Category: Adult/Erotica

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The Last Days of American Crime



By Rick Remender & Greg Tocchini (Image Comics /Radical Books)
ISBN: 978-0-935417-06-4 (HB Radical) 978-1-53430437-6 (PB/Digital Image)

Elections on the horizon everywhere this year, and in advance of what I can pretty safely assume is more of the same and worse everywhere, followed by whole bunches of crushing dystopias, here’s a peek back at what we thought the end of civilisation would look like merely a decade ago…

If you’re in any more need of a sobering dose of deeply disturbing hyper-reality, I can highly recommend this brilliant, extremely adult, cross-genre thriller which posits a fascinating premise, starts a countdown clock ticking down and delivers a killer kick to finish the rollercoaster ride.

The Good Old USA is a mess and the government need to take drastic action if they want to keep control. Terrorism and crime are rampant but luckily the nerds and techies have come up with a radical solution: the American Peace Initiative – a broadcast frequency that utterly suppresses the ability to knowingly break a law.

Any law.

Taking the radical decision to make all lawbreaking impossible (which is the only logical flaw I can find: what politician is ever going to make bribery obsolete?), and fearing social meltdown in the run-up to going live, the Powers-That-Be also set up a distraction in the form of a complete switchover from a cash economy to universal electronic transfers – infallible, incorruptible, un-stealable digital currency.

From “D-Day” onwards, citizens will top up pay-cards from charging machines which are tamper-proof and impossible to hack. From that day every transaction in North America will be recorded and traceable thereby making every illegal purchase – drugs, guns, illicit sex – utterly impossible…

In the weeks before the big switchover there’s a huge exodus for the borders of Canada and Mexico and a total breakdown of law and order in the country’s most degenerate areas, but generally everyone seems resigned to the schemes – even after the anti-lawbreaking API broadcast plan is leaked…

With the world about to change forever, low-rent career crook Graham Bricke spots a chance for the biggest score of his life. He’s working as a security guard in one of the banks that will house the new currency technology and sees an opportunity to steal one of the charging machines before the system is locked down forever. Unfortunately, due to the API broadcast he has to pull off the caper before it becomes impossible to even contemplate theft…

In a hurry and needing specialised help, Bricke and his silent partner are forced to hire a crew of strangers, but as days dwindle he realises safecracker Kevin Cash and hacker Shelby Dupree are both trouble: a murderous psychotic and crazed libidinous wild-child with daddy issues. If only he can work out which is which…

There are other distractions. Graham is being hunted by a manic gangbanger and his posse and there’s a good chance at least one of his team is planning a double-cross…

A fascinating idea carried out with dizzying style and astounding panache: smart, sexy, unbelievably violent and utterly compelling: combining the brooding energy of The Wire, unremitting tension of 24’s first season and timeless off-centre charm of Reservoir Dogs. It had blockbuster movie written all over it – which is no surprise as Remender’s previous efforts include mainstream comic books like All-New Atom, X-Men and Punisher, computer games Dead Space and Bulletstorm and animated feature Titan A.E. and he’s since produced a welter of gritty stuff such as The Scumbag, Devolution and Anthrax: Among the Living.

Sadly, when it was filmed (released in 2020), none of that came through, so stick to the book not the box here…

Short. Sharp. Shocking, smartly concocted by Rick Remender and stunningly executed in dazzling colour by Greg Tocchini, the paperback includes an extensive sketch and design section, an interview with the author and a lavish cover gallery including variants by Alex Malleev, Jerome Opeña & Matt Wilson and Joel dos Reis Viegas.

What else do I need to say?
© 2010 Rick Remender and Radical Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Misadventures of Jane


By Norman Pett & J.H.G. “Don” Freeman & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-167-0 (HB)

For the longest time, Jane was arguably the most important and well-regarded comic strip in British, if not World, history. The feature panel debuted on December 5th 1932 as Jane’s Journal: or The Diary of a Bright Young Thing: a frothy, frivolous gag-a-day strip in The Daily Mirror, created by freelance cartoonist Norman Pett.

Originally a nonsensical comedic vehicle, it consisted of a series of panels with embedded cursive script to simulate a diary page. The feature switched to more formal strip frames and balloons in late 1938, when scripter Don Freeman came on board whilst Mirror Group supremo Harry Guy Bartholomew was looking to renovate the serial for a more adventure- and escape-hungry audience. It was also felt that a second continuity feature – like Freeman’s other strip Pip, Squeak and Wilfred – would keep readers coming back: as if Jane’s inevitable – if usually unplanned – bouts of near-nudity wouldn’t…

Jane’s secret was skin. Even before war broke out there were torn skirts and lost blouses aplenty, but once the shooting started and Jane became a special operative of British Intelligence, her clothes came off with terrifying regularity and machine gun rapidity. She infamously went topless when the Blitz was at its worst.

Pett drew the strip with verve and style, imparting a uniquely English family feel: a joyous lewdness-free innocence and total lack of tawdriness. The illustrator worked from models and life, famously using first his wife, his secretary Betty Burton, and editorial assistant Doris Keay, but most famously actress and model Chrystabel Leighton-Porter – until May 1948 when Pett left for another newspaper and another clothing-challenged comic star…

From then his art assistant Michael Hubbard assumed full control of the feature (prior to that he had drawn backgrounds and mere male characters), and carried the series – increasingly a safe, flesh-free soap-opera and less a racy glamour strip – to its end on October 10th 1959.

This Titan Books collection added the saucy secret weapon to their arsenal of classic British comics and strips in 2009 and paid Jane the respect she deserved with a snappy black and white hardcover collection, augmented by colour inserts.

Following a fascinating and informative article from Canadian paper The Maple Leaf (which disseminated her exploits to returning ANZAC servicemen), Jane’s last two war stories (running from May 1944 to June 1945) are reprinted in their entirety, beginning with ‘N.A.A.F.I, Say Die!’, as the hapless but ever-so-effective intelligence agent is posted to a British Army base where someone’s wagging tongue is letting pre-D-Day secrets out. Naturally (very au naturally) only Jane and sidekick/best friend Dinah Tate can stop the rot…

This is promptly followed by ‘Behind the Front’ wherein Jane & Dinah invade the continent, tracking down spies, collaborators and boyfriends in Paris before joining an ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) concert party, and accidentally invading Germany just as the Russians arrive…

As you’d expect, the comedy stems from classic Music Hall fundamentals, with plenty of drama and action right out of the patriotic and comedy cinema of the day – but if you’ve ever seen Will Hay, Alistair Sim or Arthur Askey at their peak, you’ll know that’s no bad thing – and this bombastic book also contains loads of rare contemporaneous goodies to drool over.

