Category: Animal Antics

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Dear Justice League


By Michael Northrop & Gustavo Duarte, coloured by Ma Maiolo & lettered by Wes Abbott (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8413-8 (PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Comic Perfection and Ideal Stocking Stuffer… 10/10

Keystone of the DC Universe, the Justice League of America is the reason we have a comics industry today. After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – for which read the launch of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s progress was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus, what seems blindingly obvious to everyone blessed with four-colour hindsight was irrefutably proven: a number of popular characters combining forces can multiply readership. Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick…

The Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a landmark in industry development but faded and failed after tastes changed at the end of the 1940s. When Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956 the true turning point came a few years later with the (inevitable?) teaming of his freshly reconfigured mystery men. When wedded to relatively unchanged costumed big guns who had weathered the first fall of the Superhero, the result was a new, modern, Space-Age version of the JSA and the birth of a new mythology.

The moment that changed everything for us baby-boomers came with The Brave and the Bold #28 (cover dated March 1960): a classical adventure title recently retooled as a try-out magazine like Showcase. Just in time for Christmas 1959, ads began running…

“Just Imagine! The mightiest heroes of our time… have banded together as the Justice League of America to stamp out the forces of evil wherever and whenever they appear!”

When the JLA launched it cemented the growth and validity of the genre, triggering an explosion of new characters at every company producing comics in America and even spread to the rest of the world as the 1960s progressed. Superheroics have waned since, but never gone away, and remain a trigger point for all us kids. However, comics have grown serious and mature, and we increasingly left the kids out of the equation, letting TV cartoons pick up the slack. Even the roster in this tale is informed as much by animation adventures as potent printed page-turners…

Well, superheroes are still kids’ stuff as this superb book – and its sequel – attest. An early entry in DC’s project to bring their characters back to young readers, Dear Justice League takes all the iconic riffs and paraphernalia attached to the team and comedically runs wild with a core conceit: the heroes individually answering emails – or other, older, lesser communications – from young fans with problems to share or questions needing answers.

Played strictly for laughs by Brazilian illustrator/slapstick maestro Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro, Monsters! and Other Stories link both please), the segmented saga is composed by author and journalist Michael Northrop (Trapped, Plunked, Gentlemen, TombQuest) who blends charm with wit and a great deal of heart for maximum effects.

It begins as long-suffering little Ben Silsby gets under some steel-hard skin by texting ‘Dear Superman’, whilst ‘Dear Hawkgirl’ distracts the winged wonder so much during an alien bug battle that she neglects her beloved hamster. Although old foe Black Manta is no problem, the Sea King reads a ‘Dear Aquaman’ question and must ponder hygiene issues to the point of upsetting Hall of Justice roommate Purdey (his goldfish)…

As the team convene to discuss big bug activity, a ‘Dear Wonder Woman’ direct message send the Amazing Amazon off on an embarrassing memory moment whilst ‘Dear Flash’ takes on bullies, poor concentration and bad parenting, ‘Dear Green Lantern’ trades fashion tips and colour swatches with grade school diva-to-be Shalene and ‘Dear Cyborg’ finds a different kind of opponent online and ready to rock…

Ultimate paranoid the Dark Knight doesn’t do email and must find another way to respond to a ‘Dear Batman’ that sets his sentimental heart and brutal boyhood into perspective, which all sets the scene for ET extermination excitement as the bug subplot rattling through all the vignettes boils over into all-ages cartoon action in blockbuster finale ‘Dear Justice League’…

Pure comics nostalgia writ large and hard hitting. Enjoy all you oldster kids…

Extra material includes creator biographies, the ‘Hall of Justice Top Secret Files (No Peeking!)’ of our heroes, and their animal ‘Auxiliary Members!’ before concluding with come-hither extracts from other kid-friendly books in the line (specifically the sequel plugged next) and Superman of Smallville by Art Baltazar & Franco.

Fun, deceptively thrilling and infinitely re-readable, this old school treat is a must have item for anyone who loves superheroes.
© 2019, DC Comics All Rights Reserved.

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Gomer Goof volume 11: Goof-Off at the Gomer Corral


By Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-128-6 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Little Euro-Sparkle for Any Occasion …9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924, André Franquin began his astonishing comics career in a golden age of European cartooning. As assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on the strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature in 1946, and went on to create countless unforgettable new characters like Fantasio and The Marsupilami. Over two decades Franquin made the strip purely his, expanding Spirou & Fantasio’s scope and horizons, as they became globetrotting journalists who visited exotic places, exposed crimes, explored the incredible and clashed with bizarre, exotic arch-enemies. Throughout, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, popping back to base between assignments. Sadly, ensconced there was an arrogant, accident-prone office junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. This was Gaston Lagaffe; Franquin’s other immortal – or peut-être unkillable? – conception…

There’s a hoary tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy; it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though, after debuting in LJdS #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable dimwit grew – like one of his monstrous projects – beyond control, becoming one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic, whether guesting in Spirou’s adventures or his own strips/faux reports on the editorial pages he was supposed to paste up. Initial cameos in Spirou yarns or occasional asides on text pages featured well-meaning foul-up and ostensible gofer Gaston lurking and lounging amidst a crowd of diligent toilers: a workshy slacker employed as a general assistant at LJdS’s head office. The scruffy bit-player eventually and inevitably stumbled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned helpfulness wedded to irrepressible self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati vehicles and recognise recurring riffs from Only Fools and Horses and Mr Bean. It’s blunt-force slapstick, paralysing puns, fantastic ingenuity and inspired invention, compiled to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (that there’s British punning, see?) and ensure no good deed goes noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer can be seen (if you’re quick) toiling at Spirou’s editorial offices: initially reporting to Fantasio, but latterly complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other harassed and bewildered staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to actually handle. These include page paste-up, posting packages, filing, clean-up, collecting stuff inbound from off-site and editing readers’ letters (the real reason fans’ requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered)…

Gomer is lazy, hyperkinetic, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry: a passionate sports fan and animal lover whose most manic moments all stem from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing. It leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like increasingly manic traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, plus ordinary passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street. Through it all, the obtuse office oaf remains affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions matter: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what does gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne see in the self-opinionated idiot, and will perpetually-outraged capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

In 1979, after a long pause while the auteur dealt with his mental health issues, Gaston – Lagaffe mérite des baffes became the 13th collected album and in 2023 was Cinebook’s 11th translated compilation. As Goof-off at the Gomer Corral, it offers single page bursts and half-page gags in non-stop all-Franquin jabs and japes. From this point on the frequency of Gaston collections reduced by 50%…

A brighter spotlight falls upon Longsnoot (AKA Joseph Longtarin in European editions) too, a protracted war of nerves across future volumes as Gomer increasingly clashed with forces of authority, and revealed here via many car-based clashes and a cold war involving parking meters culminating in the Goof’s invention of mobile dummy replicas of the despised coin collectors.

As always, forward looking Gomer is blind to the problems his antiquated automobile causes, despite numerous attempts to soup up, cleanse, modify and mollify the motorised atrocity he calls his. The decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of assisted execution than his many well-meant engineering interventions, as seen in its brief conversion to natural gas fuel, petrol-powered gassifiers, onboard coal-burners and addition of crash bags years ahead of anything produced by hitmen or torturers. With travel so important, it’s no wonder he also finds time to similarly improve his motor bike with augmented horns and lethally heated seats…

Work gets tougher as a succession of nightmares plague Gomer even as unanswered mail piles up, making more trouble for Prunelle and in-house staff artist Yves (occasionally “Yvon”) Lebrac who often act as unwilling, inadvertent beta testers for our well-meaning, overly-helpful, know-it-all office hindrance. This time the poor saps are at ground zero for numerous moments of projectile madness after Gomer improves the pedal bin lid springs…  Devoted to his inhouse menagerie (Cheese the mouse, goldfish Bubelle, an adopted feral cat and a black-headed gull) our loving lad adds doors and passages and even teaches them all to blow gum bubbles. It doesn’t take long, but the clean-up sure does… almost as long as training a troupe of snails to perform a nightclub act…

Although there’s less opportunity to invent interesting foodstuffs, Gomer has leisure enough to augment office traffic, filing and even automate suitcase usage, but his greatest triumph this time round is renovating the office reference library, creating a thing of architectural wonder and lethal imprecision…

At least lovely Miss Jeanne and forever faithful pal Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street are able to appreciate the efforts made to improve the world, even if it seems at the cost of a few paltry lives and much municipal and private property…

Far better enjoyed than précised or spoken of, these strips allowed Franquin to flex whimsical muscles, subversively sneak in satirical support for their environmental beliefs, pacifism and animal rights and remain sublime examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading. Why haven’t you got your Goof on yet?

