Category: Adventure

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The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire volume 1


By Mike Butterworth & Don Lawrence & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-755-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Boys Own Nostalgia… 9/10

For British – and Dutch – readers of a certain age and prone to debilitating nostalgia, The Trigan Empire (or The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire to give it its ponderous full title) was only ever about two things: boyish wish-fulfilment and staggeringly beautiful art.

The strip was created by Senior Group Editor Leonard Matthews and given to the editor of Sun and Comet to develop and continue. A trained artist, Mike Butterworth became writer of many historical strips such as Buffalo Bill, Max Bravo, the Happy Hussar, Battler Britton and Billy the Kid – and latterly a crime and Gothic Romance novelist with more than 20 books to his pen names.

Based in equal part on cinematic Sword & Sandal/Biblical epics and space age fascination of a planet counting down to a moonshot, for the saga Butterworth combined his love of the past, a contemporary comics trend for science fiction and the long-established movie genre of manly blockbusters to construct a vast sprawling serial of heroic expansionism, two-fisted warriors, wild beasts, deadly monsters and even occasionally the odd female.

The other huge influence on the series was the fantasy fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs (especially John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar) but without his concentration on strong and/or blatantly sexy women – usually as prizes for his heroes to save. In the formative days of the Trigan Empire, ladies dressed decorously, minded their manners and were dutiful wives or nurses… unless they were evil, vindictive or conniving…

The compellingly addictive, all-action thematic precursor to Warhammer, Civilisation and Warcraft might have been a short run venture had it not been for the art. The primary illustrator was Don Lawrence (Marvelman, Wells Fargo, Billy the Kid, Karl the Viking, Fireball XL5, Maroc the Mighty, Olac the Gladiator, The Adventures of Tarzan, adult comedy strip Carrie and his multi-volume Dutch magnum opus Storm), who painted each weekly instalment.

Initially he used watercolours before switching to quicker-drying gouaches, rendered in a formal, hyper-realistic style that still left room for stylistic caricature and wild fantasy: one that made each lush backdrop and magnificent cityscape a pure treasure. Other, later artists included Ron Embleton, Miguel Quesada, Philip Cork, Gerry Wood and Oliver “Zack” Frey, as the strip notched up 854 weekly instalments, beginning in September 1965 and only ending in 1982. Along the way, it had also appeared in Annuals and Specials and become a sensation in translated syndication across Europe. Even after it ended, the adventure continued: in reprint form, appearing in the UK in Vulcan and across the world; in two Dutch radio plays; collected editions sold in numerous languages; a proposed US TV show and numerous collected editions from 1973 onwards. Surely someone must have a movie option in process: if only Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis were still around, we could completely close the creative circle…

Lawrence (17th November 1928-29th December 2003) inspired a host of artists such as Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons, but as he worked into the 1990s, his eyesight was increasingly hindered by cataracts and he took on and trained apprentices such as Chris Weston and Liam Sharp (who offers his own potent reminiscences in the Introduction to this first archival volume from Rebellion Studios’ Treasury of British Comics). Sharp collaborated with the venerable artist on his last Storm stories…

Inescapably mired in powerful nostalgia, but also standing up remarkably well on its own merits, this first collected volume re-presents the series from its enigmatic opening in high-end glossy tabloid magazine Ranger, combining comics with a large selection of factual features. The fantasy soon began to steal the show and was the most noteworthy offering for the entirety of the publication’s 40 week run, spanning 18th September 1965 to 18th June 1966. It then carried over – with a few other choice strips – into Look and Learn, beginning with #232: remaining until the magazine closed with #1049 (April 1982).

Ranger had been a glossy, photogravure blend of traditional comic anthology strips and educational magazine, and when it folded, the only publication able to continue The Trigan Empire in its full grandeur was Look and Learn…

One of our most missed publishing traditions is the educational comic. From science, history and engineering features in the legendary Eagle to a small explosion of factual and socially responsible boys and girls papers in the late 1950s to the heady go-getting heydays of the 1960s and 1970s, Britons always enjoyed a healthy sub-culture of comics that informed, instructed and revealed …and that’s not even counting all the pure sports comics!

Amongst many others Speed & Power, Treasure, World of Wonder, Tell Me Why, and Look and Learn spent decades making things clear, illuminating understanding and bringing the marvels of the changing world to our childish but avid attentions with wit, style and – thanks to the quality of the illustrators involved – astonishing beauty.

Look and Learn launched on 20th January 1962: brainchild of Fleetway Publications’ then Director of Juvenile Publications Leonard Matthews. The project was executed by editor David Stone (almost instantly replaced by John Sanders), sub-editor Freddie Lidstone and Art Director Jack Parker.

For 20 years it delighted children, and was one of the county’s most popular children’s weeklies. Naturally there were many spin-off tomes such as The Look and Learn Book of 1001 Questions and Answers, Look and Learn Book of Wonders of Nature, Look and Learn Book of Pets and Look and Learn Young Scientist as well as the totally engrossing Christmas treat The Look and Learn Book – and, in 1973 – The Look and Learn Book of the Trigan Empire: The serial’s very first hardback compilation…

Strangely, many, many kids learned stuff they didn’t think they cared about simply because it filled out the rest of that comic that carried the Trigan Empire…

In this tome we span 25th June1966 through 17th May 1968: encompassing Ranger #1-40 and Look and Learn #232-331: subdivided for your convenience into 13 chapter plays of what we oldsters absorbed as one continuous unfolding procession of wonder…

Depicted with sublime conviction and sly wit, it begins with ‘Victory for the Trigans’ (18th September 1965 – 29th January 1966) as fishermen in the Florida swamps witness a spaceship crash. All aboard are dead, and after, the global news cycle wearies of the story, the craft is reduced to a sideshow attraction whilst scholars investigate its technology, dead voyagers and a huge set of journals written in a truly indecipherable language. No one succeeds and eventually, no one cares…

All except student Richard Peter Haddon, who spent the next half century looking for the key and at age 70 cracked the code, subsequently translating the history of a mighty race of aliens so like earthmen…

From then on the scene switches to distant twin-sunned world Elekton, where a number of kingdoms and empires-in-waiting jostle for position. In many ways it’s like Earth a few thousand years before the birth of Christ… except for all the monsters, skycraft and ray guns…

In the wilds and wastes between the nations of Loka, Tharv, Davelli and Cato, brutish free-ranging tribes of nomadic Vorg hunt and clash and live brief free lives, until three brothers decide, existence could be so much more…

Driven, compelling and charismatic, notional leader Trigo has a dream and convinces his siblings Brag and Klud to ask their people to cease following roving herds of beasts and settle by a river where five hills meet. Before long they have built a city and begun the march to empire and dominance. Of course the defiant libertarians were initially resistant to becoming civilised, but that ended after the Lokans began hunting them for sport from their flying ships…

By the time Loka’s King Zorth finally got around to conquering Tharv and formally annexing the lands of Vorg in his plan to become global dictator, Trigo had begun building his city and invited refugees from Tharv to him. Amongst the survivors of Lokan atrocity was Peric – an architect and philosopher acclaimed as the smartest man alive and his daughter Salvia. Both would play major roles in the foundation of the Trigan Empire…

When Zorth at last turned to consolidate by taking Vorg, his air, sea and land forces were met by an unbeatable wall of death and history was rewritten. It had come at great cost, most notably to Trigo as victory was almost snatched from him when his brother Klud attempted to murder him, seize power and betray his people to the Lokans…

With the empire established, one translated book ended, and Professor Haddon’s life’s work moved on to what we’ll call ‘Crash in the Jungle’ (5th February – 19th February 1966) which introduces young warrior/pilot Janno. As the son of Brag, he is childless Trigo’s nephew and heir apparent: undergoing many dynamic adventures as an imperial troubleshooter whilst being groomed for rule…

Here, still wet behind the ears, the lad crashes in the plush green rainforests of Daveli, befriends Keren – son of a formerly antagonistic chieftain – and facilitates an alliance with the ever-expanding Trigan Empire. When Janno returns to pilot training, Keren is beside him and will be his constant companion in all further exploits…

Planetary chaos erupts next as ‘The Falling Moon’ (26th February – 28th May 1966) reshapes Elekton’s political map. When Gallas impacts sister moon Seres, the cosmic collision sends the former satellite smashing into Loka where – forewarned – Zorth seeks to relocate his power base and entire populace by seeking sanctuary in Trigo’s city. Once admitted and welcomed the Lokans bite the hand that shelters them by seizing the city. Valiant Brag manages to save wounded Trigo, but they are captured and enslaved by desert raiders of the Citadel…

As Janno and Keren escape to mount a futile resistance to the Lokans, slave worker Trigo foils an assassination and earns the gratitude of the Citadel king, who lends him a band of warriors to retake his own city. When they unite with Janno and Keren, Zorth’s defeat and doom are assured…

Time seems to move differently on Elekton and many events seem telescoped, but as the strip jumps to a new home, continuity manifests in ‘The Invaders from Gallas’ (4th June – 18th June in Ranger and then Look and Learn #232-237 from 25th June to 30th July 1966. As the fallen moon cools, aliens dwelling inside emerge to attempt the conquest of their new world via their mind control techniques.

With the Trigans crazed and killing each other, only a deaf man holds the key to their survival…

Look and Learn #238-242 (6th August -3rd September 1966) featured ‘The Land of No Return’ – which sees Janno accidentally sent along the River of Death (a rather cheeky “tribute” to Burroughs’ Mars stories), debunking an insidious religious belief that had for millennia curtailed life for Elekton’s elderly and destroying a cult of slavers…

‘The Revolt of the Lokans’ (L&L #243-255, 10th September – 3rd December 1966) returned to the exiled former-conquerors who poisoned and deranged Trigo before retaking his city. Thankfully, Keren and Peric found a way to restore order to the city and its ruler, after which issues #256-264 (10th December 1966 – 4th February 1967) detailed ‘War with Hericon’ as Trigo married Lady Ursa, sister of King Kassar: the ruler of the aloof, distant empire (a visual melange of Earth’s Persian and Byzantine kingdoms). The diplomatic love affair was soured by a single sinister malcontent when Yenni – a vengeful criminal outcast of both Hericon and Trigan – fomented racial unrest in both realms and let human nature do its worst…

Janno and Keren took the lead again in ‘Revolution in Zabriz’ (#265-273, 4th February – 8th April 1967), when he was despatched to survey a distant mountain outpost and uncovered a plot by its governor to use captive labour to finance a coup to oust Uncle Trigo and take over the empire, after which The Lokan Invasion’ (Look & Learn #274-279, 15th April – 20th May) sees the bold brothers-in-arms stumble into a devious scheme by chemist Vannu to destroy the Trigans by contaminating their water with an amnesia-inducing potion…

Revenge is once more the pivotal force as ‘The Revenge of Darak’ (#280-290, 27th May – 5th August) reveals how Trigan’s greatest pilot betrays his emperor and is punished with slavery in the mines. After a year he escapes and uses his intimate knowledge to drive a wedge between Trigo and Brag, poison Peric and embroil Hericon in war. Thankfully, brotherly love trumps hurt feelings and justice conquers all…

A taste of horror comes with The Alien Invasion’ L&L #291-297 (13th August – 23rd September) as energy beings land on Elekton. Able to possess organic brains, the intruders work their way up the planet’s food chain until Keren, Kassar and Trigo are fully dominated, but the cerebral tyrants have not reckoned on Peric’s wit or Janno’s cunning…

The first big role for a woman comes in ‘The Reign of Thara’ (Look & Learn #298-316, 30th September 1967 – 3rd February 1968) as the royal family is ousted by deceit and a secret society of soldiers instals the daughter of Klud in Trigo’s place. Vain, haughty and imperious, she is intended as a puppet of secret manipulators, but proves to possess too much pride and backbone to allow the empire to fall to mismanagement and enemy incursions. Happily, the actual Royal Family have survived their well-planned dooms and returned, leading an army of liberated slaves and a fleet of pirates sworn to Trigo’s service…

During the campaign, Kern and Janno befriend a rural bumpkin, obsessed with flying, and Roffa becomes their third “musketeer”, playing a major in the concluding tale here.

