince Valiant) coming along four years later. Miss Pearl and Momma creator Mel Lazarus popped up in 1927, and Belgian Sammy draughtsman Berck (Arthur Berckmans) in 1928. Comic book legend Denny O’Neil was born in 1939 and Bill Sienkiewicz in 1958. German cartoonist Jan-Michael Richter – of Jamiri fame – came along in 1966 as did Nina Paley in 1968, and Mexican Gerardo Sandoval (Tomb Raider, Venom), and the date saw the first appearance of Zig et Puce (by Alain Saint-Ogan) in 1925; the premiere of Donald Duck (a bit player in Silly Symphony: The Wise Little Hen) in 1934; the launch of Dutch silent comic Fred’nand in 1937and the debut of Tiger by Bud Blake in 1965.

Milton Caniff died today in 1988.

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The Little Prince – A Graphic Novel adapted from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


By Joann Sfar, with colours by Brigitte Findakly, translated by Sarah Ardizzone (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-46-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The Little Prince was written by warrior, aeronaut, aristocrat, illustrator and auteur Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Published in 1943 in the US in French & English, and again posthumously in1946 (as the pilot/writer had been Missing; Presumed Dead for two years), it became a glabally popular classic. You should read it in the language of your choice. It’s been adapted into every form of human expression and never failed to impress or deeply move.

In 2008 Joann Sfar adapted it to his preferred medium, and Le Petit Prince: d’après d’oeuvre d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was published by Gallimard Jeunesse. In the 80th anniversary year since the original book took off, SelfMadeHero celebrate the event with a fabulous, augmented edition to simply wallow in.

As well as fully re-presenting Sfar’s bold interpretation this tome also offers a fully updated translation and includes a ‘Timeline’ for Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his creations, and from Ardizzone herself a concluding ‘Translator’s Note – The Reader Perched on Your Shoulder’ to accompany the now-traditional creators’ biographies as closing ‘Authors’ section.

You’ve heard this before and its’s still utterly true, some things you don’t talk about, you just do, and this mesmerising adaptation is the very epitome of that. Here’s all you get from me…

In the African desert an aviator strives to repair his downed plane. The work is hard, his head hurts and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He always wanted to be an artist, not a flier doomed to die of thirst and loneliness in blistering heat…

Abruptly his prospects change as a strange, golden-haired boy asks him to draw a sheep…

Soon the politely engaging lad is keeping him company as he works: telling of the strange small planet he came from, the oddly toxic relationship that compelled him to leave, and the bizarre individuals he met in his travels through space to Earth. Companionship is welcome, even if the shared tales are dolorous and often painful and distressing to hear, but as the aviator adapts to the fact that he probably won’t make it, he increasingly fears for the mournful child. The Little Prince claims to be preparing to return to his small world and lost inamorata, but only seems to be courting the company of the deadly, poisonous reptiles that abound in the arid wastelands…

In a place most folks don’t visit anymore, there’s a secret list of all the books and stories one needs to read to be considered a human being. This is on it (quite near the top, in fact) and, even as radically re-imagined as it was been here by Sfar, demands your attention and consideration.

So go do that then. Vite! Vite!
© Gallimard Jeunesse, 2008. English translation © Sarah Ardizzone, 2010, 2026. All rights reserved.

Yesterday in 1962 Swedish comics maven Joakim Lindgren was born, but in 1957, we lost Jack Butler Yeats, creator of Chublock Holmes in Comic Cuts (arguably the first comic book serial), Underground Commix mega-star Dave Sheridan in 1982, Italian comics stalwart Nicola Del Principe (Le Justicier Masqué, Tom and Jerry) in 2002 and in 2013 Spanish/Argentine artist, cartoonist, animator and publisher Manuel García Ferré.

Yesterday in 1991, iconoclastic UK all-star comic Toxic began: running until October 24 of that year and introducing many cool characters such as Accident Man, The Bogie Man and Marshal Law.