Jane was so popular that there were three glamour style-books – called Jane’s Journal – for which Pett produced many full-colour pin-ups and paintings as well as general cheese-cake illustrations. From those lost gems, this tome includes ‘The Perfect Model’, a strip feature “revealing” how the artist first met his muse Chrystabel Leighton-Porter; ‘Caravanseraglio!’ – an 8-page strip starring Jane and erring, recurring boyfriend Georgie Porgie – plus 15 pages of the very best partially- and un-draped Jane pin-ups.

Jane’s war record is frankly astounding. As a morale booster she was reckoned to have been worth more than divisions of infantry, and her exploits were regularly cited in Parliament and discussed with complete seriousness by Eisenhower and Churchill. Legend has it that The Daily Mirror‘s Editor was among the few who knew the date of D-Day so as to co-ordinate her exploits and fullest exposures with the Normandy landings…

In 1944, on the day she went full frontal, American Service newspaper Roundup (distributed to US soldiers) went with the headline “JANE GIVES ALL” and subheading “YOU CAN ALL GO HOME NOW”. Chrystabel Leighton-Porter toured as Jane in a services revue – she stripped for “the lads” – during the war and ultimately in 1949 starred in her own feature film The Adventures of Jane.

Although a product of simpler, far-less enlightened, indubitably more hazardous times, the naively charming, cosily thrilling, innocently saucy adventures of Jane, her patiently steadfast beau Georgie Porgie and especially her intrepid Dachshund Count Fritz Von Pumpernickel are incontestable landmarks of the art form, not simply for their impact but also for the plain and simple reason that they are superbly drawn and huge fun to read if you can suspend or hold in abeyance the truly gratuitous nudity.

Don’t waste the opportunity to keep such a historical icon in our lives. You should find this book, buy your friends this book, and most importantly, agitate to have her entire splendid run reprinted in more books like this one. Do your duty, citizens…
Jane © 2009 MGN Ltd/Mirrorpix. All Rights Reserved.

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The Cabbie volume 1


By Marti, with an introduction by Art Spiegelman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-4504 (HB/Fantagraphics) 978-0874160420 (Album PB Catalan Communications)

Although out of print since 1987, in 2011 Fantagraphics rescued from relative obscurity one of the darkest yet most grimly illuminating classics of European cartooning in this remastered and augmented reissue of The Cabbie: a stylish, nightmarish psycho-sexual noir thriller that has as much seedy kick now as it had when first translated by Catalan Communications…

Now as the macabre maestro has died, my conscience prompts me to pay for neglecting such wonderful comics and it’s only right we should pause to revisit his greatest achievement. Maybe some publisher will endeavour to bring some of his other dark wonders – like Doctor Vertigo, Propaganda Moderna, crime fantasy-thriller Calvario Hills, Cien dibujos por la libertad de Prensa or Terrorista – to a wider international audience.

Marti Riera Ferrer (1955 – 19th January 2024) was born in Barcelona during the heyday of fascist rule. He studied at the Massana School of Arts and Crafts where his efforts coincided with the Generalissimo’s death, and from 1975 to 1979 a liberalisation saw “Marti” creating comics for alterative magazines like Rock COMIC and Star.

From its launch in 1979 he also began contributing to apocalyptic iconoclast El Vibora: short stories and series such as Tony Nuevaola and – with Rodolfo – Lola Lista contra los Nada. These efforts brought international interest and Marti began appearing in Raw and Drawn & Quarterly. Il Taxista – The Cabbie – began in 1982 and he episodically added to the canon over succeeding years, and although semi-retired from the early Nineties he continued generating other material at his own pace for the magazine Makoki and Tobalina. These tales varied from erotic fiction to general illustrated fare.

Dick Tracy is one of the most well-known strips on Earth and the super-cop’s contributions to the art form are many and indisputable. They occurred over many decades and the medium of graphic narrative grew up with it. Imagine the effect instant exposure – or overexposure – to such an uncompromising, bombastic, iconic property on the artists of a nation where free-expression and creative autonomy was suppressed for generations. That’s what happened when the death of General Franco (who had held Spain in a fascistic time-warp from his victory in April 1939 until his death in November 1975) opened up and liberalised all aspects of Spanish life. When Marti saw the strip he was changed for life…

As Art Spiegelman says in his introduction, “decades of political and social repression gave way to a glorious eruption of creativity that allowed a full-fledged counterculture to come to life at just about the same time that America’s “Love Generation” gave way to what Tom Wolfe labelled the “Me Generation.””

How odd yet fitting then that an American symbol of “The Establishment” so enchanted and captivated young cartoonist Marti Riera that he assimilated every line and nuance to create a bleak, stripped-down and extremely angry homage detailing the tribulations of a seedy, desperate taxi-driver trapped in an abruptly vanished past and prey to a world at once free and dangerous, ungoverned and chaotic…

Driving around the seediest part of town our hero picks up a high-rolling gambler who’s just won big, but the driver’s night goes horribly wrong when a knife-wielding thief hijacks the cab and robs his passenger. Luckily, the Cabbie can handle himself and he quickly, brutally subdues the thug.

Our protagonist is a decent, hard-working man who lives with his ailing mother, humouring her talk of a mysterious inheritance, and allowing her to keep the embalmed cadaver of his father in the spare bedroom, but he’s tragically unaware that his citizen’s arrest will have terrible repercussions for them both. When the son of the thief he captured is released from prison, the ingrate immediately begins a grim campaign of retribution against the Cabbie that creates a maelstrom of tragedy, degradation and despair.

This is a harsh, uncompromising tale of escalating crime and uncaring punishments: blackly cynical, existentially scary and populated with a cast of battered, desolate characters of increasingly degenerate desperation. Even the monsters are victims, but for all that The Cabbie is an incredibly compelling drama with strong allegorical overtones and brutally mesmerizing visuals.

