Category: Best of British

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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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Billy’s Boots Book 1: The Legacy of ‘Dead-shot’ Keen


By Fred Baker, Colin Page, Mike Western, Bill Lacey, Tom Kerr & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-671-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Comics Fun and Games… 9/10

British kids have always been utterly besotted with sports and comics have continually fed and fuelled their addiction. Even in the days when children’s only exclusive “entertainment” was primarily prose “Story Papers”, tales of playing field rivals, earnest competition, glorious accomplishments, fair play and sporting prodigies dominated. As comic strips took tight hold of kid’s lives during WWII and after, generations of boys grew up wanting to be Wilson, Alf Tupper, His Sporting Lordship, Skid Solo or Roy of the Rovers.

As the 1950s unfolded, football became the undisputed leader of sporting strips: a peculiarly wide field that had found room for speedway, cricket, motor racing, rugby, boxing, wrestling, athletics and fishing among many, many others. In September 1954, Amalgamated Press launched a companion comic to anthological market leader Lion. Edited by Derek Birnage – until 1963, when Barrie Tomlinson took over – Tiger – The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly was cover-dated 11th September and out in time for the new football season. Primarily sports-themed for its entire run (1573 issues until 1985) it merged with or absorbed Champion (1955), Comet (1959), Hurricane (1965), Jag (1969), Scorcher (1974) and Speed (1980) before itself being subsumed by the relaunched Eagle in April 1985.

Among its most memorable treasures was Skid Solo, Johnny Cougar, Rod and Line, Hot Shot Hamish, Nipper, Football Family Robinson, Billy’s Boots and Roy of the Rovers…

As the 1960s segued into a new decade, across the United Kingdom, football was king in comics: everything from straight sporting drama strips to wild comedies with strange teams and odd motivations, and even supernaturally-tinged strips like Raven on the Wing…

Shoot launched in 1969, a junior, comics-heavy version of adult magazine Goal (which it eventually absorbed!) and Striker in January 1970. Its lead strip would graduate to The Sun newspaper.

Scorcher also kicked off on January 10th 1970, with an all football roster of photo-features sports journalism dedicated to the beautiful game and strips including Kangaroo Kid, Royal’s Rangers, Bobby of the Blues, Sub (He’s always on the sidelines!), Paxton’s Powerhouse, Lags Eleven, Jack of United, Jimmy of City, Hotshot Hamish and Nipper, but the breakout feature proved to be a dramatic reimagining of a comedy strip from Tiger: Billy’s Boots…

Scorcher became Scorcher and Score after 77 issues (merging with Score ‘n’ Roar in early July 1971) and finally called “time” with the October 5th 1974 issue – a further 171 outings. Its favourite features were ultimately absorbed into Tiger in 1980, but Annuals and Summer Specials continued to appear until 1984.

The stories here originally played in Scorcher from 10th January 1970 to 9th January 1970. The strip had taken its name from a comedic feature by Frank Purcell that ran in Tiger from 1961-1963. For a fresh new era, it was overhauled by 50-year veteran scripter Fred Baker (Martin’s Marvellous Mini, Skid Kids, Tommy’s Troubles, Hot-Shot Hamish, and much more in titles including Tiger, Buster, Chips, Radio Fun, Film Fun, Valentine and Roy of the Rovers).

He wrote the feature for most of its first 20 years run which was initially illuminated – in this volume at least – by Colin Page (Adam Eterno, Paddy Payne), Bill Lacey (Rick Random, Super Detective Library, Cowboy Comics Library, Mickey Mouse Weekly, Mytek the Mighty, Rat Pack), Mike Western (Lucky Logan, Biggles, No Hiding Place, The Wild Wonders, The Leopard from Lime Street, Darkie’s Mob, HMS Nightshade, Roy of the Rovers) and Tom Kerr (Little Lew, Fay, Monty Carstairs, Kip Kerrigan, Kelly’s Eye, Captain Hurricane, The Steel Claw, Charlie Peace, Kraken, Black Axe, Boy Bandit, Tara King/The Avengers, Peter the Cat, Clarks Commandos et al).

Billy’s Boots was initially rendered in 2-page, full colour instalments and survived Scorcher’s merger with Tiger in 1974, and amalgamation with Eagle in 1985. A year later Billy migrated to Roy of The Rovers magazine offering new adventures until 1990. Even then, the lad kept kicking, appearing in reprints, Annuals and Best of Roy of the Rovers Monthly, Striker and Total Football magazine into the 21st century.

He’s also an international star, having been translated into Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, Bengali, Turkish and more…

In October 1971, John Gillatt took over the art for a 16-year run which truly defined the strip in readers’ eyes and minds, but that’s a treat for another volume…

Here however, in interlinked serials we meet 12-year-old Billy Dane who is an avid – but rubbish – footballer. His earnest desire is simply to play the game but he’s so bad nobody will let him join even a playground kickabout…

An orphan living with his grandmother, Billy’s life changes forever when he dutifully cleans out her attic and finds a battered old pair of football boots. They were a souvenir his grandad had picked up, and had been used by sporting legend Charles “Dead-Shot” Keene. When Billy wistfully dons them and starts mucking about in the backyard, something miraculous occurs.