Spanning Look & Learn #317-331 (10th February – 17th May 1968) ‘The Invasion of Bolus’ sees the trio captured by rogue scientist Thulla: pressganged into joining his mission to build a ship and conquer Elekton’s inhabited moon. Unable to defy or escape, they become unwilling members in his army, before defecting to the super-advanced but pacifistic Bolans. At least they left a warning before lift-off: one that – eventually – reaches Trigo and Peric.

As the Trigans rush to construct a rescue vessel, Thulla brutally seizes the moon people’s city and commences the second part of his plan: building a colossal ray cannon to destroy all life on Elekton…

As Trigo’s ship takes off – too late to stop devasting blasts from Bolus – Janno and Keren are forced to desperate measures to save their people from the murderous madman…

Incorporating a tantalising teaser for the next volume and biographies of the creators, this truly spectacular visual triumph is a monument to British Comics creativity: one that simultaneously pushes memory buttons for old folk whilst offering a light but beautiful straightforward space opera epic readily accessible to the curious and genre inquisitive alike.

Is that you or someone you know?
The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire is ™ Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. © 1965, 1966, 1967 & 2019 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Sixty Years: The Beano and The Dandy – Focus on the Fifties


By Many & various (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-0-851-16846-3 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Scotland’s Finest Fun Factory Fancies… 9/10

Whenever we’ve faced our worst moments, humans tend to seek out old familiarities and wallow in the nostalgia of better days. Let’s see how this particular foray feels, especially as it’s still unreachable by that there newmfangled electro retrieval widgetry, but still remarkably cheap in assorted emporia and on them there interwebs… 

Released in 2004 as part of the DC Thomson Sixtieth Anniversary celebrations for their children’s periodicals division – which has more than any other shaped the psyche of generations of British kids – this splendidly oversized (299 x 205mm) 144 page hardback compilation rightly glories in the incredible explosion of ebullient creativity that paraded through the flimsy colourful pages of The Beano and The Dandy during a particularly bleak and fraught period in British history. Tragically, neither it nor its companion volumes are available digitally yet, but hope springs ever eternal…

Admittedly this book goes through some rather elaborate editing, design and paste-up permutations to editorial explaining for modern readers the vast changes to the once-commonplace that’s happened in the intervening years. Naturally the process has quietly dodged the more egregious terms and scenarios that wouldn’t sit well with 21st century sensibilities, although to my enlightened sensibilities the concentration on whacking children on the bottom does occur with disturbing frequency – the Bash Street Kids even had their fearfully expectant upraised bums as the strip’s logo for a few years!

However, viewed as a cultural and historical memoire, this is a superb comic commemoration of one of our greatest communal formative forces, with a vast number of strips and stories carefully curated from a hugely transformative period in national history.

They’re also superbly timeless examples of cartoon storytelling at its best…

Until it folded and was briefly reborn as a digital publication on 4th December 2012, The Dandy was the third-longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino which launched in 1924 and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937). The Dandy premiered on December 4th 1937: breaking the mould of traditional British predecessors by using word balloons and captions on some strips, rather than just the narrative blocks of text under the sequential picture frames that had been the industry standard.

A huge success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano – and in concert they revolutionised the way children’s publications looked and, most importantly, how they were read.

Over the decades the “terrible twins” spawned so many unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted countless avid and devoted readers, and their unmissable end of year celebrations were graced with bumper bonanzas of the comics’ weekly stars in extended stories in magnificent hardback annuals.

During WWII, rationing of paper and ink forced the “children’s papers” into an alternating fortnightly schedule: on September 6th 1941, only The Dandy was published. A week later just The Beano appeared. The rascally rapscallions only returned to normal weekly editions on 30th July 1949, but the restrictions had not hurt sales. In fact, in December 1945, The Beano #272 became the first British comic to sell a million copies, and the post-war period saw more landmarks as the children’s division of DC Thomson blossomed over the next decade, with innovative characters and a profusion of talented cartoonists who would carry it to publishing prominence, even as the story papers died back in advance of more strip anthologies like The Topper (1953) and The Beezer (1956)…

This compilation primarily concentrates via random extracts and selected strips on the development of established 1940s stars – like Biffo the Bear (1948), Lord Snooty (1938), The Smasher (1938, but completely reinvented in 1957), Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan (both 1937), who all survived the winds of change to grow into beloved and long-lived favourites in the new era. They’re highlighted beside the most successful new characters of the fifties, including Dennis the Menace (1951), Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger & Little Plum (all 1953) and the Bash Street Kids (1956 or 1954 if you count prototype When the Bell Rings! as the same).

Nevertheless there’s also a wonderful selection of less well known features on view…

This superb celebration of Celtic creativity is packed literally cover-to-cover with brilliant, breakthrough strips with the mirth starting on the inside front with an outrageous 2-colour Frontispiece tableau by Leo Baxendale of When the Bell Rings!

It’s mirrored at the back of the book by a similarly hilarious spread starring Biffo by indisputable cartoonist Dudley D. Watkins …

The main event begins with Focus on the 50’s, as a full-colour Roger the Dodger page by Ken Reid and a Baxendale 2-tone Bash Street Kids strip heralds an editorial introduction, context on soapbox cart building and casting call ‘Fifties Fun-Folk’ before seguing into a tale of Tin Lizzie: a pioneering comedy strip in block-text & pic format about a mechanical housemaid and robot butler Brassribs. Starting in 1953 as a prose serial, it was remodelled as a comic drawn by Jack Prout and  Charles Grigg which presaged later mega-hit Brassneck…

With all these pages playing with the theme of “carties”, snatches of Watkins’ Lord Snooty and the 1957 iteration of The Smasher by Hugh Morren lead to an episode of ‘Charlie the Chimp’.

Limned by Charles Grigg, the feature was another comedy drama in block & pic format starring a smart but strictly realistic simian working as a porter in a boarding house…

A full-colour Korky strip by James Crighton, with the cat using his cart as a taxi, ends this section before ‘A Day in the Life of Dennis’ offers an extended collection of strips and features starring the magnificent Menace, rendered by creator Davey Law. The Bad Boy debuted in The Beano #452 (in shops from March 12th 1951) and begins with prose piece ‘Nursery Crimes – or Dennis Growing Up by Dennis’s Dad’ taken from the first Dennis the Menace Book. Its backed up by 15 strips from the era, including ‘News Boy’, ‘Doctor’s Orders’, ‘Top of the Class’ and ‘Dad in Disgrace’ before literally and figuratively shifting gear to see Korky and Biffo as “Teddy Boys” in individual full-colour fashion yarns…

Assorted snapshot strips from venerable fantasy serial ‘The Iron Fish’, illustrated by Jack Glass, lead to a Watkins moment in ‘50’s Medicine the Desperate Dan Way!’ before Baxendale’s ‘Little Plum’ enjoys his own time in the spotlight via 22 strips culled from both comics and Annuals.

Desperate Dan crops up again in episodes from 1952-1954 before “Strongman’s Daughter” Pansy Potter (by James Clark) outwits a wicked wizard whilst Paddy Brennan exults in full-colour in the debut chapter of fantasy thriller ‘Fighting Forkbeard (The Sea Wolf from Long Ago)’ wherein a dragonship full of Vikings washes up and attacks a modern fishing village…

A Baxendale Bash Street strip guest-starring Minnie the Minx opens a selection of crossovers with Biffo and others, after which Hungry Horace and Shaggy Doggy offer a glimpse at the work of Allan Morley, an old school cartoonist who had been with The Beano since #1 but was now giving way to new style and content…

Created by Ken Reid, Jonah was an accursed sailor who sank every vessel he touched and the splendid sampling of strips here leads to Watkins’ introduction of Desperate Dan’s nephew Danny and niece Katey from February 1957, and is followed by a Biffo strip showing a number of things totally banned from modern comics…

‘Guess the Date!’ and ‘50’s Housing – the Desperate Dan Way!’ plus a Korky clash with his arch enemies – The Mice – lead to examples of strips that didn’t work out with a page each for Jenny Penny (Jimmy Thompson) and Little Angel Face (by Ken Reid) before a Lord Snooty vignette from 1954 opens a section starring a certified superstar – Roger the Dodger…

Realised by Reid, the consummate con artist struts his stuff and takes his retributive punishments in a dozen strips, after which the modern medium of home entertainment is tackled in a colour Korky tale and ‘50’s Tele-Watching – the Desperate Dan Way!’ before a Morley Charlie Chutney cookery classic from 1954 acts as palate cleanser for what follows…

All that spanking endured by wayward kids is especially prevalent in a selection of manic material starring Minnie the Minx: in 28 episodes of conniving, chicanery and clobbering courtesy of Baxendale…

A brilliant blast of Biffo in colour brings us to the Bash Street Kids in all their grubby glory. Accompanied by another mini-editorial providing historical context, a slap-happy selection combines double-page tableaux of When the Bell Rings! with a surfeit of Bash Street strips and reveals how the feature evolved. The Baxendale cover to story paper Wizard #1547 (October 1955) accompanies prose tale ‘Bash Street School’ from the June 4th edition, and discloses how the tableau feature inspired comedic school stories which in turn informed a stripped-down strip version with the 16+ kid cast pared down to the 9 we know today…

The process was applied to a few DCT characters, as seen in text story ‘The Boyhood of Desperate Dan’, preceded by the cover for Wizard #1492 (September 18th 1954) and a page of prose thriller ‘Red Rory of the Eagle’ (September 1951) ranged beside the strip it became with a Jack Glass rendered episode from September 1958…

Bill Holroyd provides a 1954 tale of voracious be-kilted ‘Plum MacDuff – The Highlander Who Never Gets Enough’ and the animal antics of ‘Kat and Kanary’ – created by Grigg but probably illustrated here by Baxendale – introduces ‘50’s Tele-Watching – the Desperate Dan Way!’ and follows up with a Biffo strip from November 1956 that might just be the UK’s first infomercial; a Grigg royal rarity featuring Prince Whoopee and a Reid Roger the Dodger lark that eschews the punitive slipper for a more targeted retribution…

A sampling of fantasy drama series follows: name – and picture – checking ‘The Horse That Jack Built’, Brennan’s ‘The Shipwrecked Circus’ and Glass’ ‘The Bird Boy’ before we hit the final stretch, starting with a 1959 Smasher saga about boots, a quick appearance for ‘Cocky Sue, the Cockatoo – She’s the Brains of the Pirate Crew’ by an artist I should recognise, but don’t, and ‘50’s Transport – the Desperate Dan Way!’