Any mature devotee of comics should be conversant with Marti’s superb work, and with a second volume out there and the hope of digital editions (One bloody Day!), hopefully we soon all will be…
The Cabbie (Taxista) © 2011 Marti. Introduction © 2011 Art Spiegelman. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books.

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Terror – The Horror Comic Art of Jayme Cortez (volume 1) & Macabras – The Horror Comic Art of Jayme Cortez (volume 2)


By Jayme Cortez, with Fabio Moraes & various, translated by Joe Williams (Korero Press)
ISBN: 978-1-912740-22-2 (PB Terror) & 978-1-912740-21-5 (PB Macabras)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Whatever the Season, All Nights Are Dark … 8/10

Please pay careful attention: this art book contains stories and images of an explicit nature, specifically designed for adult consumption. Tomorrow I’ll write about something else – possibly more socially acceptable, with mindless violence and big explosions, so come back then if incredible art, a dedicated career and rectifying oversights is not to your liking.

We comic book guys tend to think we invented and run the medium and art form of graphic narrative, but – gasps in shock! – other countries have been doing the same or similar all along. Moreover, so very much of it is so very good…

Britain and the US have, over decades, employed a select few master craftsmen (and they were mostly men as far as I can see) and I’ve done my bit to point them your way, but until very recently we haven’t seen much of Brazil’s monolithic comics output. That changes here and now with a two-book collection highlighting the breathtakingly prolific career of Jaime Cortez Martins – AKA Jayme Cortez. He was born in Lisbon, Portugal on 8th September 1926 and his life changed at age six when he first saw imported American newspaper strips: particularly Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. Jaime’s first drawing was published when he was 11, and in 1944 he was apprenticed to children’s magazine O Mosquito under its art director Eduardo Texiera Coelho. The prodigy generated numerous groundbreaking strips before – having discovered the rich world of Brazilian comics – he emigrated to São Paulo to find great fame fortune and renown. Celebrated globally except in English-speaking countries, Cortez died in 1987.

For more biographic detail resort to the internet or best yet buy these books where editor/writer-compiler/art historian Fabio Moraes and appreciative guests such as Paul Gravett, and Paulo Montiero offer their own insights in Forewords and Intoductions. What’s really important is what follows: a magnificent treasury of a passionate creator’s output (albeit mostly his horror genre material) encompassing Brazil’s “golden age” of scary stories.

Cortez made himself master of countless artistic techniques and although there are ads and a few comic book stories included, these volumes primarily gather a mindboggling number of painted covers (as many as 4 per week!) in chronological order. Whether in colour or monochrome, these stunning retrospective compendia of gloriously designed and delineated imagery in a wealth of styles incorporate a staggering arsenal of artistic techniques – even photographic – to highlight a stunning and prolific career you and I were utterly unaware of.

Terror – The Horror Comic Art of Jayme Cortez properly opens with a comprehensive biographical essay ‘The Life of a Master Illustrator’ relating that dazzling career and offering candid photos, early works, magazine covers, strips and extracts, original artworks and commercial jobs before the serious stuff begins with his entire covers run for landmark publication O Terror Negro (The Black Terror).

This launched in September 1951 and ran until 1967, with Cortez generating the covers from #2 until the end and also the regular annual editions Almanaque de O Terror Negro. From January 1954 he added Sobrenatural to his commissions list: another 31 covers (plus another Annual) until September 1956 and (from February 1954 to July 1956) 35 more covers for Contos de Terror (Horror Tales), another Almanque and a brace of Frankenstein fronts. Throughout the book are many original art reproductions and dozens of reference photos the artist used as part of his process in bringing ghosts, ghouls, goblins, aliens, psycho-killers, devils, demons and witches to life, and making realistic the demise of countless maidens, wives and sundry other innocents…

Macabras – The Horror Comic Art of Jayme Cortez continues the gruesome gallery of dark delights by including some more of his beguiling strip work and another cartload of intoxicating covers. Following another context-packed biographical essay – ‘A Virtuoso of Illustration’ – The Portrait of Evil 1961 reprints and deconstructs what is considered Cortez’s signature sequential narrative masterpiece, before The Portrait of Evil 1973 does the same for the improved version the tireless quester produced when he returned to the subject in a more mature and philosophical frame of mind…

From there it’s a return to eye-catching images and bold typography in a welter of covers for his minor magazine efforts, beginning with 62 issues of Seleçóes de Terror (beginning in 1959 and going on until 1967), 28 for Histórias Macabras, 19 for Clássicos de Terror, an even dozen for Histórias Sinestras, as well as Histórias Do Alem (4), Super B?lso (3), Terror Magazine (3), and 10 for indie company Jotaesse.

Also on view are a chapter on the artist’s fascination with Edgar Allen Poe, a photo-essay on Creating a poster (for his other job working in films) and 14 chilling Black and White Illustrations to round out the fright fest.

This long-past-due celebration of a truly unique artistic pioneer is both compelling and shocking, and something no mature-minded devotee of graphic excellence should miss. Moreover, if the subject matter intrigues you, Korero also publish a stunning line of companion volumes of unknown (to you and me) art masters in their “Sex and Horror” collections: thus far highlighting the mastery of Emanuele Tagglietti, Alessandro Biffignandi, Fernando Carcupino, Roberto Molinio…

It’s never too late to be scared witless or stunned by magnificent comic art so let’s open our eyes and get a little international here.
First published in 2023 © Korero Press Limited. All rights reserved.

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Bread & Wine – An Erotic Tale of New York


By Samuel R. Delaney & Mia Wolff (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-632-4 (HB/Digital edition)

The demands of drama dictate that true love never runs smooth but that’s not the case in real life. The trade-off is that those actual romances which stand the test of time and tedium are painfully devoid of the remarkable circumstance and miraculous “gosh-wow” moments of fiction.

