Category: Best of British

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The Outer Limits Annual 1966


By Paul S. Newman(?) & Jack Sparling, & various (World Distributors {Manchester} Limited)
No ISBN. ASIN: B0042Q9PAE (HB)

British Comics have always fed heavily on other media and as television grew during the 1960s – especially the area of children’s shows and cartoons – those programmes increasingly became a staple source for the Seasonal Annual market. There would be a profusion of stories and strips targeting not readers but young viewers and more and more often the stars would be American not British.

Much of this stuff wouldn’t even be as popular in the USA as here, so whatever comic licenses existed usually didn’t provide enough material to fill a hardback volume ranging anywhere from 64 to 160 pages. Thus, many Annuals such as Daktari, Champion the Wonder Horse, Lone Ranger and a host of others required original material or, as a last resort, similarly-themed or related strips. That’s not the case here…

The Outer Limits launched in the USA on September 16th 1963, running until January 16th 1965: two seasons comprising 49 self-contained episodes of an anthological science fiction series with no returning stars where drama, suspense and uncanny situations beguiled paranoid, culturally shell-shocked audiences seeking a brief release from real-world threats like the Cold War and Cost of Living. Like contemporary rival show The Twilight Zone, it was sold all over the world and developed a fanatically devoted fanbase, thereby achieving a kind of immortality, with modern reboots and merchandising.

Comic book franchising specialist Gold Key produced a series of 18 issues spanning March 1964 to October 1969, running almost half a decade beyond the show’s cancellation (but presumably sustained by regional TV syndication). They were part of print monolith western Publishing whose Dell Comics, Gold Key, Big Little, Little Golden and Golden Press books for children were a staple of kids’ lives in America for decades.

Western Publishing was a major player since comics’ earliest days, blending a huge tranche of licensed material including newspaper strips, TV and Disney titles, (such as Nancy and Sluggo, Tarzan, or The Lone Ranger) with home-grown hits like Turok, Son of Stone and Magnus, Robot Fighter.

Their output was an ideal perfect source of material for British publishers whose regular audiences were profoundly addicted to TV and movie properties. For decades, Western’s comics from The Impossibles and Bugs Bunny to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Star Trek filled our Christmas treats and also slipped in some original character concepts.

“All Killer and No Filler”, this book – the second of two Outer Limits editions – was produced in a non-standard UK format, with full-colour for three American reprints and nothing else: no prose pieces, puzzles, games or fact-features on related themes. It looks and feels like it’s one from the wonderful Mick Anglo’s packaging company Gower Studios, however and I’m fairly certain the originals were scripted by prolific wonder Paul S. Newman (Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom, Space Family Robinson, Turok, The Lone Ranger)

There’s no doubt the illustrator was the uniquely stylish and equally prolific John Edmond “Jack” Sparling (Hap Hopper, Washington Correspondent, Claire Voyant, Doc Savage, Challengers of the Unknown, Unknown Soldier, Captain America) who in sterling fashion produced this trio of terrors…

‘The Dread Discovery’ debuted in quarterly issue #5 (April 1965) and is set in a NASA base where Peter Norton, with his pals Andy and Fred, accidentally shoot down a flying saucer with their model rocket. The kids’ parents all work on-base and are – eventually – delighted to meet the vessel’s occupant. FR-2 is a defector from his own people, arriving in advance of their invasion fleet and willing to give his life to save humanity…

The Outer Limits #6 (July 1965) recounted the saga of ‘The Mystery Moon’ wherein little Jim Burke is abducted by aliens when he exposes their seeming mission of mercy as a devious scheme to fling earth out of orbit. Luckily for humanity, the lad’s a lot smarter and more cunning than his kidnappers…

The brooding mystery and omnipresent menace conclude with ‘The Message from Space’ (#8, July 1966) as radio-astronomer Arthur Godderd decodes a communication from distant star 102 Beta and has his chemist chum Charles Dilling mix up the resulting formula. When sunlight hits the goo, it super-expands and attacks civilisation on multiple fronts. Seemingly unstoppable, the glob is only countered when all the previously warring nations on Earth act in unison in accordance with a crazy theory put forward by desperate Dr. Dilling…

Quirky but chilling, and always applying sound scientific principles to the most outlandish plot circumstances, this is a superb scare package for kids in the manner of Goosebumps and well worth a latter-day revisit.
© MCMLVX, MCMLVXI by Daystar-Villa Di Stefano-United Artists Television. All rights reserved throughout the world.

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The Leopard from Lime St. Book One


By Tom Tully, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 9-781-78108-597-4 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Superb All-Ages Entertainment and Adventure… 9/10

They – apart from lawyers – say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You can make your own mind up on that score if you seek out these quirky and remarkable vintage thrillers offering a wonderfully downbeat and sublimely British spin on a very familiar story…

Until the 1980s, comics in the UK were always based on the anthological model, offering variety of genre and character on a weekly or sometimes fortnightly basis. Primarily humorous periodicals like The Beano would be leavened by the Q-Bikes or General Jumbo and action papers like Lion, Valiant or Smash! included gag serials like Grimly Feendish, Mowser, The Nutts or a wealth of other laugh treats.