Suddenly, he can kick with the force and accuracy of an adult professional and later testing shows that the fabulous footwear sends him subconscious messages, enabling to read a field and almost predict the best place to be in any game situation…

Now bursting with confidence and hungry to play, he rapidly moves from friendly games to school caps, county matches and even international fixtures, with a heaping helping of drama accruing from his eagerness frequently leading him to play for rivals and opposing teams…sometimes on the same day…

Further confusions and concerns arise as he researches the life of Dead-Shot and realises that he’s often reliving actual events that affected the star and shaped his astounding career. The phenomenon doesn’t let up even after Billy finally meets and befriends his idol…

Of course, as this is a drama the most challenging problem Billy constantly faces is losing, mislaying, being deprived of and recovering the ratty, tatty, far-out-of-fashion old boots: prompting many manic moments where the plucky kid must humiliatingly go on without the miracle-making fantastic footwear, but always the lad perseveres and overcomes…

It’s also not as if he doesn’t have other problems too. At one stage he’s forced to move across the country, leaving all his friends: encountering school bullies, and teachers and trainers who think he’s troubled…

After its initial set-up the nature of the stories become rather formulaic, with Billy always seeking to be the best he could: trying to wean himself off ghostly footgear and develop innate natural skills. This was usually a huge disappointment as he always failed unless he was wearing the boots of his hero. Thankfully, the astounding illustration always makes the stories feel fresh and the ongoing mystery of how and why the boots work keeps the tension up…

Such narrative repetition was not deemed a problem at the time, since editors held the firm conviction that readers had a definite shelf-life and would quickly move on to better things… like Chaucer, Len Deighton, or the back pages of The Sun or Daily Mirror…

This astoundingly absorbing classic is another perfect example of purely British comics sensibilities: passionate, idealistic and desperately earnest as it follows the path of a working class hero navigating a treacherous path to glory or dismal defeat. This is a welcome reintroduction: inspirational, warm, beautifully rendered and absolutely unforgettable. Another treasure-trove from Rebellion’s ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, this tale span generations and demands to be in every family bookcase.
© 1970, 1971, & 2020 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

A thankful tip of the fact hat to footy publications site Soccerbilia – for some of the background recycled here.

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The Steel Claw: Reign of the Brain!


By Tom Tully, Jesús Blasco & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-681-2 (TPB/Digital Edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Vivid Visions of Wonderful Weirdness… 9/10

One of the most fondly-remembered British strips of all time is the startlingly beautiful Steel Claw. From 1962 to 1973, the stunningly gifted Jesús Blasco and his small studio of family members thrilled the nation’s children, illustrating the angst-filled adventures of scientist, adventurer, secret agent and even costumed superhero Louis Crandell.

The majority of the character’s career was scripted by prolific and versatile comics veteran Tom Tully (Roy of the Rovers, Heros the Spartan, Dan Dare, House of Dolmann, Master of the Marsh, Janus Stark, Mytek the Mighty, The Wild Wonders, Nipper, Adam Eterno, The Mind of Wolfie Smith, Johnny Red, Harlem Heroes, Mean Arena, Inferno, The Robo Machines, Football Family Robinson, Buster’s Ghost and many more).

He followed the precepts of H.G. Wells’ original unseen adversary which had been laid out by science fiction novelist Ken Bulmer who had devised the strip, presenting some modern spin on Victorian classic The Invisible Man.

In the 1960s, however, our protagonist acted with evil intent as soon as he fell out of sight of his fellow humans, not through innate poor character but because of wild technology accidentally unleashed …

Another stunning salvo of graphic wonderment from Rebellion’s Treasury of British Comics strand, this second collection is available in paperback and digital editions. The Steel Claw: The Reign of the Brain gathers material from timeless weekly anthology Valiant, spanning 28th September 1963 to 19th September 1964 and is accompanied by an Introduction from writer and editor John Freeman (treat yourself to his downthetubes.net site for all your nostalgia and comics needs!)

What has gone before: Louis Crandell was an embittered man, probably due to having lost his right hand in a lab accident. After his recovery and its replacement with a steel prosthetic, he returned to work as (a rather surly) assistant to venerable boffin Professor Barringer, who was attempting to create a germ-destroying ray.

When that device exploded, Crandell received a monumental electric shock and was bathed in radiation from the ray-device. Rather than killing him, the incident rendered him totally transparent and changed his body chemistry. Although he couldn’t stay unseen forever, the bodily mutation permanently affected him, and subsequent electric shocks caused all but his metal hand to disappear.

These were simpler times and there was far less SCIENCE around so please – Kids Of All Ages – do not try this at home!

Whether venal at heart or temporarily deranged, Crandell went on a rampage of terror, even attempting to blow up New York City before finally coming to his senses. Throughout Crandell’s outrages, guilt-fuelled Barringer was in pursuit, resolved to save or stop his former friend…

After his cure, the invisible man was so globally notorious and well known that he was framed by his own therapist. Whilst treating Crandell Dr. Deutz was also traumatically exposed to Barringer’s ray but instead of invisibility, he gained the power to transform into a bestial ape-man and turned to crime for fun. He malevolently placed the blame for his own spectacular robberies and assaults on his infamous patient…

On the run but innocent this time, Crandell was saved by the intervention of Barringer’s niece Terry Gray. After weeks of beast-triggered catastrophe and panic in the streets, the Steel Claw was vindicated and proved himself a hero. Despite that, a quiet life was clearly beyond the unseen celebrity, and while seeking anonymity in the Bahamas, he was embroiled in a modern-day pirate’s attempt to hijack an undersea super-weapon and plunder cruise ships…

With this volume, Crandell continues his gradually shift from victim to reluctant hero: accepting his powers and an elite if danger-ridden role at the fringe of society. During the first saga reprinted here, he made a decision that would affect the rest of his life.