Today in 1901, foundational Croatian comics artist Andrija Maurovi? (Empress of the Netherworld, Beware the Hand from Senj) was born, as was Mark Trail cartoonist Jack Elrod in 1924, and UK scribbler David Austin (Hom Sap) in 1935. Trail-blazing Wayne Howard (first US creator to be cover-credited for a strip series) was born in 1949, Val Mayerik (Howard the Duck co-creator) one year later, Marc Silvestri in 1958 and Jim Mahfood (Clerks, Grrl Scouts, Spider-Man, The Further Adventures of One Page Filler Man, Carl, The Cat That Makes Peanut Butter Sandwiches) in 1975. In 1983, Gene Ahern’s 60-year run on legendary strip Our Boarding House ended with its cancelation. Two years later Kerry Drake creator Alfred Andriola died, followed in 2007 by writer Leslie Waller, co-creator (with Arnold Drake & Matt Baker) of the “first US Original Graphic Novel” It Rhymes with Lust (St John Press Picture Novel, 1950).

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Hell on Earth – A DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel


By Robert Bloch, adapted by Keith Giffen & Robert Loren Fleming with Greg Theakston, Bill Wray, Gaspar Saladino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 978-0-93028-905-8 (Album TPB)

During the 1980s DC, on a creative roll like many publishers large and small, attempted to free comics narrative from previous constraints of size and format as well as content. To this end, legendary editor Julie Schwartz called upon his old contacts from his youthful days as a Literary Agent to inveigle major names from the book world to have their early Sci-Fi and fantasy classics adapted into a line of Science Fiction Graphic Novels.

One of the most radical interpretations came courtesy of celebrated comedy wise-guys Keith Giffen & Robert Loren Fleming, with inks and colours from Greg Theakston & Bill Wray, not to mention phenomenal lettering and calligraphic effects from Gaspar Saladino.

Revered horror fantasist Robert Bloch developed out of the Lovecraftian tradition of the early pulps to become a household name for books such as Psycho and I Am Legend, which replaced unspeakable elder gods with just-as-nasty yet smaller-scaled devils like Jack the Ripper or that strange guy in the next apartment. In 1943 he scripted a blackly ironic tale of three ordinary people, researcher Professor Phillips Keith, his assistant Lily Ross and the reporter/pulp horror writer they hire to document their great experiment.

The tense interplay of this claustrophobic chiller is effectively captured by illustrator Giffen in his multi-panelled homage/distillation of José Muñoz’s stark art style as the experiment proceeds and the parapsychologists proceed to bring the Devil to Earth and trap him in a glass cage. Of course, as the lives of the trio spiral down into a miasma of darkness, guilt and regret, we have to ask: “Is he really trapped?”

Although a wordy, moody text, the interpreters have crafted a visual analogue that is just as tense and stifling as the original (which, if Satan is on your side, you might find in even rarer compilation Hell on Earth: the Lost Bloch volume two), so if you like daring art and classic spookiness you should track down this album. And while you’re at it why not grab the prose piece as well and see how it works sans graphic narrative?
© 1942 Weird Tales. Text and illustrations © 1985 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1927 George Storm’s venerable adventure strip Bobby Thatcher began, as did our entire hobby in a way, since in 1970 Minicon (precursor to Comic Con International) opened in San Diego’s U.S. Grant Hotel.

In 1929 Zagor cocreator Gallieno Ferri was born, just like Al Williamson in 1931, Mark Waid in 1962 and Jeff Lemire in 1976. In 1959 we lost jobbing artist Edwin Balmer of Speed Spaulding fame.

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No Surrender


By Constance Maud: adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-406-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Happy International women’s day 2026! And if you’re a guy who groaned. swore and reached for your huge, Massive THROBBING keyboard to type out those trollish insults someone else made up for you, HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2026 AGAIN! SEE YOU NEXT YEAR?

Constance Elizabeth Maud (1857-1929) was a child of privilege: daughter of a celebrated English scholar and cleric. She was primarily educated in France and lived there or in Chelsea for most of her life. Between 1895 and 1924 she wrote numerous articles and 8 novels – of which No Surrender was the penultimate – and became a member of the 400-strong Women Writers Suffrage League. In 1908 she joined The Women’s Social and Political Union and The Women’s Freedom League: turning her writings to the needs of the cause. Her work subsequently appeared in many periodicals, especially magazines like the Suffragist movement’s newspaper Votes For Women.

In No Surrender (published in 1911 – and again in an annotated centenary edition released by publisher Persephone in 2011), Maud incorporated actual events with fictionalised analogues of many contemporary activists participating in the struggle to craft a history and playbook of the campaign for emancipation. The book became a rallying point and recruiting tool for the movement and was used to promote the soft end of the battle for equality. It inspired countless women (and presumable many male sympathisers) with a dramatised story of how the great and good would join with the humblest workers and unite to overcome…

Maud lived just long enough to see British women secure the right to vote: in 1918 with the Representation of the People Act – which enfranchised women over 30 years old – and at last witnessing universal female suffrage established in 1928’s Act, legislating that all Britons of 21 years or above could freely vote.