Buster seemed to offer the best of all worlds. Running 1902 issues from May 28th 1960 to 4th January 2000, it finely balanced drama, action and comedy, with its the earliest days – thanks to absorbing Radio Fun and Film Fun – heavy with celebrity-licensed material like Charlie Drake, Bruce Forsyth and Benny Hill or the eponymous cover star billed as “the son of (newspaper strip star) Andy Capp”. The comic became the final resting place of many, many companion papers in its lifetime, including The Big One, Giggle, Jet, Cor!, Monster Fun, Jackpot, School Fun, Nipper, Oink!and Whizzer & Chips, so the cumulative roster of strip content is wide, wild and often wacky…

At first glance, British comics prior to the advent of 2000AD seem to fall into fairly ironclad categories. Back then, you had genial and fantastic preschool fantasy, a large selection of adapted media properties, action, adventure, war and comedy strands. A closer look, though, would confirm that there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained understanding of the concept of superheroes. Just check out The Spider or the early Steel Claw…

We had dabbled with the classic form in the Batman-influenced 1960s and slightly beyond, but Tri-Man, Gadgetman, Johnny Future and the Phantom Viking remained uncomfortably off-kilter oddities. In the March 27th 1976 edition of Buster that all changed…

Now part of Rebellion Publishing’s line of British Comics Classics, The Leopard from Lime Street originally ran 470 episodes comprising 50 adventures until May 18th 1985 – and even later as colorized reprints and a wealth of foreign-language and overseas editions.

For most of that time it was a barely-legal knock-off of Marvel’s Spider-Man – with hints of DC Thomson’s Billy the Cat – as seen through a superbly English lens. It was also, however, utterly unmissable reading…

This first volume – available as large paperback (213 x 276 mm) or digital edition – was released in 2017 and reprints strips from Buster March 27th 1976 to June 11th 1977. The incredible stories are preceded by a superbly informative Introduction from comics historian and author Steve Holland ‘Behind the Mask’ before we head to the middle (or maybe north-ish) of England where in Selbridge, scrawny 13-year-old Billy Farmer is being bullied again: this time by the kids at school…

His abiding interests are journalism and photography and Billy publishes a school newspaper all by himself, probably to compensate for his home life. He lives with loving but frail Aunt Joan and vicious, indolent, work-shy and physically abusive Uncle Charlie who avoids work like the plague but is always ready to deliver a violent lesson with fist, boot or belt…

Life changes for Billy when he visits the Jarman Zoological Institute and is accidentally scratched by Sheba, an escaped leopard being treated with radioactive chemicals for an unspecified disease.

In the days before Health and Safety regulations or a culture of litigation, Billy is given a rapid once-over by the scientists in charge and declared fine before being sent home.

Only when Uncle Charlie tries to hit him and ends up thrown into the dustbins does Billy realise that something has changed: he now has the strength, speed, stamina and agility of a jungle cat as well as enhanced senses and a predator’s “danger-sense”…

Soon, he’s wearing a modified pantomime costume and prowling the dark streets and low rooftops, incurring the curiosity of Editor Thaddeus Clegg of the Selbridge Sun whilst ever-more confidant Billy sells news photos of the burglars, kidnappers and crooks the vigilante “leopardman” preys on. He’s also a dab hand at getting candid shots of the secluded celebrities no pro journo can get near…

School remains a nightmare of bullies and almost-exposure of Billy’s secret, but home life gets much better after the police identify Billy as being an official confidante of the cat creature even as Uncle Charlie is regularly brutalised by the feral fury in defence of his “friend”…

A major storyline sees the mystery prowler framed for arson and theft, but always Billy or the beast eventually clear the Leopard’s name and reputation. Moreover, the boy’s earnings – grudgingly paid by Clegg – start making life easier for Aunt Joan, while the beast’s constant proximity to Lime Street ensures Charlie keeps his outbursts verbal and his drunken fists unclenched…

All that almost ends when a crooked circus owner first tries to capture and exhibit the Leopardman and then creates his own inferior version, before earning a very painful object lesson. After crushing robbers, child abductors and a masked wrestler who all successively learn to fear the beast, the next challenges are even worse as a circus acrobat mimics the cat’s abilities to very publicly frame the Leopard for a string of crimes before a bullying classmate’s dad infiltrates the school trip to a stately home/safari park to pull off a million quid blag, leaving Billy trapped and accidentally reunited with his accidental creator Sheba.

Is that why his powers seem to be increasing beyond his ability to control them?…

Enthrallingly scripted by British comics superstar Tom Tully (Heros the Spartan; Janus Stark; Mytek the Mighty; Steel Claw; Adam Eterno; Johnny Red; Harlem Heroes; Roy of the Rovers) and collaboratively illustrated by British comics royalty Mike Western (Lucky Logan; No Hiding Place; Biggles; The Wild Wonders; Darkie’s Mob; The Sarge; HMS Nightshade; Jack O’Justice; The Avenger; Billy’s Boots; Roy of the Rovers) and Eric Bradbury (Mytek the Mighty; House of Dolmann; Maxwell Hawke; Cursitor Doom; Von Hoffman’s Invasion; Death Squad; Hook Jaw; Doomlord; Rogue Trooper; Invasion; Mean Arena; Tharg the Mighty and more) this moody pre-modern masterwork offers a fascinating insight into the slant a different culture can bring to as genre. The concept of a “real-life” superhero has never been more clearly explored than in these tales of the cat kid who survives not supervillains but a hard-knock life…
The Leopard from Lime Street ™ & © 1976, 1977, 2017 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Catalyst