Taking stock at a time when super-spies and science fiction were globally ascendent, Tully began with Crandell still courting obscurity. Building a life in San Lemo, capital of South American republic Curacos, Crandell is again recognised and chased by sensation-hungry mobs. The frantic pursuit drives him to a power station where someone takes a shot at him, and he is given a message by a dying man. The victim warns of the end of the world and gives Crandell a phone number, but the real convincer that it’s all deadly serious is the assassin with an electric raygun who starts shooting at him…

Caught up in a sea of lethal intrigue, the Steel Claw falls into an ongoing operation by British Intelligence group “Shadow Squad” and becomes point man in their investigation of a deranged super-genius dubbed ‘The Brain’ (running from 28th September 1963 – 4th April 11th 1964).

Amidst an increasing tide of man-made disasters and thanks to his uncanny gifts, angry determination and sheer dumb luck, Crandell infiltrates the Brain’s cult, invading his booby-trapped tropical island and exposing a scheme to destroy all life on Earth.

Anticipating our modern era’s huge surplus of spoiled, homely, insecure, self-confessed billionaire man-children petulantly making trouble, this duel of wills leads to global unrest and devastation, culminating in a spectacular war of Inventions against Invisibility & Ingenuity. In the end the Claw ultimately emerges – far from unscathed but at least alive – ready for more adventure…

The mission had already paid off big for Crandell: the first thing Shadow Squad did was to fake his death and proclaim that the Steel Claw was gone forever…

As ever, the series is made unmissable by the astounding art of Blasco – although the master is supplanted for a few episodes in the first story by fill-in artists who might or might not be Eric Bradbury & Mike Western…

The Claw’s clash of powers against the Brain is protracted, suspenseful, action-packed and in the end a close-run thing, but inevitably results in victory for the reluctant good guy who becomes a very special agent of the Shadow Squad and an operative of British Intelligence. Those connections next lead him into a secret war on home soil, as he faces the uncanny, barely-perceived threat of ‘The Lactians’ (11th April – 19th September 1964)…

The tense drama opens with our eventual hero back in London. Britain is reeling under twin crises: a plague of fireballs in the night sky over Cornwall and a rising toll of missing persons, and as Crandell rendezvous with his handler, they are ambushed by what appear to be ordinary citizens with bizarre intentions…

When “Shadow Five” dies, Crandell’s frantic fightback exposes the attackers as not of this world: sparking a one-man war against an alien race able to possess bodies and attempting to infiltrate and subjugate mankind via its isolated rural communities – a classic theme of cold war science fiction of the era.

Even with other artists again stepping in to counter the problems of weekly deadlines and international postal deliveries in a pre-digital age, the tenson and terror never relent as the Invisible Man slowly works his way through an all-but indetectable army of enemies to the thing at the top: risking everything on one final desperate counterstrike…

This potent thriller tome also comes with a teaser excerpt from the forthcoming Steel Claw Super Picture Library collection, again highlighting the work of Tully & Blasco…

More than any other comics character, the Steel Claw was a barometer for reading fashions. Starting out as a Quatermass-style science fiction cautionary tale, the strip mimicked the trends of the greater world, evolving into a James Bond-style super-spy strip – with Crandell eventually tricked out with outrageous gadgets – and latterly, even a masked and costumed super-doer after TV-triggered “Batmania” gripped the nation and the world.

When that bubble burst, he resorted to becoming a freelance adventurer, combating eerie menaces and vicious criminals.

The thrills of the writing are engrossing enough, but the real star of this feature is the artwork: captivating classicist drawing, moody staging and the sheer pristine beauty of all participants making this an absolute pleasure to look at.

Jesús Monterde Blasco was born in Barcelona in 1919 and began his phenomenal career in 1935, drawing for Mickey magazine. Barely known now in the English-speaking world, his vastly varied output included Cuto, Anita Diminuta, Los Tres Inseperables, Los Guerilleros, Paul Foran, Tom Berry, Tex Willer, Tallafero, Capitán Trueno and Une Bible en Bande Dessinée for continental and South American audiences. His many UK strips include the lush and lavish Buffalo Bill, sci-fi chiller The Indestructible Man, Billy the Kid and the first Invasion! serial (2000 AD from #1, 1977). He died in October 1995.

This is sheer addictive nostalgia for my generation, but the stories also hold up against anything made for today’s marketplace. Buy it for the kids and read it too; this is a glorious book, and steel yourself for even better yet to come…
© 1963, 1964 & 2022 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Black Max: Volume 2


By Frank S. Pepper, Alfonso Font & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-862-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding Air Ace Action… 9/10

It’s time for another sortie down memory lane for us oldsters and hopefully a fresh, untrodden path for fans of the fantastic seeking a typically quirky British comics experience.

This stunning sequel selection delivers one more stunning nostalgia-punch from Rebellion’s superb and ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics, collecting more episodes of seminal war/horror shocker Black Max.

The strip debuted in Thunder #1 and ran the distance: surviving cancelation and merger and continuing into Lion and Thunder until that magazine finally gave up the ghost mid-decade.

This second volume carries the next wave of those stories, covering May 15th to December 25th 1971, with the periodical perils rounded out by longer yarn taken from Thunder Annual 1973.