The main reason why No Surrender was such an effective weapon in the war to win the vote for all is that its propaganda and polemic were deftly disguised by readily accessible drama. Beginning in industrial hub Greyston, ‘The Mill’ tells how northern mill worker Jenny Clegg is fired up by the many injustices afflicting women’s lives: with cruelty, unfair taxation, financial neglect, legitimised maltreatment and a status of second-class citizens chaining every female to a man of the gutter…

Rebelling, she forsakes her crusading socialist love interest Joe Hopton – a successful prime mover in winning better lives and wages for male workers – and dedicates her life to winning those same rights and representation for women. Upper class Suffragist Mary O’Neill has a more refined but similarly intransigent family at ‘The Country House’, all decrying her passion for women’s suffrage. She and Jenny will become friends, allies and leading lights in the struggle, inspiring millions of women, converting men, embarrassing the authorities and challenging a society where even other women refuse to see a status quo threatened…

Both driven by ‘The Calling’, they and a growing army of allies will invade London and suffer police and legal suppression in ‘The Courtyard’ and face ‘The Magistrate’ but never stray from their course. Whether testing tactics in ‘The Routes To Battle’ or challenging their detractors through heated debate on ‘The Cart’, the socially-distanced allies never stop their work, and gradually make converts even amongst the stratified intelligentsia who enjoy the closeted luxuries of ‘The Weekend Cottage’…

Just like a soap opera, the story sees multiple characters interact on many levels but underpinning it all is a roster of actual protest events woven into the plot, such as ambushing off-duty cabinet ministers in ‘The Church’ and then infiltrating ‘The Dinner Party’ to reinforce their message.

The darkest and most notorious moments of the cause are also featured, as Clegg, O’Neill and other noted activists of every class endure imprisonment, abuse and medical torture – but each according to their own social rank and standing – in ‘The Crushed Butterfly’, ‘The Prison’ and the deeply distressing culmination of ‘The Punishment’. Always, efforts to disunite and separate rich from poor, inherently virtuous from tawdry and lowborn, fails as their core principle – that they are all women together – utterly eludes the smug, hectoring, insensate elitist male oppressors; prejudiced and scared working men and the Anti-Suffrage Women’s groups populated with ladies who know and defend their privileged positions in the world…

Ultimately, Jenny and Joe are united in the cause and Mary makes her own converts in ‘The Homecoming’ before the story ends with a proud rallying of all in the march to inevitable universal enfranchisement and victory in ‘The Standard is Raised’ – a rousing graphic tour de force with illustrator Sophie Rickard crafting a stunning multi-page fold-out any art fan would cry to see…

Maud’s tale was ostensibly a romance and account of families in crisis with a thinly disguised moral message like any Dickens or Thomas Hardy novel. She explored and contrasted the lives of poor working folk with gentry and aristocracy, but also scrupulously catalogued the added travails and insecurities of working women. At this time women had been successively deprived of most financial and civil rights and privileges. They had to pay taxes but enjoyed no representation under the law; could not be legal guardians of their own children or property and, if married, could not divorce whilst their husbands could. The men could also beat them, but only with cudgels of judicially-mandated size…

At the end of this hefty and deliciously substantial graphic novel there’s a chart showing when – and how incrementally – nations of the world instituted female enfranchisement, and an Afterword by adapting creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (This Slavery, Mann’s Best Friend, A Blow Borne Quietly, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists), naming names and offering factual provenance for incidents and characters enriching the narrative. It also declares why – in the current environment where a citizen’s right to dissent and protest is being deviously and criminally whittled away – the principles of organised resistance and role and consequences of righteous civil disobedience must be stridently defended…

Fair minded, honestly and powerfully expressing the views of all – including those opposing universal enfranchisement (and restoration of previously-removed social and civil rights) – Maud’s words are reinvigorated here with the authorities, capitalists, police and judiciary all given a fair hearing – and generally convicted out of their own mouths. Of particular interest to modern readers will be the opinions of women who didn’t want a vote and the low workingmen who were generally the most passionate and violent opponents of change and equality…

Powerful, enraging, engaging and even occasionally funny, this never-more-timely tale of the force of the disenfranchised with their backs to the wall and ready to fight is supremely readable and should be compulsory viewing for all – as long as we don’t force anyone to…
© 2022 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2022 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2022 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.