Isn’t it time you started Goofing around?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2023 Cinebook Ltd.

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Bunny vs Monkey Book 10: The Great Big Glitch!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras & Paul Duffield (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-308-0 (Digest HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because… Just Because… 10/10

Bunny vs Monkey has been the inspirationally bonkers breakout star of The Phoenix since the first issue in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia, masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands. Concocted with gleefully gusto – but increasingly with cerebral cosmic crescendo in mind – by cartoonist/comics artist/novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember), these trendsetting, mind-bending yarns have been wisely retooled as best-selling, graphic albums available in remastered, double-length digest softcover and hardback editions such as this one. All the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little beast plopped down in after a disastrous British space shot. OR DID IT?

Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite every effort of genteel, contemplative, reasonably sensible forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine could not contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape, who to this moment remains a rude, troublemaking, chaos-creating, noise-loving lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” and/or being a robot, with or without the aid of evil supergenius Skunky or “henches” Metal Steve and Action Beaver…

Daily wonders and catastrophes were exacerbated by a broad band of unconventional Crinkle creatures, none more so than monochrome mad scientist Skunky, whose intellect and cavalier attitude to life presents as a propensity for building dangerous robots, bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons. He is, at his core, a dangerously inquisitive thinker and tinkerer…

Here – with artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances resumes and culminates, even though everybody thought all the battles had already ended. We even seemingly explain the odd behaviour of intermittently encroaching Hoo-mans…

Once again divided into seasonal outbursts – OR IS IT? – this tenth magnificent hardback archive asylum of weirdness opens in traditional manner: with our lop-eared protagonist snug at home amidst winter snows as incurable innocent Pig Piggerton comes frantically calling. It appears his woodlouse pet ‘Mister Bum Bum’ is in dire need of it to be warm and summery.

Thankfully, after a recent return from the Puddle of Eternity (thanks to a fluke of the Molecular Stream) Bunny is now completely connected to nature and able to manifest a small patch of magic sunshine. When Monkey turns up in another death-machine, it is Pig who actually saves the day…

The hairy halfwit (I’m being generous here) is mad and manic as ever, unleashing ICBM ‘Wieners!’, and ‘Shark Attack’ cannonades the largely shellshocked populace (superfast Aye-aye Ai, Weenie Squirrel, Metal E.V.E., Lucky the Red Panda, mysterious Le Fox and the rest) all try to ignore, but as ‘Doctor Pig’ seeks to help the hopeless with a brand new therapy recently discovered, deep underground Monkey & Skunky experience something strange and start to suspect every they know might be wrong after feeling the force of ‘The Glitch’…

The skunk knows all about “Simulation Theory” even if you and I don’t, and makes some plans. Elsewhere, Hoo-man Toby and faithful assistant Alice finally admit there’s something deeply wrong in their system and start looking for answers by resetting the year back to January again – OR DO THEY…?

In Crinkle Woods, life manically meanders on with mad inventions and fantastically odd food fomenting foolishness in ‘Un-Lucky’, ‘Pug of Dooom!’, ‘Piggy Pog Pog’, on a culinary ‘Journey for the Wobbleberries’, and in clash of escalating titans ‘Big Me’. Anarchy reigns when Monkey’s ‘Bloblems’ and ravaging ‘Jelly Plops’ threaten, but no one really grasps what it all means until ‘The Second Glitch’…

With Toby now fatally intwined and connected to the Crinkle critters in ways he cannot fathom, and which restarting the year won’t fix, a rash of irrationality – even by Woodland standards – ensues in ‘Roll ‘em Up!’ and ‘Mine’. Toby’s fate is sealed when he inserts himself into the world of ‘Weirdos’ and he gets stuck there – OR DOES HE?

Even sensible, naïve robot Metal E.V.E. doesn’t believe the Hoo-Man is just a park warden and all too soon he is both appalled spectator and collateral casualty in spiralling strangeness as seen in ‘When in Rome’, ‘Extreeeeme!’ (debuting social media manipulator/teen Hyee-Hee-Heena Pootle B. Thunderbum to the menagerie) or ‘And Now, a Special Presentation’. Such ‘Warning Signs’ are useful to Skunky who instinctively understands what’s really going on. As Toby continues searching for his glitch – only stopping for ‘Biscuits’ – our lax lepine steps up as a problem-solving ‘Magic Bunny’, prompting a woodlands ‘Pause!’ as Skunky takes control.

Experiencing rather disturbing ‘Deja Vu’, some sort of truth unfolds in ‘The Story So Far’, delivering revelation and ‘An Escape’ as Skunky crafts a figurative shark just to jump it and enter the fabled ‘Land of the Hoo-Mans’, bringing the rest with him to help and hinder his acquiring ‘Stolen Tech’.

…and then all the critters get ‘Upgrades’…

With Bunny a magical Guardian of the Woodlands, Monkey a robot and his chief hench turned into an Action Cow, ‘Beefy Squirrel’ uses her new physique and superstrength to save Pig as metamorphic ‘Module Madness’ grips the critter cast. She needn’t have fussed, as her pal becomes super-secret agent ‘Codename P.I.G.’ to counter the chaos.

Deep below Crinkle Woods, the King of the Undercreatures craves ‘Yum Yums’ and strikes a shady deal with one stalwart supposed hero, sparking a fearsome clash with terror-beast Boggoth on ‘Fight Night’, and another between upgraded stars in ‘Bunny vs Monkey’. It swiftly draws in Beefy Squirrell for ‘Surf’s Up!’, before cosmically unfortunate red panda Lucky is convinced to try ‘Just One Wish’ on the troublesome upgrade module.

Metal E.V.E. evaluates the merits of change in ‘Transform!’, leading to Skunky’s ascension as ‘The Architect’ of reality and rueful admission ‘That Escalated Quickly’. Finally, magic Bunny and compelling, morally ambiguous outsider refusenik Le Fox unite to confront ‘The Omnipresent Skunky’ and battle beside everyone left ‘All in This Together’, before even greater revelations are exposed and calm(ish) order is restored with all ‘Finally Happy’, despite it being – just for a bit – ‘Metal Steve’s World’ and an ephemeral plane of ‘The Endless’ only truly sorted and made wonderfully again thanks to Bunny in ‘The Release’.

There’s also ‘An Epilogue’ with Le Fox explaining things, but unless you’re as smart and fun-loving as your kids, it won’t do you adults any good…

The agonised, anxiety-addled animal anarchy might have ended for now, but there’s a few more secrets to expose, thanks to detailed instructions on ‘How to Draw Wizard Bunny!’, ‘…Buff Weinie!’ and ‘…Action Cow!’, as well as previews of other treats and wonders available in The Phoenix to wind down from all that cosmic furore…

Another book for your kids to explain to you, the zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird wit, brilliant invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. Is that you?

Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.
Bunny vs Monkey: The Great Big Glitch! is published on October 10th 2024 and available for pre-order now.

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Everything’s Coming Up Beatrix – A Breaking Cat News Adventure (volume 6)


By Georgia Dunn (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-1-52487-974-7 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-5248-9062-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Categorically Unmissable… 9/10

There’s a burgeoning trend amongst certain men – mostly loitering on the internet – to think their threat of replacing women they can’t “get” with sex-bots that don’t exist is in some way a deterrent to being turned down by people they don’t have the ability to ask nicely in the first place. These uncouth, mis-evolved oafs also warn that if the “females” don’t wise up and lower their standards they will be stuck with living with cats…

Guys – and I’m using the term in the least pejorative manner I can muster – wise up, yourselves. Neither of those propositions are unwelcome outcomes. Cats already rule the world and you just can’t compete.

On any level.

In 2016, illustrator and cartoonist Georgia Dunn found a way to make her hairy housemates (the ones with more than two feet) earn their keep after watching them converge on a domestic accident and inquisitively, interminably poke their whiskery little snouts into the mess. That incident led to Breaking Cat News: a hilariously beguiling webcomic detailing how her forthright felines operate their own on-the-spot news-team, with studio anchor Lupin, and field reporters Elvis (investigative) and Puck (commentary) delivering around-the-clock reports on the events that really resonate with cats – because, after all, who else matters?