With past and future in mind Lord Snooty then pre-empts the microwave oven in a wild yarn from 1954, whilst ‘Wee Davie and King Willie’ strike an early and unexpected blow for animal rights in a strip from 1957 by Ken Hunter, who also ends our comic capers with a wild & woolly double page bonanza tableau set in ‘Wee Davie’s Zoo’…

Sadly, none of the writers are named and precious few of the artists, but I’ve offered a best guess as to whom we should thank, and of course I would be so very happy if anybody could confirm or deny my supposition…

A marvel of nostalgia and timeless comics wonder, the addictive magic of this collection is the brilliant art and stories by a host of talents that have literally made Britons who they are today. Bravo to DC Thomson for letting them out for a half-day to run amok once again; can we please have more and in digital edition, too?
© DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2004

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The Phantom Sundays Archive volume 1 – Full-Size Newspaper Strips: 1939-1942


By Lee Falk & Ray Moore: introduction by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press)
ISBN: ?978-1-61345-081-9 (HB/Digital edition), ?978-1-61345-091-8 (Limited Edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Landmark and Lovely Comics Adventure… 9/10

Born Leon Harrison Gross, Lee Falk created the Jungle Avenger 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 Ghost Who Walks 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 gathered here began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, The Phantom has been 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).

Numerous 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 began to be rectified when archival specialists Hermes Press began offering curated collections…

This particular edition is a lovely and large landscape hardback (but also available in digital formats), displaying a complete full colour Sunday per page. Released in May 2015, it was printed on matt paper to mimic the original newsprint experience: 160 pages measuring 310 x 430 mm, and also in a Special Limited Edition of 1000 copies, should you require your reading matter to double as an antiquarian artefact…

It’s still readily available in digital form and – stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like movie posters, comics covers and original art – Daniel Herman’s ‘Introduction: The Phantom’s First Foray into Color’ – tells all you need to know about the character, his creators, and predecessor/co-star before the vintage magic begins…

It opens with a recapped origin: showing how 400 years previously, a British sailor survived an attack by pirates, and – washing ashore on the African coast – swore on the skull of his father’s murderer to dedicate his life and that of his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights crime and injustice from a base deep in the jungles of Bengali, and throughout Africa and Asia is known as the “Ghost Who Walks”…

His unchanging appearance and unswerving war against injustice led to his being considered an immortal avenger by the uneducated, credulous and wicked. Down the decades, one champion after another has fought and died in an unbroken family line, with the latest wearer of the mask indistinguishable from the first and proudly continuing the never-ending battle.

‘The League of Lost Men’ spanned May 28th to October 15th 1939, detailing how a gang of white thugs led by untutored brute Twitchy began teaching rural tribes the concept of the “protection racket”. With villagers killed and entire communities aflame, the Ghost took action just as white entomologist Professor Thrush and his beautiful, dutiful daughter Helen stumbled into the army of criminals whilst searching for skull-emblazoned Death’s Head moths…

With the scientists as hostages, the Phantom was reduced to playing a waiting game, but detective work revealed his enemies comprised hundreds of convicts escaped from a foundered prison ship. Gravely outnumbered, our hero and lupine assistant Devil (that’s a wolf. Yes, in Africa. Just go with it…) employ psychological warfare, using those skull moths and combat skills in a war of attrition bringing the legion to doom or reincarceration…

International espionage and environmental terrorism informed ‘The Precious Cargo of Colonel Winn’ (October 15th 1939 March 10th 1940) as the Phantom fails to save an aging British agent and takes over his identity and mission: delivering a crucial coded message to India. As a consequence he soundly scuppers a scheme to blow up a major dam, drown hundreds of people and kill millions more through thirst…

Every saga featured powerful, capable and remarkably attractive women as both heroes and villains, but Falk & Moore went a step further with ‘The Fire Goddess’ (March 17th – July 21st 1940). Restored to Africa, the hero faced mass uprisings and the end of “The Phantom’s Peace” when the Mesabi people took up their belligerent old religion. Some diligent investigation uncovered another get-rich-quick scheme by white crooks and an elderly Mesabi seer who jointly conned and compelled a beautiful red-haired nightclub dancer into being their personal war deity.

Once the Ghost finally liberated Manna Day from her captors and inflicted his brand of justice, he assumed he’d seen the last of her but she was back immediately as ‘The Beachcomber’ (July 28th – December 29th 1940) found her rescuing deranged hobo Whitey, slowly expiring on an African shoreline.

Befriending the degenerate, she uncovered a horrific tale of injustice as her fellow American revealed how he was a fugitive: perfectly framed for murder by his own lawyer. Manna decided it was a case for her masked friend…

After dragging Whitey across the continent to the fabled Skull Cave, she convinced the hero to head for the USA where “Kit Walker” made them extremely conspicuous in New York, drawing the attention of a slick murder-for-hire mob, assassinating powerful people and duping innocents into carrying the can – just as they had with Whitey…

Infiltrating the group, Walker uses his new position to save an honest Judge before deftly dismantling the killer corporation.

Heading home, he was barely out of the judge’s house before the next escapade began as he overheard plans of ‘The Saboteurs’ (January 5th February 23rd 1941) at a railway station. With Devil beside him, The Ghost Who Walks tumbled into an escalating sequence of stunning action set-pieces involving trains, planes, automobiles – even oil pipelines and roller coasters! – as he wiped out the seditious enemy agents.

The remainder of this initial outing features movie-length extravaganza ‘The Return of the Sky Band’ (running March 2nd 1941 to February 22nd 1942). The first clash had been The Phantom’s second published case (originally published in black-&-white Daily form from 9th November 1936 to April 10th 1937): pitting the Grim Ghost against merciless aviators plundering passenger planes and cargo flights.

His crusade against cloud bandits ruthlessly raiding passenger planes and airships throughout the orient only shattered the gang – comprised solely of women – after his manly charms inadvertently drove a fatal wedge between deranged and deadly commander The Baroness and her ambitious second in command Sala…

Now as the hero reaches home, news comes of more air piracy and The Phantom volunteers his services to an embattled air clipper company. All too soon, he’s matching wits with Sala again, hunting the new Sky Band’s secret island base. And once again he ends up in jail accused of masterminding their crimes…

However, before he can escape police custody, the air pirates make a fatal error, allying with an enemy power. Very soon the women learn that they are far from the apex predators they consider themselves. When the Phantom escapes, he’s not sure if he’s shutting them down or saving them.

Sala’s deputy Margo has no doubts or qualms though, delivering their potential saviour to the enemy military, only to have the Ghost Who Walks wreak awful vengeance on their sailors as they flee in a submarine…

However, even with a secret invasion foiled and Sala and Margo arrested, the danger is not over, and their attempts to get away leads to a horrific act of sabotage as the enemy submariners also break free…

Only another unlikely alliance saves the day, and sees a return to relative stability in a world teetering on the edge of another global war…

To Be Continued…

Taken from America’s immediate pre-war period, these brief encounters are uncomplicated fare, full of lost kingdoms and savage tribes, very bad guys and fallen but still redeemable dames; but thrilling yet reassuring entertainment for all that. Finally rediscovered, these lost treasures are especially rewarding as the material is still fresh, entertaining and addictively compelling.

But, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians – who have long been manic devotees of the implacable champion) surely the Ghost Who Walks is worthy of a little of your time?
The Phantom® © 1939-1942 and 2015 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc.; reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Introduction © 2015 Daniel Herman.

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A Spirou & Fantasio Adventure: Volume 19 – The Visitor from the Mesozoic


By André Franquin with Greg & Jidéhem, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-066-1 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Marvellous Monster Madness… 9/10

Spirou (whose name translates as “squirrel”, “mischievous” and “lively kid” in the language of Walloons) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter – AKA Rob-Vel – for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis. He was a measured response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. At first, Spirou (with his pet squirrel Spip) was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to Dupuis’ premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures gradually evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed lad debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page, French-language tabloid magazine that bears his name to this day. Fronting a roster of new and licensed foreign strips – Fernand Dineur’s Les Aventures de Tif (latterly Tif et Tondu) and US newspaper imports Red Ryder, Brick Bradford and Superman – Le Journal de Spirou grew exponentially: adding Flemish edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, bumping up the page count and adding compelling action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for Continental kids.

Spirou and chums spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with many impressive creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over.

In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin inherited the strip. Gradually, he retired traditional short gag-like vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials; introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars. He ultimately devised a phenomenally popular nigh-magical animal dubbed Marsupilami, who debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin in 1969 and working for a decade: beginning a succession of reinventions by creator teams that included Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca; Yves Chaland; and Philippe Vandevelde – writing as “Tome” – & artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry.

These last reverently referenced the beloved, revered Franquin era: reviving the feature’s fortunes in 14 albums between 1984-1998. After their departure the strip diversified into parallel strands: Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By… before Lewis Trondheim and the teams of Jean-Davide Morvan/Jose-Luis Munuera and Fabien Vehlmann/Yoann stepped up.

By my count – which includes specials, spin-offs series and one-shots – they cumulatively bring the album count to upwards of 90, but for many of us the Franquin sagas are the epitome and acme of the Spirou experience…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, initially concentrating on translating Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin, but for this manic marvel (available in paperback and digitally) they reached back all the way to 1960 for some true Franquin-formulated furore.

Belgian superstar André Franquin was born in Etterbeek on January 3rd 1924. Drawing from an early age, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943 but when the war forced the school’s closure a year later, Franquin found animation work at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels. Here he met Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke-creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford (AKA The Smurfs creator Peyo), and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945 all but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist/illustrator, crafting covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. Throughout those days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé – at that time main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a perfect creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They would revolutionise Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling.

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriquée, (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946. He ran with it for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac. Along the way Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, endlessly expanding their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory.

The heroes travelled to exotic places, uncovering crimes, finding the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies like Zorglub and Zantafio, as well as one of the first strong female characters in European comics, rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in the current English translation).

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own band of apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill), Jidéhem (Sophie, Ginger, Starter, Uhu-Man, Gaston Lagaffe) and Greg author of Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Achille Talon, and Zig et Puce who all worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio.

In 1955, a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, collaborating with René Goscinny and Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Within weeks Franquin patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Spirou, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (known in Britain as Gomer Goof), but was obliged to carry on his Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist had reached his Spirou limit. He quit, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

His later creations include fantasy series Isabelle, illustration sequence Monsters and bleak adult conceptual series Idées Noires, but his greatest creation – and one he retained all rights to on his departure – is Marsupilami, which, in addition to comics tales, has become a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

Plagued in later life by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics.