The series is typical of the manner in which weekly periodicals functioned back then: devised by screenwriter, veteran Editor and prolific scripter Ken Mennell (Cursitor Doom, Steel Claw, The Spider and many more) with the first episode limned by the company’s star turn for mood and mystery Eric Bradbury (Invasion, The Black Crow, Cursitor Doom, House of Dolman, Hookjaw and dozens more). The whole kit and kaboodle was then handed off to another team to sink or swim with, which they did until 1974: a pretty respectable run for a British comic…

In many ways, the attrition rate of British comic strips bore remarkable similarities to casualty figures in war, but this serial was well-starred. The assigned writer was Frank S. Pepper. who began his legendary comics career in 1926. By 1970 he had clocked up many major successes like Dan Dare, Rockfist Rogan, Captain Condor, Jet-Ace Logan and Roy of the Rovers to name but a very, very few.

Series illustrator Alfonso Font was a ten-year veteran – mostly for overseas publications. Based in Spain, he had worked not just for Odhams/Fleetway but on strips for US outfits Warren and Skywald and continental classics such as Historias Negras (Dark Stories), Jon Rohner, Carmen Bond, Bri D’Alban, Tex Willer, Dylan Dog and more…

Episodic by nature and generally delivered in sharp, spartan 3-page bursts, by the time of these trench warfare and skyborne tales the premise and key characters were firmly established and Pepper & Font were growing bolder and more experimental…

In 1917, the Great War was slowly being lost by Germany and her allies. In the Bavarian schloss of Baron Maximilien von Klorr, the grotesque but brilliant scientist and fighter ace had devised a horrific way to tip the scales back in favour of his homeland. His extremely ancient family had for millennia enjoyed an affinity with bats and the current scion had bred giant predatory versions he controlled by various means – including telepathy – that flew beside him to terrify and slaughter the hated English. Initially, they had been a secret weapon used sparingly but by this juncture soldiers and aviators knew well this other form of death from the skies…

His schemes were imperilled and countered on a weekly basis by young British pilot Tim Wilson of Twelve Squadron. Originally a performer in a peacetime flying circus, the doughty lad was possibly the best acrobatic aviator on the Western Front and his constant encounters with von Klorr and the colossal chiropteran constantly frustrated the manic monster master…

Now, Wilson’s superiors are aware of the fearsome bio-weapons, and thanks to his constant interference, the Baron devotes an astonishing amount of time and effort to killing the English fighter ace …when not butchering Allied fliers and ground troops in vast numbers.

The odds seemed to shift once von Klorr began mass-producing his monsters, but Wilson eventually gained the upper hand: driving “Black Max” out of his castle HQ and into a hidden facility where the villain retrenched and made bigger, better terrors…

The private duel resumes here as extended, multi-part serials became standard. The first finds veteran English Ace Colonel “Hero” Hall quitting his desk job to take personal command of Twelve Squadron, after his younger brother is reported missing after meeting Max’s bats.

The vendetta makes life particularly hard for Tim Wilson and leads to Hall’s gross dereliction of duty in the field, but does send the German into retreat and cost him almost all of his monstrous animal allies…

On the back foot and frantically rebuilding, von Klorr is forced to improvise. Capturing and brainwashing ambitious new British recruit Johnny Crane the evil genius embeds him as a secret weapon against Wilson. After miraculously and obliviously escaping many traps, Tim is eventually captured by his nemesis and subjected to the same torture process, before turning the tables on Black Max and apparently killing the bat man in a spectacular escape…

Of course it’s not true and the Baron resurfaces in London weeks later. Wilson is there too, on sick leave, but as Zeppelins bomb the capital, he stumbles into a plot to kidnap British animal scientist Professor Dutton. Von Klorr needs the boffin to improve the strength of his killer beasts, but cannot resist going after Wilson too: a mistake that scuttles his grand scheme and costs him dearly…

Down but never out, the Baron returns to his regular tactics and familiar killing fields, but suffers another reversal when Wilson discovers his current laboratory base. With only one giant bat and his resources exhausted, Von Klorr relocates to a deserted aerodrome to consider his options and is shocked to receive a message from his grandfather. The terrifying patriarch of the bat clan has arcane knowledge spanning millennia and reveals he has unearthed an ancient potion to recreate the “great King-bat”!

Recovering the actual formula is far from easy as it rests beneath Allied lines, but after herculean efforts Black Max secures it and doses his final pet. Thanks to more timely interference from Tim, the killer beast imbibes far too large a dose and mutates into an immense, unstoppable horror that attacks both German and British lines, necessitating an unprecedented alliance of the sworn enemies. Wilson is completely ready for von Klorr to betray him, but is still taken unawares when the moment comes – just as they finally kill the rampaging terror…

To Be Continued…

As previously stated, this initial collection also includes a complete adventure from Thunder Annual 1973: an extended saga rendered by Font but sadly uncredited as regards a writer. It’s 1917, and Black Max is distracted from his obsession when glory-hungry Prussian Ace Major Heinrich Stynkel uses his influence to ground the bats and their master so that he can have first pick of the English fliers. The new psychopath’s plot almost ends the reign of terror until cruel fate and Wilson play their part in a macabre comedy of errors…

These strip shockers are amongst the most memorable and enjoyable exploits in British comics: smart, scary and beautifully rendered. This a superb example of war horror that deserves to be revived and revered.
© 1971, 1973 & 2021 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. Black Max and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements are ™ Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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No Surrender


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

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Triumphant Tribute to Freedom Fighters and Literary Legends… 9/10

Constance Elizabeth Maud (1857-1929) was a child of privilege: daughter of a celebrated English scholar and cleric. She was primarily educated in France and lived there or in Chelsea for most of her life. Between 1895 and 1924 she wrote numerous articles and 8 novels – of which No Surrender was the penultimate – and became a member of the 400-strong Women Writers Suffrage League.