By Asia Alfasi, Charlotte Bailey, Jason Chuang, Dominique Duong, Catherine Anyango Grünewald, Shuning Ji, Pris Lemons, Sonia Leong, Calico N.M., Tyrell Osborne & Woodrow Phoenix, edited by Ayoola Solarin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91142-402-7 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Heartfelt, Fantastic, Full-on and Unmissable… 8/10

At its best, the comics biz is companionable, collegiate, welcoming and wonderfully supportive. We all like to help each other along, especially if the end result is more and better stories for all. That even extends to the publishing and managerial arena, as seen here with this anthology of tales resulting from SelfMadeHero’s 2021 Graphic Anthology Programme, which was set up to tutor and mentor emergent talent from diverse backgrounds. The first intake were all people of colour and the broadest range of backgrounds and life experience.

As explained in the introductory Editor and Publisher’s Letter by Ayoola Solarin & Emma Hayley preceding 11 extremely enthralling pictorial yarns, this tome results from a 12-week training course, for which seven participants and their assigned mentors produced many 8-page graphic short stories based on a specific theme: “Catalyst”.

The phenomenally far-ranging works are subdivided into ‘Dissolution’, ‘Reaction’ and ‘Repercussion’, with the entire catalogue of imaginative wonders bookended by extensive biographies of the creators, mentors and Editorial Team.

Dissolution opens with a chilling view of the potential pitfalls of video conferencing in Catherine Anyango Grünewald’s ‘The Host’, after which Shuning Ji reveals horrors hidden in ‘The Camera’ and Jason Chuang offers a disturbing view of public transport interactions in truly disturbing vignette ‘The Guessing Game’.

Tyrell Osborne then wraps up the openers with a quiet stroll through a very off-kilter London and some introspective dilemmas satisfactorily solved in ‘Same Tall Tale’…

Under the aegis of Reaction, Pris Lemons indulges some internal investigation in party tale ‘Orbital Decay’ whilst Sonia Leong shares her love of manga and search for creative camaraderie and approval in ‘Just Like Me’. Calico N.M. then whimsically explores natal wonders and fantastic beasts in ‘Because I’ve Got All Of You’ before we move on to final revelations in Repercussion.

Dominique Duong sets the ball rolling as ‘One Small Thing’ chillingly exposes the monster within, before Asia Alfasi beguiles with an Arabian tale of traditional versus hereditary storytelling gifts in ‘Happily Never After’ after which Charlotte Bailey amazes and amuses with a mesmerising love affair and marriage of ultimate opposites in ‘Cetea & Clay’.

Concluding on a true high, the small sagas cease with ‘Convolute’ by the inimitable Woodrow Phoenix, revealing how the true saviours and secret stars of the 1960s space race was a team of seamstresses led by forgotten black hero Hazel Fellows…

Offering a hand up or a way in is something we can all do, and the rewards are enormous and never-ending. When it also results in superb storytelling and the first full flexing of creative mettle its practically a civil duty to encourage more.

Do that. Buy this.
All stories and artwork © their respective creators. All rights reserved.

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Sour Pickles


By Clio Isadora (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-63-9 (TPB)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Peep at How the Other Half Works… 8/10

There are countless reasons to draw and even more to tell stories. For an increasing number of talented folk the primary motivations are curiosity and therapy. When combined with ruthless honesty, creative boldness and a sense of whimsy the results can be instructional for the author, and hugely entertaining for those of us privileged to be coming along for the ride.

Clio Isadora has drawn remorselessly but with sublime care and attention on her rather extraordinary life for her risograph minicomics such as Damp Candy, Soiled Fantasies, Is It Vague in Other Dimensions? and others, and in her first full graphic novel, takes those shared observations to a new level of humour and poignancy by revisiting her final year as a student at prestigious Central St Martins art school.

Like most slice-of-life sagas – no matter how well or judiciously curated – the true joy is in experiencing it unfold, so the précis portion of this review is deliberately meagre…

Pickles Yin doesn’t have the financial resources of her rich, posh, fancy art school classmates. She’s got by so far on talent, drive, hard work, bursaries, frazzled nerves, frantic overreactions and few true friends. Now the final year and big show are looming and beyond that the gaping unknowns of adult life and a career.

Unlike almost everyone else she knows, though, Pickles can’t rely on the buffers and comfort zone of parents, money and connections if she fails. Or even decide on what kind of job she wants if she gets through the year. She’s drowning and floundering and in a panic, when her pal Radish suggests what would help her get by and even the odds is some pharmaceutical enhancement…

Witty, fraught, heartwarming and quite frankly a bit scary – my days in art school in the heyday of Punk were filled with fun, excess, budding pop stars and a complete dearth of career pressure – Sour Pickles is a fabulously wry and subtle examination of mental health, the unexpected legacies of parental prejudices and the crushing pressure of modern living.

Recommended for anybody wondering about the “road not taken”…
© Clio Isadora, 2021

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White Death


By Robbie Morrison & Charlie Adlard (Image Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-632151-42-1 (HB)

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

More than a century after the conflict ended, the First World War still has a terrifying grip on public consciousness and remains culturally relevant.