Originally entitled Le voyageur du Mésozoïque and brought to you here as The Visitor from the Mesozoic this album combines a long tail (sorry couldn’t resist!) plus another, shorter adventure by the master crafted in collaboration with co-writer Greg (alias Michel Régnier) and artist Jidéhem – AKA Jean De Mesmaeker. The lead romp comes from 1957 having originated as a serial in Le Journal de Spirou #992-1018 and clearly and cleverly channelling that time’s penchant for rampaging, city-stomping giant monsters…

It begins in the Antarctic as the mushroom-mad Count de Champignac is rescued – much against his will – from his own experiments and frozen doom and brought back to France. He has with him a dinosaur egg that has been frozen for millions of years…

Getting the fragile, precious miracle back to his lab in bucolic Champignac-on-the-Sticks takes all the ingenuity and determination his pals Spirou and Fantasio can muster, but after much fuss and fluster the primordial ovum is stashed in the genius’ workshop and slowly thawing under the gimlet eyes of a handpicked team of fellow mad scientists including Doctors Nero, Schwartz, atomic pariah Sprtschk and Alexandre Specimen – “the Biologist”…

Their bumbling patience is tested to its limits when the mischievous Marsupilami becomes obsessed with the new ball toy and perhaps it’s his terrifying antics that finally force it to hatch…

Everyone is delighted when the mega-million-year-old herbivore pops out, but science is never patient and the bonkers boffins imprudently goose along its development with a little growth formula and aging extracts. Sadly, so does the Marsupilami and when everybody wakes up in the morning they’re greeted by a genial skyscraper saurian with a huge empty belly and a very bad cold…

Soon the big daft brute is shambling through the hamlet looking for browse and causing quite a commotion. The villagers might be used to weird happenings but the government respond with predictable hostility: sending in a tank column and a flight of warplanes…

They prove inefficient and quite ineffective, but the story also generates a wave of controversy. Stridently vocal, violently different pressure groups form: some wanting to save the poor endangered creature and others seeking to preserve the precious landmarks and monuments the beast is trampling. There’s even one guy who wants to make the dinosaur the latest taste sensation in his canned meat factory…

With chaos rampant Spirou looks for a solution to help the creature and finds one, but it depends on manoeuvring the monster to a certain isolated promontory. Thankfully, the Marsupilami has lost patience with his old toy and is ready to step in and step up…

Manic and wildly slapstick in tone and delivery, the story of the big beast is both charming and wickedly satirical and offers a happy ending films like Godzilla, Konga and Gorgo could never have imagined…

The rampaging silliness is counterbalanced by an equally funny but far more sinister pastiche also set in the wild world of the Merlin of Mushrooms. Back-up yarn ‘Fear on the Line’ stems from 1959, serialised as ‘La Peur au bout du fil’ in LJS #1086-1092. Notable for the first crossover appearance of comedy sluggard Gaston Lagaffe, the story details how Champignac distils the chemical essence of evil and accidentally drinks it instead of his coffee. Warned too late, Spirou and Fantasio must chase the now wicked prankster as he wreaks havoc in the village and plants bombs filled with his chemical concoctions. Happily, The Biologist is on hand to offer advice as the clock counts down to doom and our heroes give chase, but in the end it’s the Marsupilami who solves the crisis in his own bombastic manner…

The Visitor from the Mesozoic is the kind of lightly-barbed comedy-thriller that delights readers fed up with a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly-sweet fantasy.

Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive yet wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Iznogoud so compelling, this is a truly enduring landmark tale from a long line of superb exploits, and deserves to be a household name as much as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1960 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Killraven Epic Collection: Warrior of the Worlds 1973-1983


By Don McGregor & P. Craig Russell, with Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Herb Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan, Keith Giffen, Sal Buscema & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3216-9 (TPB/Digital)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epically Evergreen Faux Future Fun… 9/10

When the first flush of the 1960s superhero revival started fading at the end of the decade, Marvel – who had built their own resurgent renaissance on the phenomenon – began casting around for new concepts to sustain their hard-won impetus. The task was especially difficult as the co-architect of their success (and greatest, most experienced ideas-man in comics) had jumped ship to arch-rival National/DC, where Jack’s Kirby’s Fourth World, The Demon, Kamandi, Last Boy on Earth, OMAC and other innovations were opening new worlds of adventure to the ever-changing readership.

Although a global fascination with the supernatural had gripped the public – resulting in a huge outpouring of mystery and horror comics – other tried-&-true genre favourites were also revived and rebooted for modern sensibilities: westerns, war, humour, romance, sword & sorcery and science fiction…

At this time Stan Lee’s key assistant and star writer was (former-English teacher and lover of literature) Roy Thomas. As he accrued editorial power, Thomas increasingly dictated the direction of Marvel: creating new concepts and securing properties that could be given the “Marvel Treatment”. In a decade absolutely packed with innovative trial-&-error concepts, the policy had already paid huge dividends with the creation of Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night, whilst the brilliantly compelling Conan the Barbarian had quickly resulted in a whole new comicbook genus…

This complete compilation collects the bold and mercurial science-fiction thriller from Amazing Adventures #18-39, a guest appearance in Marvel Team-Up #45 and the saga’s notional conclusion in Marvel Graphic Novel #7: an eclectic and admittedly inconsistent hero-history that has at times been Marvel’s absolute best and strong contender for worst character, in a sporadic career spanning May 1973 to 1983. The feature struggled for a long time to carve out a solid identity for itself, but finally found a brilliantly effective and stridently lyrical voice when scripter Don McGregor arrived – and stayed – slowly recreating the potential epic into a perfectly crafted examination of contemporary American society in crisis; proving the old adage that all science fiction is about the Present and not the Future…

He was ideally complimented in his task by fellow artisan P. Craig Russell whose beautifully raw yet idealised art matured page by page over the long, hard months he illustrated the author’s increasingly powerful and evocative scripts. The tone of those times is scrupulously recalled in McGregor’s Introduction before Marvel’s most successful Future Past opens…

The dystopian tomorrow first dawned in Amazing Adventures #18, where Marvel’s loosely-based iteration began. Conceived by Thomas & Neal Adams – before being ultimately scripted by Gerry Conway – a ‘Prologue: 2018 A.D.’ introduces a New York City devastated by invasion and overrun by mutants, monsters and cyborgs all scavenging for survival.

The creative process was a very troubled one. Adams left the project in the middle of illustrating the debut episode, leaving Howard Chaykin & Frank Chiaramonte to flesh out the tale of how, at the turn of the 20th century, a refugee mother sacrifices her life defending her two young sons from terrifying alien Tripods and vile human turncoats who had early switched allegiance to their revolting, human-eating new masters…

Nearly two decades later, escaped gladiator Killraven overcomes all odds to kill monstrous genetic manipulator The Keeper and save his brother Joshua, only to discover his sibling long gone and his despised tormentor grateful for the release of death.

The elderly scientist had been compelled to perform countless mutagenic experiments for his alien masters but had secretly enacted a Machiavellian double-cross, imbuing Jonathan Raven with hidden powers that might eventually overthrow the conquerors. All the boy had to do was survive their horrific arena games until old enough to rebel against the Martians who have occupied Earth since 2001…

With his dying breath, Keeper provides his uneducated murderer with the history of ‘The War of the Worlds!’: of Free Mankind’s furious futile, atomic last stand and how the alien conquerors had possessed the shattered remnants of Earth…

The dying tech reveals how gladiatorial training and scientific abuses shaped Killraven into the perfect tool of liberation and retribution, even to the warrior’s recent escape and first attempts at raising a resistance movement. However, just as the story ends, the designated-liberator realises he has tarried too long and mutant monsters close in…

The adventure resumed in #19 as Killraven narrowly escapes the psionic snares of ‘The Sirens of 7thAve.’ (by Conway, Chaykin & Frank McLaughlin) and the other myriad terrors of the devastated metropolis to link up with second-in-command M’Shulla and strike a heavy blow against the alien butchers by destroying two hulking mechanical Tripods.

Newly elevated by the conquerors to the status of genuine threat, the rebel and his followers plan a raid on a New Jersey base but are instead captured by the mesmerising Skarlet, Queen of the Sirens, who hands them over to the Martian governing the city…

Forced to fight a mutated monstrosity in the alien’s private arena, Killraven unexpectedly turns the tables and drives off the gelatinous horror before boldly declaring he is the guardian of Mankind’s heritage and will make Earth free again…

Amazing Adventures #20 was written by Marv Wolfman, with Herb Trimpe & Frank Giacoia illustrating ‘The Warlord Strikes!’, wherein the Freemen raid a museum and acquire weapons and armaments, and create a brand-new look for Killraven…

Easily overcoming the traitorous lackeys of the Martian Masters, the rebels are blithely unaware that the carnivorous extraterrestrial devils have deployed their latest tool: a cruelly augmented old enemy who hunts them down and easily overcomes their primitive guns, swords and crossbows with his own onboard cyborg arsenal…

The ambitious new series was already floundering and dearly needed a firm direction and steady creative hands, so it’s lucky that the concluding chapter in #21 (November 1973) saw the debut of Don F. McGregor: a young ambitious and poetically experimental writer who slowly brought depth of character and plot cohesiveness to a strip which had reached uncanny levels of cliché in only three issues.

With Trimpe & “Yolande Pijcke” illustrating, ‘The Mutant Slayers!’ began the necessary task of re-establishing the oppressive hopelessness and all-pervasive horror and loss of Well’s original novel. Determined to translate the concept into modern terms for the new generation of intellectual, comics-reading social insurgents, McGregor also took the opportunity to introduce the first of a string of complex, controversial – and above all, powerful – female characters into the mix…

Carmilla Frost is a feisty, sharp-tongued geneticist and molecular biologist ostensibly faithful to her Martian masters, but she takes the first opportunity to betray their local human lieutenant and help Killraven and his Freemen escape the Warlord’s brutal clutches. For her own closely-guarded reasons, she and her bizarrely devoted monster anthropoid Grok the Clonal Man join the roving revolutionaries in their quest across the shattered continent…

In AA #22 (art by Trimpe & Chiaramonte), the motley crew arrive in America’s former capital and encounter a ‘Washington Nightmare!’

After defeating a band of slavers led by charismatic bravo Sabre, Killraven forms an uneasy alliance with local rebel leader Mint Julep and her exclusively female band of freedom-fighters. The green-skinned warrior woman has also battled Sabre and cautiously welcomes Killraven’s offer of assistance in rescuing her captured comrades from the literal meat-market of the Lincoln Memorial, where flesh-peddling mutant horror Abraxas auctions tasty human morsels to extraterrestrial patrons.

