Category: Adventure

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Gary Gianni’s MonsterMen and Other Scary Stories


By Gary Gianni with William Hope Hodgson, Robert E Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Percival Landon: lettered by Sean Konnot & Todd Klein (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-480-7 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-50670-481-4

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The tradition of extraordinary individuals banding together or even acting individually to confront night terrors and supernatural predators probably extends further back than even Gilgamesh or Beowulf. However, it really came to the fore once bards and skalds were rendered obsolete by cheap printing, mass literacy and pulp publishing. Action, crime, weird science and the supernatural all became strange bedfellows in service to monthly (sometimes fortnightly) blood-&-thunder adventures, with the best of the bunch still sneaking out the odd exploit nearly a century later…

The sublime stuff of legend in both story and illustrations has beguiled many a latecomer (Chaykin, Steranko, Wrightson and Kaluta first come to mind) but the absolute doyen of those that followed is Gary Gianni. Born in the Windy City in 1954, he graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1976 and subsequently worked as a courtroom sketch artist, in network television and as an illustrator for the Chicago Tribune before breaking into comics with modern Classics Illustrated adaptations of Tales of O. Henry and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.

This led him to Dark Horse Comics’ licensed titles with stints on The Shadow and Indiana Jones (…and the Shrine of the Sea Devil), with other strip work including Tarzan, Tom Strong and Batman. In 2004 he replaced John Cullen Murphy, becoming the third official artist on Prince Valiant, limning the epic Sunday feature until March 25th 2012. His book illustration work includes Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Ray Bradbury’s Nefertiti-Tut Express and Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road.

Always busy and much in demand, Gianni nevertheless managed to create a number of linked serial sorties concerning a mystery-solving ghostbusters, most of which originally appeared in the back of Hellboy titles (specifically Hellboy Christmas Special, Wake the Dead, The Wild Hunt #5-6, Almost Colossus), plus a solo one-shot The MonsterMen: The Skull and the Snowman. The other material filling this scare package all come from The Dark Horse Book of Monsters; the Dead; Hauntings & Witchcraft…

Set in the golden-hued yet shadowy environs of America’s pulp past, the tales are witty, elegant thematic pastiches of rip-roaring thriller-chiller masterworks – including early Batman yarns – and are preceded by a whimsical ‘Foreword by Gary Gianni’ and effusive ‘Introduction by Michael Chabon’.

The far too few exploits of The MonsterMen open with ‘Silent as the Grave’ as first seen in Hellboy: Wake the Dead #1-5, revealing a secret organisation who insert themselves in weird events such as the disappearance of actress Julia Adler, strange murder of her lover and inexplicable appearance of ghost images on the latest rushes of maverick director Larry St. George. Doggedly pursued by savvy reporter Sunset Lane, the famed movie maven has a dark unpleasant personal pestilence, but uses it for good, like battling occult whacko monster-wrangler Crulk beside sartorial nightmare/immortal mystic warrior monk Benedict(us) of the Venerable Guild of Corpus Monstrum. The pair are almost insufficient when the fiendish forces behind the plot go on the attack.

Almost…

A shorter, lighter yarn follows in ‘Autopsy in B-Flat’ (Hellboy: Almost Colossus#1-2) as, whilst laboriously exhuming a suspect, Benedict is regaled by an old exploit of his comrade: a tropical island mystery involving monstrous, seductive creatures and pirates who can’t stay dead, that nearly proves his distracting end during the current case…

‘A Gift for the Wicked’ (Hellboy Christmas Special) finds the odd couple cleaning an old dark house of unwanted tenants at the supposedly happiest time of the year – albeit with a little festive assistance – before ‘The Skull and the Snowman’ sees Sunset Lane despatched from a Tibetan Lamasery, carrying a cursed object to the Corpus Monstrum, just as Crulk returns to bedevil Benedict, begging aid to escape marauding Puttyfoons dogging his misshapen steps…

As reality goes wild and the modern metropolis roils under ancient satanic scourgings, all parties converge on the skull (still trying to get out of Tibet) and the power it promises. The quest draws out a legion of terrors and concludes with shocking revelations about two of the world’s most infamous monsters…

The comics cavorting concludes with a staggeringly eccentric and beautiful horror romp as ‘O Sinner Beneath Us’ (Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #5-6) channels Little Nemo in Slumberland in a classic unearthly child tale, with new recruits Sunset and Crulk taking pole positions for a wild chase for the salvation of innocence and retrieval of the ghastly Mustacchio Demoniac…

The Other Scary Stories section of this timeless terror tome offers classic pulp horror prose spectacularly illustrated and illuminated by Gianni, opening with a masterful vignette by William Hope Hodgson as ‘The Gateway of the Monster’ details the crushing fears and tragic outcomes generated by a haunted room in an English country house… and what celebrated spirit photographer Carnacki the Ghost Breaker must endure to end the appalling threat it poses…

It’s followed by the author’s stand-alone nautical tale ‘A Tropical Horror’, detailing the last voyage of the SS Glen Doon out of Melbourne, relentlessly and systematically stripped of its crew by a sea thing both ravenous and pitiless.

Wry, sardonic humour infuses a seductive tale of a powerful woman who takes what she wants in Clark Ashton Smith’s ‘Mother of Toads’, before Robert E. Howard’s horror western ‘Old Garfield’s Heart’ proves he wasn’t all about bulging thews and swinging swords. He could mix a mood as well as any horror master and inspire some potent illustration too…

Wrapping up the bedtime reading is one last period ghost story of haunted houses and murderous rooms imaginatively illuminated, as ‘Thurnley Abbey’ by Percival Landon, all sealed down with a lavishly illumined ‘Biography’.

Madcap, frenzied, skilfully constructed and just plain fun, MonsterMen and Other Scary Stories is stuffed with astounding imagery, packed with incidental iniquities such as zombie cowboys, squid corsairs, abominable snowmen, spectral skulls, movie phantoms, dark dragons and flabby flying demons, all delivered in snippets of smartly nostalgic nonsense. This is kids’ stuff for adults and there’s simply not enough of it, so get what there is while you can, fright fans!
Gary Gianni’s MonsterMen and Other Scary Stories™ © 1996, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2017 Gary Gianni. Introduction © 2012, 2017 Michael Chabon. All rights reserved. All other material ™, © or ® respective holders and owners.