But this remarkable account proves That Ain’t Necessarily So…

In 1999, independent publisher Juno released a small graphic novel memoir, written by Samuel R. Delaney and illustrated by Mia Wolff (Catcher, Above and Below: the Voyages of Virgilio), recounting how a celebrated gay black literary giant, college professor and social theoretician with a mantelpiece overstocked by awards, and a teenaged daughter in tow, met and romanced one of society’s most outcast and forgotten souls.

At time of publication, they had been a couple for some years and are together still. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere won’t be in their movie and not a single dragon or muscle car will have to die…

Following an Introduction from Alan Moore, this mainstream edition reveals how “Chip” Delaney took a walk on New York’s Upper West Side, bought a book from homeless vendor Dennis Rickett and struck up a conversation with the kind of person most people refuse to acknowledge the very existence of…

In seamlessly seductive understated style, the words and pictures detail how gradually, gently, unsurprisingly they became first friends and then lovers.

In the manner of all lasting true romances, this is the history of two full equals who accidentally find each other, not some flimsy rags-to-riches Cinderella tale of predestination and magical remedies. The brilliance and position of one is perfectly complemented by the warmth, intelligence and quiet integrity of the other, and although far from smooth – or rose scented or tinted – their path to contentment was and is both tension-fraught and heart-warming.

Oh, and there’s sex: lots of rapturously visualised sex, so if you’re the kind of person liable to be upset by pictures of joyous, loving fornication between two people separated by age, wealth, social position and race who happily possess and constantly employ the same type of rude bits on each other, then go away and read something else.

In fact, as I keep on saying, just please, GO AWAY.

And that’s all the help you get from me. This lyrical, beguiling tale is embellished throughout with interwoven extracts from the poem Bread and Wine by German lyric poet Friedrich Hölderlin and realised in a mesmerising organic monochrome variety of styles by artist and Delaney family friend Mia Wolff, and you really need to have it unfold for you without my second-hand blether or kibitzing…

This is one of the sweetest, most uplifting comics love stories ever written: rich with sentiment, steeped in literary punch and beautiful to behold. Moreover, this lavish, stout and steadfast tome also includes a celebratory commentary by Chip, Dennis and Mia as well as other protagonists in the Afterword. There’s also a sketch-packed, earnest and informative interview with the creative participants.

Strong, assertive, uncompromising and proudly unapologetic, this is love we should all aspire to, and Bread & Wine is another graphic novel every adult should know.
Introduction © 2013 Alan Moore. Contents © 2013 Samuel R. Delaney & Mia Wolff. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Hope and Hell’s Flaw – Shame books 4 and 5


By Lovern Kindzierski, John Bolton & Todd Klein (Renegade Arts Entertainment)

ISBN: 978-1-98782-548-0 (Hope TPB) ISBN: 978-1-98890389-7 (Hell’s Flaw TPB)

Comics are unequivocally a visual medium and that’s never more ably demonstrated than in a seductively bewitching allegorical fable from writer Lovern Kindzierski, painter John Bolton and letterer Todd Klein.

The story began with three Original Graphic Novels released between 2011 and 2013, before the entire epic was housed in its proper setting: a lavish and sublime full-colour hardback tome, liberally garnished with beguiling bonus features and all the usual digital equivalents.

So, if you’re sitting comfortably with all the doors locked and windows covered, let’s begin with a swift reprise…

Once upon a time in Conception a benevolent but homely witch named Mother Virtue spent all her days doing little favours and grand good deeds for the ordinary and unfortunate, and for these kind actions she was beloved by all. Spiritually, she was probably the most perfect woman in the world, but as for her looks…

She lived life well, growing old and content, but one day, after decades of joyous philanthropy, a single selfish thought flashed idly through her mind: a momentary longing for a daughter and wish for it to be true, that she might be a mother in fact as well as name…

The weak moment was instantly exploited by malign Shadow of Ignorance Slur. Through dark magics, he impregnated the champion of Good with a vile seed of evil, bragging to the wise-woman that her wish-made daughter would be a diabolical demon deserving the name Shame…

Deeply repenting that selfish whim and dreading horrors yet to come, Mother Virtue transformed her idyllic cottage in the woods into a floral prison; a Cradle reluctantly repurposed to isolate and eventually contain the thing growing in her belly. The miserable matron-to-be also assembled Dryads to care for and guard the baby. Once Virtue finally births Shame, she leaves the devil’s burden to be reared in the mystical compound, where it grows strong and cruel but so very beautiful…

After much concentrated effort, however, minions of Shame’s sire breach Cradle’s green ramparts and school the child in vile necromancy to ensure her dire, sordid inheritance. With malefic potency, Shame refashions her guardians into something more pliable and appropriately monstrous…

As the devil’s daughter physically ripens, Slur himself comes to his evil child and through him Shame learns the terrifying power of sex. With the aid of an infernal incubus which has stolen seed from many men, she quickens a child in her own belly and eventually births a beautiful baby girl.

Into that infant Slur pours Mother Virtue’s soul; gorily ripped from the despondent dotard’s aging carcase at the moment of her granddaughter’s delivery. Even the nunnery Virtue had locked herself within was no proof against the marauding Shadow of Ignorance…

With her despised mother now her own child, securely bound within the floral penitentiary, Shame goes out into the world to make her mark…

Pursuit took up the story sixteen years later. Infant Virtue has grown strong and lovely, despite every effort of malformed, mystically mutated Dryads and Shame’s own diabolical sorcery toiling constantly but to no effect in a campaign of corruption, making every day of her young life a savage test of survival. This daily failure makes Shame – now elevated by her own evil efforts to queen of a mortal kingdom – furious beyond belief.

When not burning witches and wise women who might threaten her absolute domination, or having her armies ravage neighbouring realms, the haughty hell-spawn spies upon her offspring/ancestor with infernal devices, but is always bitterly disappointed and enraged….