For years I’ve been declaring that Charley’s War is the best story about the Great War ever created but while I remain convinced of that fact, there are plenty of strong contenders for the title and it’s always worth seeking out fresh viewpoints and visualisations. This particular moody masterpiece originally emerged as kind of transcontinental self-published venture by writer Robbie Morrison (Nikolai Dante; Judge Dredd; Doctor Who; Batman) and illustrator Charlie Adlard (Judge Dredd; X Files; Astronauts in Trouble; Batman; The Walking Dead) who initially crafted the international bestseller under the guise of Les Cartoonistes Dangereux in 1998.

It was subsequently rereleased in 2002 by AiT/Planet Lar before becoming this luxurious hardback and digital tome in 2014. It presents a stunning and moving saga of a largely overlooked theatre of that conflict and offers in addition commentary; biographies; a short vignette created as a prelude to the main story and used as a promotional device in French comics magazine Bo Dois, plus a feature detailing the process from original script to finished art. This last is a particularly fascinating inclusion as illustrator Adlard devised a whole new way of delivering comics narrative for the story…

The tale itself is simple and straightforward: based on truly horrific events during what was known as “the White War” and fully contextualised in Morrison’s introductory notes.

It’s 1916 and on the Italian Front, the war against the forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (allied with Germany) is as stalled, tedious and horrifically murderous as the trench warfare in France and Belgium, even though it’s being fought across the Alighieri plateau in the mountains of Trentino.

Added to the usual horrors of the conflict are crushing cold, constant mist, fog and snow and the extreme likelihood of being crushed and smothered once the bright sparks shelling each other realise they can also trigger avalanches just by aiming a little bit higher…

Into this mess trudges new recruit Pietro Aquasanta. He grew up in these mountains, but sees little to engender fond feelings or happy memories. Firstly, his status is suspect since he used to soldier for the other side, thanks to the Empire’s conscription policies and the Allies’ habit of taking absolutely anybody – even enemy combatants – who can point a gun.

Secondly, even though he’s now an Italian fighting for his homeland, most of Aquasanta’s comrades are fools, the generals are callous idiots and his immediate superior – sergeant major Orsini – is a fanatical war-loving bastard who will do anything to keep the killing going. Still and all, even solitary outsiders like Pietro can’t help seeking companionship when life is so visibly brief and death looms over everything like a million-ton white shroud…

And as the campaign progresses the turncoat advances simply by not dying…

Leavened through mordant trench humour (I guess the clue is in the name), peppered with painfully human moments of tragedy or unwavering friendship and capturing the numbing horror of ceaseless struggle against the elements, environment, other humans and one’s own self-destructive demons, White Death is a compelling comics classic to be savoured and shared.
© 2014 Robbie Morrison & Charlie Adlard. All rights reserved.

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Jinx Freeze


By Hurk (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-59-2 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Cunning Conundrum of Cartoon Classicism … 8/10

Human beings are powerfully prone to the potent seductions of the past. Nostalgia used to be classed as a sickness. Go’wan, look it up, I dares ya…

Even more overwhelming in some folk – usually the most creative sorts – is a Puckish drive to celebrate the past through good-natured mockery and clever spoofing: what the beloved Kenneth Williams referred to as “messing about”…

Pictorially active since the turn of the century – this one, just to be clear – (Lord) Hurk is local born and bred – literally and geographically to me but culturally and societally to anybody growing up British in the last sixty years and reared on too much television, tabloid publishing and comics. He and has contributed to comics projects all over the globe. Now that your interests are piqued, you might want to check out 2016’s Ready for Pop, and work done for The Fancy Butcher, The Comix Reader, Italy’s Puck, Slovenia’s Stripburger, Off Life, Your Days Are Numbered, Hive, and The Mammoth Book of Skulls.

Jinx Freeze is his first full-colour solo vehicle, channelling his wildly freewheeling targeted whimsy in the manner of Dan Clowes and Peter Bagge, whilst referencing such outré past entertainments as Scales of Justice, Prisoner: Cellblock H and Emergency Ward 10, lost minor “celebrities” such as Thora Hird, Parsley the Lion and Edgar Lustgarten!, fab and groovy movies, arcane music references and a wealth of cartooning styles.

The entire farrago is delivered in devilishly enticing micro-instalments patterned on the varied pages of British anthology comics like Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid-era Smash! and Pow! Hurk tracks the progress of a broad and bizarre cast of good guys, bad guys, femme fatales, mad scientists and other oddly-familiar brand-new archetypes in a seditiously wry Pop Culture medley enrobed in and masquerading as a cunning murder mystery.

Somewhere in time there is chaos on the plutocratic playground of the Riviera. A portion of a golden statue on loan from the prestigious Gurgleheim Museum has been shamefully pilfered, sparking a manic race to recover it embroiling all manner of unique individuals on every side of the Law. As the chase unfolds the scenario expands into psychedelic psychodrama amidst the baffling environs of The Great Exhibition of 11851 where alien ploys, criminal blags and sinister, uncanny enigmas entwine and overlap for frontrunners Marge Large, Riviera Chief of Police Dick Bosse, Modern Tahzrn, King Gianthead Fighter Policeman 0.X, The Thor Gang Four, King of Poetry, Danny Kildare the Space Priest and less reliable champions: all competitively hunting for the prize and glory…

A delightful “easter-egg”-laden tribute to the good old days, pirated from television, print media and blurred memories, this is a sublimely entertaining romp you must not miss.
© Hurk, 2021.