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The Phantom – the complete newspaper dailies: volume Three 1939-1940


By Lee Falk, Ray Moore & Wilson McCoy: introduction by Mike Bullock (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 1-932563-61-X (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Born Leon Harrison Gross, Lee Falk created the Ghost Who Walks at the request of his King Features Syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed champion in comics, The Phantom became the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits…

The generational champion debuted on February 17th 1936, in an extended sequence pitting him against an ancient global confederation of pirates. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over illustration to artist Ray Moore. The spectacular and hugely influential Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, “the Ghost Who Walks” was quite poorly served in the English language market (except in the Antipodes, where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god). Many companies have sought to collect strips from one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history, but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. That has been rectified recently by archival specialists Hermes Press who launched curated collections in 2010 which have made almost all the various canonical iterations accessible to the devoted.

This third landscape Dailies edition is currently only available digitally. Released in 2011, its pages are stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like panel and logo close-ups, covers and lots of original art and opens with ‘Introduction: The Phantom and I’: a memories-rich text feature stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies from author/musician and uber-fan Mike Bullock before the vintage blood-&-thunder fun begins with exotic thriller ‘The Mysterious Girl’ (originally running Mondays to Saturdays, May 8th to September 2nd 1939).

Roaming Alexandria in plainclothes, the Ghost Who Walks interrupts a brutal abduction, but the jewel-bedecked victim doesn’t want his help or even to talk about it. Persistent and curious, The Phantom investigates further and learns she is currently amnesiac; terrified and being stalked by sleezy Count Pharos, who claims to be her guardian. When the rogue convinces “Miss Banks” to take a sea voyage with him, the Phantom and his faithful wolf Devil join the jaunt. Before long the heroes are apparently lost at sea, before the memory-afflicted maiden is also disappeared. Hard to kill, The Phantom trails the Count and finds a second abducted prisoner. Young Baron Marshall Dufresne is Pharos’ real ward and his imprisonment and wealth are what really concern the villain, particularly as the lad loves a girl named Merle and is prepared to sign a suicide note leaving everything to Pharos in return for her safety.

Of course, all those sneaky plans come unstuck once the Phantom decides to step in and stop the plot, but not before almost dying in many shocking ways as Pharos and his hulking henchman Red flee with the Phantom in spectacular hot pursuit, The chase ends in justice and Merle’s memories – and reputation – restored. Fast-paced, packed with peril and introducing a truly unique character in the bulky shape of Hannah – a fight-loving domestic servant who is The Phantom’s physical equal in fisticuffs – this epic exploit is sublimely frenetic fun, and segues seamlessly into ‘The Golden Circle’ (September 4th 1939 to January 20th 1940) as the hero’s true love resurfaces. Wealthy American adventurer Diane Palmer was made a nervous wreck by her time with The Phantom and has, for many months, believed him dead. Her doctors advised the masked man to go along with the sham for her sake…

The recuperating heiress has been unsuccessfully wooed by airman Lieutenant Byron, but when the Phantom checks in and finds her still pining for him, checks out again. The example inspires the pilot, who cables the hero to tell him Diana has agreed to become Mrs. Byron…

Enraged and jealous the hero returns to the hospital but finds her already gone. After dealing with Byron, The Phantom chases, catches and re-bonds with Diana. Sadly, that only generates a truly insurmountable problem as Diana’s snooty mother declares the masked peasant unworthy of her daughter. They can only wed if he gets a real job…

Chained to generations of duty and by his vow to oppose evil, the lovers are seemingly parted forever, and soon after in France the heartbroken hero is targeted by a mother/daughter con team and framed for murder. His frantic escape exposes another all-woman criminal gang plundering the world and The Phantom barely escapes the many traps and tribulations of the insidious organization The Golden Circle…

With war in Europe and the epic battle against the Circle ended, the subplot of Diana returns as Mama Palmer finally admits that all the men she’s pushed at her distraught daughter have not passed muster. Running from January 22nd to July 27th) ‘The Seahorse’ sees the dowager advertise for a suitable son-in-law with the result that Diana is feted, charmed, courted and ultimately kidnapped by scurrilous Count Danton. Naturally, The Phantom is not far away, but is he solely motivated by jealousy or does the fact that Danton is the foremost and deadliest enemy agent in the western hemisphere impact the hero’s incredible actions in winning her back?

Crucially, will clearing Diana of espionage charges and accusations of treason make The Phantom a more eligible suitor in Mama’s eyes?

This volume concludes with ‘The Game of Alvar’ (July 27th–
to December 14th 1940) as the reunited lovers enjoy a little downtime together… but only until they stumble onto a canny smuggling operation and Dian is targeted by a deadly assassin running a private murder-island. Naturally the Ghost Who Walks rushes to her aid, but the sinister Mr. Alvar has the entire police force and civil authorities on his payroll. Ultimately, this time it’s Diana who takes up arms, saves the day and restores honourable government to the oppressed, even if The Phantom does latterly land a blow or two…

The saga pauses for now with a few more images taken from The Phantom Big Little Books – another treat long overdue for resurrection.

Stuffed with chases, cruises, air and submarine clashes, assorted fights, torture, action antics, daredevil stunts and many a misapprehension – police and government authorities clearly having a hard time believing a pistol-packing masked man with a pet wolf might not be a bad egg – this is sheer gripping pulp-era excitement that still packs a punch and many sly laughs.
© 2011 King Features Syndicate, Inc.: ® Hearst Holdings, Inc.; reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Comics Presents – Stoker’s Dracula


By Bram Stoker, adapted by Roy Thomas & Dick Giordano with Joe Rosen, & VC’s Chris Eliopoulos, Cory Petit, Randy Gentiles & Rus Wooton (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4905-7 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-0-7851-1477-2 (2005 HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Moody Masterpiece …8/10

At the end of the 1960s American comic books were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for much of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by bold trends in movie-making and on TV, which now supplied the bulk of young adult entertainment needs for those kids who had grown up with Marvel.