In 1908 she joined The Women’s Social and Political Union and The Women’s Freedom League: turning her writings to the needs of the cause. Her work subsequently appeared in many periodicals, especially magazines like the Suffragist movement’s newspaper Votes For Women.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the end of this hefty and substantial graphic novel there’s a chart showing when – and how incrementally – the nations of the world instituted female enfranchisement, and an Afterword by adapting creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (Mann’s Best Friend, A Blow Borne Quietly, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists), naming names and offering factual provenance for the incidents and characters enriching the narrative.

It also declares why – in the current environment where a citizen’s right to dissent and protest is being deviously and criminally whittled away – the principles of organised resistance and role and consequences of righteous civil disobedience must be stridently defended…

Fair minded, honestly and powerfully expressing the views of all – including those opposing universal enfranchisement (and restoration of previously-removed social and civil rights) – Maud’s words are reinvigorated here with the authorities, capitalists, police and judiciary all given a fair hearing – and generally convicted out of their own mouths.

Of particular interest to modern readers will be the opinions of women who didn’t want a vote and the low workingmen who were generally the most passionate and violent opponents of change and equality…

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

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Some Frightful War Pictures illustrated by W. Heath Robinson


By W. Heath Robinson (Last Post Press)
ISBN: 978-1-4733-3483-0 (PB/Digital edition)

Not many people enter the language due to their own works and efforts. Fewer still last the course and remain relevant. Can you recall what “doing an Archer” means? We’ll soon be calling it “doing a Boris”… or “Truss” or “Sunak” or…

Moreover, when such endeavours also challenge egregious public perceptions and seek to correct outrageous out-of-control attitudes whenever  governments seek to enflame the worst of humanity for immediate political gain – and yes I am drawing parallels with now – these heroes need to be remembered just as much as The Fallen of so many wars. On this day of all days, never forget that, and also please recall that all the dead we commemorate are only that way because politicians and diplomats on all sides of every conflict failed to do their jobs right and only cartoonists and satirists ever called them out for it…

William Heath Robinson was born on 31st May 1872 into an artistic dynasty. His father Thomas was chief staff artist for Penny Illustrated Paper and older brothers Thomas and Charles were also illustrators of note. After proper schooling, William tried – unsuccessfully – to become a watercolour landscape artist before turning to the family trade.

In 1902, he released fairy story Uncle Lubin before finding graphic work at The Tatler, Sketch, Strand, Bystander and London Opinion. During this period, he developed the humorous whimsy and penchant for eccentric over-engineered mechanical devices for simple tasks which made him a household name.

During The Great War, Heath Robinson uniquely avoided the jingoistic stance and fervour of many of his competitors, preferring to satirise the absurdity of conflict itself in every periodical venue and volumes of collected cartoons. When the shooting stopped, he went on to a career of phenomenal success and creativity in cartooning, illustration and advertising.

Sadly he found himself doing it all over again in World War Two…

William Heath Robinson died on 13th September 1944.

There was a mild resurgence of interest in his efforts some years ago (from whence stems this timely collection) and if you’re interested you could scour the internet or even real bookshops for Hunlikely! (1916) or The Saintly Hun: A Book of German Virtues (1917). More general joys and niggles can be seen in Flypapers (1919), Get On With It (1920), The Home Made Car (1921), Quaint and Selected Pictures (1922), Humours of Golf (1923) and Let’s Laugh (1939), and in larger compendia Heath Robinson At War (1941) and The Penguin Heath Robinson (1946)

His literary collaborations can be found in The Incredible Inventions Of Professor Branestawm – 1933, accompanying the novels of N Hunter – or in Mein Rant with R. F. Patterson (1940).

In the 1970s and 1980s Duckworth reprinted a selection of albums including Inventions, Devices, The Gentle Art of Advertising, Heath Robinson at War, Humours of Golf, How To Be A Motorist, How To Be A Perfect Husband, How To Live in a Flat, How To Make your Garden Grow, How To Run a Communal Home, How To Build a New World, and, ominously and rather perspicaciously foresightfully, How To Make the Best of Things…

Some of these may still be found at or ordered through your local Library Service. Both Ribaldry and Absurdities were reissued in the 1990s and were readily available online last month…

There is very little point of in-depth analysis in the limited space available here, but surely some degree of recommendation is permissible. In Absurdities (1934), Heath Robinson personally gathered his favourite works into a single volume that more than any other describes the frail resilience of the human condition in the Machine Age and particularly how the English used to deal with it all. They are also some of his funniest panels.

In Railway Ribaldry – a commission from The Great Western Railway Company to celebrate their centenary in1935 (and more power to them; can you imagine a modern company paying someone to make fun of them?) – he examined Homo Sapiens Albionensis, as steel and rails and steam and timetables gradually bored their way into the hearts and minds of us folk. Much too little of his charming and detailed illustrative wit is in print today, a situation that cries out for rectification more than any other injustice in the sadly neglected field of cartooning and Popular Arts.

I apologize for the laundry-list nature of the above, but I’m not sorry to have produced it and neither will you be when you find any the wonderful, whimsical, whacky work of William Heath Robinson, Wizard of Quondam Mechanics.

In the spirit of his unique contribution to war and peace, this review ostensibly concerns his first combat collection which is readily available in digital editions. Published in 1915, Some Frightful War Pictures reprinted gags and observations first published in The Sketch and The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News: assaulting both the despised and press-pilloried “Boche” and the Empire’s own inept High Command with genteel mockery.