Today in 1880 Wonder Woman co-creator Harry G. Peter was born.

In 1907 Dutch comics master Charles Boost (Broeder Bastiaan, Knor de Pot, Neppie Tuun, Jan de Zeehond, Robinson Crusoë) was born, as was Mad magazine cartoonist Jack Rickard in 1922, Sal Amendola in 1948, and Eric Powell in 1975.

In 1936 The Sunday Post featured Dudley D. Watkins’ The Broons & Oor Wullie for the first time, and in 1975 iconic UK comic Battle Picture Weekly launched the first of its 644 issues, and just kept on doing it until January 1988.

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Lafcadio Hearn’s The Faceless Ghost and Other Macabre Tales from Japan: A Graphic Novel


By Seán Michael Wilson & Michiru Morikawa (Shambhala Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-61180-197-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

If you read prose and love old stories you should really track down the works of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek raconteur latterly renamed Koizumi Yakumo. They are wonderful and truly compelling. He was a pretty impressive character too, so you’d be best served to learn of his remarkable life too.

I’m not certain how the socially pioneering teacher, journalist, historian, translator and archivist would react to seeing some of his most engaging works translated into graphic narratives but as a renowned breaker of borders and flouter of taboos, I suspect he’d approve, even if this gleefully wry collation hadn’t been produced by such stellar luminaries as Scottish author Seán Michael Wilson (Breaking the Ten, Portraits of Violence – An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking, Ranald MacDonald: a manga of his adventures in Japan) and his frequent collaborator Michiru Morikawa.

Wilson’s life has some parallels with Hearn’s. The Japan-based writer, educator and dedicated Humanist has written political and philosophical tracts such as Goodbye God – An Illustrated Examination of Science Vs. Religion in graphic form and adapted Western and Eastern literary classics like Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol, Sweeney Todd, and Chinese classics Tao Te Ching and The Garden, as well as original genre pieces such as urban interracial romance The Story of Lee.

Illustrator and manga artist Michiru Morikawa won the 2005 International Manga and Anime Award before going on to illustrate Wilson’s books Buskers, Yakuza Moon, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts and Musashi, amongst numerous comics series.

Hearn visited Japan as a correspondent in 1890, and fell in love with the land and the culture. He ended his days there in 1904, after marrying, becoming a Japanese citizen, teaching in numerous schools and universities and introducing the western world to the exotic, enigmatic East through his writings and translations of its myths and legends.

Absurdly accessible, the tales here are gathered from the nation’s feudal period and open with a samurai yarn dubbed ‘Diplomacy’, wherein a highborn executioner performs his onerous task and plays a subtle and crafty trick upon the imminently departed to ensure that there will be no repercussions from beyond the grave…

That mordantly amusing distraction then gives way to a classic ghost story in ‘The Snow Woman’, wherein a young woodcutter survives an icy encounter with a mystical spirit at the cost of a simple promise. Tragically, in all such stories, keeping one’s word is always impossible and leads to appalling inescapable circumstances.

Vanity and dissatisfaction fuel the saga ‘Of a Mirror and a Bell’, after the priests of Mugenyama ask the local women to donate their bronze mirrors so they can be cast into a great bell. After complying, one farmer’s wife begins to bitterly regret her actions and so intense are her feelings that the mirror cannot be melted down.

Wracked with guilt for her shameful intentions and the spoiling of the bell, she takes her life, triggering a concatenation of unfortunate events…

After the history-making final clash between Heike (Taira) and Genji (Minamoto) clans, the rulership of Japan was decided for centuries to come. However, the consequent sea battle created thousands of ghosts and ‘Hoichi the Earless’ relates how a blind musician and bard is tricked and beguiled by these restless spirits until a Buddhist priest intervenes. The end result was not an unqualified success…

Pitiless, inescapable horror drives the brief yet potent tale of a luckless merchant who encounters ‘The Faceless Ghost’, whilst love and friendship inspire the story of a young man in need of a bride who prospers after he graciously saves a shark spirit and is uniquely rewarded by ‘The Gratitude of the Samebito’…

As recounted in the ‘Author’s Note’ – detailing the origins and source material of these adaptions – the stories are mostly taken from Hearn’s books Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903) and Shadowings (1900), and come packed with sleek, informative and delightfully rambling diversions which add fabulously engaging context to the stories.