On March 27th 2017, a suitably modified (for which read fully redrawn and recoloured) version began newspaper syndication, alternating with new material designed expressly for print consumption. As the strip and cast grew, print publication led to books like these – also a far more enticing prospect than any night out with the boys…

If you’re a returning customer or already follow the strip, you’re au fait with a constantly expanding cast and ceaselessly surreal absurdity, but this stuff is so welcoming, even the merest neophyte can jump right in with no confusion… other than that which is intentional…

Be warned though, Dunn is a master of emotional manipulation and never afraid to tug heartstrings. Always keep hankies close. You too, lads…

In this volume, the strip’s spookier whimsy-corners are revisited, and the year’s seasonal markers (a mainstay of most newspaper comic strips for more than a century) are gleefully addressed as the news-mews crew and other occupants of the ancient (by US standards!) house pop up in short gags and extended serial dramas, beginning with a passionate yet hilarious cartoon polemic encouraging everyone to defend libraries, librarians and reading itself in today’s dangerously post-literate America.

Returning to episodic riffs in celebration of ‘Fuzzy Blanket Season’, we see the Dunn’s toddler – under the guidance of the scoop-starved kitties – cope with the loss of plushy pal Pengo. His return from the washing machine leads to learning all about the dangers of peanut butter before the felines face another crunchy leaf crisis and anticipate impending Halloween treats through the eyes of the new baby.

The jaded kitties clue in viewers to the best comestibles, carry on the search for legendary cryptid “The mailman” and celebrate the joyous resurrection of ‘The Space Heater’, with a “camp in” and some scary tales…

An extended frightening yarn – which does end happily, my nervous darlings – finds three-legged Puck indulge his passion for climbing and get lost in the house’s superstructure. When he is in danger of suffocating, ghosts of previous pets and the old lady who originally owned the place augment the frantic, still-breathing searchers…

The story of the were-floof segues into more spectral surprises – such as the advent of Count Puckula – before order of a catly kind is ultimately restored, leading to riffs on feline trophy-taking, coiffure gaffes and monsters under beds. When  Christmas and New Year’s come, the cats are ready even if The People aren’t, and no decoration or fancy edible is safe. At least wrapping paper is a gift that keeps on giving and giving and giving and…

January sees a big expose on ‘Shelves, the Silent Killer’, more “facts” about snow – and groundhogs – as well as sweaters, colds, why the People bathe, and contagious cat clumsiness. Food items are always newsworthy, and a protracted debate on the point of lettuce leads to fun with temporary foster kitten and agent of chaos Beatrix…

Time marches on to St. Patrick’s Day, which is co-opted by adherents of feline patron saint St. Gertude to launch new holiday ‘St. Catty’s Day’, complete with a bundle of new traditions. Eating corned beef might not make the final cut, though…

Another high point comes with the launch of affiliate BCW, but is the world ready for Best Cat Wrestling and glam-costumed kitty luchadores? If not there’s always cake and reading. That’s what new cat Sophie prefers, much to outside cat Tommy’s disappointment. It almost makes up for The Woman running out of coffee and English period detective dramas.

By the time Peep Toad season starts, Beatrix is moving on to her forever home – a book shop – and social media goes into  underdrive. At least old pals like the “gypsy” cats are happy to provide entertainment to the news-starved, and there is always cat yoga, home-tanning, sock-hunting, new toys to review and the start of baseball season…

As always Rolling News episodes revisit favourite themes like things that don’t need to be on shelves, climbing into bags, kibble, packaging helping The People eat, sleep and exercise…

Closing festivities is another selection of activity pages considered as Breaking Cat News: More to Explore providing full painted and fully-detailed tips and plans on how to ‘Make your own Bookmarks!’, ‘Make a Little Book!’ and ‘Build a Reading Fort!’

Outrageous, alarming, extra-especially courageous and always charming – and certainly often far too autobiographical for comfort – the romps, riffs and occasional sad bits about a fully integrated multi-species family is a growing necessity of life for many folk – just like most men simply Are Not. Smart, witty, imaginative and deliciously whimsical, Breaking Cat News is fabulously funny, infinitely re-readable feel-good fun rendered with artistic elan and a light and breezy touch to delight not just us irredeemable cat-addicts but also anyone in dire need of a good laugh.
Everything’s Coming Up Beatrix © 2023 Georgia Dunn. All rights reserved.

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Bunny vs Monkey: The Gigantic Joke Fight!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-334-9 (Digest HB)

Bunny vs Monkey has been the hairy/fuzzy backbone of The Phoenix since the very first issue back in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal arch-enemies in an idyllic arcadia masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands.

Concocted with gleefully gentle mania by cartoonist, comics artist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember), his trendsetting, mindbending multi award-winning yarns have been wisely retooled as graphic albums available in digest editions such as this one.

All the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little anthropoid plopped down in some serene British woodland, in the wake of a disastrous local space shot. Crashlanded in Crinkle Woods, scant miles from his launch site, lab animal Monkey reckoned himself the rightful owner of a strange new world… despite every effort to dissuade him by reasonable, rational, sensible, genteel, contemplative forest resident Bunny. No amount of patience, propriety or good breeding on the part of the laid-back lepine could curtail, contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape, who to this day remains a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating, troublemaking lout…

A keen rivalry arose between them, as the ape intruder crudely made himself at home, and to this day Monkey remains a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating, troublemaking lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” – with or without the aid of evil supergenius ally Skunky or their “henches” Metal Steve and Action Beaver…

Problems are exacerbated by other unconventional Crinkle creatures, like Pig, Weenie, Ai, Lucky, Le Fox and especially mad scientist Skunky whose intellect and cavalier attitude to life presents as a propensity for building extremely dangerous robots, Brobdingnagian bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons…

Here the mundane multi-coloured manic war of nerves and mega-munitions is temporarily terminated for a twits & giggles diversion in magnificent monochrome as the entire cast are embroiled in a mysterious competition to determine who knows the best jokes – a cunning ploy to resurrect the subgenre of cartoon joke books that made the 1960s, Seventies and Eighties such a tedious, ear-bending chore for teachers and parents and so much fun for us…

The search to determine “The Funniest Creature in the Woods” grips everybody and over ‘Welcome to the Woods’, ‘Bunny Makes a Funny’, ‘Monkey’s Merciless Mirth!’, ‘Skunky’s Genius Jokes!’, ‘Weenie and Pig’s First Go at Telling Jokes!’, ‘Lights. Camera. Action Beaver!’, ‘Metal Steve and Metal E.V.E.’s Joke Processing’, ‘Le Fox is Far Too Cunning’, ‘Ai is So Fast’, ‘A Very Lucky Joke!’, ‘Weenie and Pig Return!’, ‘Readers’ Jokes – You Make the Laughs!’ and ‘And Now, the Conclusion!’, deliver themed and specialised chapter collections of Dad Jokes, Bum Jokes, Fart Jokes, Poo Jokes, Food Jokes, Baby Jokes, Knock-Knock Jokes and Pirate Jokes, as well as jests & japes about Genius, Robots, Computers, School, Experiments, Monsters, Ghosts, Chickens and Road Crossing, whilst also offering some riddles, brain-teasers and even tips on what Jokes are and How To Tell Them…

Daft, compulsively addictive, dangerously read-out-loud-able and fearfully unputdownable, this cutting edge retro-treat is the perfect gift… for someone else’s kids…
Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because You’re Only Young Once, unless you’re a Guy… 8/10

Bunny vs Monkey: The Gigantic Joke Fight! Will be published on October 10th 2024 and is available for pre-order now.

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Gomer Goof volume 10: Gomers Goons


By Franquin, translated byJerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-092-0 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and began his astonishing comics career in a golden age of European cartooning. Beginning as assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on the strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature in 1946, and went on to create countless unforgettable new characters like Fantasio and The Marsupilami.

Franquin – with Jijé, Morris (Lucky Luke) and Willy “Will” (Tif et Tondu) Maltaite – was co-founder of creative powerhouse La bande des quatre: “the Gang of Four” who reshaped and revolutionised Belgian comics and all European cartooning with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” graphic style.