The raid goes badly and Killraven is on the conquerors’ menu in ‘The Legend Assassins!’, before the resistance fighters unite in a last-ditch attempt to save their tempestuous leader from The High Overlord. The captured leader, meanwhile, has become main course in a public propaganda-feeding/execution: to be devoured by vermin-controlling freak Rattack…

The hero’s faithful followers – including gentle, simple-minded strongman Old Skull and embittered Native American Hawk – arrive just in time to join the furious fray in #24’s spectacular ‘For He’s a Jolly Dead Rebel!’ (inked by Jack Abel), but their escape is only temporary before they are quickly recaptured. Their valiant example impresses more than one disaffected collaborator, however. When former foes led by Sabre unite in battle against the Martian Overlord, the result is a shattering defeat for the once-unbeatable oppressors…

A returning nemesis for the charismatic rebel and his freedom fighters debuted in Amazing Adventures #25. ‘The Devil’s Marauder’ (art by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson) sees Killraven inconclusively clash with cyclopian Martian flunky Skar. During the battle, the hard-pressed human is unexpectedly gripped by a manifestation of hidden psychic power – granting him visions he cannot comprehend…

Travelling across country, the rebels stumble onto another forgotten glory of Mankind’s past in the state once called Indiana. The race circuit of the Indianapolis 500 is now a testing-ground for new terror-tripods and thus a perfect target for sabotage. However, when the fury-filled Killraven tackles human-collaborators and Skar resurfaces, the incensed insurgent steps too far over ‘The Vengeance Threshold!’…

Gene Colan & Dan Adkins illustrated #26’s ‘Something Worth Dying For!’ as the Freemen reach Battle Creek, Michigan and Killraven encounters a feral snake/horse hybrid he simply must possess…

Soon after the band is ambushed by human outlaws guarding a fabulous ancient treasure at the behest of petty tyrant Pstun-Rage the Vigilant…

Since the place was once the site of America’s breakfast cereal empire and this wry yarn is filled with oblique in-jokes – many of the villains’ names are anagrams of Kellogg’s cereals – you can imagine the irony-drenched secret of the hoard the defenders give their lives to protect and pragmatic Killraven’s reaction to it all…

The drama kicks into spectacular high gear with AA #27 and the arrival of P. Craig Russell (inked by Abel) for the start of a dark epic entitled ‘The Death Breeders’.

Whilst crossing frozen Lake Michigan in March 2019, the band is attacked by monstrous lampreys and Grok suffers a wound which will eventually prove fatal. McGregor loathed the notion of simplistic, problem-solving, consequence-free violence which most entertainment media slavishly thrived upon. He frequently tried to focus on some of the real-world repercussions such acts should and would result in…

The heroes head to what was once Chicago: now a vast industrialised breeding-pen to farm human babies for Martian consumption. En route, they met pyrokinetic mutant Volcana Ash, who has her own tragic reason for scouting the ghastly palaces of Death-Birth…

As the new allies undertake an explosively expensive sortie against the Death Breeders, in the far-distant halls of the Martian Kings of Earth, the Warlord is tasking recently-repaired Skar with a new mission: hunt down Killraven and destroy not only the man, but most importantly the legend of hope and liberation that has grown around him…

In #28 (pencilled, inked and coloured by Russell in the original) Ash reveals her horrific origins and the purpose of her quest as the Freemen battle monsters thriving in the chemically compromised lake. Elsewhere, chief butcher The Sacrificer watches his depraved boss Atalon live up to his decadent reputation as ‘The Death Merchant!’: emotionally tenderising the frantic “Adams and Eves” whose imminent newborns will be the main course for visiting Martian dignitaries…

Everything changes during Killraven’s fateful raid to liberate the human cattle. When the disgusted hero skewers one of the extraterrestrial horrors, he experiences severe psychic feedback and realises at last his debilitating, disorienting visions are an unsuspected ability to tap into Martian minds. And in the wastelands, Skar murderously retraces the Freemen’s route, getting closer and closer to a final showdown…

With Amazing Adventures #29 the series was rebranded Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds and ‘The Hell Destroyers’ reveals the rebel leader’s greatest victory, inspiring thousands of freshly-liberated earthlings by utterly destroying the temple of atrocity before gloriously escaping into the wilderness and a newborn mythology…

The pace of even a bi-monthly series was crippling to perfectionist Russell, and ‘The Rebels of January and Beyond!’ in #30 was a frantic 6-page melange from him, Adkins, Trimpe, Chiaramonte & Abel, all graphically treading water as The Warlord “reviewed” (admittedly beautiful) fact-file pages on Killraven, M’Shulla and Mint Julep.

The saga resumed in #31 on ‘The Day the Monuments Shattered’, wherein McGregor & Russell close the Death Breeders story in stunning style. Pursued by Atalon and Sacrificer into the icy wilds between Gary, Indiana and St. Louis, the broken Earth outcasts hide.  As Twilight People, they take refuge in a cavern, allowing an accompanying Eve to give birth in safety, but only leads to assault by a monolithic mutant monster just as their pursuers find them. The battle changes the landscape and ends three ghastly travesties forever…

In #32, ‘Only the Computer Shows Me Any Respect!’ (art by Russell & Dan Green) sees the reduced team in devastated Nashville, where Killraven, M’Shulla, Carmilla, Old Skull and Hawk wander into leftover holographic fantasy programs conjuring both joy and regret, even as Skar’s tripod brings him ever closer to a longed-for rematch. Things get nasty when Hawk’s painful memories of his father’s addiction to fictive detective Hodiah Twist manifest as realised threats and the malfunctioning program materialises a brutally solid savage dragon…

AA #33 was another deadline-busting fill-in. Written by Bill Mantlo with art from Trimpe & D. Bruce Berry, ‘Sing Out Loudly… Death!’ finds the Freemen sheltering from the elements in a vast cave: discovering a hostile tribe of refugee African Americans who had returned to tribal roots in the aftermath of invasion. The hidden wild men observe only one rule – “Kill all honkies” – but that changes once Killraven saves them from a marauding giant octo-beastie…

The long-delayed clash with Skar occurred in #34 as the cyborg ambushes the wanderers when they reach Chattanooga, Tennessee resulting in ‘A Death in the Family’ (McGregor & Russell) – two, actually – before the heartbroken, enraged Warrior of the Worlds literally tears his gloating nemesis to pieces…

Killraven fully entered Marvel Universe continuity – albeit on a branch line – with a crossover appearance by Spider-Man: courtesy of a time-and-space spanning multi-parter in Marvel Team-Up which saw the Amazing Arachnid lost and visiting the past and a number of alternate tomorrows. From MTU #45, ‘Future: Shock!’ – by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito – saw the weary Wallcrawler wash up in this particular furious future just as Killraven is cornered by killer tripods, offering arachnid assistance as the liberators stumble into an hallucinogenic nightmare. Immediate problem solved, the chronologically adrift Arachnid continued his time-tossed travels…

Amazing Adventures #35 follows the family tragedy as the battered survivors stumble into Atlanta, Georgia and ‘The 24-Hour Man’ (McGregor & Russell & Keith Giffen & Abel), meeting an addled new mother and instant widow, even as Carmilla is abducted by a bizarre mutant with an irresistible and inescapably urgent biological imperative…

Illustrated by Russell & Sonny Trinidad, ‘Red Dust Legacy’ focuses on Killraven’s growing psychic powers with the charismatic champion gaining unwelcome insights into the Martian psyche, even as The Warlord travels to Yellowstone, taunting the rebel leader with news that his long-lost brother Joshua still lives. The hero has no idea it is as an indoctrinated slave codenamed Death Raven…

The self-appointed defender of humanity then invades a replica Martian environment in Georgia, shockingly destroying the Martians’ entire next generation by contaminating their incubators. Inked by Abel, #37 reveals the origins of affable Old Skull in ‘Arena Kill!’ when the wanderers discover a clandestine enclave of humans in the Okefenokee Wildlife Preserve before one final fill-in – by Mantlo, Giffin & Al Milgrom – appeared in #38. ‘Death’s Dark Dreamer!’ sees Killraven separated from his team and stumbling into a wrecked but still functional dream-dome to battle the materialised fantasies of its ancient occupant. His pre-invasion, memories-fuelled attacks reconstitute oddly familiar defenders patterned after Iron Man, Man-Thing, Dr. Strange and almost every other Marvel hero you could think of…

The beautiful, troubled and doomed saga stopped – but did not end – with Amazing Adventures #39 (November 1976) as McGregor & Russell introduced the decimated Band of Brothers to an incredible new life-form in ‘Mourning Prey’. This beguiling meeting of vastly different beings pauses the voyages on a satisfyingly upbeat note, with understanding and forgiveness winning out over suspicion and ingrained violence for once…

And that’s where the gloriously unique, elegiac, Art Nouveau fantasy vanished with no comfortable resolution until 1983 when Marvel Graphic Novel #7 featured an all-new collaboration by McGregor and Russell starring Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds.

That painted full-colour extravaganza is reproduced here and commences after a catch-up Prologue and 6 pages of character profiles to bring readers old and new up to speed…

‘Last Dreams Broken’ opens in February 2020 at Cape Canaveral where Killraven connects again to a distant consciousness and sets off for Yellowstone in search of answers to his inexpressible questions. Along the way the rebels meet 59-year-old Jenette Miller – probably the last surviving astronaut on Earth – as ‘Cocoa Beach Blues’ finds her teaching the warrior wanderers some history and human perspective in between the constant daily battles, whilst in ‘Blood and Passion’ The Warlord prepares his deadliest trap for his despised antagonist as Killraven is finally reunited with Joshua. The drama runs its inevitable course in ‘Let it Die Like Fourth of July’ as all the hero’s hopes and fears are cataclysmically realised…

McGregor’s long-anticipated conclusion did not disappoint and even set up a new future…

With covers by John Romita, Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Klaus Janson, Gil Kane, Jim Starlin, Russell, Keith Pollard & Marie Severin, this time-tossed compilation also includes the introductory editorial page from Amazing Adventures #18 – a fascinating insight into Thomas’ expectations of what became a landmark of visual narrative poetry that was far beyond its time and mass audience’s taste. These are house ads, original art pages, sketches and covers by Romita, Russell, and working materials – notes, photos, plots and more – from McGregor’s copious files plus a Russell pin-up from Marvel Fanfare #45, a Killraven- wraparound cover from The Official Marvel Index to Marvel Team-Up #3 by Sandy Plunkett & Russell, and pages from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Update …

Confused, convoluted, challenging, controversial (this series contained the first ever non-comedic interracial kiss in American comics – in 1975 if you can believe it!), evocative, inspirational and always entertaining, this is graphic narrative no serious fan or fantasy addict should miss. Do it now: the future is not your friend and Mars needs readers…
© 2021 MARVEL

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The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer volume 11: The Gondwana Shrine


By Yves Sente & André Juillard, coloured by Madeleine DeMille & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-094-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Blockbuster Thrills No Movie Can Match… 9/10

Edgar P. Jacobs devised one of the greatest heroic double acts in pulp fiction: pitting his distinguished scientific adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake against a daunting variety of perils and menaces in a sequence of stellar action-thrillers blending science fiction scope, detective mystery suspense and supernatural thrills. The magic was made perfect through his stunning illustrations, rendered in the timeless, infinitely accessible Ligne Claire style which had made intrepid boy-reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The Doughty Duo debuted on 26th September 1946: gracing the pages of the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin: an ambitious international anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. It was edited by Hergé, with his eponymous, world-famous star ably supplemented by new heroes and features for the rapidly-changing post-war world.