Eerie, exotic and wonderfully compelling, these “yokai” stories are gems of unease, disquiet and wonder that no lover of the strange can fail to adore.
© 2015 by Sean Michael Wilson. Illustrations © 2015 by Michiru Morikawa. All rights reserved.

Today in 1894 Little Orphan Annie creator Harold Gray was born, as was George (Green Arrow, Superboy, Congo Bill) Papp in 1916 and Scots pen & pencil wizard John McLusky (James Bond, Secret Agent 13, Laurel and Hardy, Pink Panther, Look and Learn) in 1923. In 1944 Bill (Zippy the Pinhead) Griffith joined the world as did Keith Pollard (Thor, Fantastic Four, Vigilante) in 1950.

On the debit side the world lost caricaturist, cartoonist and father of French animation Émile Cohl in 1938 and in 2017, master draughtman, painter, educator, film production artist, comics star and thoroughly sound bloke John Watkiss (Sandman, Ring of Roses, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Deadman, Starman).

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Indiana Jones: The Further Adventures Omnibus volume 1


By Walt Simonson, Denny O’Neil, David Michelinie, Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin, John Buscema, John Byrne, Gene Day, Richard Howell, Ron Frenz, Kerry Gammill, Dan Reed, Luke McDonnell, Terry Austin, Mel Candido, Danny Bulanadi, Sam de La Rosa, & various (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-246-8 (Dark Horse TPB) 978-1-84576-808-9 (Titan TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and literary effect.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: What Blockbuster Really Means… 8/10

Next June sees the 45th anniversary of the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Who knows if we’ll still be here then, so in lieu of biblical smiting or the end coming courtesy of the babies, nitwits and monsters giving all the orders right now, here’s a rowdy recollection that’s fun to read and where Nazis at least have the chutzpah to admit it…

Although dormant for the moment, Dark Horse Comics have held the comics-producing franchise for Indiana Jones since 1993: generating thousands of pages of material, much of it excellent and some not quite. It might be construed as heretical to say it, but dedicated film fans aren’t all that quality conscious when it comes to their particular fascination, whether it’s games about finding Atlantis or the latest watered-down kids’ interpretation or whatever.

The Dark Horse Omnibus line was a wonderfully economical way to keep older material in print for such fans by bundling old publications into classy, full-colour digests. They were slightly smaller than US comic-books but larger than a standard tank?bon manga book, running about 400 pages per tome, but not all of them were available in digital editions. The entire format carried over when Marvel reacquired the Star Wars franchise and has been used since for their Alien and Predator lines.

This initial Indy volume (of three) chronologically re-presents the first dozen Marvel Comics (the original license holder) interpretations which followed the film Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as including the 3-issue miniseries adaptation by Walt Simonson, John Buscema & Klaus Janson that preceded that celluloid landmark. I’m being this specific because the comic version was also released as a single glossy, enhanced-colour magazine in the Marvel Super Special series (#18: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark if you’re curious).

So – just in case you’re the one who hasn’t seen the film… Set in the days before World War II, Hitler’s paranormal investigation division gathers occult artifacts from around the planet and soon crosses swords with a rough & ready unconventional archaeology professor from a New York university. Soon the far-from-esteemed Doctor Indiana Jones is scammed by the US government into tracking down his old tutor: a savant who might have knowledge of the biblical and mystically potent Ark of the Covenant…

Although Abner Ravenwood has since died, his daughter Marion possesses clues Jones needs. Unfortunately, she’s also an old flame he abandoned and would rather burn in hell than help him. However, when Nazis turn up and try to torch her in the Nepalese bar she washed up in, Marion joins Jones in a breakneck chase across the world from Cairo to the lost city of Tanis to a secret Nazi submarine base on a tropical island, fighting natives and Nazis every step of the way until the ancient artifact separates the just from the wicked in a spectacular and terrifying display of Old Testament style Wrath…

The movie’s format – baffling but breakneck search for a legendary object, chased or anticipated by utterly irredeemable antagonists, exotic locales, non-stop action, outrageous fights and just a hint of eldritch overtones – became staples for the comic book series that followed. It opened in impressive manner with ‘The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones’: a 2-part yarn from Jack-of-all-genres John Byrne, assisted by Terry Austin, with veteran scripter Denny O’Neil pitching in for the concluding ‘22-Karat Doom!’