Over two decades Franquin made the strip purely his, expanding Spirou & Fantasio’s scope and horizons, as they became globetrotting journalists who visited exotic places, exposed crimes, explored the incredible and clashed with bizarre, exotic arch-enemies. Throughout, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, popping back to base between assignments. Sadly, ensconced there was an arrogant, accident-prone office junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. This was Gaston Lagaffe – Franquin’s second immortal invention…

There’s a long tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy – it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though after debuting in Le Journal de Spirou #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable dimwit grew beyond control to become one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic, whether as a guest in Spirou’s adventures or his own comedy strips and/or faux reports on the editorial pages he was supposed to paste up. Initial cameos in Spirou yarns or occasional asides on text pages featured well-meaning foul-up and ostensible gofer Gaston lurking and lounging amidst a crowd of diligent toilers: a workshy slacker employed as a general assistant at Le Journal de Spirou’s head office. The scruffy bit-player eventually and inevitably shambled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned helpfulness wedded to irrepressible self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati vehicles and recognise recurring riffs from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em and Mr Bean. It’s all blunt-force slapstick, paralysing puns, fantastic ingenuity and inspired invention, compiled to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (that there’s some British punning, see?) and ensure no good deed goes noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer obtains a regular salary – let’s not dignify what he does as “earning” a living – from Spirou’s editorial offices: initially reporting to top journalist Fantasio, and latterly complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and the other staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to actually handle. These include page paste-up, posting packages, filing, clean-up, collecting stuff inbound from off-site and editing readers’ letters (the real reason fans requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered)…

Gomer is lazy, hyperkinetic, over-opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry: a passionate sports fan and animal lover with his most manic moments all stemming from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing. It leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, as well as ordinary passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all the office oaf remains affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions really matter: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what does gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne see in the self-opinionated idiot and will perpetually-outraged capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

In 1974 Gaston – Le gang des gaffeurs was the 12th collected album and in 2023 became Cinebook’s 10th translated compilation, offering single page bursts and some half-page sight gags: non-stop all-Franquin comics jabs and japes, with a few ideas and contributions from colleagues Joop, Degotte and Yvan (The Smurfs, Steve Severin, Idées noires) Delporte.

The assistants were necessary as Franquin’s mental health was increasingly being affected by stress. After this album the frequency of Gaston collections reduced by 50%…

Here an increased spotlight falls upon distressed in-house staff artist Yves (occasionally called Yvon) Lebrac who often acted as unwilling, inadvertent beta tester for our well-meaning, overly-helpful, know-it-all office hindrance. This tome is packed with innovations that make Lebrac’s life increasingly annoying and unnecessarily hazardous, such as super-amped central heating so workers can make toast on radiators, a retractable, ceiling-mounted eraser, assorted games, further experiments with (light-repelling) aerosol air-fresheners and paste-up adhesives that just should not be allowed under the Geneva Convention…

Crucially, Gomer’s pets regard Lebrac’s desk and drawing board as their playground but are always ready to have him join in their games…

Whilst concentrating on avoiding his job, The Goof always seeks to improve life for his animal pals. The adopted feral cat and black-headed gull still accompany illicit studio companions Cheese the mouse in many destructive romps but it’s studio goldfish Bubelle who really benefits this time as Gomer installs several solutions to improve mobility and grant the water-dweller FULL access to the building…

When not pursuing illicit culinary dreams – like lighter-than-air pancakes made on a desktop crêpe fryer – Gomer is quick to solve pressing problems such as a cat very stridently trapped in a bass tuba, but even that paralysing din is as nothing to the near-lethal advent of ultrasonic violin tuning, A.I. cup-&-ball machine, casual/office-wear robot suits, self-emptying pedal bins, recycling Soviet components for airplane models, the most wonderful couch on Earth, Inter-Office ski-lift systems and accidentally perfecting the most volatile motion-sensitive explosive ever to grace an art kit…

The installation of roller towels in the toilets sparks a wave of (dangerous) inspiration and innovation and when Gomer’s like-minded chum, opposite number and born accomplice Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street joins him in moonlighting as advertising prop makers, the resulting giant shoe fiasco sets the entire city panicking. Ever-eager to slope off for a chat, Jules is also a confirmed devotee of Gomer’s sporting methods for passing the time at work and complicit in seducing the office redecorators: turning hard-working diligent toilers to their laggardly ways, and introducing them to the joys of adventure cooking, citizen chemistry and colossally big bangs…

Semi-regular burglar Freddy falls foul of Gomer’s lethal filing system – something Prunelle also suffers from often – but both are mercifully absent when the inventor’s inquiries into aural animal attractant whistles (affecting owls, mosquitos, moles, and a certain (uniformed) species of “Pig”) make an extended camping trip to “Gus’s farm” a weird nightmare…

Also on view are more skirmishes in the ongoing car-parking war with Longsnoot and a succession of sporting gags including a clash with a karate master, snow paddleball and swamp football, but in the end even our recumbent genius has no cure for peasouper fog – although his quick work-around does get the city moving… in the wrong direction…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin and his occasional co-scenarists to flex whimsical muscles, subversively sneak in satirical support for their beliefs in pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights and sometimes even appear in person…

These are sublime examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading. Why haven’t you got your Goof on yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2023 Cinebook Ltd.

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Oor Wullie & The Broons: Cooking Up Laughs!


By Robert Duncan Low, Dudley D. Watkins, Ken H. Harrison & various (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-0-84535-614-9 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

August 24th is National Waffle Day so here I am burbling at you again and hoping this Crimbo I’ll get a day-diary with less distracting factoids…

Published eternally in perfect tandem, The Broons and Oor Wullie are two of the longest-running newspaper strips in British history, having appeared continuously in Scottish national newspaper The Sunday Post since their dual debuts in the March 8th 1936 edition. Both boisterous boy and gregariously engaging inner city clan were co-created by writer/Editor Robert Duncan Low (1895-1980) in conjunction with Dudley Dexter Watkins (1907-1969); DC Thomson’s greatest – and signature – artist. Three years later the first strips were collected in reprint editions as special Seasonal Annuals; alternating stars and years right up to the present day and remaining best-sellers every single time.

The shape and structure of British kids cartoon reading owes a massive debt to R.D. Low who was probably DC Thomson’s greatest creative find. He started at the Scottish publishing monolith as a journalist, rising to the post of Managing Editor of Children’s Publications where – between 1921 and 1933 – he conceived and launched the company’s “Big Five” story-papers for boys. Those rip-roaring illustrated prose periodicals comprised Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard, The Skipper and The Hotspur.

In 1936 his next brilliant idea resulted in The Fun Section: an 8-page pull-out supplement for The Sunday Post consisting primarily of comic strips. The illustrated accessory launched on 8th March and from the very outset The Broons and Oor Wullie – both laudably limned by the incomparable Watkins – were its incontestable star turns…

Low’s shrewdest move was to devise both strips as domestic comedies played out in the charismatic Scottish idiom and broad homespun vernacular. Ably supported by such features as Chic Gordon’s Auchentogle, Allan Morley’s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and other comics pioneers, they laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap, which came in December 1937 when Low launched DC Thomson’s first weekly pictorial comic.

The Dandy was followed by The Beano in 1938 and early-reading title The Magic Comic a year after that. War-time paper shortages and rationing sadly curtailed this strip periodical revolution, and it was 1953 before the next wave of cartoon caper picture-papers. To supplement Beano & Dandy, the ball started rolling again with The Topper, followed by a host of new titles like Beezer and Sparky.

Low’s greatest advantage was always his prolific illustrator, whose style, more than any other, shaped the look of DCT’s comics output until and even beyond the bombastic advent of Leo Baxendale who shook things up in the mid-1950s. Hailing from Manchester and Nottingham, Watkins was an artistic prodigy. He entered Glasgow College of Art in 1924 and before long was advised to get a job at Dundee-based DCT, where a 6-month trial illustrating boys’ stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations.

Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer made him a dead cert for both lead strips in the Fun Section and, without missing a beat, in 1937 Dudley D. added The Dandy’s sagebrush superman Desperate Dan to his weekly workload, and The Beano‘s placidly and seditiously outrageous Lord Snooty seven months later.

Watkins soldiered on in unassailable magnificence for decades, drawing some of the most lavishly lifelike and winningly hilarious strips in illustration history. He died at his drawing board on August 20th 1969. For all those astonishingly productive years he had unflaggingly drawn a full captivating page each of Oor Wullie and The Broons every week.

His loss was a colossal blow to the company and Thomson’s top brass preferred to reprint old Watkins episodes in both newspaper and Annuals for seven years before replacement artists were agreed upon. Dandy reran his old Desperate Dan stories for twice that length of time.

An undeniable, rock-solid facet of Scots popular culture from the very start, the first Broons Annual (technically Bi-Annual) appeared in 1939, alternating with a first Oor Wullie book a year after (thanks to those wartime paper restrictions, no annuals at all were published between 1943 – 1946) and for millions of readers no year can truly end without them.

Every kid who grew up reading comics has their own personal nostalgia-filled nirvana, and DC Thomson have always sagely left that choice to us whilst striving to keep all eras alive with carefully-tooled collectors’ albums like this substantial (225 x 300 mm) hardback Gift Book. Bright and breezy, the compilation focuses on the characters’ relationship with food – particularly Scotland’s unique and evocative cuisine – through festive occasions, seasonal celebrations and in everyday contexts: especially in comedic situations as comfort or consolation or even hard-won prizes. It’s also jam-packed with some of the best-written, most impressively drawn strips ever conceived: superbly timeless examples of cartoon storytelling at its best.