Blake and Mortimer are the graphic personification of Britain’s sadly lost and blighted Bulldog Spirit: and worthy spiritual successors to Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Professor Challenger, Richard Hannay and all the other intrinsically decent stalwarts of lost Albion and valiant champions with direct connections to and allegiance beyond shallow national boundaries…

Following decades of fantastic exploits, the series apparently ended with the 11th album. The gripping contemporary adventure had been serialised between September 1971 and May 1972 in LJdT, but after Les trois Formules du professeur Sato: Mortimer à Tokyo was completed, Jacobs abandoned his story due to failing health and personal issues.

Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs died on February 20th 1987, having never returned to the extended adventure. Concluding volume Les trois Formules du professeur Sato: Mortimer contre Mortimer was only released in March 1990, after the Jacobs family and estate commissioned veteran cartoonist Bob de Moor to complete the tale from the originator’s pencils and notes.

The long-postponed release led to re-release of the earlier volumes, and was followed in 1996 by new adventures from two separate creative teams hired by the Jacobs Studio who would henceforth produce complete books rather than weekly serials.

The first was L’affaire Francis Blake by Jean Van Hamme & Thierry “Ted” Benoit which settled itself into a comfortably defined, familiar 1950s scenario for a rousing tale of espionage and double-dealing. Controversially, it omitted the elements of futuristic fiction and fringe science which had characterised Jacobs’ tales and focused on the suave MI5 officer rather than bombastic, belligerent boffin and inveterate scene-stealer Mortimer…

The same was broadly true for the follow-up release, published in 1999, although references to the space race and alien infestation did much to restore those fantasy credentials in Yves (XIII, Le Janitor, Thorgal) Sente & André (Bohémond de Saint-Gilles, Masquerouge, Arno, Mezek) Juillard’s La machination Voronov.

The latter team eventually won the plum job of detailing the early days and origins of the lads in Les Sarcophages du 6e Continent, Tome 1: La Menace universelle and Les Sarcophages du 6e Continent, Tome 2: Le Duel des Esprits. The albums were the 16th and 17th published exploits of the peerless pair: a boldly byzantine epic spanning decades and stretching from India under the Raj to Cold War Europe and deep beneath Antarctic ice…

The tale revealed how Blake and Mortimer first met in India before WWII: introducing Philip Angus Mortimer, his tragic first love and diabolical maniac scientist Emperor Ashoka before jumping to 1958 when the resurrected villain’s incredible technology and Soviet subversion threatened the entire world…

Battling the menace, Mortimer clashed again with despised arch nemesis Olrik who had become a crucial but unwilling tool in Ashoka’s scheme. Olrik’s previous susceptibility to the telecephalscope of Professor Septimus (see The Yellow M) made him an ideal candidate for Ashoka’s ultimate weapon: a system capable of turning cerebral energy into planet-spanning power affecting electrical devices, heavy machinery and solid objects with tremendous force.

In the final accounting, as a secret Antarctic base collapsed around them, the bitter foes abandoned their bodies to fight as pure unleashed mental entities in the planet’s ether, before being restored to their mortal frames as everything fell apart and Gondwana Base vanished in a welter of fire and ice.

Mortimer was evacuated with moments to spare, leaving the enemy to his well-deserved fate…

Released in 2008 but chronologically occurring some months after Mortimer was rescued from the ice and Ashoka’s mind machines, Le sanctuaire du Gondwana opens in drought-parched Africa as German scholar Professor Ulrich Heidegang explores the Ngorongoro crater and discovers something truly beyond comprehension. He barely escapes with his life but his sanity is shattered. Nevertheless, he presents to the global media an artefact that will forever change the history of humanity…

Months later in London, Professor Mortimer is still being treated by Dr. Mark Levy for the aftereffects of his out-of-body experience. Suffering headaches, vision problems, mood swings, and still partially amnesiac, he’s slowly rebuilding his life and relationships with the aid of captain Francis Percy Blake – who has returned to his job with MI5 – and other close friends.

Especially helpful in recovering his old life is Mortimer’s assistant Nastasia Wardinska and landlady/housekeeper Mrs Benson but the doctor still won’t allow him to return to work…

Nastasia is particularly keen to resume research. When the Antarctic citadel was destroyed, volcanic action unearthed manufactured artefacts that have since been determined as being over 350 million years old and constructed of a currently-impossible amalgam of diamond-sheathed gold!

After consulting with Blake and the copious notes for his long-delayed and postponed memoires, Mortimer opts to use his enforced leisure time to solve the mystery. Blake and old colleague Labrousse are already investigating the Antarctic site, so the Professor plans an oblique approach…

Using current geological theory and recent reports collated by archivist Mr Stone of the Daily Mail as the basis of his research, the Prof will explore another region of the world that was connected to Antarctica 350 million years ago. Rather callously rekindling an old romance with celebrated ethnologist and archaeologist Sarah Summertown, he then leads a small team to the Olduvai Gorge in Africa, which Stone’s incredible memory has pinpointed as the source of an amazing scoop: an ancient artefact with markings of diamond and gold…

None of the enthralled explorers are aware that all their efforts are being closely monitored and steered by a mysterious stranger…

Soon all the preliminaries are done and Mortimer’s team are interviewing Heidegang in his hospital room in Nairobi. The explorer has been driven mad by his experiences: hearing voices and talking of Lycaon beast-men and pre-human civilisations on a single supercontinent. He does, however, reveal the location of his find…

Whilst the searchers set out for the Ngorongoro crater, the story shifts to the mysterious stalker, who is revealed as the presumed-dead Olrik. Stalking the party, he organises a deadly squad of ne’er-do-wells, surveilling their spectacularly eventful safari as it endures incredible hardships and tragedy and striking just as they make contact with the hidden remnants of an immortal super-race who claim to be the Guardians of Gondwana…

The story then shifts into turbulent top gear as many disparate plot-strands stunningly converge and a single shocking revelation discloses the true history and ownership of Earth whilst exposing one of the heroes as anything but…

It all leads to a ruthless resumption of the duel between Olrik and Mortimer and the staggering intervention of Earth’s unseen overlords, who remove the annoyances and leave them to sort out their immediate issues elsewhere…

Binding many vivid facets of the heroes’ prestigious past exploits and achievements into a vibrant sci fi romp, this epic extravaganza blends antediluvian mystery with a savage vendetta to create a rousing quest yarn that delight fans of many genres.

These Cinebook editions also include previews and tasty teaser excerpts for other albums – Atlantis Mystery by Jacobs, and Sente & Juillard’s The Voronov Plot – plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.

Gripping and fantastic in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination; never failing to deliver grand, old-fashioned thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch.
Original edition © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S.A.) 2008, by André Juillard & by Yves Sente. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 18: Attack of the Zordolts


By Yoann & Vehlmann, designed by Fred Blanchard, colored by Hubert & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-022-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Manic Mirth and Mad Melodrama… 9/10

Spirou (which translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman.

Soon-to-be legendary weekly comic Le Journal de Spirou launched on April 21st 1938 with a rival red-headed lad as lead feature in an anthology which bears his name to this day. The eponymous hero was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed in the Moustique Hotel – a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique. His improbable adventures with pet squirrel Spip gradually evolved into far-reaching, surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his chums have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was assisted by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm.

In 1946, his assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins, gradually ditching the well-seasoned short gag vignettes in favour of epic adventure serials. He also expanded the cast, introducing a broad band of engaging regulars and eventually creating phenomenally popular magic animal Marsupilami.

Franquin was followed by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures tapping into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times: offering tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and lacked direction. Three different creative teams alternated on the feature, until it was overhauled and revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde (writing as Tome) and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. They adapted, referenced and in many ways returned to the beloved Franquin era.

Their sterling efforts revived the floundering feature’s fortunes, generating 14 wonderful albums between 1984 and1998. As the strip diversified into parallel strands (Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By…), the team on the core feature were succeeded by Jean-David Morvan & José-Luis Munuera. Then Yoann & Vehlmann took over the never-ending procession of amazing adventures…

Multi-award-winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been favourably likened to René Goscinny. He’s best known for Green Manor (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti and available in English as Alone), Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont and Isle of 1000,000 Graves with Jason.

He assumed the writing reins on Spirou and Fantasio in collaboration with Yoann. beginning with the book on review here – 2010’s Spirou et Fantasio – Alerte aux Zorkons.

Yoann Chivard was born in October 1971 and was drawing non-stop by the age of five. With qualifications in Plastic Arts and a degree in Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts in Angers, he became a poster and advertising artist whilst dabbling in comics. His creations include Phil Kaos and Dark Boris for British Indie publications Deadline and Inkling, Toto l’Ornithorynque, Nini Rezergoude, La Voleuse de Pere-Fauteuil, Ether Glister and Bob Marone and he has contributed to Trondheim & Sfar’s Donjon. In 2006, Yoann was the first artist to produce a Spirou et Fantasio one shot Special. It was scripted by Vehlmann…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since 2009, alternating between the various superb reinterpretations of Franquin and earlier efforts from the great man himself. When Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946), the new guy ran with it for two decades; enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as staunch comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics Pacôme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas de Champignac – The Count of Champignac…

Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, travelling to dangerously exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Fantasio’s deranged and wicked cousin Zantafio and that maddest of scientists, Zorglub.

This old school chum and implacable rival of Champignac is an outrageous Bond movie-flavoured villain who constantly targets the Count. A brilliant engineer, his incredible machines are far less dangerous than his mesmerising mind-controlling “Zorglwave” and an apparently unshakable desire to conquer Earth and dominate the solar system from a base on the Moon…

This tale opens with the seemingly reformed plotter stealing some of Champignac’s most incredible mushroom-based miracles and triggering a massive mutational event in and around the bucolic generally placid hamlet of Champignac-in-the-Sticks.

The first Spirou and Fantasio hear of it is a desperate cell phone call from Pacôme, who has just reappeared after weeks amnesiac and missing. Driving back from a promotional tour, our heroes race across country only to find the placid region is now an armed camp, with soldiers in biohazard gear brutally decontaminating villagers.

The little valley has become a monstrous alien jungle dominated and transformed by weird and incredible plant/animal/fungus creatures, but neither they nor the military – who are keen on immediately nuking the geographical atrocity – can stop our dedicated reporters sneaking in to find their friends.

On locating the Count and his two new chums – hot Swedish science students Astrid and Lena – the lads learn that the brave new world is an accident and hideous side effect of Zorglub’s latest scheme, and that he’s sorrier than anyone at the state of the local environment.

He’s certainly keen enough on fixing the problem…

Other than the fact that everything wants to eat everything else, and that many of the human locals seem comfortable and accustomed to the changes, the main problem seems to be a rapidly proliferating and aggressive form of beast man. The jungle is now a superfast evolutionary Petri dish with everything in it part of an arms race to out-compete all rivals. These brutish bipeds have for some reason evolved immunity to Zorglub’s Zorglwave by having oodles of aggression and not enough intellect. They are ravening, unstoppable Zordolts…

Not sure what’s happening, but resolved to stop the Army bombing the village before foiling Zorglub, everybody works frantically together and succeeds in part one of the plan, but when the jests are repelled and the Zordolts stopped by Champignac’s newly-liberated dinosaur they find the villain vanished.