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was a resurrection of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move vastly aided expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The switch to supernatural stars had many benefits. Crucially, it brought a new readership to House of Ideas, one attuned to the global revival in spiritualism, Satanism and all things sinisterly spooky. Almost as important, it gave the reprint-savvy company an opportunity to finally recycle old 1950s horror stories that had been rendered unprintable and useless since the code’s inception in 1954. A scant 15 years later the CCA prohibition against horror was hastily rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – and scary comics came back in a big way with a new crop of supernatural heroes and monsters popping up on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an en masse creation of horror titles (both new characters and reprints from the massive boom of the early 1950s) that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to (temporarily, at least) bite the dust. Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspect of the contemporary buzz for bizarre themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always in entertainment, the watch-world was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. One of Marvel’s earliest hits was an annexation of much of the lore around Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. With the secrets of that comic book success being held in abeyance here due to specific reviews of those tales imminently forthcoming, today we’re focusing on and recommending a lost gem of graphic narrative that grew out of the short lived phenomenon…

As far better explained by Roy Thomas in this compilation’s fact-packed Introduction ‘Dracula Lives – Again!’, the Tomb of Dracula newsstand periodical swiftly begat a non-code, anthological magazine spin-off – Dracula Lives – which, by various processes and endeavours further detailed by illustrator Dick Giordano in his Afterword ‘More than thirty years ago…’, spawned a full and thorough, serialised adaptation of the Stoker source material. More details of its production, and how the sudden downturn in horror themed fare caused the adaptation to stall and the magazines that carried it to fold are fully discussed in both essays and form part of the copious treasure trove of ‘Extras’ that close this tome of terror.

A work of astounding, respectful authenticity, and completely compelling at all stages despite a 30-year pause, this haunting beautiful adaptation is a triumph of that comics subdimension concerning adaptations of found literary material. As such, it compiles the chapters from Dracula Lives #5-8, 10-11 (spanning cover-dates March 1974 – March 1975) plus the completed but homeless seventh chapter which found a home in Marvel Preview #8 (AKA Legion of Monsters #1, September 1975) before the project stalled. After much long protracted wishing, and dalliances with other companies, the project was finally revived and the full finished saga was commissioned by Marvel three decades after the fact. The result was initially released as 4-issue miniseries Stoker’s Dracula (October 2004 to May 2005) before transferring for Halloween 2005 to its more apposite graphic novel incarnation.

A few more things to point out. Thomas and Giordano were deeply invested in the project and pulled out all the innovative stops to make the serial something special. Thomas designated specific lettering for each character’s narration – one of the earliest incidences of the technique, and Giordano – in an era long before graphic novels were possible in America – designed each instalment with drop-away caption boxes, on the hope that if one day the US gathered material in albums like Europe, individual chapter titles and “coming next issue!” captions could just be excised… like in a “real” novel…

However, as we’re all accursed with completism in comics, all those pages, plus miniseries front and back covers, Dracula Lives covers, paste up recap pages (11 in all) are included in the aforementioned Extras section, as well as 15 pages of sketches and 8 more showing the art process from rough pencils to inks and grey-tone wash finishes, before ending with the Giordano cover of Alter Ego #53 which highlighted the completion of the book of many ages…

As for the story, we all know it to some degree, but this one is guaranteed the closest ever to helping kids with their book reports without inflicting the modern bane of AI plagiarism on already despondent English teachers…

In an unbroken flow of gothic wonderment, the monochrome glory begins with a significant opening line quote, as on May 3rd 1897, English lawyer Jonathan Harker is lured to the wilds of Transylvania and horror beyond imagining when an ancient bloodsucking horror prepares to relocate to the pulsing heart of the modern world. As seen in ‘Into the Spider’s Web’, ‘The Female of the Species’, and ‘And in that Sleep…!’ English man of business Harker becomes an enforced guest, left to the tender mercies of his vampiric harem, and narrowly escapes even as their dark master Dracula travels by schooner to England, slaughtering every seaman aboard the S.S. Demeter in ‘Ship of Death’ before quietly unleashing a reign of terror on the sedate and complacent British countryside.

In the seat of Empire, Harker’s fiancée Mina Murray finds her flighty friend Lucy Westenra fading due to troublesome dreams and an uncanny lethargy none of her determined suitors – Dr. Jack Seward, Texan Quincy P. Morris and Arthur Holmwood (the next Lord Godalming) – can dispel. As Harker struggles to survive in the Carpathians, in Britain, Seward’s deranged patient Renfield claims horrifying visions and becomes greatly agitated…

Dracula, although only freshly arrived in England, is already causing chaos and disaster, and constantly returns to swiftly declining Lucy. His bestial bloodletting prompts her three beaux to summon famed Dutch physician Abraham Van Helsing to save her life and cure her increasing mania. As seen in ‘If Madness be Thy Master…!’, ‘Death Be Thou Proud!’, ‘Hour of the Wolf!’ and ‘Tell Truth, and Shame the Devil’ Harker survives his Transylvanian ordeal, and when nuns notify Mina, she rushes to Romania and marries him in a hasty ceremony to save his health and wits…

In London – and ‘For in that Sleep of Death…’ , ‘If Blood be the Price…’ , ‘For the Blood is the Life…’ and ‘The Demon in his Lair’ – Dracula renews his assaults and Lucy dies, and is reborn as a predatory, child-killing monster. After dispatching her to eternal rest, Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward and Morris – joined by recently returned, much-altered Harker and his bride – vow to hunt down and destroy the ancient evil in their midst, after a chance encounter in a London street between the newlyweds and an astoundingly rejuvenated Count.

Dracula has incredible forces and centuries of experience on his side. Having tainted Mina with his blood-drinking curse, he flees back to his ancestral lands. Frantically, giving the mortal champions give chase in ‘Pursuit’ and ‘Jaws of the Dragon’, battling the elements, the monster’s enslaved “gypsy army” and horrific eldritch power in a race against time lest Mina finally succumb forever to his unholy influence. Thankfully, but at great cost, Dracula’s efforts are all foiled and ‘Sunset’ sees his final death, with the survivors seen enjoying a fresh new dawn in ‘Epilogue’…

This breathtaking, oft-retold yarn delivers moody mystery, epic action, moving melodrama and astounding adventure all mantled in grim gothic horror, delivering beguilingly beautiful images and stunning thrills and chills in a most satisfactory traditional manner. Well worth the incredible wait, this is a comics classic every fan should hunt down.
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil



By Jeff Smith, coloured by Steve Hamaker (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1466-1 (HB) 978-1-4012-0974-2 (2009 TPB) 978-1-4012-9307-9 (2019 TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fights ‘n’ Tights Fiction for the Whole Family… 10/10

Superhero comics don’t get better than this.

No soft-soap, no easing you in. Jeff Smith (in a tale originally published as a 4-issue prestige format miniseries in 2007) came the closest yet to recapturing the naive yet knowing charm that made the World’s Mightiest Innocent far and away the most successful super-character of the Golden Age in this sharp and seductive reworking of one of his greatest adventures.