Moreover, rather than chronological arcs tracing particularly bleak and fraught beginnings in British history through years of growth, exploration and cultural change, we’re treated to a splendid pick-&-mix protocol: a surprise on every turn of a page with Low & Watkins ably succeeded by Tom Lavery, Peter Davidson, Robert Nixon, Ken H. Harrison, Iain Reid, Tom Morton, Dave Donaldson, Morris Heggie and more.

So What’s the Set Up?: the Brown family dwell together in a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street in timelessly metafictional Scottish industrial everytown Auchentogle (sometimes called Auchenshoogle and soundly based on Glasgow’s working class Auchenshuggle district). As such it’s an ideal setting to tell gags in, relate events and crystalise the deepest, most reassuring cultural archetypes for sentimental Scots wherever in the world they might actually be residing. And naturally, such a region is the perfect sounding board to portray all the social, cultural and economic changes that came after the war…

Adamant, unswerving cornerstone of the family feature is long-suffering, ever-understanding culinary commander-in-chief Maw Broon, who puts up with cantankerous, cheap, know-it-all Paw and their battalion of stay-at-home kids. These comprise hunky Joe, freakishly tall beanpole Hen (Henry), sturdy Daphne, gorgeous Maggie, brainy Horace, mischievous twins Eck and the unnamed “ither ane” plus a wee toddling lassie referred to only as “The Bairn”.

Not officially in residence yet always hanging around is sly, patriarchal bewhiskered buffoon Granpaw: a comedic gadfly who spends more time at Glebe Street than his own cottage, constantly trying to impart his decades of out-of-date, hard-earned experience to the kiddies… but do they listen?

Offering regular breaks from inner-city turmoil whilst simultaneously sentimentalising, spoofing and memorialising more traditional times, the clan constantly adjourn to their “But ‘n’ Ben” (a dilapidated rustic cottage in the Highlands) to fall foul of weather, the countryside and all its denizens: fish, fowl, farm-grown, temporary and touristic…

As previously stated, Oor Wullie also launched on March 8th 1936 with his own collected Annual assemblages unfailingly appearing in the even years. His operating premise is sublimely simply and eternally fresh: an overly-imaginative, impetuous scruff with a weakness for mischief, talent for finding trouble and no hope of ever avoiding parental or adult retribution when appropriate shares what just happened…

Wullie – AKA William MacCallum – is the archetypal good-hearted rascal with too much time on his hands. He can usually be found sitting on an upturned bucket at the start and finish of his page-a-week exploits. The regular supporting cast includes Ma and Pa, local beat-Bobby P.C. Murdoch, assorted teachers and sundry other interfering adults who either lavish gifts or inflict opprobrium upon the little pest and his pals Fat Boab, Soapy Joe Soutar, Wee Eck and others. As a grudging sign of changing times, in later years he’s been caught in the company of sensible wise-beyond-their-years schoolgirls like Rosie and Elizabeth…

A compilation in monochrome – with some full-colour pages – Cooking Up Laughs! was released in 2016 as part of the admirable drive to keep early material available to fans: a lavishly sturdy hardback (still readily available through internet vendors) offering a tasty and tantalising selection curated with an emphasis on the eating habits of the stars; well, these northern stars at least….

Eating has always been a perennial and fundamental aspect of both strips (don’t get me started on the sociological value and importance of food in communal/tribal settings: I’ve been to college twice and did all the reading they told me to!), and the topic even generated a spin-off line of Maw Broon Cook Books…

Divided by colour cover or title-pages from previous Annuals, the endless escapades of the strip stars comprise the happily standard fare: kids outsmarting older folk to score sweets and prohibited provender; pompous male adults making galling goofs and gaffes when cooking; family frolics and festival events: rules of rationing and home-grown garden gifts; etiquette outrages: potent penalties for gorging; stolen candies, Christmas revels, how to drink Tea and even some full-colour puzzle pages to digest…

Also on show are Scots-specific treats and techniques such as Clootie Dumpling disasters; the mysteries of Fruit; the makings of “a Piece”; fabled Fish Suppers and the miracle of Cheps; how to present Crofter’s Porridge; the marvel of Mince ‘n’ Tatties; better things to do with Neeps; dieting dos and don’ts and every manner of sweet or savoury sampling of succulence and sinfulness…

With snobs to deflate, bullies to crush, duels to fight, chips to scoff, games to win and rowdy animals (from cats to coos) to escape, the eternally affable humour and gently self-deprecating, inclusive frolics make these superbly crafted strips an endlessly entertaining, superbly nostalgic treat.

Packed with all-ages fun, rambunctious homespun hilarity and deliriously domestic warmth, these examples of comedic certainty and convivial celebration are a sure cure for post-modern glums and Bank Holiday blues… and you can’t really have a happy holiday without that, can you?
© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. 2016.

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The Detective Chimp Casebook


By John Broome, Mike Tiefenbacher, Carmine Infantino, Irwin Hasen, Alex Kotzky, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, Sy Barry, Bernard Sachs & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2165-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Detective stories are a literary subgenre wherein an investigation by amateur or professional (active or retired) into a legal transgression or moral/social injustice plays out before the consumer, who may or may not include themselves in the process. Like exploration and adventuring, fantasy, horror and science fiction, Detective stories blossomed in white western societies during the mid-19th century: spreading from magazines and prose novels to later forms of entertainment media such as plays, films and radio shows, with early crime puzzle solvers including C. Auguste Dupin, Judge Dee/Di Gong An, Sherlock Holmes, Jules Maigret, Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey, Sexton Blake and Hercule Poirot. Tales targeting youngsters generated their own sleuthing stars: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and more, sparking a subgenre especially popular on television…

Comic strips developed detective stalwarts like Hawkshaw, Dick Tracy, Charlie Chan, Kerry Drake ad infinitum: all contributing to a tidal wave of fictive crimebusters that in many ways inspired true literary legends – Philip Marlow, Sam Spade, Simon Templar, Mike Hammer and so on. Where there is such variety and richness, strange yet rewarding things may blossom, none more rewarding than those seen in graphic narratives. Gathered here is the original, seminal comics lunacy in the hirsute form of Detective Chimp: a Florida-based do-gooder who – thanks to an extremely unconventional official lawman – became assistant sheriff of a major coastal metropolis.

In later years, wit and whimsey fell prey to the all-consuming fan-drive for rationality and reason (at least in comic book science terms) and both the police primate and his comic book host Rex the Wonder Dog were given origins rationalising and explaining their mighty mentalities. You can see the first hint of that at the end of this compilation which gathers the madcap monkeyshines of an ape answering to Bobo, as first seen in The Adventures of Rex The Wonder Dog #4 and thereafter #6-46, plus a canny codicil from  DC Comics Presents #35: spanning July 1952 to September/October 1959 and including a moment of animal magic from July 1981. Also in here is material from DC Special #1, Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp #1, Tarzan #231, 234 & 235, Amazing World of DC Comics #1 and Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6. And while we’re at it, let’s get one thing straight: I know and you know chimpanzees are APES. The author(s) did too, but to have more fun and engage euphony I – as they did – reserve the right to use many terms associated with both primates and prosimians throughout…

We now pause for me to pontificate some more…

Boasting a March 1937 cover-date, Detective Comics #1 was the third and final anthology title devised by luckless comics pioneer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. In 1935, the entrepreneur had seen the potential in Max Gaines’ new invention – the Comic Book – and reacted quickly, conceiving and releasing packages of all-new strips in New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine and follow-up New Fun/New Adventure (ultimately Adventure Comics) under the banner of National Allied Publications. These publications differed from similar prototype comics magazines which simply reprinted edited collations culled from established newspaper strips. However, these vanguard titles were as varied and undirected in content as any newspaper funnies page.

Detective Comics was different. Specialising solely in tales of crime and crimebusters, the initial roster included (amongst others) adventurer Speed Saunders, Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, Gumshoe Gus and two series by a couple of kids from Cleveland named Siegel & Shuster – espionage agent Bart Regan and two-fisted shamus Slam Bradley…

Within two years the commercially inept and unseasoned Wheeler-Nicholson had been forced out by his more savvy business partners, and his company eventually grew into monolithic DC (for Detective Comics) Comics. Surviving a myriad of changes and temporary shifts of identity and aims, it’s still with us – albeit primarily as a vehicle for the breakthrough character who debuted in the 27th issue…

In the years when superheroes were in retreat and considered a bit foolish, DC concentrated on genre stars. At the end of 1951 they launched Rex the Wonder Dog (#1 cover-dated January/February 1952), based equally on Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and their own miracle mutt Streak – the original Green Lantern’s dog who had ousted Alan Scott and Co. from his own title in the dying days of the Golden Age.