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Methods of Dyeing


By B. Mure (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-62-2 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Mesmerising Magnum Opus Actively Unfolding Before Your Very Eyes… 8/10

Most forms of fiction depend on strong memorable characters and heaping helpings of tension, suspense and of action to hold the attention. You need to be really good and quite brave to try anything outside those often-infantile parameters. B. Mure is that good.

The Nottingham based artist and storyteller’s other notable work to date is the remarkable webcomic Boy Comics. You should check that out too.

In 2018, B. Mure pulled together threads and ideas from years of planning, dreaming and doodling, to begin building an epic fantasy saga. It started with Original Graphic Novel Ismyre, introducing a strange ancient city of song and tired wonders, unsettled by magical eco-terrorists and weaponised flora, where a sculptor’s works inspired and moved the strangest of folk. This magical city was entering a period of “interesting times”…

That was closely followed by sequel Terrible Means, which seemingly had very little to do with the protagonists of the first, but instead took readers back to a time when wizardly green rebels Niklas, Henriett and Emlyn were simply researchers whose studies divined a growing imbalance in the natural ecosystem…

The Tower in the Sea focused in on a different point in time and tale, providing a fresh approach to what is shaping up to be a vast and expansively multi-layered saga.

Contemporary Ismyre is more dictatorship than civil metropolis, and for years gifted children were spirited away from it by a clique of outlaw magicians and taken to a hidden island to be schooled in magical arts. That haven of learning was not proof against intrigue and plots, however, and before long unscholarly events upset lots of apple carts…

Now, fourth volume Methods of Dyeing returns us to the Big City, but sticks to educational themes and macabre mysteries as potential scandal rocks staid and stolid Ismyre University. Mere moments before the delivery of a much heralded lecture, visiting Professor Detlef of rival city-state Belsithan is murdered. The renowned botanist, textile expert and master dyer was discovered in bushes just outside the lecture hall…

The event manifests the usual journalistic scavengers, but both the Chief of Police and University Dean are suspiciously keen to shut down sordid speculation and all enquiries as rapidly as possible.

All hope of that outcome ends with the arrival of a forceful and enigmatic detective from Belsithan. She quickly assumes jurisdiction and begins to make herself extremely unwelcome in every stratum of college and city life. Her diligent, persistent investigations uncover plenty of secrets and suspects as well as possible motive: Detlef had accommodated the beliefs of the Eco-anarchist movement increasingly disrupting Ismyre’s economy and politics…

However, as the detective zeroes in on the truth, her own big secret is about to be exposed…

The word “tapestry” is one much overused but it really fits the gradual unpeeling of layers comprising the history of Ismyre: beautiful images coming together, small self-contained stories unfolding depending upon where you start from, yet all part of a greater whole, promising more and clearer revelations further ahead. You must read all these books but (so far) it really doesn’t matter where you start from. So, it might as well be here, right?

Sadly, this deliciously genteel, sublimely illustrated cosy murder-mystery is not available digitally yet, but that just means you can give physical copies to all your friends, suitably gift-wrapped and properly appreciated by the tactile senses as well as cerebral ones…

An anthropomorphic, luscious and compellingly realised world of wonder to savour and ponder over is waiting for you – and if you’re quick, you can exploit the publisher’s sagacious generosity by visiting the Avery Hill website and buying all four Ismyre books in one big sales bundle…
© 2021 B. Mure. All rights reserved.

Methods of Dyeing will be released on November 11th 2021 and is available for pre-order now.

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Putin’s Russia – The Rise of a Dictator


By Darryl Cunningham (Myriad Editions)
ISBN: 978-1-912408-91-7 (TPB)

Artist and journalist Darryl Cunningham was born in 1960, lived a pretty British life (didn’t we all back then?) and graduated from Leeds College of Art. A regular on the Small Press scene of the 1990s, his early strips appeared in legendary paper-based venues such as Fast Fiction, Dead Trees, Inkling, Turn amongst many others. In 1998, he & Simon Gane crafted Meet John Dark for the much-missed Slab-O-Concrete outfit. It is still one of my favourite books of the era. You should track it down or agitate for a new edition.

Briefly putting comics on the backburner as the century ended, Cunningham worked on an acute care psychiatric ward: a period which informed 2011 graphic novel Psychiatric Tales, a revelatory inquiry into mental illness delivered as cartoon reportage.

When not crafting web comics for Forbidden Planet or working on his creations Uncle Bob Adventures, Super-Sam and John-of-the-Night or The Streets of San Diablo, he’s been steadily consolidating his position at the top of the field of graphic investigative reporting; specifically science history, economics and socio-political journalism through books such as Science Tales, Supercrash: How to Hijack the Global Economy, Graphic Science: Seven Journeys of Discovery, The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality and the Financial Crisis and Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful.

His latest offering is his boldest yet, particularly as the subject of these investigations and revelations has a scary track record of suddenly outliving every critic, commentator, judge and denouncer. Of course, part of that murderous mystique also includes ludicrous gaffes, fumbles and cock-ups, so perhaps it’s a fair risk for a potential big reward…

Simply put, what’s on show here is another sublimely forensic and easily digestible dissection of one more major cause of global concern, in the form of a mediocre Soviet spy who became the biggest crook on Earth.