Following an adulatory Introduction from Alex Ross, the trip back to our magical communal childhood kicks off with a scene of appalling deprivation and terror…

Billy Batson is a little homeless kid with a murky past and a glorious destiny. One night, he follows a mysterious figure into an abandoned subway station and meets the wizard Shazam, who gives him the ability to turn into a hefty adult superhero called Captain Marvel. Gifted with the wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of Achilles and speed of Mercury, the literal man-child is sent into the world to do good.

Accompanied by verbose tiger-spirit Mr. Tawky Tawny, Billy sets out to find a little sister he never knew he had, and even parlays himself into a job as a source for TV reporter Helen Fidelity…

He sets to, fighting evils big and small, but at his heart he’s still just a kid. After impetuously causing a ripple in the world’s magical fabric, he must face the escalating consequences it causes: cosmic conniption fits that endanger the entire universe. When Billy finally tracks down his little sister, he also – accidentally – shares his powers with her and suffers the ignominy of having her be better at the job than he is…

The Captain soon encounters evil genius, US Attorney General and would-be ruler of the universe Dr. Sivanna, as well as the deadly and hideous minions of mysterious Mr. Mind, whose Monster Society of Evil is dedicated to wiping out humanity! Can he make amends and save the day?

Maybe, if Mary Marvel helps…

The original saga this gem is loosely based on ran from 1943-1946 in Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46: a boldly ambitious, captivating chapter-play in the manner of the era’s movie serials, and still regarded as one of the most memorable achievements of Golden Age comic books. It’s fairly safe to say that this reworking will stay in people’s hearts and minds just as long, too. It certainly spawned an excellent spin-off series which I’ve covered a time or two…

Jeff Smith accomplished the impossible here: crafted a superhero tale for all ages restoring some part of the genre to the children for whom it was originally intended. Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil is exciting, spectacular, moving and unselfconscious; revelling in the power of its own roots and the audience’s unbridled capacity for joy.

If you can track down the original hardback volume, it’s stuffed with added features. The dust-jacket opens into a truly magical double-sided poster, there are sketch and script pages for the reader with industry aspirations, biographies and historical sections, a lavishly illustrated production journal, puzzles and even a modern version of the secret code used as a circulation builder in the 1940s. Most important though, and irrespective of what iteration you get, it is the mesmerising quality of the story and artwork that you’ll remember, forever.

Words are cheap and I’ve used enough: now go get this is a truly magical, utterly marvellous book.

© 2007, 2009, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The A-Z of Marvel Monsters


By Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0863-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fan Smash! … 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

To dyed-in-the-wool comic book fanboys there’s a much beloved period in history when a frankly daft and woefully formulaic trend produced utter, joyous magic. We look back on it now and see only the magnificent art, or talk with loving derision of the crazy (and frequently onomatopoeic) names, but deep down we can’t shake the exuberant thrill inside or the frisson of emotion that occurs when we see or even think of them.

Before Jack Kirby & Stan Lee brought superheroes back to Marvel Comics, the company was on its last legs. Locked into a woefully disadvantageous distribution deal, the company’s output was limited to some sixteen genre titles. But there was hope…

The outside, mainstream, world was currently gripped in an atomic B-movie monster craze, so Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko dutifully capitalised on it in their anthology mystery titles Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense. In an unending procession of brief inspirational novelettes, dauntless or canny or just plain outsider humans outsmarted a succession of bizarre aliens, mad scientists, an occasional ghost or sorcerer (this was, after all, the heyday of the Comics Code Authority when any depiction of the supernatural was BAD) and a horde of outrageous beasties in a torrent of wonders best described by the catchphrase “monsters-in-underpants.”

Simplistic, moralistic, visually experimental yet reassuringly predictable in narrative, these Outer Limits-style yarns were – and still are – the epitome of sheer unrelenting fun with no redeeming social context required. Marvel have increasingly celebrated that fact in recent years (even folding most of the yarns into their modern multiversal continuity) and – over the course of one month – commissioned a line of 26 “Kirby Monster” variant covers for their periodical releases, all lovingly crafted by a number of top names to highlight the treasured contribution of beasties, things and what-nots…

This volume gathers those images in a handy hardcover primer (and eBook edition) whilst gloriously gilding the lily with a splendid selection of a few of the original mini-epics as created from those pre-Marvel Age masterpieces. The short sharp surprise is suitably augmented by ‘Jack Kirby, Atlas Comics & Monsters!’: a 1994 Introduction from the King himself.

The next bit’s another shopping-list moment, so if you want to skip ahead a little, I shouldn’t be at all surprised…

Augmented by the original cover of each diabolical debut, the worshipful A to Z art-section opens with Erica Henderson’s reinterpretation of ‘The Awesome Android!’ (as first seen in Fantastic Four #15) and rapidly follows up ‘The Blip!’ by Simon Bisley, and ‘The Crawling Creature!’, delineated by Maguerite Sauvage. An extreme late entry in the Kirby-Kritter Circus, ‘Devil Dinosaur!’ launched in his own title in 1978 and his moody reprise from Matthew Wilson is followed by Jeff Lemire’s take on ‘Elektro!’ and ‘Fin Fang Foom!’ – first seen in Strange Tales #89, and rendered here by Walter Simonson & Laura Martin.

Michael & Laura Allred depict latter-day cellulose celluloid star ‘Groot!’ (originating in Tales to Astonish #13), before Francesco Francavilla highlights ‘The Hypno-Creature!’, Paolo Rivera revisits Fantastic Four #24’s weird menace ‘The Infant Terrible!’ and Glenn Fabry regales us with an Asgardian god battling ‘The Jinni Devil!’ in a scene that didn’t make it into 1967’s Thor #137…

Dave Johnson details a key point in the life of ‘Kraa the Unhuman!’ before John Cassaday & Matthew Wilson illuminate the depredations of ‘Lo-Karr, Bringer of Doom!’, after which Geof Darrow whisks us back to Thor #154 to meet again amalgamated atrocity ‘Mangog!’

Kirby’s astounding 1976 Eternals series produced many incredible images, with Paul Pope & Shay Plummer selecting 2,000 feet tall Space God ‘Nezarr the Calculator!’ to set the pulses racing, whilst Mike del Mundo plumps for Strange Tales #90’s ‘Orrgo!’ and James Stokoe recalls Strange Tales of the Unusual #1 (December 1956)’s forgotten fiend ‘Poker Face!’