By the time Champignac has worked his mushroom magic in reverse and restored most of the status quo, the Master of the Z ray is long gone. If our heroes could look up high enough, they might see him well on his way to the moon with Astrid in Lena in tow and about to set his Great Masterwork in motion…

To be Continued…

Rocket-paced, action-packed, compellingly convoluted and with just the right blend of perfectly blending helter-skelter excitement and sheer daftness, Attack of the Zordolts is a terrific romp to delight devotees of easy-going adventure.

Stuffed with an astounding array of astonishing hi-tech spoofery, riotous chases and gazillions of sight gags and verbal ripostes, this exultant escapade is a fabulous fiesta of angst-free action and thrills. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with beguiling style and seductive energy and wit, this is pure cartoon gold, truly deserving of reaching the widest audience possible.

Buy it for you, get another for the kids and give copies to all your friends…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2010 by Vehlmann, Yoann, Blanchard & Hubert. All rights reserved. English translation 2021 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Ultimate Comics Thor


By Jonathan Hickman, Carlos Pacheco & Dexter Vines & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5187-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Distressing times never come singly. Yet again I’m spreading unhappy news as another comics great leaves us way too young. Our condolences go out to his family and we share the sadness of the millions of devoted fans now deprived of future glories. Now let’s look again at one of his most remarkable, influential and neglected works and ponder what’s gone… 

Carlos Pacheco Perujo (14th November 1961 – 9th November 2022) was born in Spain but found his greatest fame in the USA drawing the cream of the superhero crop.

After learning his craft creating covers, pin-ups, posters and transition art for Spanish reprints of Marvel Comics – and inventing his own Spanish superheroes – Pacheco got his big break illustrating Dark Guard for Marvel UK in 1992. Before long, his cleanly effective, realistic visualisations graced numerous Ultimate Comics and X-Men titles and spin-offs; The Fantastic Four; Captain America; The Inhumans; Superman; Superman/Batman; Flash; Green Lantern and Justice Society of America.

Despite indie triumphs such as Arrowsmith and Astro City, the writer/artist will always be remembered for his mainstream superhero virtuosity and landmark limited series like Final Crisis and Avengers Forever, and Original Graphic Novels such as JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice.

In 2000, when Marvel retooled their traditional continuity into a separate, darker, grittier universe more relevant to the video game-playing, movie-watching 21st century readers, they started with the most popular characters and only gradually added analogues for the established characters and trademarks.

Even when the Avengers finally appeared in this continuity – as the Ultimates – readers were only sparingly brought up to speed on the assorted back-stories of these alternative heroes and villains – especially a wild, hammer-wielding warrior who couldn’t decide if he was Thorlief Golmen, mental patient, psychiatric nurse and anti-American radical protester or Thor, ancient Norse god of Thunder and battle.

After many struggles against his malicious, reality-warping brother Loki, incalculably mighty Thor is found here as a patient under the care of the European Union Super Soldier program. When their doctors call in linguistic expert/psychotherapist Donald Blake, the true and fantastic story of the patient’s origins unfold…

Eons ago, Asgard was a fantastic place of adventure and glory; an ideal paradise for the young warrior-brothers Balder, Thor and Loki to fight, carouse and enjoy life. But even gods grow older and apart…

The time was just prior to the start of World War II. Nazi Occult scientist Baron Zemo leads an army against Asgard, having already allied himself with the gods’ greatest enemies: Frost Giants…

All is not as it seems, however, and Zemo is no mortal invader. Moreover, his intention is to end all gods and bring about Ragnarok. Despite the magnificent heroics of the Norse deities, he eventually succeeds. But now it is revealed that the brothers did not die, but were reborn in mortal form on Earth.

Now as an Age of Supermen begins, the brothers awaken… and one of them is mad…

Compellingly scripted by Jonathan Hickman and beautifully illustrated by Pacheco with inks from Dexter Vines, Jason Paz, Jeff Het and colors by Edgar Delgado, J. Aburtov & Jorge Gonzalez, this spectacular yarn (originally released as a 4-issue miniseries) might be a mite confusing for readers unfamiliar with Thor’s other Ultimate appearances, or taking their cues from the movie iteration this version inspired.

It’s also quite choppy in delivery as it in-fills the missing portions of those stories but even so this is still a hugely engaging adventure that could easily act as an introduction to those other epics and is well worth your attention. And it is so very beautiful to look upon…
© 2020 MARVEL

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The Spider: Crime Unlimited


By Jerry Siegel, Donne Avenell, Aldo Marculeta, Giorgio Trevisan & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78618-465-8 (HB/Digital)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Bizarrely Bombastic Action Adventure… 8/10

Part of Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, The Spider: Crime Unlimited is a sublimely cool hardback collection celebrating an all-but forgotten sub-strand of the 1960s comics experience.

Until the 1980s, comics in the UK were based on an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly – or sometimes fortnightly – basis. Humorous periodicals like DC Thomson’s The Beano were leavened by thrillers like Billy the Cat or General Jumbo and adventure papers like Amalgamated Press/Fleetway’s Lion or Valiant always included gag strips such as The Nutts, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and a wealth of similar quick laugh treats. And yes, both rival companies had equivalents in those categories too…

They also produced Seasonal specials, hardcover Annuals and digest-sized anthology publications. DCT still publishes Commando Picture Library and used to have romance and science fiction titles such as Starblazer, matched by their London competitors with titles like Super Picture Library, War Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library and Action Picture Library. These were half-sized, 64 page monochrome booklets with glossy soft-paper covers, but between 1967 and 1968 – at the height of the sixties Spy and Superhero booms – were supplemented by a deluxe, card-cover, 132 page version – The Fleetway Super Library.

As well as the always-popular war option of “Front Line” (starring by turn Maddock’s Marauders or Top-Sergeant Ironside), this line offered a “Secret Agent Series” – alternating cool spy operatives Johnny Nero and Barracuda – and the “Stupendous” (formerly and briefly “Fantastic”) series: delivering lengthy complete sagas starring either The Steel Claw or The Spider. These extra adventures came twice a month and ran 13 tales for each, and this spiffy hardback tome (245x177mm) re-presents the second and fourth releases, both starring the eerie webspinning master of crime…

British comics had a strange and extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “creepy”) heroes. So many of the stars and potential role models of our serials and strips were just plain “off”: self-righteous, moody voyeurs-turned vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds like The Dwarf, deranged geniuses like Eric Dolmann, jingoistic, racist supermen like Captain Hurricane and more often than not reformed criminals or menaces like Charlie Peace, The Steel Claw or The Spider…

…And don’t get me started on our legion of lethally anarchic comedy icons or that our most successful symbol of justice is an Eagle-bedecked, anonymously-helmeted, jack-booted poster boy for a fascist state. Perhaps that explains why these days we can’t even imagine or envision what a proper leader looks like and keep on electing clowns, crooks and obliviously blinkered over-privileged simpletons…

All joking aside, British comics are unlike any other kind and simply have to be seen to be believed and enjoyed. One of the most revered stars of the medium has finally begun to be collected in various archival editions, and perfectly encapsulates our odd relationship with heroism, villainy and particularly the murky grey area bridging them…

Mystery criminal genius and eventual superhero The Spider launched in peerless weekly anthology Lion with the June 26th 1965 issue. He would reign supreme until April 26th 1969, and periodically return in reprint form (in Vulcan) and occasionally new stories ever since.

As first introduced by Ted Cowan (Ginger Nutt, Paddy Payne, Adam Eterno, Robot Archie) & Reg Bunn (Robin Hood, Buck Jones, Captain Kid, Clip McCord), the moody malcontent is an enigmatic super-scientist whose goal is to be acclaimed the greatest criminal of all time. The flamboyantly wicked narcissist began his public career by recruiting crime specialists: safecracker Roy Ordini and genteelly evil inventor Professor Pelham before attempting a massive gem-theft from America’s greatest city. He was foiled by cruel luck and resolute cops Gilmore and Trask: crack detectives cursed with the task of capturing the arachnid arch-villain.

Cowan scripted the first two serialised sagas before handing over to comics royalty: Jerry Siegel (Superman, Superboy, The Spectre, Doctor Occult, Slam Bradley, Funnyman, The Mighty Crusaders, Starling), who was forced to look elsewhere for work after an infamous dispute with DC Comics over the rights to the Man of Steel.

Here his unique approach and astounding imagination results in a truly bizarre outing for Aldo Marculeta – who draws like Massimo Bellardinelli – to illustrate in 2 panels per page as Super Picture Library #2 heralds the menace of ‘The Professor of Power’…

It begins as The Spider crashes a fancy party to mock retiring Police Chief Brady whilst abusively reminding his minions who is boss, but has unexpected repercussions as outraged scientist Aldo Cummings creates a process to counteract the evil of such villainy by removing wickedness from living beings. Sadly, his ray machine malfunctions and utterly alters his own personality whilst also bestowing other arcane gifts…

Although completely evil now, the shapeshifter is still obsessed with The Spider and sets out to humiliate and destroy him through a campaign of terror that sees his opponent beaten and jailed whilst the Professor disrupts global peace and even sacrifices humanity to alien body snatchers from an extradimensional realm. With human beings inhabited by the evil entitoids, the maniac deems his duels with the webspinner over, but he has underestimated the cunning and resolve of his foe, who finds himself in the strange position of being Earth’s saviour…

Following is ‘Crime Unlimited’ from SPL #4, illustrated by Italian multinational star turn Giorgio Trevisan (Cherry Brandy, War Picture Library, Battler Britton, HMS Outcast, Trelawney of the Guards, The Flying Fortress, Bob Pepper, Silver Arrow, Ken Parker, Sherlock Holmes and so much more) with a terse, gritty script from British legend Donne Avenell.

Staring his career before WWII, Avenell cut his teeth on many British comics icons like Radio Fun, War Picture Library, The Phantom Viking, Adam Eterno and Dr. Mesmer’s Revenge, major international features line Nigeria’s Powerman, Buffalo Bill, The Phantom and assorted Disney strips. He was equally at home with newspaper strips such as Tiffany Jones, Axa and Eartha novels and TV screenwriting on shows like The Saint). Here he pits the swaggering arrogant super-criminal against a brilliant and ruthless inventor who applies Henry Ford’s business practices to organised crime: using vast engineering talents and mass-production techniques with the view to getting rich by stealing The Spider’s title as Emperor of Crime…

Mr. Mass begins with a wealth magnet to snatch the proceeds of a Florida heist right out of the Spider’s bony fingers, builds an unstoppable mole machine and ultimately unleashes an army of plundering doppelganger thanks to his Mass-Replicator, with neither Pelham & Ordini nor Trask & Gilmore able to slow the warring masterminds down.