Cunningham methodically traces the path of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin from childhood in a St Petersburg (then Leningrad) communal apartment to the world’s most tasteless billionaire mancave (“Putin’s Palace” at Gelendzhik), translating dry facts and shocking atrocities into irrefutable, easily assimilated data snippets, tracing the Dictator-in-Chief’s cunning rise in the shadow of and on the coattails of far more flamboyant and unwise would-be leaders until suddenly he’s the last man standing…

A much-curated personal life is unmade and remeasured against a historical yardstick as the Soviet Union stumbles into oblivion: broken up and its riches redistributed by pirates and brigands in suits amongst a cabal of soon-to-be Oligarchs only marginally less unsavoury than their notional leader.

Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Sobchak and a flurry of Western appeasers and greedy bankers are all indicted for their failings as Putin climbed a greasy pole soaked in the blood of opponents, competitors and particularly journalists and critics. Especial attention is rightly paid to manufactured and proxy wars, terrorist acts and inept interventions; modern imperialism and global calamities, weaponized bigotry, harnessed ancient grudges and sheer unrelenting opportunism at every possible juncture. That’s a big bill to lay on one person, but the arguments are all there in black and white and magenta and green and…

You will also be sagely reminded of assassinations as acts of petty spite; western money laundering of a nation’s pilfered assets, the suborning of national leaders (and we’re not just talking about orange hairpiece #45, here!) and the sadly pathetic ongoing quest for validation of a self-described hard man…

A heady mix of cold fact, astute deduction and beguiling visualisation, this deft examination of a bandit who stole a nation and how at last his comeuppance is at hand is a delicious blend of revelation and confirmation, and Cunningham even has the courage to offer bold – and serious – suggestions on how to rectify the current state of affairs, all backed up with a vast and daunting list of References from print, media and other sources for everything cited in the book.

Comics have long been the most effective method of imparting information and eliciting reaction (that’s why assorted governments and militaries have used them for hard and soft propaganda over the last century and a half), and with Putin’s Russia you can see that force deployed against one of today’s greatest threats…
© Darryl Cunningham 2021. All rights reserved.

Putin’s Russia will be released on September 16th 2021 and is available for pre-order now.

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Mega Robo Bros: Power Up and Mega Robo Bros: Double Threat



By Neill Cameron with Abby Bulmer & Lisa Murphy (David Fickling Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78845-200-7 (Power Up PB) and 978-1-78845-232-8 (Double Threat PB)

Just like The Beano, Dandy and other perennial childhood treasures, weekly comic The Phoenix masterfully mixes hilarious comedy with enthralling adventure serials… sometimes in the same scintillating strip. Such I the case here, with the synthetic stars of these superbly remastered compilations: mega-magnificent sci fi frolics packed into full-colour volumes of high-octane comedy-action, with added activity pages to complete your entertainment experience. Everybody strapped in?

Plunging straight into the enchanting immersive experience, we open in a futuristic London on a Monday morning. Alexand his younger brother Freddie have missed the airbus for school and dad has to take them. It’s a uniquely Sharma-family catastrophe…

In most ways the boys are typical: boisterous, fractious kids, always arguing, but devoted to each other and not too bothered that they’re adopted. It’s also no big deal to them that they were created by the mysterious Dr. Roboticus before he vanished and are considered by those in the know as the most powerful robots on Earth.

For now, it’s enough that Mum and Dad love them, even though the Robo Bros are a bit more of a handful than most kids. They live as normal a life as possible; going to school, making friends, putting up with bullies and hating homework: it’s all part of their Mega Robo routine…

This week, though, things are a bit different. On Wednesday the lads meet Baroness Farooq of covert agency R.A.I.D. (Robotics Analysis Intelligence and Defence) who – despite being initially unimpressed – changes her mind after seeing what the lads do to her platoon of Destroyer Mechs – all while between singing rude songs, reading comics and squabbling with each other.

Thursday is even better. As a treat, the entire family goes to Robo World where Freddy rescues a trio of malfunctioning exhibits. The baby triceratops with dog-programming is ok, but the French-speaking deranged ape and gloomily existentialist penguin might be a handful in days to come. …and all because Mum was trying to explain how her sons’ sentience makes them different from other mechanoids…

Friday wasn’t so good. Alex had another one of his nightmares, of the time before they came to live with the Sharmas…

With the scene exquisitely set, the drama kicks into overdrive when a school visit to the museum offers a hidden menace constantly watching the boys an opportunity to create chaos by hacking all the exhibits. Even though Freddy and Alex use all their super-powers to set things right, it takes all of the Baroness’ astounding influence to hush up the incident. They are supposed to be getting as normal a childhood as possible, with friends and family aware that they’re artificial and sentient, but not that they are unstoppable weapons systems. Now some malign force seems determined to “out” the Robo Bros for unspecified but undoubtedly sinister purposes…

Even greater cloaking measures are necessary when the hidden enemy causes a sky-train crash. The boys very publicly prevent a disaster, but even they are starting to realise something big is up. It also confirms that and Mum is a bit extraordinary herself, even before Freddy overhears some disturbing news about another one of Dr. Roboticus’ other creations…

The crisis erupts after Gran takes Alex and Freddy to a Royal Street Party outside Buckingham Palace. When the hidden enemy hacks the giant robot guards and sets them loose on the Queen and her family, the wonder-bots have to save them on live TV beamed around the world. The secret is out…

With the entire world camped outside their quiet little house, Mum has R.A.I.D. restore the Mega Robo Status Quo by building a super-secret tunnel system in the cellar. It’s a big day all around: Farooq is finally convinced that Alex is at last ready to join the agency… after school and on weekends, of course…