In complex, convoluted cartons with titles like ‘The True Reason of the War (July 1914)’, ‘Nach Paris!’, ‘Hague Convention Defied!’, ‘Kolossal!’, ‘The War Lord at the Front!’ and ‘War Komforts!’, the artist repeatedly points out how alike all sides are, whilst subtly hinting that other ways of settling issues are always available…
© 2017 The Estate of William Heath Robinson.

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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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Metalzoic – DC Graphic Novel #6


By Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-910-2 (Album TPB)

Once again sad news comes to us that another comics great – and brilliantly entertaining convention companion – has gone too soon. We use the word unique far too often in our hyperbole-ridden industry, but I can honestly say there was never anyone quite like Kevin O’Neill, so – rightfully shamed by guilt – I’ll be reviewing a bunch of his best stuff that I never-quite-got-around-to in the weeks and months to come, but for now let’s look again at one of his most remarkable and neglected manic masterpieces… 

In the years immediately following the release of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics was a paragon of experimentation and quality, as this decidedly post-punk, English-flavoured offering from 2000 AD mainstays and certified “British Invaders” Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill proves.

Not long after this book was published. illustrator O’Neill won the singular accolade of having his entire style of drawing – not a panel, not a story, but every single mark he left on paper – banned by the dried-up-but-not-quite-dead Comics Code Authority!

Not that it stopped the rise of his remarkable and truly unique talent in later triumphs such as Marshal Law, Serial Killer and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

“Kev” was born in 1953 and, at age 16, began work as an office boy/art corrector for British weekly Buster. He worked in every aspect of the compartmentalised industry: lettering, art paste-up, logo design, colouring and more. He even apparently self-published a fanzine – Just Imagine: The Journal of Film and Television Special Effects…

As the kids stuff began to pale, life changed in 1977, when author/editor Pat Mills transferred him to a forthcoming, iconoclastic new science fiction comic.

O’Neill became a mainstay: producing covers, pinups and Future Shock short stories, whilst contributing to serials like Ro-Busters, satirical super parody Captain Klep, ABC Warriors and breakthrough character Nemesis the Warlock.

From there on, America came calling in the form of DC Comics…

In the far, far future robotic animals have evolved on the declining planet to fill the vacated niches once populated with specialised organic creatures. Civilised humanity has absconded to the stars and Mek-Animals roam the savage Earth. Armageddon is the ruler of the ape-like Mekaka, proud and ambitious, but his tribe are losing faith. They live on scavenged power and the mammoth-like Wheeled Beasts have not been seen for five years…

But this season they will return, led by the terrible God-Beast Amok, and the Mekaka will kill him and rule the world. Sadly, complications arise when joy-riding humans Jool and Ngila crash on this desolate dying world: one which most humans have forgotten ever existed. They have knowledge, but no survival instincts at all…

After US publication, the story was later serialised in 2000 AD #483-942, where it found a more welcoming audience before tragically vanishing from sight and memory. However, it remains purely primal savage satire: a fantastic fantasy; that remains an incontrovertible highpoint in DC’s abortive 1980s Graphic Novel line. Its scope and power are mesmerising and its return to print long, long overdue. Let’s hope someone gets the message…
© 1986 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Bunny vs Monkey: Machine Mayhem!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-285-4 (Digest HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Madcap Mega-Meta Magnificence… 10/10

Bunny vs. Monkey has been a staple of The Phoenix since the very first issue in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal arch-enemies set amidst 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; Flember), his trendsetting, mind-bending yarns have been wisely retooled as graphic albums available in remastered, double-length digest 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 the wake of a disastrous British space shot. Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite all efforts from reasonable, sensible, genteel, contemplative forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine just could not contain the incorrigible idiot ape, who was – and is – a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating loutish troublemaker…

Problems are exacerbated by the other unconventional Crinkle creatures, particularly a skunk called Skunky who has a mad scientist’s attitude to life and a propensity to build extremely dangerous robots and super-weapons…

Here – with artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances appears to be over. The unruly assortment of odd critters cluttering up the bucolic paradise had finally picked sides and the battles ended. They even seemingly forgot the ever-encroaching Hyoomanz…

Following a double-page pin-up of our odd and ever-expanding cast, this magnificent hardback archive of insanity opens in the traditional manner: divided into seasonal outbursts, and starting slowly with a querulous teaser tale as the cold retreats and Spring begins in ‘D.I.Whyyyy?’

As the animals all gather to help Bunny repair his much-abused house, universal innocents Weenie squirrel and Pig Piggerton are more keen than skilled, with no idea that cheese is not a suitable substitute for wallpaper paste, plaster or cement…

Despite the subsequent collapse, times are good and very peaceful since the anarchic ape went away and Ai acts quickly to keep it that way when Bunny feels nostalgic for the old days. Sadly, somebody’s listening and brings in a ‘Makeshift Monkey!’ – until the real deal returns in ‘The Little Monkey Who Cried…’

It isn’t long before Skunky is back too and everyone’s fleeing for their lives from deadly underground tentacles, but life quickly resumes its old pattern until obsolescence rears its ugly head and cyborg gator Metal Steve is pronounced ‘Out of Warranty’ and left to wither on Skunky’s scrapheap…

Back and still bad, Monkey briefly inflicts himself on Bunny and wrecks the joint again in ‘The Housemate’ after which the mercurial monochrome megamind constructs a replacement for the gone gator and triggers a ‘Robot Rampage’ when infinitely superior mechanoid Metal E.V.E. decides to lay down her law…

Falling foul of another near-lethal prank the silly simian is scientifically resurrected and evolved in ‘Curse of the Monkey’ only to trip on his own incompetence and barely escape a fishy final fate in ‘Toilet Run!’