Implacable foes conducting industrial warfare, the duelling geniuses hurtle towards a spectacular final accounting after Mass reduces an entire city to mental infancy, but fails to stop his webspinning nemesis tracking him down to a catastrophic clash in an automated factory…

These retro/camp masterpiece of arcane dialogue, insane devices and rollercoaster antics are augmented by Extras including original covers, biographies of the writers and ads for even more uncanny UK comics collections, both available and forthcoming…

This titanic tome reaffirms that the Emperor is back at last and should find a home in every kid’s heart and mind, no matter how young they might be, or threaten to remain. Batty, baroque and often simply bonkers, The Spider proves that although crime does not pay, it always provides a huge amount of white-knuckle fun…
© 1967 & 2022 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Popeye Classics volume 8: I Hates Bullies and More


By Bud Sagendorf, edited and designed by Craig Yoe (Yoe Books/IDW Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-676-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68406-044-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Sweet & Sour Salty Sailor Celebrations… 9/10

How many cartoon classics can you think of still going after a century? Here’s one…

There are a few fictional personages to enter communal world consciousness – and fewer still from comics – but this grizzled, bluff, uneducated, visually impaired old tar with a speech impediment is possibly the most well-known of that august bunch.

Elzie Crisler Segar was born in Chester, Illinois on 8th December 1894. His father was a general handyman, and the boy’s early life was filled with the solid, dependable blue-collar jobs that typified the formative years of his generation of cartoonists. Segar was a decorator, house-painter and also played drums; accompanying vaudeville acts at the local theatre.

When the town got a movie-house, Elzie played silent films, absorbing all the staging, timing and narrative tricks from keen observation of the screen. Those lessons would become his greatest assets as a cartoonist. It was while working as the film projectionist, at age 18, that he decided to become a cartoonist and tell his own stories.

Like so many others in those hard times, he studied art via mail – W.L. Evans’ cartooning correspondence course out of Cleveland, Ohio – before gravitating to Chicago where he was “discovered” by Richard F. Outcault: regarded by most in the know today as the inventor of modern newspaper comic strips with The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown. The celebrated pioneer introduced Segar around at the prestigious Chicago Herald. Still wet behind the ears, the kid’s first strip, Charley Chaplin’s Comedy Capers, debuted on 12th March 1916.

In 1918, Segar married Myrtle Johnson and moved to William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Evening American to create Looping the Loop, where Managing Editor William Curley foresaw a big future for Segar and promptly packed the newlyweds off to New York: HQ of the mighty King Features Syndicate. Within a year Segar was producing Thimble Theatre, (launching December 19th 1919) in the New York Journal: a smart pastiche of cinema and knock-off of movie-inspired features like Hairbreadth Harry and Midget Movies, with a repertory of stock players acting out comedies, melodramas, comedies, crime-stories, chases and especially comedies for vast daily audiences. It didn’t stay that way for long…

The core cartoon cast included parental pillars Nana & Cole Oyl; their lanky, cranky, highly-strung daughter Olive; diminutive-but-pushy son Castor and the homely ingenue’s plain and (so very) simple occasional boyfriend Horace Hamgravy (latterly, plain Ham Gravy).

Thimble Theatre had already run for a decade when, on January 17th 1929, a brusque, vulgar “sailor man” shambled into the daily ongoing saga of hapless halfwits. Nobody dreamed the giddy heights that stubbornly cantankerous walk-on would reach…

In 1924, Segar created a second daily strip. Surreal domestic comedy The 5:15 starred weedy commuter and would-be inventor John Sappo and his formidable spouse Myrtle. This strip endured – in one form or another – as a topper/footer-feature to accompany the main Sunday page throughout the author’s career, and even survived his untimely death, eventually becoming the trainee-playground of Popeye’s second great humour stylist – Bud Sagendorf.

After Segar’s premature passing in 1938, Doc Winner, Tom Sims, Ralph Stein and Bela Zambouly all took on the strip as the Fleischer Studio’s animated features brought Popeye to the entire world, albeit a slightly variant vision of the old salt of the funny pages. Sadly, none had the eccentric flair and raw inventiveness that had put Thimble Theatre at the forefront of cartoon entertainments. And then, finally, Bud arrived…

Born in 1915, Forrest “Bud” Sagendorf was barely 17 when his sister – who worked in the Santa Monica art store where Segar bought his drawing supplies – introduced the kid to the master cartoonist who became his teacher and employer as well as a father-figure. In 1958, after years on the periphery, Sagendorf finally took over the strip and all the merchandise design, becoming Popeye’s prime originator…

With Sagendorf as main man, his loose, rangy style and breezy scripts brought the strip itself back to the forefront of popularity and made reading it cool and fun all over again. Bud wrote and drew Popeye in every graphic arena for 24 years. When he died in 1994, his successor was controversial “Underground” cartoonist Bobby London.

Bud had been Segar’s assistant and apprentice, and in 1948 became exclusive writer/artist of Popeye’s comic book exploits. That venture launched in February of that year: a regular title published by America’s unassailable king of periodical licensing, Dell Comics.

On his debut, Popeye was a rude, crude brawler: a gambling, cheating, uncivilised ne’er-do-well, but was soon revered as the ultimate working-class hero. Raw and rough-hewn, he was also practical, with an innate, unshakable sense of what’s fair and what’s not: a joker who wanted kids to be themselves – but not necessarily “good”. Above all else he was someone who took no guff from anyone…

Naturally, as his popularity grew, Popeye mellowed somewhat. He was still ready to defend the weak and had absolutely no pretensions or aspirations to rise above his fellows, but the shocking sense of dangerous unpredictability and comedic anarchy he initially provided was sorely missed… except not in Sagendorf’s yarns…

Collected in this superb full-colour hardback/digital edition are Popeye #35-39, crafted by irrepressible “Bud”: collectively spanning January-March 1956 to January-March 1957.

Stunning, nigh stream-of-consciousness slapstick sagas are preceded by an effusively appreciative ‘Society of Sagendorks’ briefing by inspired aficionado, historian and publisher Craig Yoe, offering a mirthful mission statement, and enhanced by another tantalising display of ephemera and merchandise in ‘A Bud Sagendorf Scrapbook’. This time we focus on the 1980 Robert Altman movie with candid cast photos, Sagendorf illustrated tie-in magazine articles, and multi-lingual cartoon iterations.

We rejoin the ceaseless parade of laughs, surreal imagination and thrills with quarterly comic book #35, opening with a monochrome inside front cover gag concerning the latest hobby of the sailor’s ward after which ‘Thimble Theatre presents Popeye and Swee’Pea in “Wishing” or Spinach is Still King!”’, wherein the bored “infink” shambles upon an alien incursion and tricks the haughty invaders out of their irresistible, unbeatable Wish-o-Matic machine…

Soon the impressionable kid is king of the world and Popeye is forced into drastic action…

The family is afloat for follow-up bedtime tale ‘I Hates Bullies!’ as the mariner, Olive and Wimpy are lured to an exotic island and seduced into liberating its people from enslaving Boss Black Allen…

Back-up feature Sappo was by now reduced to gullible foil and hapless landlord to the world’s worst lodger. Professor O.G. Wotasnozzle – The Professor with the Atomic Brain would callously inflict the brunt of his genius on the poor schmuck. Here that means inventing super-fast growing redwoods but being too self-absorbed to keep the seeds out of the rain…

The issue ends with an endpaper prose fable about a scientist who regretted getting cats to chase his lab mice and a back cover gag of bath night for Swee’Pea…

Issue #36 (April-June) began with ‘King Popeye of Popilania!’ as the sailor man sets out to create the perfect country, but soon finds kinging it is a lot of work, especially if your friends are all ambitious traitors and other nations think they can push you around…

For a while things look bleak for the Popilania, until the desperate King unleashes secret weapon General Wimpy…

An engaging Micawber-like coward, cad and conman, the insatiably ravenous J. Wellington Wimpy debuted in the newspaper strip on May 3rd 1931 as an unnamed, decidedly partisan referee in one of Popeye’s pugilistic bouts. Scurrilous, aggressively humble and scrupulously polite, the devious oaf struck a chord and Segar made him a fixture. Preternaturally hungry, ever-keen to solicit bribes and a cunning coiner of many immortal catchphrases – such as “I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” and “Let’s you and him fight” – Wimpy was the perfect foil for our straight-shooting action hero and increasingly stole the entire show… and anything else unless it was very heavy or extremely well nailed down. He proved to be the ultimate deterrent in an extended war that depended on keeping troops fed…

Popeye an’ Swee’Pea then turn the tables on villainous reprobate Poopdeck Pappy after the sailor’s crooked father fakes his own death in ‘Pappy’s Spook’, before Professor O.G. Wotasnozzle – The Atomic Brain! conjures fresh chaos with his terrifying reducing pills in advance of another text tale. ‘Canned Nuts’ details the downfall of a prudent squirrel who had a plan (but no tin-opener) in advance of a back cover gag of Popeye and Wimpy fishing…

Cover-dated July-September, Popeye #37 opens with a monochrome inside cover about Swee’Pea’s garden before main event ‘The Search for the Spinach Icebox’ sees our well-travelled hero targeted by secret society WAFPOM (World Association For Prevention Of Muscles) after he buys two million tons of the miraculous mineral rich vegetable. With attacks mounting, he needs someplace safe to store his leafy treasure and on Wimpy’s suggestion heads to Antarctica, where WAFPOM and even stranger foes are waiting…

‘Amateur Inventor!’ Sappo gives O.G. Wotasnozzle a taste of his own medicine next, before ‘The Big Sting’ heralds the end of another issue with the prose history of a bullying bee…

Issue #38 opens with a monochrome pet gag and an extended colour epic as Popeye and The Gang meet ‘The Dog Who Wore A Crown” – or – Going To the Dogs!’ A quick visit with King Blozo finds the scatty ruler absent and his dog ruling in his stead. Most annoyingly, the monarch has appointed Popeye Royal Dog Sitter. As the dutiful sailor surrenders to the inevitable, things get more complicated when the moody pooch – AKA “Birdseed” – decides Swee’Pea should be in charge…

‘Bottle Fish!’ sees the text fixture shift to the comic’s centre with the tale of a mean bully stuck behind glass, after which Wotasnozzle and Sappo both go overboard in a fishing contest augmented by weird science and the chaos concludes with another black-&-white inner cover pet prank, preceding a new year of fun and frolic as #39 (January-March 1957) feature more monochrome madness for Swee’Pea’s pooch…

The gang are rattled in lead story ‘The Mountain that Talked Back!’ as Olive’s deteriorating nerves prompt a vacation on ominously named “Thunder Island” and a badly-timed stay on a volcano in full eruption mode…

Everything changes once Popeye realise the shakes are fakes and a gang of criminals are making them patsies in a plot and our hero breaks out the spinach…

Prose parable ‘Cow?’ reveals how bovine Mildred briefly lived her dream to be a horse, after which Wotasnozzle seeks to improve communication by reinventing words in ‘What Did He Say?’ before Swee’Pea and Birdseed monopolise interior monochrome and exterior color gags with devasting effect.

Outrageous and side-splitting, these universally-appealing yarns are evergreen examples of narrative cartooning at its most surreal and inspirational. Over the last nine decades Thimble Theatre’s most successful son has delighted readers and viewers around the world. This book is simply one of many, but each is sure-fire, top-tier entertainment for all those who love lunacy, laughter, frantic fantasy and rollicking adventure. If that’s you, add this compendium of wonder to your collection.
Popeye Classics volume 8 © 2016 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Popeye © 2016 King Features Syndicate. ™ Heart Holdings Inc.