Recurring FF foe ‘The Quonian!’ first appeared in Fantastic Four #97 and wows again here thanks to Christian Ward, after which Eric Powell previews ‘Rommbu!’ and Tradd Moore pits Ant-Man against Tales to Astonish #39 terror ‘The Scarlet Beetle!’ before Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend show us the power of ‘Thorr!’ Chris Samnee & Wilson expose the fervent ferocity of Journey into Mystery #63’s undersea goliath ‘Ulvar!’ and Arthur Adams & Chris Sotomayor hark back to Tales to Astonish #17 to focus on ‘Vandoom’s Monster’ after which one last FF antagonist features as Cliff Chiang reveals ‘The Wrecker’s Robot!’ as seen in Fantastic Four #12.

Wrapping up this astounding alphabet are Dan Brereton’s rendition of ‘Xemnu!’ and Phil Noto’s depiction of ‘The Yeti!’ who battled Kirby’s Black Panther in #5 before Tony Moore & John Rauch hilariously conclude the countdown with alien outlaw ‘Zetora’.

Okay. Maybe a few of those spooky stalwarts might have been from a later era and star in superhero sagas, but the influence and intent was clearly seen throughout and just sets the tone for the Kirby-crafted fearsome fantasy-fest that follow…

The family-friendly monster mash – featuring scripts by Lee and Larry Lieber with Dick Ayers inking – opens with ‘I Learned the Dread Secret of The Blip!’ (Tales to Astonish #15, January 1961) wherein an openminded radar operator attempts to assist a stranded alien energy being. ‘I Dared to Battle the Crawling Creature!’ comes from TtA #22 (August 1961) as a scrawny High School nerd travels into the bowels of the Earth to face a primitive predator, whilst an aging electronicist creates and eventually counters would-be computerised conqueror ‘Elektro! He Held the World in his Iron Grip!’ (Tales of Suspense #19, January 1961).

The hideous Hypno-Creature harried a very human hero in extra-dimensional invasion epic ‘I Entered the Dimension of Doom!’ (ToS #23, November 1961) whilst facing hulking atomic victim ‘Kraa the Unhuman!’ (ToS #18, June 1961) proves the making of a timid American teacher…

A sunken stone head on a Pacific Island proved to be big trouble when explorers awakened ancient alien invaders in ‘Here Comes… Thorr the Unbelievable’ (Tales to Astonish #16, February 1961) and the origins of Defenders villain Xemnu the Titan are exposed in ‘I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!’ (Journey into Mystery #62, November 1960) whilst one hapless human proves to be the perfect hideout for extraterrestrial fugitive Zetora in ‘The Martian Who Stole My Body!’, as seen in JiM #57 (March 1960).

Foolish, fabulous, thrill-packed, utterly intoxicating and unforgettable, these are fun-filled tales no puny human could possibly resist.
© 1956-1961, 2017 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mandrake the Magician: Fred Fredericks Sundays volume 1 – The Meeting of Mandrake and Lothar


By Lee Falk & Fred Fredericks (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-692-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Time for another Birthday briefing as we exploit the month of mystery and imagination to celebrate 90 glorious years for another Golden Age stalwart…

Regarded by many as comics’ first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11th June 1934 – although creator Lee Falk had sold the strip almost a decade previously. Initially drawing it too, Falk replaced himself as soon as feasible, allowing the early wonderment to materialise through the effective understatement of sublimely solid draughtsman Phil Davis. An instant hit, Mandrake was quickly supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page from February 3rd 1935.

Falk – as 19-year-old college student Leon Harrison Gross – had sold the strip to King Features Syndicate years earlier, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to it full time. Schooling done, the 23-year-old born raconteur settled into his life’s work, entertaining millions with astounding tales. Falk also created the first costumed superhero in moodily magnificent generational manhunter The Phantom, going on to spawn an entire comic book subgenre with his first creation. Most Golden Age publishers boasted at least one (and usually many) nattily attired wizards in their gaudily-garbed pantheons: all roaming the world(s) making miracles and crushing injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actual sorcery.

Characters like Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of  “…the Magician”’s like Zatara, Zanzibar, Kardak proliferated ad infinitum: all borrowing heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery gracing the world’s newspapers and magazines. In the Antipodes, Mandrake was a suave and stalwart regular of Australian Women’s Weekly and became a cherished icon of adventure in the UK, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Turkey and across Scandinavia: a major star of page and screen, pervading every aspect of global consciousness.

Over many decades he has been a star of radio, movie chapter-serials, a theatrical play, television and animation (as part of series Defenders of the Earth). With that has come the usual merchandising bonanza of games, toys (including magic trick kits), books, comics and more…

Falk worked on Mandrake and “The Ghost who Walks” until his death in 1999 (even on his deathbed, he was laying out one last story), but also found a few quiet moments to become a renowned playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller. After drawing those first few strips Falk united with sublimely polished cartoonist Phil Davis, whose sleekly understated renditions took the daily strip, and especially the expansive full-page Sunday pages (collected in companion volume The Hidden Kingdom of Murderers), to unparalleled heights of sophistication. Davis’ steadfast, assured realism was the perfect tool to render the Magician’s mounting catalogue of spectacular miracles. Soon the Magician was a major star of page & screen, pervading all aspects of global consciousness as hinted at in a furore of fact features and massed memorabilia treats, beginning with introductory essay ‘The Real Mandrake the Magician’. This discusses real-life stage magician Leon Mandrake – who shared the evocative sobriquet in the mid-20th century – as revealed courtesy of his son Lon. Next on the bill is an appreciation of Davis’ inspired replacement as illustrator, in ‘Fred Fredericks – My Mandrake Artist’ by Andreas Erikson, with incisive exploration of Harold “Fred” Fredericks, who took over art production when Davis died and who ultimately assumed full creative duties when Falk himself passed on in 1999. This briefing covers that his tenure and includes his prodigious pre- and post-Mandrake comics work.

Those in the know are well aware that Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a suave globe-trotting troubleshooter. Always and everywhere he was accompanied by African partner-in-crimefighting Lothar and, from early on, capable companion (eventually, in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne. Together they solved mysteries and fought evil. Those exploits took the close-knit team literally everywhere, and the strips section of this luxury monochrome landscape hardback opens on ‘Traveler’s Tale’ which ran from March 21st to August 22nd 1965 and saw the last episodes illustrated by Davis, before his death in 1964 from a heart attack.