Freddy is extremely peeved that that he’s not invited. The Baroness still considers him too young and immature. He soon proves it when Alex becomes a Mega Robo Secret Agent, compelling Freddy to at last confide in dad the real reason he’s acting up. He then has opportunity to redeem himself and save the day when their nemesis makes his move and Alex finds himself completely out of his depth. Then only Freddy can save the day… if anyone can…

Crafted by Neill Cameron (Tamsin of the Deep, How to Make Awesome Comics, Pirates of Pangea), this is an astonishingly engaging tale that rockets along, blending outrageous comedy with warmth, wit and incredible verve. This volume also includes copious files on all the characters and activity features ‘How to Draw Alex’ and ‘How to Draw Freddy’ plus hilarious strip-within-a-strip ‘The World According to Freddy!’.

Alex and Freddy are utterly authentic boys, irrespective of their artificial origins, and their exploits strike exactly the right balance of future shock, family fun and bombastic superhero action to capture readers’ hearts and minds. With the right budget and producer what a movie this would make!

 

With additional colouring by Abby Bulmer & Lisa Murphy, second volume Mega Robo Bros: Double Threat sees the marvellous metal (and plastic) paladins return to share more of their awesome adventures and growing pains!

It’s still the Future!

In a London much cooler than ours, boisterous, fractious, argumentative, more-or-less typical kids Alex and Freddie are still devoted to each other and not much bothered that they’re adopted, recently became super-secret agents and that almost the entire world knows…

When occasion demands, they undertake missions for Baroness Farooq. They think it’s because they are infinitely smarter and more powerful than the Destroyer Mechs and other man-made minions she employs…

Moreover, Dad might be just be an average old guy, but Mum is a bit extraordinary too…

Life in the Sharma household is pretty normal. Freddie is insufferably exuberant and over-confident whilst Alex is approaching the age when self-doubt and anxiety start kicking in, but mostly it’s their parents’ other robot rescues that are a bit of a trial.

Baby triceratops Trikey with his dog-programming is ok, but French-speaking loony ape Monsieur Gorilla can be mighty confusing. Gloomily annoying, existentialist aquatic fowl Stupid Philosophy Penguin constantly quotes dead philosophers and makes people rapidly consider self-harm or manic mayhem …

Alex is getting a hard time from classmates Mira and Taia. They used to be best friends, but with all his extra-curricular activities, the girls are feeling neglected. Alex’s guilt turns to something far worse on Monday after a heated football match leads bully Jamal to make a startling accusation. But actually, how do we know if Alex is a Boy or a Girl…?

Deeply shaken, the startled hero naturally asks Mum and she’s never been more grateful for a sudden sneaky Surprise Giant Robot Attack that interrupts her answer…

Alex and Freddie are then called in by the Baroness, before jetting over to Aldgate Tube Station to battle a colossal driller-droid. Further investigation leads the lads and a R.A.I.D. science team deep, deep, deep into the abandoned transport tunnels beneath the city….

Here they encounter an army of rejected, rebuilt robots undertaking the bizarre agenda of a crazy bag-lady calling herself The Caretaker. When she abruptly loses control of her precious charges, all Hell breaks loose. During a massive fight, she escapes to an even more secret lair: an ongoing repair project with hidden ramifications that will have dire consequences for the bombastic boys and the entire world…

Freddie experiences Mum’s stern side when she takes him – kicking and screaming – clothes shopping, after which shameful incident, further mortification and emotional distress arrives as the price of fame is fully paid when Prettiest Girl in School Jamila finally notices Alex.

With his shiny head all turned around, he’s in no mood for Freddie’s jealous response: candid home videos posted on VuTube. The elder sibling’s even less chuffed when those postings go mega-viral, drawing some cruel comfort when Freddie’s celebrity bubble inevitably implodes in a most unfortunate manner…

Wrapping up with a spectacular big finish, the kids – and their surprisingly famous mum – are star guests at the massive London Robo Expo. After taking down obnoxious, fame-craving mech-makers Team Robotix in a gladiatorial contest, the lads understandably think the action portion of the entertainment has ended, only to see the Caretaker’s darkest secret burst in with mass-murder in mind…

The huge rampaging robot quickly reinforces all humanity’s fears and anxieties about sentient mechanicals, but as the Mega Robo Bros drive the belligerent Wolfram off, Alex realises with alarm that Mum knows far more about the rogue – and her own “sons” – than she’s ever let on…

Augmented by more character info-files on the players involved; activity features (an extended) ‘How to Draw Freddy’and ‘How to Draw Stupid Philosophy Penguin’ plus even-more outrageous ‘The World According to Freddy!’ strips, this is another exceedingly engaging romp which rockets along like an anti-gravity rollercoaster, blending mirth with warmth, wit and incredible verve. These books offer unmissable excitement for kids of all ages and vintage, and are true “must-have” items.
Text and illustrations © Neill Cameron 2021. All rights reserved.

Both Mega Robo Bros collections will be released on August 5th 2021 and are available for pre-order now.