Rex solved crimes, saved lives in disasters, fought dinosaurs and saved the world, but that wasn’t enough and real-world legal restrictions dictated his title required other strips to qualify for favourable postal shipping rates. In #4 (July/August 1952), a future back-up feature was trialled. Written by John Broome, drawn by Carmine Infantino and inked by Sy Barry, the tale of a little chimp who helped solve the murder of his beloved owner captivated readers. Infantino always claimed this hirsute anthropoid crimebuster was his favourite character…

In The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4 readers were invited to ‘Meet Detective Chimp!’ in a charming comedy thriller. It was the first outing of undeniably captivating comics lunacy revealing how, when Oscaloosa Florida’s Sheriff Chase snared the killer of prominent businessman and owner of Thorpe Animal Farm, it was only with the valiant and uncanny help of a certain young chimp. He consequently adopts and deputises the beast, with Bobo thereafter acting as assistant sheriff right up until the final issue. The hairy savant also enjoyed a revival at the end of the century and fresh fame in the 21st as new generations of creators and fans rediscovered him…

Response must have been overwhelming and immediate in 1952, because mere months later ‘The Return of Detective Chimp!’ came with #6 (cover-dated November/December – and remember, this was the company that took 3 years to give The Flash his own title…). Broome again scripted the hirsute Hawkshaw – as he would almost all (I’m presuming: records are sadly incomplete) – in a delightful succession of what we would call “Cosy Mysteries”. Infantino was inked by Joe Giella as the chimp – with the aid of an enraged nesting bird – solved a family murder, restored a sabotaged will and settled a family inheritance in a wild romp setting the pattern for years to come…

Illustrated by Alex (The Sandman, Plastic Man) Kotzky, #7 settled in for the long haul and exposed ‘Monkeyshines at the Wax Museum!’, with Bobo catching the killer of amiable murder-enthusiast Len Billings, after which Irwin (Green Lantern, Wildcat, Justice Society of America, Dondi) Hasen & Giella highlighted how ‘Death Walks the High Wire!’ as the savvy simian proved a circus trapeze accident was anything but, even deputising some four-legged performers to bring the assassin to justice…

For RtWD #9 (May/June 1953), Broome, Hasen & Bernard Sachs indulged a passion for sports as Bobo saved his favourite baseball star from kidnappers in ‘Crime Runs the Bases’ before uncovering ‘Monkey Business on the Briny Deep!’ (Broome, Hasen & Giella, July-August 1953). Here, Bobo became an inveterate but dilettante hobby fanatic, exploring a different fascination each episode which would miraculously impact on the current case. This time it was sea fishing that netted cunning thieves, whilst in #11 it was horses and jockeys, as the impressionable assistant solved ‘The Riddle of the Riverside Raceway!’ (Hasen & Giella): befriending a prize steed, stymying race-fixing gangsters and collaring the FBI’s Most Wanted fugitive…

Th chimp made and lost a new friend next with Hasen & Giella limning the saga of how ‘The Million Dollar Gorilla!’ was killed by a big game hunter’s jealous love-rival before Infantino (inked by Sy Barry) embraced Bobo’s new love of Westerns in #13’s ‘The Case of the Runaway Ostrich!’. This hobby afforded the hairy half-pint much opportunity to display his roping and riding skills when corralling a rare bird rustler…

In RtWD #14 (March/April 1954, with art by Hasen & Sachs) Bobo became a Flying Fool addicted to aircraft just in time to stumble over ‘Murder in the Blue Yonder!’ and catch the killer of his flight instructor, after which Infantino settled in for the long haul as his favourite character became a lifeguard and solved ‘The Case of the Fishy Alibi!’, wherein a gambler almost pulls off the perfect crime. For #16 Bobo’s new passion for scuba diving/ spearfishing exposes a millionaire’s murderer in ‘Monkey Sees, Monkey Does!’ Two months later Bobo cracked ‘The Case of the Suspicious Signature!’ (September/October 1954) when his new passion for autograph collecting accidentally lands him in a Hollywood star’s kidnapping…

When Chase starts paying his deputy in cash as well as room-&-board and bananas, Bobo goes ape over finance with ‘The Case of Bobo’s Bankbook!’ leaving him in the right place at the right time to foil a big heist, prior to succumbing to more basic fascination in #19’s ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil!’ Bobo falls for visiting movie star Moka and takes up bodybuilding to impress her, but it proves no help at all when “The Most Famous Female Chimpanzee in the World” is kidnapped and he needs all his old skills to save the day…

With Sy Barry inking Infantino, ‘Detective Bobo… Chimp-Napped!’ sees the deputy abducted when his circus chums hit town again, just in time to thwart a jewel snatch, after which #21’s ‘The Secret of the ‘Indian’ Monkey!’ offers opportunity for dressing up when a historical pageant uncovers a treasure map and draws thieves like flies. In #22’s topical tale – inked by Giella – the chimp goes ape for sci fi stories yet still foils a cunning robbery scheme after ‘Bobo Rides a Flying Saucer!’ RtWD #23 saw Sheriff Chase’s only hobby – stamp collecting – key to solving ‘The Secret of the Spanish Castle!’ as a misdelivered letter inadvertently draws the lawgivers into a robbery/hostage situation, whilst Bobo’s temporary love of railways is the spur for ‘The Mystery of the Silver Bullet!’ when locomotive driver Mike Layton allows the chimp onto the footplate just as hijackers attack…

A dalliance with firefighting in #25 proves ‘Where There’s Smoke – There’s Trouble!’ as Bobo joins the Junior Forest Rangers just when a couple of thieves trying to hide their loot in the woods start throwing lighted cigarettes around, and #26 sees the simian Sherlock take up Egyptology in time to solve ‘The Mystery of the Missing Mummy!’ (Giella inks) and save Chase from being entombed forever…

After months of eating premium-promotion cereal, the eager ape at last opens the pack containing ‘A Whistle for Bobo!’ and subsequently drives everyone crazy as an impromptu traffic cop… until one car packed with brigands and boodle refuses to stop. Then a string of robberies by the Goliath Gang again sees him seeking to build up his physique by using ‘Bobo’s Amazing Jungle Gym!’ That turns into bad news for the bandits…

Broome & Infantino transformed Detective Chimp into ‘The Scientific Crook-Catcher!’ (#29 September/October 1956) when the savvy simian sneaks into a symposium of savants disguised as human professor and wowing the assembled savants by tracking down quick-change disguise artist Larry the Lynx, after which a duel with a jewel thief and rendezvous with a robbing raven presents ‘A Jailbird for Bobo!’…

The special deputy met his match in a gang of boy do-gooders in ‘Clue of the Secret Seven!’ but even collaboratively collaring a brace of escaped convicts was no preparation for tackling the maritime ‘Mystery of the Talking Fish!’ (#32) after returning to diving to hunt for sunken treasure. When Bobo’s friend Alice Rogers – inheritor of the animal farm in the first adventure – needs a favour, the detective is more than happy to be companion to her new albino Guereza monkey. However, when it vanishes, Bobo attempts to impersonate a creature he has never seen, whilst seeking to find ‘The Mystery Monkey from Zanzibar!’ leads to the capture of its opportunistic abductors instead…

Infantino tested a range of stylistic innovations on Detective Chimp and excels in #34’s ‘The Case of the Chimpanzee’s Camera!’ when Bobo takes up photography and snaps a trio of paranoid thieves casing their next caper, whilst ‘Bobo’s New York Adventure!’ sees the little ape in the Big Apple, pinch-hitting for a monkey TV star and stumbling into Oscaloosa’s Most Wanted: murderous jewel thief “Dangerous Jack” Diamond…

Giella inks in #36 as ‘The Mystery of the Missing Missile!’ sees Bobo and Secret Seven pal Tommy Wheeler stymie thieves and test a new invention before the chimp takes a vacation in human guise and unearths ‘The Treasure of Thunder Island!’ In #38 he catches canny counterfeiters whilst accidentally debunking the theories of a scientist who believes he can make animals talk in ‘The Amazing Experiment of Professor Snodgrass!’