When an old student is murdered before his eyes, Indy swears to complete the lad’s research, subsequently trekking through Africa in search of a mythical tribe who turn men to gold. He is never more than one step ahead of a maniac millionaire with no love of mysteries or antiquities, but possessed by a deep and abiding love of profit…

That adventure ends with our hero plunging out of a doomed plane and into issue #3’s US-set adventure ‘The Devil’s Cradle’ (by O’Neil, Gene Day, Richard Howell, Mel Candido & Danny Bulanadi) wherein Indy lands in a hillbilly wilderness where a rogue US Army Colonel and band of witch-burning yokels are separately hunting a 400-year-old alchemist with all the secrets of the ages at his fingertips…

David Michelinie, Ron Frenz & Bulanadi’s ‘Gateway to Infinity!’ sees our archaeological adventurer en route to Stonehenge, courtesy of the US government, as a ring of Nazi spies again fail to kill him. Hitler’s spies and parapsychologists are still hunting preternatural artifacts and the crystal cylinder uncovered at the ancient monument definitely qualifies. English professor (of antiquities not ENGLISH English) Karen Mays dates it to the Triassic period, millions of years before Man evolved, so the murderous Aryans will stop at nothing to make it theirs…

Luckily for Jones and Mays – but not the Reich – the spies eventually succeed. However, to their eternal regret their vile machinations unleash ‘The Harbingers’, and only Indy’s swift reactions prevent a horror beyond time escaping into our world…

Jazz Age mastermind Howard Chaykin joins Austin to illustrate wonderfully classy ‘Club Nightmare’ (plotted by Archie Goodwin & scripted by Michelinie) wherein Marion opens a swanky Manhattan nightspot, only to run afoul of mobsters – and worse – before it even opens. With Indy on hand to save the day though, the situation swiftly goes from tricky to calamitous to disastrous…

Michelinie, Kerry Gammill & Sam de La Rosa soon have our hero globetrotting again in ‘Africa Screams’ as a tussle in Tuscany with tomb-robber Ian McIver provides a solid clue to an even deeper mystery. Following an old map, Indy & Marion are soon on their way to the Dark Continent in search of the legendary Shintay; a tribe of pale giants, outcast from and last survivors of fabled Atlantis. Unfortunately, McIver and those ever-eager Nazi scavengers are also on the trail and in ‘Crystal Death’ the Shintay’s vast power almost eradicates half of Africa…

Issues #9 & 10 find our tomb hunter target of a sinister plot by German spies and Aztec wannabees in ‘The Gold Goddess: Xomec’s Raiders’ (Goodwin, Michelinie, Dan Reed & Bulanadi), prompting death-defying battles in the lofty heights of the Big Apple and depths of the Brazilian jungle…

We conclude in epic style with a breathtaking global duel and brand-new villain as Indy is seduced by nefarious antiquities collector Ben Ali Ayoob into investigating persistent Biblical myth ‘The Fourth Nail’. In ‘Blood and Sand’ Jones travels from Australian Outback to Barcelona trying to find the unused final spike that should have ended Christ’s suffering on the Cross, but his quest is dogged by bad luck, Arabian ninjas, guardian “gypsies”, immense insane bandits and irascible bulls looking for a handy matador to mangle…

The perilous pilgrimage reaches an inevitable conclusion in ‘Swords and Spikes’ (with additional art from Luke McDonnell & Mel Candido), a cavalcade of carnage, breakneck action and supernatural retribution…

With a covers gallery from such ably diverse hands as James T. Sherman, Walt Simonson, Terry Austin, Byrne, Howell & Armando Gil, Frenz, Mike Gustovich, Chaykin, Gammill, Bob Wiacek & Bob McLeod, this is a splendid slice of simple escapist fun: buried treasures any fan of any age would be delighted to unearth and rejoice over.
™ & © 1981, 1983, 2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.

Today in 1920 comic book legend Dan Spiegle was born. Where are those Lost in Space, Crossfire or Blackhawk archive editions!?

In 1921 equally legendary artist Matt Baker was born. Go look him up too like we did in Invisible Men – The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books. You could even try and find Teen Angst: A Treasury of ’50’s Romance…