Elsewhere, a valiant knight lies dying and mournfully bids his afflicted son Merritt farewell. With his last breaths, the swift-failing father dreads how his foolish, naïve, beloved boy will fare in a world ruled by the Queen who has ended him…

The hopeless dreamer is stubborn above all else and – when Merritt discovers the vegetable hell-mound of Cradle – stories his mother told him long ago run again through his head. Odd, inexplicable yearning compels him to overcome appalling arcane odds and break in. He liberates the beautiful prisoner… although she actually does most of the work…

Freed from Cradle, Virtue’s mystic might blooms. Far away, Shame reels. Slur cares little for his daughter but much for his plans: disclosing Merritt is Destiny’s wild card: a Sword of Fate who could reshape the future of humanity. Of course, that depends on whose side he joins…

The young heroes near the capital but are ambushed. After a tremendous mystic clash, Merritt awakens in a palace with a compelling dark-haired vision ministering to his every need and desire. Meanwhile, far below in a rank, eldritch dungeon, Virtue languishes, patiently adjusting plans…

This eldritch esoterically erotic epic concluded with Redemption as Merritt fell deeper under the sultry sway of the dark queen, devolving into her submissive tool of human subjugation, whilst Virtue languished in fetid squalor, weaving intricate magic with the paltry, debased materials at hand…

In the Queen’s arms, Merritt remains a child shaped by his mother’s bedtime stories. When Virtue contacts him, he readily sneaks down to her cell, dreams of nobility and valiant deeds filling his addled head…

With a final confrontation between mother and daughter imminent, Virtue sends Merritt to Hell on a vital quest to recover the Hope of the World. His triumphant return saves the kingdom and redeems the downcast…

As with all great fairy tales, justice is delivered and the world is set right side up again, with Shame dead, Slur confined to the Pit and pure reborn soul Hope in charge…

But what actually happens on the first day of “Happy Ever After”? The answer comes as the initial trilogy is extended via a second tranche of Original Graphic Novels, with Kindzierski & Bolton picking up their eldritch tapestry again in Hope…

The day after Shame’s dismemberment and descent to Hell, chaos and uprising grips the kingdom, forcing Merritt and rebel wisewoman Miss Grace to escort bewildered Hope to safety outside the castle. The war has been won but evil cannot die and the rioting crowds are almost as much a danger as the Queen’s remaining stooges and free-roaming satanic spirits. Moreover, the child’s unschooled mystic force makes her a danger to herself and all around her…

Transporting her to the peaceful countryside fills Merritt with memories of his childhood and reveals what happened to his own mother, subsequently provoking Grace to review her own chequered past. Both have suffered grievously from Shame’s actions, and have no idea that the monster is still active in Hell, manipulating ghosts and demons to effect her return to Earth using the infernal contamination that used to be Cradle…

In the forests, Hope sees visions of forthcoming atrocity, which confirmed by Grace’s scrying, force the caravan to divert towards the once-green hell and meet the threat head on…

To Be Continued…

Fifth volume Hell’s Flaw resumes the epic quest, as Shame marshals her forces to secure the pathway from Hell to the living world, while the wary, weary band of heroes struggles to the verdant hellmouth.

Their way is blocked demonic forces too horrible to bear, but Grace has learned to tap Hope’s raw magic to fight them off. Slowly though, she becomes more controlling, her promises to teach the child somehow never materialising, although her need for her as a living battery constantly increases. Eventually, however, during a truly formidable assault, Hope asserts herself to save Merritt and the entire course of the quest changes…

In Hell, Shame’s own cunning endeavours have borne black fruit and she is ready to return…

To Be Concluded…

Epic and fanciful, the fairy tale trappings mask a most mature examination of Good and Evil, and the shimmering photorealistic expressionism of John Bolton’s lush painting transforms the familiar settings of fantasy standards and set-pieces into visions truly bleak and bizarre, perfectly complementing the grim, earthily seedy meta-reality of Kindzierski’s script.

Dark and nasty yet packed with sumptuous seductions of every stripe, the salutary saga of Shame is every adult fantasist’s desire made real and every comic fan’s most fervent anticipation in one irresistible package…

Hope, Hell’s Flaw and Shame: the series conceived and written by Lovern Kindzierski. The story, characters, world and designs are © Lovern Kindzierski, John Bolton and Renegade Arts Canmore Ltd.

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Skydoll: Decade


By Barbara Canepa & Alessandro Barbucci (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-736-7 (HB)

Astoundingly barbed political and anti-consumerist satirical allegory Skydoll has appeared sporadically since 2000. It’s the other work of frequent collaborators Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa, whose usual offerings include family-oriented fare such as W.I.T.C.H. and Monster Allergy. Although rendered in the seductive anthropomorphic style developed for and signifying decades of wholesome Disney cartooning, it’s a subtly strident attack on corporate consumerism, media mesmerism of the masses, political expediency, religion and the power of the Catholic church. It’s all wrapped up in the raunchy, beguiling trappings of super-sexy science fiction shenanigans with artificial people so that makes it all right, right?

The majority of the of the sporadic components thus far generated were beautifully bound up in a gloriously oversized (284 x 212mm) full-colour hardback edition for the English-speaking cognoscenti in 2016, which is still readily available physically if not yet digitally…

The subversive odyssey begins with prose ‘Preface: ten years of Skydoll’: a bold declaration of intent by The Authorsbefore speeding straight into fantastic fantasy with ‘Volume 1: The Yellow City’, introducing fetching, wind-up automaton Noa who’s asking God for a little fair treatment whilst working at the insalubrious Heaven Spaceshipwash. She’s not like all the other beautiful dolls working there. Although she still needs to be wound-up every 33 hours by her owner, this alluring animatron seems to have a memory that doesn’t delete itself every couple of days. This means she keeps thinking of difficult fresh questions to ask…

Furiously shoved back to work, Noa ignores the fabulously bland and vapid blather of TV talk show monolith Frida Decibel blasting out from every home and public broadcast screen, telling the populace of Papathea how good everything is now that they only have one Popessa… in the buxom form of the divine Ludovica.