The saga sees Mandrake in the arctic, where iceberg-watching leads to the recovery of an apparent alien in a survival capsule. A physical and mental marvel, while slowly awakening Opolo deduces not just the English language but also that he’s been in hibernation for 60,000 years. He goes on to reveal that he’s actually from Earth, albeit part of a space-faring race that preceded Homo Sapiens. He’s also pining for his estranged true love Adrana, and Mandrake is happy to help him find her and the long buried civilisation they both came from and are the last survivors of…

Incredibly, along the way, the magician also solves an ancient murder mystery and plays cupid to the reunited survivors, before seeing them abandon their birthworld for the stars…

Always well in tune with contemporary zeitgeists – like sci fi and spy fi – Falk dipped into the growing well of supervillains monopolizing book shelves and airwaves by next reviving Mandrake’s personal arch-nemesis as ‘The Cobra Returns’ (August 29th 1965 – April 3rd 1966). The sinister savant was once Mandrake’s tutor at The College of Magic and here begins a globally destabilising assassination spree, provoking crime busting agency Inter-Intel to call in the Magician and his crew to consult. Sadly, the ploy only makes the perfidious plotter turn his full murderous attentions on our heroes, in an escalating series of attacks that ultimately end in a spectacular showdown and apparent end of the evil one…

With global stability secured, organised crime goes wild, and the miracle trio are kept busy helping the good guys crack down on mobsters in ‘The Underworld vs. Inter-Intel’ (April 10th – August 7th 1966), after which ‘The Astro Pirates’ (August 14th – December 25th 1966) highlights a modern spin on an old racket…

When bold bandits begin holding up airliners in the stratosphere they foolishly pick a jet carrying Narda, and a fully-engaged Mandrake and Lothar spare no effort to end the sinister sky-jinks, after which – inspired by the “Great Northeast Blackout” of November 5th 1965 – Falk & Fredericks fill us in on ‘The Blackout Caper’ (January 1st – April 23rd 1967), as a mad scientist teams up with mobsters to use darkness and chaos to get rich quick and fulfil even nastier nuclear ambitions but underestimate the power of the mighty magician…

Fredericks was a liberal and civil rights proponent, and had for months been subtly changing the “happy, loyal native” appearance of the African globetrotter to match the acts and character Falk had been crafting for years. The process was completed with a reboot of their first adventure together spanning April 30th – September 24th. ‘The Meeting of Mandrake and Lothar’ relates how the practically superhuman prince of reclusive kingdom “the 12 Nations” joins Mandrake in stopping crazed fugitive Mad Dog Dill, before abdicating all monarchical responsibilities to fight evil everywhere. However, returning to the present, shocks abound as Lothar agrees to helm his people’s transition to democracy by becoming their president, just as Mandrake and Narda are targeted by a manic gambler turned master-villain.

‘The Game of Chance’ (October 1st 1967 – February 11th 1968) soon sees Lothar return to aid in the comeuppance of devious blackmailer, kidnapper and influence-peddler Baron Chance and, prior to a resurgence of full-on fantasy, returns in ‘Invasion of the Babu’ (February 18th – July 21st 1968). No stranger to space adventure, Mandrake and Co are best friends with Magnon and Carola, Emperor and Empress of the Central Galaxy and benign rulers of one million worlds. The humans were there when the potentates had their baby Nardraka, and, as dutiful “godparents”, pull out all the stops when the toddler princess is abducted by barbaric invaders the Baboos.

Sadly for them, the apelike alien aggressors make a string of mistakes, beginning with hiding the hostage on even more barbaric Earth, continuing with trying to outsmart Mandrake and closing with believing Nardraka is “just” a stupid little female…

With one crisis resolved, Mandrake barely survives the renewed attentions of the Baron as ‘Second Chance’ (July 28th – November 3rd 1968) sees the magician and Inter-Intel hunt the murderous malefactor to his hidden island fortress and strike a major blow against organised crime, after which ‘The All or Nothing Hunt’ (November 10th 1968 – March 30th 1969), heralds the arrival of alien gamblers Alpha and Beta, who have made the mage their next obsession. Hiding a planet-eradicating bomb on Earth, the wagerers expect the wonder wizard to traverse the globe, deciphering clues to deactivate it. Of course, the extraterrestrials don’t play fair, but Mandrake isn’t playing at all…

No good deed goes unpunished, however, and ‘The Galactic Rumble’ (April 6th – September 7th 1969) reveals that Alpha and Beta are intergalactic crime lords with millions of thugs now indulging in an intergalactic gang war Magnon’s military and peacekeepers are helpless to stop. Isn’t it time to call in some consultants with the know-how to fight them on their own terms?

Yes it is, and not even exploding stars and marauding star dragons can long slow them down…

Ending the show are ‘The Fred Fredericks Mandrake the Magician Complete Sunday Checklist (1965-2002)’, plus full biographies of Fred Fredericks and Lee Falk. This thrilling tome offers exotic locales, thrilling action, bold belly laughs, cunning crime action and sheer wonder in equal measure. Paramount taleteller Falk instinctively knew from the start that the secret of success was strong and, crucially, recurring villains to test and challenge his heroes, and make Mandrake an unmissable treat for every strip addict. These stories have lost none of their impact and only need you reading them to concoct a perfect cure for the 21st century glums.
Mandrake the Magician © 2018 King Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. All other material © 2018 the respective authors or owners.

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Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 1


By Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, and various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60669-289-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Timely Tome of Terrors … 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Steve Ditko (November 2nd 1927 -c. June 29th 2018) was one of our industry’s greatest talents and probably America’s least lauded. His fervent desire was to just get on with his job telling stories the best way he could. Whilst the noblest of aspirations, that dream was always a minor consideration and frequently a stumbling block for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of Funnybook output.

Before his time at Marvel, the young Ditko mastered his craft creating short stories for a variety of companies, and it’s an undeniable joy to look at this work from such an innocent time. At this time he was just breaking into the industry: tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, free from the interference of intrusive editors.