For the next case ‘Bobo Goes to Sheriff’s School!’ as Chase sends the assistant in his place to a detection and criminology seminar. It disturbs the chimp’s latest passion of collecting marbles but the substitution works out okay as the chimp outshines all human attendees and even catches a couple of robbers along the way, after which ‘Bobo the Baby Sitter!’ recovers escaped circus star Kangy (the Boxing ’Roo) and nabs a brace of thieving fugitives prior to becoming ‘Bobo – Sleuth on Skis!’ when freak weather turns Oscaloosa into a snowcapped winter playground for thieves…

Giella inks a road rage riot in #42 as hot-rod fanatic Bobo drives a kiddie stock car for the Secret Seven in a big meet, becoming ‘Demon of the Speedways!’ after his new invention allows him to pip all rivals at the post. This attracts the unwanted attention of a gang boss in need of  super-fast getaway car, but does not end well for him…

Keen on being a model citizen, Bobo resolves to ‘Stop That Litterbug!’ in #43, accidentally intercepting a scrap of paper worth millions to the desperate men who lost it, before Giella’s last inking hurrah confirms ‘Where There’s Smoke – There’s Bobo!’ as the ape’s drive to be a fireman almost costs him his real job – until he encounters crooks at a fire – after which a logical outcome of Bobo’s career comes to pass in penultimate episode ‘The Case of the Monkey Witness!’ Here the anthropoid must testify against crime boss Legs Dunne, with the mobster’s gang seeking to end him before the trial begins…

Bobo’s last case came in #46 as he joins a Little League team and becomes ‘The Chimp-Champ of Baseball!’ (September/October 1959), all while preventing a pair of crooks escaping custody.

And that was that…

To make room for resurgent superheroes, The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog folded with that issue and – other than an occasional reprint – Bobo vanished for years. The covers of most of those re-appearances are displayed at the back of this book and are listed there, but before that one last story falls under the aegis of this pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths collection.

DC Comics Presents had an occasional back-up series offering short tales of lost stars and in #35 (July 1981) Mike Tiefenbacher & Gil Kane (who had drawn the majority of exploits starring Bobo’s canine companion) revealed ‘Whatever Became of Rex the Wonder Dog?’ Here the canine marvel teamed with now-ancient and decrepit ape Bobo to solve one last mystery, inadvertently restoring themselves to youthful health and vitality for another round of action adventures…

The collection closes with gallery of images under the umbrella of ‘The Ape Files’ which include the 1969 cover to DC Special #1 (an “All-Infantino Issue”), those for Joe Kubert’s covers for Tarzan #231, 234, 235 (which carried Bobo reprints) and Amazing World of DC Comics #1: another Infantino mega montage. Brian Bolland’s preliminary pencil art for Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp #1 is augmented by the finished full-colour piece before all the ape antics end with Infantino & Bill Wray’s page on Bobo from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6, a brief biography ‘About the Ape’ and similar treatment for creators Broome and Infantino.

In this century an ape solving crimes is less of a sure-fire winner – as many other hirsute DC gumshoes could attest – and Detective Chimp speaks many human tongues, consults with Batman and works with Shadowpact and for Justice League Dark: a far different beast operating on less charming levels. However, if you’re looking for daft laughs, sublime wit and astounding artwork, this is a book worth casing…
© 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 2007, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Gomer Goof volume 9: Good Golly, Mr. Goof!


By Franquin, with additional texts by Delporte, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-064-7 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and began his career in a golden age of European cartooning. Beginning as assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on the strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature in 1946, and creating countless unforgettable new characters such as Fantasio and The Marsupilami.

Franquin – with Jijé, Morris (Lucky Luke) and Willy “Will” Maltaite (Tif et Tondu) – was a co-founder of a creative force of nature dubbed La bande des quatre – “the Gang of Four” – who revolutionised and reshaped Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” graphic style.

Over two decades Franquin enlarged Spirou & Fantasio’s scope and horizons, until it became purely his as the strip evolved into the saga of globetrotting journalists. They visited exotic places, exposed crimes, explored the incredible and clashed with bizarre, exotic arch-enemies, but throughout, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, regularly popping back to the office between assignments. Sadly, lurking there was an arrogant, accident-prone junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe – Franquin’s other immortal invention…

There’s a long tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy – it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though after debuting in Le Journal de Spirou #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable conniving dimwit grew beyond control, to become one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic, whether as a guest in Spirou’s adventures or his own comedy strips and faux reports on the editorial pages he was supposed to paste up…

Initial cameos in Spirou yarns and occasional asides on text pages featured a well-meaning foul-up and ostensible office gofer Gaston who lurked amidst the crowd of diligent toilers: a workshy slacker working (sic) as a gofer at Le Journal de Spirou’s head office. That scruffy bit-player eventually and inevitably shambled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati and recognise recurring riffs from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em and Mr Bean. It’s slapstick, paralysing puns, infernal ingenuity and inspired invention, all to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (there’s some of that punning there, see?) and ensure no good deed going noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer obtains a regular salary – let’s not dignify what he does as “earning” a living – from Spirou’s editorial offices: reporting to top journalist Fantasio, or complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and the other staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to handle. These officially include page paste-up, posting (initially fragile) packages, collecting stuff inbound and editing readers’ letters (that’s the official reason fans’ requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered)…

Gomer is lazy, over-opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, a passionate sports fan and animal lover, with his most manic moments all stemming from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing.

This leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, as well as any simple passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all our office oaf remains eternally affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions really matter here: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what can gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne possible see in the self-opinionated idiot and will ever-outraged capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

In 1973 Gaston – Gaffes, bévues et boulettes was the 11th collected album (albeit rejigged in 2018 to become the 16th European compilation). It became in 2022 Cinebook’s 9th translated compilation, once more offering non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single page bursts with some script contributions from Yvan Delporte (The Smurfs, Steve Severin, Idées noires).

Our well-meaning, overconfident, overly-helpful know-it-all office hindrance invents more stuff making life unnecessarily dangerous and continues his pioneering and perilous attempts to befriend and boost fauna and flora alike, always improving the beleaguered modern mechanised world. As he concentrates on avoiding his job, Gomer’s big heart swells to nurture his animal pals. His adopted feral cat and black-headed gull still accompany illicit studio companions Cheese the mouse and goldfish Bubelle, but their hyperactive gluttonous presences generate much chaos, especially as they have learned to work together now. Not only must Gaston face starvation on a daily basis, but even the street’s shopkeepers find themselves in a silent war of nutrition attrition…

The dreamer also fosters the belief that he is a musical prodigy only awaiting discovery, but in a wave of Christmas strips everyone else remains violently unconvinced, as they are of his painful innovations in furniture design. Gomer’s chum and opposite number Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street is a like-minded soul and born accomplice, ever-eager to slope off for a chat, and a confirmed devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He is always ready to help, as here when assisting in facing the out-of-control cactus from Aunt Hortense’s home again or joining his pal’s bike racing escapade…

Sport is important to the Goof, but rugby, soccer, basketball, billiards and – technically – ice skating all prove faithless and painful masters, but such is his passion, however, that Gomer is allowed to report on one peculiar particular match he played goal keeper in, as seen in illustrated text report ‘A Match to Remember’…

Despite resolute green credentials and leanings, Gomer is colour-blind to the problems his antiquated automobile cause, even after all his attempts to soup up the antique. Many strips focus on his doomed love affair with and manic efforts to modify and mollify the accursed motorised atrocity he calls his car. The decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of merciful euthanasia than engineering interventions for countering its lethal road pollution and violent and unpredictable failures to function. Here, new tweaks certainly impress passing wildlife if not obsessive gendarme Longsnoot in splendidly daft road dalliances intermixed with repeated visits to his friends at the zoo. Hint: none of them wear clothes…

Also suffering a succession of painful reversals, benighted yet fanatical business bod De Mesmaeker turns up repeatedly here with ever more crucial contracts for poor office manager Prunelle to sign and for Gomer to accidentally shred or otherwise intercept and eradicate.