Once upon a time there were two True Vicars of God: Agape – who embodied spiritual love – and Ludovica who personified its physical expression. When Agape mysteriously vanished, her corporeal partner became sole arbiter of the galactic empire the church controls, commencing a campaign of craftily concocted public miracles to pacify an increasingly irate and disillusioned populace. It’s not really working though, and a rising tide of rebellion and resentment is just beginning to pop…

Our story really begins when two of Ludovica’s “Diplomatic Agents” stop at Heaven to get their starcraft properly shined before heading out on their top-secret mission. Old Jahu is especially keen on the diversion: everybody knows lusting after or even indulging in pleasure with a Doll doesn’t count as sin. The Popessa said so…

However, whilst lathering up the ship of some fervent fundamentalists at the head of the queue, Noa accidentally kicks off a small riot, even as, across the city, Ludovica’s latest manufactured miracle kicks into high-gear with mesmerising effect…

By the time the barrage of supernal glitz and gaudy glitter subsides, Jahu and young idealistic Roy are well on their way. They have no idea there’s a dazed and surprised stowaway aboard, with her crucial, life-sustaining key still negligently left in her back…

On the rapidly dwindling planet behind them, Ludovica fumes. Despite getting rid of her rival, the lone Popessa’s grasp of power remains uncertain. The people still hunger for absent Agape and there are rumours of rebellion. The anxious, power-mad pontiff has no idea how close to home the sedition reaches…

Aboard ship, Roy has made a startling discovery. Unable to help himself, he turns the key in the inert innocent’s back and restores temporary autonomy to a vivacious creature he can’t help but like…

Doctrinaire Jahu is less sanguine, but the mission is too important to delay. They can always dump the doll on the way home…

Noa is eternally curious, asking questions about everything. Inexplicably, she is especially moved by an illicit image of Agape the voyagers encounter in a space restaurant. It triggers strange, terrifying visions and Roy has to physically restrain Noa. What happens next is regarded by the astounded onlookers as a miracle…

The story resumes with ‘Volume 2: Aqua’ as hints start circulating about Noa’s destiny and the unseen sponsors who seem to be guiding her destiny. The Popessa’s missionary ambassadors meanwhile land on the world without males: one successfully propounding a third spiritual way…

Governed by planetary Guru Gaia, the women of Aqua are steadily gaining support across the universe, supported and funded by their range of wellness centres and luxury goods which everyone wants to try. Roy is there to build diplomatic bridges between the Popessa and the completely antithetical Aquans in the cause of peace. He has no idea Jahu’s orders are a little different. That stalwart always knew the only way to really deal with heretics…

Noa inveigles her way into the official conference: she’s hopeful these strange women will have some insight into her own rapidly-expanding consciousness. She is stunned by what they do know and their connection to missing Agape.

And as Jahu goes about his bloody work, back on Papathea, bloody revolution breaks out…

The intrigue expands in ‘Volume 3: The White City’ when Roy, Jahu and constantly-maturing Noa return as triumphant heroes. When officially interviewed by the ubiquitous Frida Decibel, the web of intrigue and damnation expands to encompass some very unexpected personalities, even as the empire stands poised on the edge of Armageddon and real miracles are observed in the most unlikely places…

A broad, vast, clever and frustrating unfinished epic, Skydoll is still unfolding at its own tantalising pace. There has however been plenty of sidebar and ancillary material released such as ‘Volume 0: Doll’s Factory’ which offers a sequence of prequel events, fleshing out the main characters.

Here a strange woman visits a factory, placing something miraculous inside a doll in the final stages of manufacture, whilst ‘Heaven’s Dolls’ rewards the reader with information on the world and empire of the Popessa, affording insights into other Dolls such as Lovely Lou, Juicy Lee, Sandy Blue and God himself – proving just why he needed killing…

There’s also a hilarious Sky Doll ‘Psycho-grapho Test’ to further reveal how life and society really work…

This immaculate confection culminates in a huge collection of ‘Homages’: a breathtaking gallery of tribute images of the synthetic star and her chums by a staggeringly talented cast of fellow artists: Claire Wendling, Karla Diaz, Benjamin, Marguerite Sauvage, Mijin Shatje, Cyrille Bertin, Tony Infante, Bengal, Claudio Acciari, Tony Sandoval, Amélie Fléchais, Giovanni Rigano, Sefora Pons, Gradimir Smudja, Aurore, Augustin Rolland, Nenent, Guezav, Pierre-Mony Chan, Lucy Mazel, Véronique Meignaud, Matteo De Longis, Xavier Collette, Anne Cresci, Lilidoll, Jérémie Almanza, Lostfish and more.

Completing and concluding the quasi-religious experience is a comprehensive feature ‘About the Authors’ and ‘Acknowledgements & Credits’.

A phenomenal and beguiling work-in-progress, Sky Doll is a superbly engaging exploration of erotica, iconology and idolatry: one no fun-loving, deep-thinking devotee of comic iconoclasm or dedicated supportive lover of mechanical self-gratification (Eeew!) should miss.
Sky Doll and all contents are © Editions Soleil/Barbucci/Canepa. This translated edition © 2016 Titan Comics.

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The Artist Himself: A Rand Holmes Retrospective


By Rand Holmes; written and compiled by Patrick Rosenkranz (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-170-1 (TPB)

Randolph Holton Holmes was a unique individual: a self-taught artist who grew up troubled, found peace and sufficiency if not fame and fortune, and died far too young on March 15th 2002. Available in wrist-wrenching paperback and soothing digital editions, this superbly curated compilation and biography re-presents scads of sketches; reproductions of drawings; cartoons and paintings he created in later life, preserved alongside a copious collection of his wickedly wonderful underground and alternative comic strips for fans and the soon to be devoted…

As usual, I’ll deliver here my warning for the easily offended: this book contains comic strips never intended for children. If you are liable to be offended by raucous adult, political and drug humour, or beautifully illustrated scenes of explicit sex, unbelievable comedic violence and controversial observations, don’t buy this book. In fact, stop reading this graphic novel review. You won’t enjoy any of it and might be compelled to cause a fuss.

I’ll cover something far more wholesome tomorrow so please come back then if you want. Be warned again though: I think you are being silly and may just cover something just as unseemly. That’s just the way I am…

Rand Holmes was born in Nova Scotia on February 22nd 1942 and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After a rather remarkable early life (no clues from me – the whole point is to get you to buy this book) which included honing a prodigious artistic talent through diligently absorbing the work and drawing styles of Jack Davis, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman (who bought Rand’s first profession efforts for Help! magazine) – and most especially Wally Wood – Holmes became a jobbing cartoonist and illustrator at The Georgia Straight in 1969: one of many youth-oriented, counter-culture /“underground” newspapers that blossomed during the period.