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Steel Commando: Full Metal Warfare


By Frank S. Pepper, Alex Henderson, Vince Wernham & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-681-0 (Digest PB)

UK comics readers have always loved robots. A veritable battalion of bronzed (ironed, steeled, coppered, etc.) Brit-built battlebots and Caledonian comedic constructions have graced our strips since the earliest of times. Surely, every old kid fondly remembers amazing artificial all-stars such as Brassneck, the Juggernaut from Planet Z, Rebbel Robot, Klanky, Robot Archie, the Iron Teacher, the Smasher, the Iron Major, Mr. Syrius Thrice or any of the host of mechanoid marvels populating the pages of 2000AD.

Our fascination remains strong and entices all ages, as recently seen in new junior star Freddy from the Phoenix’s Mega Robo Bros – 21st century Britain’s response to the mighty Astro Boy…

This dinky, mostly monochrome paperback and digital digest collects strips from Thunder (specifically, 17th October 1970 to 27th February 1971); Lion & Thunder (20th March 1970-16th December 1972); Valiant & Lion (25th May- 22ndJune 1974) and further fun material from Thunder Annual 1972, 1973 and 1974, reviving classic comedy combat capers in a beloved favourite theme: war robots who aren’t what they’re cracked up to be…

In 1970 grand marshal of English comics Frank S. Pepper (Rockfist Rogan; Roy of the Rovers; Captain Condor; Dan Dare; Jet-Ace Logan; The Spellbinder and countless others) first mixed slapstick humour, war stories and fantasy in the cheekily wry exploits of a WWII British secret weapon with a mind of his own and a handy habit of crushing enemy schemes…

During WWII, shiftless slacker Ernie “Excused Boots” Bates is accorded the dubious accolade of “the laziest soldier in the British Army”, but as seen in the first episode from Pepper and illustrators Alex Henderson, becomes the most important individual ever to be called up…

While the slob is stuck spud-bashing on a secret British base, he encounters a hulking metal monster called the Mark 1 Indestructible Robot. The super-strong, humanoid tank is fully expected to win the war, but nobody can make it work…

However, when it blunders into the kitchens, Ernie orders it to stop and it happily – and quite chattily – complies. It’s a feat no one else can copy. Still unable to find the programming fault, the top brass negotiates and compels the slacker into become the war machine’s handler. Unluckily and all too soon and for newly promoted Lance-Corporal Bates, that means a few extra treats, but also personally visiting every battle hot-spot the military can think of, such as a French coastal radar base where the Steel Commando strikes terror into the hearts of the horrified Hun…

The tone of the times was frequently appallingly racist by today’s standards – but no more so than such still-popular TV shows like Dad’s Army – and over the weeks to come, dodgy Ernie and his mighty metal mate faced countless ill-prepared enemies and the bonkers bureaucracy of the British Army in short complete and satisfying episodes. Channelling the post-Sixties era of working-class whimsical irony, and discontented but laconic world-weariness, this strip places an unstoppable force for change in the hands of an Andy Capp style shirker who can’t even be bothered to exploit the power he has beyond securing permission to don comfortable footwear (plimsolls and flipflops)…

Illustrated by Henderson and Vince Wernham, the unlikely duo perpetually faced enemy action in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, whilst failing to dodge unwelcome duties (like playing on the base football team or PT exercises) with stoic reluctance and applied anarchy. All the while though – and despite recurring brain glitches – the odd couple always triumphed: destroying enemy bases, sinking ships, learning (almost) to fly, wrecking trains and whatever else the boffins and generals could think of to test their terrible toy. They even outsmarted German scientists who captured the Commando to jump-start their own Nazi robot project and a truly daft Allied enterprise to create a superior, officer-class British droid – the appalling “Metal Major”…

As weeks passed, however, Ernie began to gel as the archetypal “little man” at war with authority. Always agitating for his pal to be treated as human, he made the boffins teach their creation to read, and even successfully won regular home leave for the Steel Commando. It didn’t go well when they got back to Blighty, but at least they got what all soldiers deserved…

Many episodes see the heroes dealing with temporary malfunctions such as robotic deafness, becoming super-magnetic, falling in love (with a railway station weighing machine) or parenthood (don’t ask, just read!) and even Ernie losing his voice to toffee, but always emphasising the burdens of the lowly, charming absurdity and excessive cartoon action.

However, tastes change quickly in weekly comics and even the perennial guilty pleasures of manic situation, comedy accents and mass carnage ultimately palled. Thus, following 29 complete weekly episodes is a truly deranged sequence of five team-ups between ‘Captain Hurricane and Steel Commando’ which finds the disturbingly “outspoken” (you can say culturally dismissive and jingoistic if you want) super-strong Marine commando a not-so-friendly rival of the mechanical marvel.

These come from Valiant & Lion (25th May-22nd June 1974) and find hyper-aggressive Hurricane frantically attempting to outmatch the Steel Substitute as they are despatched against a German army in retreat. …

Filling out the collection are three longer tales from assorted Annuals, beginning with a rescue mission to an Italian town where “our boys” are battling German soldiers and their own haughtily useless commanding officer.

Next up is a sly tale wherein an upgrade accidentally infests and afflicts the Commando with a Nazi boffin’s pre-recorded personality before everything winds up with a full-colour romp seeing old Ironsides getting soused on super-fuel and drunkenly attacking Nazi super-tanks well out of his league…

The colour section also includes the multihued covers for Thunder Annual 1973, Lion Holiday Special 1974, and Lion Annual 1977: a wondrous window onto simpler times that still offer fascinating fun for the cautiously prepared reader. Why not sign up for a few classic encounters?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 2019 Rebellion Publishing Ltd.