A close call with humans in ‘Bunny vs Monkey Jellybeans!’ precedes Weenie and Pig going on ‘A Dangerous Voyage’ as pirates, before Monkey endures his own Fantastic Voyage. Skunky is “The Most Brilliant Animal in the Woods” and convinces his erstwhile ally to shrink down and explore the inner cerebellum of brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver in search of ‘The Lost Memory’ of a misplaced ultimate weapon, which is what probably inspires him to make his own after entering a competition and prematurely unleashing his ‘Winning Entry’…

Metal E.V.E. is forming her own plans but they have to wait a bit as she’s ‘Keepin’ Busy’ with some domestic chores in Skunky’s lab, but’s not long until Summer begins and the woods are imperilled by subterranean invasion from new menace ‘Roland T. Mole’…

Hijinks in parallel dimensions herald the arrival of doomsayer ‘Skunky?’ whilst the forgotten stuntman stumbles onto his ancestral homeland in ‘Beaverville’ with catastrophic consequences even as Monkey creates unexpected carnage but precious little terror with super-cute kaiju ‘Rofl Axolotl’ before being painfully reminded how dangerous the woods can be in ‘So Beautiful’…

After a brief and deceptive flirtation with ‘The Dark Arts’ the hairy halfwit returns to science and creates little golden minions, but his ‘Gloobs’ prove too smart for servitude, so he instead embraces high fashion in ‘C’est Chic!’ Utterly uncaring, Weenie and Pig go about their business until a ‘A New Friend’ almost breaks up the partnership. The swiftly-developing relationship of ‘Weenie and Winnie’ seems set to end the good old days but another robotic invasion sets the world to rights in ‘Just Checking’…

A reality-altering beast threatens in ‘Wishful Thinking’ and the entire woods go all French just as aliens invade in ‘L’Honk Honk’ before Monkey and Skunky explore artisanal dining in ‘Eat Up!’ with appalling consequences for their customers, after which Ai and Monkey discover uncanny ‘Night Lights’ in the deep dark woods…

The eventful season concludes as Metal E.V.E. gets ahead by installing some crucial ‘Upgrades’ and inadvertently making contact with an unsuspected predecessor just as Autumn opens with ‘Bumblesnatch’ as the pig and squirrel enjoy some super-powers-inducing chewing gum and Crinkle Woods is catapulted into a different kind of chaos when broached by pet dog ‘Fluffy’…

When ‘The Summoning’ invokes some pretty indifferent forest gods, Skunky lodges with over-accommodating Bunny who is soon sucked into unwanted adventure ‘Down Below’ and unearths E.V.E.’s brave new world and hopeless old ally as Metal Steve runs amok with nano-bots and spawns the unlikely armageddon beast ‘Pig-Kira!’

Once that menace vanishes into vapour, the mostly organic animals unite and formulate ‘Some Kind of Plan’ to fight E.V.E. – except ‘Nurse Monkey’ who’s keen to explore other lifestyles – until reenlisting in ‘Roll Up! Roll Up!’ with a barmy spinning machine which has no chance of easing their plight but will probably end their lives before she does…

The crusade pauses for Weenie’s birthday and the hunt for ‘The Best Present in the World’ but starts again when E.V.E. crashes the party with ‘Something to Say’ about the “rise of the machines” and end of all flesh…

Skunky’s obvious response is another monster, but giant mecha-hedgehog ‘Thunderball!’ is easily overcome, and as so-distractable Monkey goes wild among the fallen leaves in ‘Leaf it Alone’, the machine rise begins in ‘Nahhhhh!’ Sadly, Metal E.V.E. makes a big mistake then, spilling Monkey’s drink and kicking the conflict to an unprecedented new level…

Pausing for Weenie, Pig, Ai and Bunny to share some ‘Scary Stories’ around a night time campfire, the crisis enters a new phase when the ghost of local legend Fantastic Le Fox, manifests, even as the manic simian is captured and transformed into E.V.E.’s ‘Metal Monkey’…

Le Fox is ‘An Old Friend’ resolved to help the animals survive, and his strategic advice is welcome, but the turning point comes in ‘Clash of the Robots’ as Metal Monkey and Steve duel, even as their mecha-mistress takes charge, unleashing DNA-altering microbots that put the fleshy freedom fighters to flight in ‘Uh-Oh-Nano!’

Winter sets in and hostilities suddenly cease as all concerned succumb to the temptation of chucking ‘Snowballs’ after which the end gets nigher in a wave of robotic attacks triggered by ‘Metal Mania’. Yet again everything pauses as Christmas gives the heroes a moment to unwrap ‘Presents’ but, drenched in seasonal spirit, ‘An Unlikely Hero’ dares to bring the message of the moment right to the robot queen: unwittingly changing the course of history in the woods, and leaving only some ‘Tidying Up’ to restore everything to what passes for normal in the sylvan glade…

The animal anarchy might have ended for now there’s more secrets to share thanks to detailed instructions on ‘How to Draw Metal Steve’ and ‘How to Draw Metal E.V.E.’ to wind down from all that angsty furore…

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. This is the kind of comic parents beg kids to read to them. Shouldn’t that be you?
Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2022. All rights reserved.

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Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter Digital Omnibus


By Mark Ellerby, with additional colours by Adam Cadwell (Great Beast Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-285-4 (Digest HB)

When the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted, its mix of sassy teen culture, wry humour, scary adventure, soap opera group dynamics and supremely quotable zingers utterly revolutionised popular entertainment – but not as much as the kick-ass star who proved once and for all that girls could be action heroes.