Whilst there he created signature character Harold Hedd. It ran as a regular strip, and was assembled in 1972 into an outrageously hilarious, adults-only comic-book The Collected Adventures of Harold Hedd. A second volume followed a year later. Married young and always restless, Holmes generated an astounding amount of cartoon and comic work, which appeared in White Lunch Comix, All Canadian Beaver Comics, Slow Death, Fog City Comics, Gay Comics, Dope Comics and Snarf, amongst many others.

Holmes was by inclination a completely liberated sexual and political satirist. Sadly, his meticulously lush and shockingly explicit strips often obscured powerful social commentaries by being just too damn well-drawn. He produced strips for Rolling Stone and Cheri magazine and, in the 1980s, worked briefly in the mainstream comics market. When the Direct Sales revolution first flourished, he crafted EC-flavoured yarns for genre anthologies Twisted Tales and Alien Worlds,reuniting with long-time publishing collaborator Denis Kitchen for horror anthology Death Rattle as well as the fabulous mini-series Hitler’s Cocaine: the hip, trippy, return of Harold Hedd (included in its entirety in this volume).

Holmes married a second time in 1982 and moved his family to the idyllic, isolated artistic community of Lasqueti Island where he increasingly concentrated on a self-sufficient life-style, with oil painting replacing cartooning as an outlet for his relentless artistic drives. Here, with other creative hermits, he built an art centre which has become his lasting monument.

He passed away from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2002 and this book was the result of the first retrospective show compiled by his family from the treasury of superb material he left behind.

As well as a photo-stuffed and highly engaging history, this volume contains a wealth of artwork from early doodles to teen cartoons; illustrations and covers from his commercial art days; sketches; paintings; fascinating excerpts from the journals he kept for most of his life and a wonderful selection of his comics.

These last include many ‘Out to Lunch’ hotrod strips; early Harold Hedd pages from the Georgia Straight; sexy horror yarn ‘Raw Meat’; assorted ultra-nasty Basement Man tales; ‘Nip an’ Tuk – Those Cute Little Fuzzy Mices’; even more Hedd in ‘Wings Over Tijuana’ plus an unfinished story, as well as the aforementioned ‘Hitler’s Cocaine’ saga. Also on view are ‘And Here He Is… the Artist Himself’; ‘Killer Planet’; ‘Junkyard Dog’ (written by Mike Baron) and ‘Mean Old Man’ (written by Rob Maisch) – a powerful yarn that smacks of autobiography – before the artist portion concludes with a gallery of the stunning paintings that occupied his later days.

Rand Holmes was a true artist in every sense of the word: mostly producing work intended to change society, not fill his pockets. This terrific tome is a splendid and fitting tribute: one any grown-up art lover will marvel at and cherish.
© 2010 Patrick Rosenkranz, with the exception of the Rand Holmes diary entries which are © 2010 Martha Holmes. All artwork © 2010 Martha Holmes. Individual comic stories © their respective writers. All rights reserved.

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Apocalypse Cancelled


By Luke Melia, Jamie Norman & Valerie Quatrocchi, Geoff Jones, David Anderson, Mike Smith, Dennis O’Shea, Kat Humphries, Grame Stewart, Dan Wilkinson, Leor King, INKY CONDITIONS & various (Dreamspace Books)
ISBN: 978-1-70859-669-9 (PB)

The following review contains language and expletives used by grown-ups. If you are offended or upset by words, and descriptions of rude stuff, perhaps you will want to give this one a miss.

We’ve all just been through an horrific experience and it’s certainly wedged itself into the global collective unconsciousness on many levels. I’ll wager it has forced many people to reassess the world and their place in it. On that note comes a wickedly mordant, topically charged satirical anthology of comics, prose and poetry from veteran indie author/publisher Luke Melia and his band of literary merry pranksters…

Likely suspects on the next Extinction Event list are limited and we can all cite them thanks to many, many movies and media outlets. The premise of this themed collection is a killer asteroid drawing an unmistakeable, irrevocable bead on the planet. Once it’s spotted, confirmed and made public, humanity reacts pretty much as you’d expect – with a few intriguing exceptions as detailed herein – before the worst thing possible happens: the bloody thing misses Earth and everybody still alive must deal with what they did when they thought the end was literally here…

An enticingly trenchant exploration and assessment of human nature in a shotgun blast of illustrated novellas, vignettes, epigrams and assorted poetic forms, the wild ride opens (and ultimately circularly closes) with ‘Prime Minister’s Speech’by Luke Melia: a rap-style 10 Downing Street press conference very much in the pompously profuse and profligate manner of our current old-school Glorious Leader, but with a hearty dose of biting whimsy salting the pot…

Précising the mindset of the masses as the big rock closes in, ‘Apocalypse Please’ precedes the first of a sequence of Police Memos addressing rapidly-shifting constabulary priorities and a jaunty ‘Limerick’ by Mike Smith, before Melia’s prose novella ‘Did You Have a Nice Weekend?’ hones in on one recurring aspect of the aftermath of Armageddon interruptus.

When the event fizzles, go-getting businessman Tony Clarke reassembles the remains of his crack team to capitalise on the reconstruction of society. Sadly, the uncontrolled, panicked personal excesses of those presumed end days may have resulted in words and actions that not everyone in the office can forgive or forget…

Melia’s vignette ‘Running Out of Tomorrows’ proves not everyone knows how to let go, before Smith’s epigrammatic treatise on ‘Terry’s Best Friend’ segues into Jamie Norman & Valerie Quatrocchi’s comic strip ‘Little Rock’ wherein man and beast each find a new way to wait for death. A police report on Cannibalism is balanced by ‘FUCK!’ (Leor King) as a cult leader is lost for words – or deeds – after which ‘Once Upon an Apocalypse’ by Geoff Jones shares one last grim bedtime tale between a father and his little princess…

More Melia moments follow as ‘The Conspiracy Wolf’ outlines a dedicated doomsday fantabulist’s dilemma and dysmorphic delusional ‘Eleanor’ finds an identity at last, whilst David Anderson & Melia explore a gamer’s solution in ‘Apocalypse Online’.