This first fantastic full-colour deluxe hardback – and potently punchy digital treasure trove – reprints his early works (all from the period 1953-1955), comprising stories produced before the draconian, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority sanitised the industry, and although most are wonderfully baroque and bizarre horror stories there are also examples of Romance, Westerns, Crime, Humour and of course his utterly unique Science Fiction tales, cunningly presented in the order he sold them and not the more logical, albeit far less instructive chronological release dates. Sadly, there’s no indication of how many (if any) were actually written by moody master Ditko either.  If guessing authors, I’d plump for editor Pat Masulli and/or the astoundingly prolific Joe Gill (who was churning out hundreds of stories per year) as the strongest suspects…

And, whilst we’re being technically accurate, it’s also important to note eventual publication dates of the stories in this collection don’t have a lot to do with when Ditko rendered these mini-masterpieces: Charlton paid so little, the cheap, anthologically astute outfit had no problem buying material it could leave on a shelf for months – if not years – until the right moment arrived to print. All tales and covers here are uniformly wonderfully baroque and bizarre fantasies, suspense and science fiction yarns, helpfully annotated with a purchase number to indicate approximately when they were actually drawn.

Ditko’s first strip sale was held for a few months and printed in Fantastic Fears #5 (an Ajax/Farrell publication cover-dated January/February 1954): a creepy, pithy tale entitled ‘Stretching Things’, followed here by ‘Paper Romance’ – an eye-catching if anodyne tale from Daring Love #1 (September 1953, Gilmor). A couple of captivating chillers from Simon and Kirby’s Prize Comics hot horror hit Black Magic come next. ‘A Hole in his Head’ (#27, November/December 1953) combines psycho-drama and time travel whilst more traditional tale ‘Buried Alive’ (#28 January-February 1954) is a self-explanatory gothic drama.

Stylish cowboy hero Utah Kid stopped a ‘Range War’ in Blazing Western #1 (January 1954, Timor Press), and Ditko’s long association with Charlton Comics properly began with the cover and vampire shocker ‘Cinderella’ from The Thing #12 (February 1954). The remainder of the work here was published by Charlton, a small company with few demands.

Their diffident attitude to work was ignore creative staff as long as they delivered on time: a huge bonus for Ditko, still studiously perfecting his craft and never happy to play office politics. They gave him all the work he could handle and let him do it his way…

After the cover for This Magazine is Haunted #16 (March 1954) comes ‘Killer on the Loose’: a cop story from Crime and Justice #18 (April 1954), and the same month saw him produce cover and three stories for The Thing #13: ‘Library of Horror’, ‘Die Laughing’ and ‘Avery and the Goblins’. Space Adventures #10 (Spring 1954) first framed the next cover and the witty cautionary tale ‘Homecoming’, followed by three yarns and a cover from the succeeding issue – ‘You are the Jury’, ‘Moment of Decision’ and the sublimely manic ‘Dead Reckoning’…

This Magazine is Haunted #17, (May 1954), featured a Ditko cover and three more moody missives: ‘3-D Disaster, Doom, Death’, ‘Triple Header’ and intriguingly experimental ‘The Night People.’ That same month he drew the cover and both ‘What was in Sam Dora’s Box?’ and ‘Dead Right’ for mystery title Strange Suspense Stories #18. He had another shot at gangsters in licensed title Racket Squad in Action (#11, May-June 1954), producing the cover and stylish caper thriller ‘Botticelli of the Bangtails’ and honed his scaring skills with the cover and four yarns for The Thing #14 (June 1954): ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, ‘The Evil Eye’, the utterly macabre ‘Doom in the Air’ and grisly shocker ‘Inheritance!’

He produced another incredible cover and five stories in the next issue, and, as always was clearly still searching for the ultimate in storytelling perfection. ‘The Worm Turns’, ‘Day of Reckoning’, ‘Come Back’, ‘If Looks could Kill’ and ‘Family Mix-up’ range from giant monster yarn to period ghost story to modern murder black comedies , but throughout, although all clearly by the same artist, no two tales are rendered the same way. Here is a true creator pushing himself to the limit.

Steve drew the cover and ‘Bridegroom, Come Back’ for This Magazine is Haunted #18, (July 1954), ‘A Nice Quiet Place’ and the cover of Strange Suspense Stories #19, plus the incredible covers of Space Adventures #12 and Racket Squad in Action #11, as well as cover and two stories in Strange Suspense Stories #20 (August 1954) – ‘The Payoff’ and ‘Von Mohl Vs. The Ants’ – but it was clear that his astonishing virtuosity was almost wasted on interior storytelling.

His incredible cover art was compelling and powerful and even the normally laissez-faire Charlton management must have exerted some pressure to keep him producing eye-catching visuals to sell their weakest titles. Presented next are mind-boggling covers for This Magazine is Haunted #19 (August 1954), Strange Suspense Stories #22 and The Thing #17 (both November 1954) as well as This Magazine is Haunted #21, (December1954).

The Comics Code Authority began judging comics material from October 26th 1954, by which time Ditko’s output had practically halted. He had contracted tuberculosis and was forced to return to his family in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, until the middle of 1955. From that return to work come the final Ditko Delights in this volume: the cover and a story which originally appeared in Charlton’s Mad Magazine knockoff From Here to Insanity (#10, June 1955). A trifle wordy by modern standards, ‘Car Show’ nevertheless displays the sharp, cynical wit and contained comedic energy that made so many Spider-Man/Jonah Jameson confrontations an unforgettable treat a decade later…

This is a cracking collection in its own right but as an examination of one of the art form’s greatest stylists it is also an invaluable insight into the very nature of comics. This is a book true fans would happily kill or die for.
This edition © 2009 Fantagraphics Books. All Rights Reserved

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Yakari and the Pronghorns (volume 22)


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-144-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A World We All Want … 9/10

In 1964 children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded by Swiss journalist André Jobin, who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later, he hired Franco-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre AKA “Derib”. The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs): working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou. Thereafter, together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration.

Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime such groundbreaking strips as Buddy Longway, Celui-qui-est-nà-deux-fois, Jo (first comic to deal with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne haven’t been translated into English yet, but still we patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Over decades, much of Derib’s stunning works have featured his beloved Western themes: magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which led him to his deserved mega-stardom. Debuting in 1969, self-contained episodes trace the eventful, nomadic life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains, with stories set sometime after the introduction of horses (by colonising Conquistadores) but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which also generated two separate animated TV series and a movie – has notched up 42 albums thus far: a testament to its evergreen vitality and brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain took on the writing in 2016.