In the wake of the phenomenon, cartoonist Marc Ellerby (Love the Way You Love, Phonogram: The Singles Club, Ellerbisms, Rick and Morty, Regular Show, Doctor Who) deployed the sarcastic whimsical contrariness we Brits are so grievously afflicted with and belatedly devised a wry riposte to the saga of the mystically superpowered American “Chosen One” and her dedicated team of troubleshooters…

Between 2009 and 2014, Ellerby self-published five issues (and a few extra bits) of Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter – the sublimely daft exploits of a plucky, determined and utterly normal girl who splits her time between going to college and holding back the malign forces of darkness lurking all around us.

In 2012, the majority of these Kitchen Sink/School Daze/Eldritch Exploits were coloured and gathered in a Digital Omnibus. Here you can comfortably enjoy a jolly jump back in time and space to see how the nuts and bolts of saving humanity works with hilarious hits from Chloe Noonan #1-4, Chloe Noonan Halloween Special 2012, Chloe Noonan Christmas Special 2012 and material from Paper Science #5 and Solipsistic Pop #2-3.

The preternatural perils are preceded by ‘Just a quick word! An introduction from the author’ wherein we learn the origins of the feature and how and why it was remastered, before we finally meet the snarky, sarky, brittle “plain Jane” B-lister who’s nobody’s first choice to save the world…

As well as benefitting from added colour, these terror tales have been chronologically adjusted so keep your wits about you as Chapter 1/ Chloe Noonan #1 takes us to a chip shop in Raven Dale where two students are chatting. Chloe is reluctantly revealing she’s in a band to ingenuous hottie Zoe Fox, when the dowdy, meek-seeming redhead gets an urgent call. For reasons she cannot understand, Noonan suddenly breaks protocol – and her oath of secrecy – and invites Zoe to come along as she tackles a rampaging monster. Her duty is onerous, unpaid and voluntary, so they have to take the bus…

It’s a long ride, made truly interminable by having to disabuse her new friend of ridiculous TV-fuelled notions of the job’s glamour, innate magic powers and skill with ancient weaponry, but eventually they locate the beastly Dahgul. It is not willing to come along quietly…

Forced to consult irascible mentor Professor Lemon Barley, the increasingly pissed off Chloe resorts to her favourite solution – nets and really big bombs – but is then stuck babysitting the beast while she plays a gig with the band…

Issue #2 opened with an inconclusive clash against drunken lobster-horror Pinchy, before another tedious day at Raven’s Dale College commences. Watching guys – especially cute but gormless Doug Stonebridge – hitting on Zoe does nothing to lift her mood, especially after her new self-elected BFF blurts out Cloonan’s monster-hunting sideline. More grief about her failures from Barley follows, and the absolute end comes when Pinchy – AKA Skaldjur – invades the college looking for girls, booze and a rematch and sparking a riot. Chloe might be merely human – and not very fit – but the brute has turned up just when she really needed to hit something and gets just what he deserves…

She’s barely regained her composure when the top secret clean-up crew show up, delivering pat disinformation and trying to impress pretty little Zoe…

Chapter 3 comes from Paper Science #5: a brief encounter with band nerds and ice creams, before Chloe Noonan #3 reveals how bandmate Zach pilfers arcane lore from Chloe’s bag and enhances the latest gig by summoning arcane armageddon in the form of an awakened Kraken…

Thankfully, a full-on angry rant seems to be Chloe’s private superpower…

A brace of shorts from Solipsistic Pop #3 and #2 reveals how Chloe & Zoe deal with a gang of monster-seeming Chavs and annoying girl band Pozzy Pops before chapter 7 presents the full-length fun of Chloe Noonan #4 with the “Nooners”, Zoe and Doug spending an unpleasant night clubbing, only to find that even supernal haunts crave a good time, cheap drinks and ear-splitting beats. However, when Chloe tries to lay down the law, she gets an unlikely schooling in monster politics…

Chloe Noonan #3 delivers the next instalment as drunken Doug falls foul of supernatural Chavs (think Devil-Moomins) in a deserted playground, and Zoe drags her “Nooners” out of a well-earned sleep to save his undeserving ass after which ‘Trick or Treat’ (from Chloe Noonan Halloween Special 2012) sees awestruck Zoe dressing up as her hero for a spot of fancy-dress, door-to-door begging on October 31st. Of course, prowling darkened streets with a happier, prettier, sexier version of herself is everything Chloe dreaded it would be, and she’s in no mood to dick about when the real monsters turn up to celebrate “their” special day…

Wrapping up the spooky selection is the Chloe Noonan Christmas Special 2012 with the surly supernaturalist and Professor Barley dutifully and pointlessly hunting an unknown antagonist and enduring ‘A Very Noony Christmas’ whilst everybody else is getting outrageously inebriated at a major college party…

Accompanying the morose mirth is a ‘Cover Gallery’ (fronts and backs!) including a spiffy art print; a selection of ‘Fan Art’ by Will Kirkby, Tom Humberstone, Liz Prince and Luke Pearson and a fulsome (29 pages) and fascinating dip into the author’s ‘Annotated Sketchbook’ as well as a ‘Biography’ of the creator.

Fun, funny, fiercely foolish and fabulously entertaining, this ancient arcane artefact is as fresh and festive as it ever was. Forget the Chosen One and just choose Chloe Noonan.
™ & © 2009-2012, 2020 Marc Ellerby. All rights reserved.