The pressing business of finishing a binge watch marathon occupies Dan Wilkinson in ‘En Route’ whilst Melia’s ‘First Day of School’ eases us into his examination of faith under inexorable pressure in Nun’s tale ‘Dear Lord’…

The crime of Murder is reassessed in a police report as ‘A Big Change’ (by INKY CONDITIONS/Stevie Mitchell) offers cartoon commentary before ‘Louise’s Crater’ (Smith) sees possible spectral intervention for a single dad and his traumatised son when the end of days results in enforced separation due to a swift uptick of sales and compulsory overtime in underground bomb shelters…

A brace of Melia shorts opens with a bungee jumper in ‘Saving Grace’ and asks the space rock what it wants in ‘Journey’, before ‘Shuttle’ (Dennis O’Shea & Melia) observes how Earth’s latest astronauts handle the crisis, after which Benjamin Parkin’s ‘HIM’ homes in on a serial killer’s liberated spouse and Melia’s ‘Salvation Day’ takes us into the future when the crisis has been at last reduced to just another bank holiday.

Visually explicit, Melia & Anderson’s ‘We’re All Fucked!’ explores the plebian side of orgiastic release, after which a police report on Uncategorised Offences and Anderson’s ‘Bedside’ vigil lead to a delightfully different take from Kat Humphries as a string of loners bond over animal care in prose homily ‘Cat Lovers Wanted’…

For ‘Bumping into People at Orgies’ Melia dryly dissects the morning after the night before, and Smith addresses passion and paranoia in ‘It’s Outside’ before O’Shea dabbles with just desserts – and entrees – in a tale of bullying entitled ‘Howard the Coward’.

Domestics reports get a police revision and Melia recounts the fate of ‘Yappy’ before Grame Stewart gets extremely down and dirty in a tale of ‘Dark Desires’ fulfilled, after which Melia’s ‘Freed’ addresses a new self-help system and Norman reveals the contributions of veteran nonconformist power engineer ‘Big Rock’. A mini masterpiece of character writing from Melia offers a tantalising counterpoint to liberated madness in ‘Business as Usual’ with data entry clerk Melvin Toddliving his perfect life as society crumbles. It’s not what you think…

Optimism in O’Shea’s ‘World Piece’ is countered by dark malice in Ryan Howe’s ‘Repent’ before ‘Bunker’ by O’Shea & Melia takes us into the future to reveal what today’s survivalist nuts did when the crash came, before a police report on Public Order and wry comic strip ‘Samson’ (Melia & Bobby Peñafiel) lead to a psychological aberration back at work in Melia’s ‘Cinnamon Glaze’. The entire calamity confection then concludes with the aforementioned redux performance of ‘Prime Minister’s Speech Part 2’, capping the madness with more – and better – of the same…

Perhaps best summed up by exalted prophet “Boring” Bob Grover of The Piranhas “The whole thing’s daft, I don’t know why. You have to laugh or else you’d cry”…

Conversely, you can simply read this and make up your mind in the comfort of your own retreat from reality…
All right reserved. Each piece © 2021 the relevant author.

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Hypnotwist/Scarlet by Starlight


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-204-5 (HB)

In addition to being part of the graphic/literary revolution of Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly addictive tales of rural Palomar first garnered overwhelming critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone books such as Sloth, Birdland, Grip and Girl Crazy: all graced with his bold, compellingly simplified artwork and inspired adaptation of literary techniques used by Magical Realist writers such as Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez – techniques which he has amplified and, visually at least, made his own.

Hernandez also frequently acknowledges such outré mainstream influences as filmmakers Roger Corman and John Cassavetes, and crime writers Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson, as he explores new territories and reforms the cultural influences which shaped all us baby-boomers.

In Luba we glimpsed the troubled life of the lead character’s half-sister Rosalba “Fritzi” Martinez: a brilliant, troubled woman, speech-impaired psychotherapist, sex-worker, belly-dancer and “B-movie” starlet of such faux screen gems as We Love Alone, Seven Bullets to Hell, Chest Fever, Blood is the Drug and Lie Down in the Dark.

Although Fritzi only had a bit part in it, Hernandez “adapted” one of those trashy movies into a graphic novel (Chance in Hell, 2007) and repeated the story-within-a-story-within-a-story gimmick in 2009 with The Troublemakers – a frantic, hell-bent pulp fiction crime thriller which was part of the screen queen’s canon – and did it again in 2011 with Love from the Shadows.

Here, he’s gone a step further by revisiting the tone of those tales in the format of the 1960’s publishing trend for two-cover paperback releases offering a double-bill of exceedingly eccentric adult-themed sagas drawn from the schlocky, sleazy B-movie subculture of those times.

Deftly mimicking a compelling-but-trashy post-Noir psycho thriller and titillating Sci-Fi melodramas, both of these tales originated a decade ago in Love and Rockets: The New Stories and have been expanded for this volume.

You can start at whatever end you like – it’s a democracy, after all – and I’ll go with the wildly experimental graphic mime Hypnotwist. With overtones of Justine (or The Misfortunes of Virtue, the 1791 novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade), this eerie meander through the perils of modern debauchery follows a lost and vulnerable young woman on an astonishingly bizarre voyage of discovery…

If you flip to the far end, you’ll then be regaled by Scarlet by Starlight: a multi-perspective narrative that appears at first to be a science fictional fable of humanity despoiling a primitive Eden, before evolving into something far more disturbing. On a distant world, a team of three earthling explorers are helpless to prevent themselves becoming far too intimate with the primitive yet buxom anthropoids that populate the planet. As the human relationships break down, unwise new bonds are formed with unpleasant and even harrowing results…

Savage and sexually explicit, this exploration of drives and desires takes a further step into forbidden territory after the bold explorers return home…

Dark, evocative and astoundingly compelling, these are perfect pastiches of revered genres from a time period growing increasingly remote and fabulous. This slim hardback/digital delight is a stunning graphic rollercoaster ride of sex, violence, greed and obsession: a mesmerising treat jam-packed with Hernandez’s coolly understated narrative suspense, intoxicating illustration, brutally raw tension, sly elements of filmic surrealism and sheer surreal excess which carry and beguile the reader in classic style.
Hypnotwist/Scarlet by Starlight © 2021 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition © 2021 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.