Abundant with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, Yakari’s life is a largely bucolic and happy existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of dramatic delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart and brave, and who can – thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle – converse with animals…

In 1997, Yakari et Les Cornes fourchues became the 23rd European album, but as always, content and set-up are both stunningly simple and sublimely accessible, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

It’s spring and everything is vivid and portentous. As Yakari and his pony Little Thunder frolic in the prairie grasses, they see old Quiet Rock fishing. As he’s nowhere near water and using a moccasin as bait, they simply have to know what he’s doing…

And thus begins the boy’s introduction to the wondrous prairie antelope called pronghorns. How different it might have all been if the magnificent curious beast had not spooked when the little human spoke in words a stag could understand?

As the creature bounds away, Yakari stumbles over well-hidden twin fawns – Topii and Tipoo – and meets their extremely protective new mother. By morning his bruises are healed and the deer are convinced Yakari is not a hunter seeking an easy meal, but they can’t afford to relax as wolves and coyotes are always near at this time of year…

With papa keeping vigil, boy and fawns bond, playing lots of reindeer games (sorry, couldn’t stop myself) but things get extremely serious when Yakari sees a plume of smoke. In a flash, everyone is fleeing a terrifying wildfire and the massive stampede racing ahead of it, and that’s when the boy realizes Topii is missing…

When the immediate danger subsides, boy and pony go looking for the kid, but nobody really expects a happy outcome. Thankfully, Topii has made a very useful friend in a sagacious, protective porcupine and Yakari is not the kind of boy to lose hope or stop until a job is done….

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing and entertaining all-ages strips ever conceived. It should be in every home, right next to Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes and The Moomins. It’s never too late to start reading something wonderful, so why not get back to nature as soon as you can?
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud – Lombard s. a.) – 2000. All rights reserved. English translation 2024 © Cinebook Ltd.

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The Dangerous Journey


By Tove Jansson, translated by Sophie  Hannah (Drawn & Quarterly/Enfant)
ISBN: 978-1-77046- (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-638-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Warm Storytelling for the Darkest Nights… 10/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally inspired in shaping words and making images to create whole worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen and ink, manipulating slim economical lines and patterns to realise sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols and as this collection shows, so was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Patriarch Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author/, cartoonist and art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War. Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gently inclusive, acceptingly understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their rather odd friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, gently adventurous big-eyed romantic goof began life as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a little clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators believe the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can. When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or sometimes The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975.

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many artists get their faces on the national currency?

Whenever such a creative force passes on, the greatest tragedy is that there will be no more marvels and masterpieces. Happily, so tirelessly prolific was Tove that her apparently endless bounty left plenty of material for later creators and collaborators to pick over. One such example is this stunning children’s rhyming picture book, part of a series using her characters.

In a wonderfully peaceful place, there’s a girl called Susanna and a cat. Life is pretty idyllic but the brooding human wants action, not contentment…

When she makes an unwise move near the napping moggy, it precipitates a strange event, and a lengthy, laborious trek by many modes of transport through strange lands, supplying all the adventure a girl could ask for. Thankfully, there are some oddly familiar and exceedingly helpful characters heading in the same approximate direction…

Finished in 1970, this metaphysically moody and marvellous allegorical meandering was Jansson’s last picture book for kids, as she graduated to even darker themes addressing mature issues. As a narrative it is utterly compelling, and, for an example of kids’ doggerel, translator Sophie Hannah keeps the rhythm and rationale rolling along with exemplary invention.

Witty, thrilling and disturbingly lovely in dark ways The Dangerous Journey is every youngster’s perfect introduction to sequential narratives, and a beguiling reminder to oldsters why we love them…

Entire contents © Tove Jansson, 1970 Moomin Characters™. Translation © 2010, 2018 Sophie Hannah. All rights reserved.

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Tosh’s Island

Version 1.0.0

By Linda Sargent, Joe Brady & Leo Marcell, adapted by Kate Brown (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-333-2 (Digest HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Powerful, Moving and Memorable… 9/10

British comics’ triumph The Phoenix has been generating fun, fantasy and wild adventure for kids since 2012, scoring some impressive results – such as Bunny Vs Monkey, Mega Robo Bros and No Country – and generally lifting the standards of comics literature and quality of graphic novels for children.

Now, thanks to writers Linda Sargent (drawing on her own childhood experiences) & Joe Brady, and illustrator Leo Marcell, the comic periodical has developed a far more traditional kind of children’s drama: one that should rank beside such potent “real-world” fantasies as A Dog So Small, The Family from One End Street or The Secret Garden.

Tosh’s Island is set in bucolic Kent hops country in the era between the end of rationing and advent of mobile phones, and follows the decline and resurgence of an indomitable spirit coming to terms with the cruellest and most unjust of circumstances.

It begins as Tosh is getting ready for secondary school: helping dad ready the hops and prepare the Oast House for Autumn and having him tell again the story of her being The Gooseberry Girl found under a bush. It’s much better than the ordinary story of how they adopted her. Tosh is fit and active and great at rounders, loves her bike, climbing with best friend Millie, and making up fantastic tales – especially about mermaids…

And suddenly, one afternoon it all starts to go wrong.

Slowly pain visits her, increasingly wracking her body and sucking all the energy out of her. The doctor thinks it’s nothing, but soon Tosh is constantly, chronically suffering. Not wanting to make a fuss, she soldiers on, but soon, it’s impossible to keep her suffering – and fears – secret. As big school starts, she finds everything harder, and old and new friends soon start talking about and taunting the troublesome attention-seeker.

Thankfully, her parents believe her, moving heaven and earth to get to the bottom of the mystery. There’s always hope of a recovery or at least end to pain, and treats like a visit to the beach. Here she meets a lonely French boy as forlorn as her – and as imaginative. Together they build a mind palace of refuge, an island for mermaids and shark rides and castles in the air. Corresponding with Louis will save Tosh’s sanity, but only after inadvertently causing her immense grief and embarrassment…

The mystery and misery continue until at last the right diagnosis and even treatment is found, but it certainly not all good news…

A forceful and evocative personal history of fortitude and resolve mesmerisingly clad in whimsy, charm and beguiling imagination, Tosh’s Island is a brilliant introduction to real world problems any kid can grasp and be moved by, in exactly the way books like Animal Farm, Tarka the Otter or Lord of the Flies negotiate the transition from sheltered child to understanding proto adult… and all in utterly entrancing pictures.

Do not miss this landmark tale.
Text © Linda Sargent & Joe Brady, 2024. Illustrations © Leo Marcell, 2024. All rights reserved.

Tosh’s Island will be published on October 10th 2024 and is available for pre-order now.