A new edifice of the Establishment to undergo the Goof effect is the local Customs officer who on more than one occasion deeply regrets asking if the geek in the poisonous car has anything to declare, although brief explorations of motorcycling and yoga don’t cause that much carnage relative to the general aura of weird science prototypes, arcane chemical concoctions and the in-house manic menagerie able to shred chairs and open sardine tins with a bash of the beak. At least Gomer understands why redecorating costs are so high and frequent…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin and occasional co-scenarists/idea providers like Roba, Bibi, Michel, Delporte & Jidéhem (AKA Jean De Mesmaeker: just one of many in-joke analogues who populate the strip) to flex whimsical muscles, subversively sneak in some satirical support for their beliefs in pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights and sometimes even appear in person as does poor Raoul Bluecoats Cauvin…

These gags are sublime examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading. Why haven’t you got your Goof on yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Deadpool Corps volumes 1 & 2: Pool-Pocalypse Now and You Say You Want a Revolution


By Victor Gischler, Rob Liefeld, Marat Mychaels, Adelso Corona, Jaime Mendoza, Cory Hamscher, Matt Yackey & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4825-8 (v1 TPB/Digital edition): 978-0-7851-4827-2 (v2 TPB/Digital edition)

These books include Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Stylish killers and mercenaries craving more than money have long been popular fictional protagonists, and light-hearted, exuberant bloodbath comics always find an appreciative audience so in anticipation of a certain movie mash up let’s look again at what those tendencies can lead to…

Deadpool is Wade Wilson : an inveterate, unrepentant hired killer who survived cancer and rogue experiments that left him a grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical abnormalities as well as practically immortal, invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

He is also a certifiable loon…

The wisecracking high-tech “Merc with a Mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, for New Mutants #97: another product of the Weapon X project which created Wolverine, Garrison Kane and many more mutant/cyborg super-doers. Wade got his first shot at solo stardom with a brace of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which increasingly blended fourth-wall-busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug and Warner Brothers cartoons) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel’s top rank.

Since then he has become one of Marvel’s iconic, nigh-inescapable characters, perennially undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes, reboots and more before always – inevitably – reverting and resetting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the end…

Here, following events too ludicrous to mention, Wilson has linked up with a quartet of alternate Deadpools from very different alternate Earths and formed the strangest team in Marvel’s history (and yes, that includes The Pet Avengers).

Collecting Deadpool Corps #1-6 (June-November 2010) manic mayhem begins in 6-part saga Pool-Pocalyse as ‘Disrespect Your Elders’ by Victor Gischler, penciller Liefeld and inker Adelso Corona sees new comrades Wilson, strikingly buxom Lady Deadpool, errant pre-teen killer bad boy Kidpool, floating masked cranium from Marvel’s Zombiverse Headpool and a costumed mutt answering to Dogpool (or sometimes “Cujo”) hired by an Elder of the Universe. Disturbingly, The Contemplator needs them to expunge a horrific threat to creation…

From a universe preceding our Big Bang one, an unstoppable force that absorbs intelligence has manifested. Thousands if not millions of planets have succumbed to the power of The Awareness, all their sentience and independence subsumed into a slavish nullity. Protected as they are by innate, intrinsic imbecility, Contemplator tells these Deadpools to go kill it…

In a bit of a dudgeon over their selection is another Elder. The Champion is the mightiest physical specimen in existence and feels the honour of saving universal intellect should be his, but although he’s no big brain either, he just isn’t in the Wilson squad’s league…

Whizzing across the cosmos in the super ship Bea Arthur with plenty of pit-stops in the skeeviest bars, cantinas and dives for information and violent recreation, the team soon confront and readily outwit their brawny rival…

Forced to take a different tack, Champion teams up with fellow Elder The Gardener to remove his insufferable rivals, but is utterly astounded by their response. Somehow elected their leader, “Championpool” readies himself for glorious combat before again finding himself humiliatingly outsmarted by the Terran morons and stranded on a dead-end world whilst they fly off to reap all the glory…

Tracking the threat involves going undercover, drinking, beating up lots of aliens, shopping and even colluding and cohabiting with legendary star smuggler The Broken Blade, but eventually they near the end of their quest…

More a superb succession of sharp gags than a plot, the adventure follows the Crazy Corps as they bumble and smart-mouth their way across the universe until finally confronting The Awareness and despite – or rather because of – their uniquely skewed mentalities, triumph in the strangest way possible…

Rewarded with wishing rings by the exultant Contemplator, the Silly Squad stay in space where this initial compilation concludes with the bombastic ballad of ‘The Blue Buccaneer’ (illustrated by Marat Mychaels & Jaime Mendoza).

Trading on their intergalactic reputation as badasses-for-hire, the Deadpool Corps accept a commission to wipe out a pirate band wrecking interstellar commerce, necessitating Lady Deadpool going undercover in the most shocking – to her at least – of disguises, uncovering the most unexpected of old acquaintances leading the perilous privateers…

Surreal, wickedly irreverent and excessively violent in the grand Bugs Bunny/Road Runner tradition, Deadpool Corps is frat boy foolish and frequently laugh-out-loud spit-take funny: a wonderfully antidote to cosmic angst and emotional Sturm und Drang of most contemporary Fights ‘n’ Tights comics.

The saga continues in sequel volume You Say You Want a Revolution with Wade still working in unison with four Deadpools from very different parallel Earths. The bizarre concatenation of circumstances resulting in Deadpool & Co saving creation from the sentience-sucking Awareness led to them scoring a starship and set of one-use only wishing rings. Now they’re having so much fun and don’t want to go home, but as card-carrying mercenaries these unlikely champions realise you can never have enough spending money either…

Collecting Deadpool Corps #7-12 (December 2010-May 2011 by Gischler, pencillers Liefeld & Mychaels with inkers Adelso Corona & Cory Hamscher) the mayhem continues with a wickedly cruel and potently justified spoof of blockbuster movie Avatar. Framed through insanely clever fiddling with the narrative technique of flashbacks, the story sees the carnival of killer fools accepting a huge commission from the vast and unscrupulous Omega Confederation.

Paradise planet Kagan 7 is a beautiful wonderland of flora and fauna inhabited – or possibly safeguarded – by deeply spiritual, jungle-dwelling, blue-skinned warrior-race the Krook. Sadly, to cost-effectively access the planet’s mineral wealth, the Confederation had to enslave the Krook and make them miners. Now the ungrateful sods are rebelling and demanding their planet back so the Omega Board would like somebody to go and quietly remove all the ringleaders so the peons can get back to digging up all that lovely platinum…

Taking out an alien legion of mercs hired by the rebels is no problem, but the natives themselves – especially the extremely hot daughter of their bombastic king – proves too much for the Crazy Corps. Soon they are desperately bargaining for their own lives…

Said deal boils down to the Deadpools switching sides and running the revolution against the Confederation. The murderers from a multiplicity of Earths have no qualms about turning turncoat: the problems only occur after Wade starts boinking mercilessly manipulative Princess Teela, who also convinces her highly sceptical dad that to survive as an independent free world, their unspoiled Arcadian Eden needs to modernise and commercialise…

Wade’s thinking something reserved and classy, properly in tune with the environment: Hospitals, swish eateries, a complex of skyscraper hotels, spa resorts and golf courses: y’know, kind of like Las Vegas in space…

As Deadpool commences a crass telethon campaign to raise galactic awareness of the Krooks’ plight, from across the universe a tsunami of tree-huggers converge on the endangered paradise to support the latest cause celébre. Elsewhere, the Omega Confederation board decide something nasty needs to be done to the contractors who took their cash and failed to deliver. On Kagan 7, so many donations come in that the Imperial Senate recognises the new world: inducting it into the Galactic Economic Community. The first part of that procedure is to set up a Central Bank of Krook and advance several thousand tons of gold so the latest member of the club can suitably set up a proper trading profile…

Wade is so stunned with loot-shock he doesn’t even notice when Omega death-squads start shooting. Luckily, old girlfriend/legendary arms-smuggler The Broken Blade arrives to save they day whilst stocking the newborn world’s defences with her latest super-ordinance.

She’s a little less than ecstatic when she learns Wade’s been making time with a plush and primitive princess…

The social evolution of the Krook isn’t going smoothly either. Whilst Teela ruthlessly embraces everything flashy, sparkly, new and civilised, dear old dad just wants his world back the way it was before all the outworlders came. Soon father and daughter are spearheading two separate armies in a savage civil war – beamed live into quintillions of homes all over known space – and the Deadpool Corps have picked opposing sides to help keep the slaughter quotient high.

All poor Wade can think about, however, is several thousand tons of gold just waiting to be salvaged and taken back to Earth… And in the background the Omega Confederation are still looking at ways to take back their mining operation and kill everybody who defied them…

Displaying with extreme clarity how the cure can be worse than the disease, the last hurrah of the Deadpool Corps blends a minimum of plot with an overabundance of edgy gags, snappy one-liners, shtick, shlock and slapstick as the trans-dimensional terrorisers bumble, fumble stumble and smart-mouth their way across the galaxy and over a mountain of oddly-shaped corpses until finally they at last go their separate ways…

Surreal, wickedly irreverent and excessively is perfect counterattack to po-faced heroic tales and holds the secret of keeping you amused until the next movie milestone comes on line.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.