Category: Best of British

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Axa volumes 1: Axa: The Beginning and 2: Axa the Desired


By Donne Avenell & Enrique Badia Romero (Ken Pierce Books)
Vol. 1 ISBN: 0-912277-04-1 Vol. 2 no ISBN

During the 1970s the British newspaper underwent radical changes in style and particularly content as lip service to female liberation and the sexual revolution allowed editors to wedge in even more semi-clad women for men to ogle even while bragging that now the chicks were in control of their own lives.

One place where that policy actually manifested in truly strong female role models as opposed to vapid eye-candy and fluff-piece fashion flash-in-the-pans was the comics page where the likes of Modesty Blaise, Scarth, Amanda and a wave of other capable ladies walked all over the oppressor gender both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios.

They still got their kit off at every imaginable opportunity, but that was just tradition and the idiom of the medium…

By 1978 the fuss and furore had somewhat subsided and aggressive, take-charge naked chicks had become commonplace, but when Star Wars reinvigorated public interest in science fiction the old concept of a scantily-clad, curvaceous beautiful barbarienne toiling through post-apocalyptic wonderlands resurfaced. The concept must have appealed mightily to the features editor of The Sun when it first crossed his desk, especially with Modesty Blaise illustrator Enrique Badia Romero attached to the proposal as artist…

Veteran writer Donne Avenell (who had cut his teeth on hundreds of British comics icons and such major international features as The Phantom and assorted Disney strips) provided racy, pacy, imaginative and subversively clever scripts for glamour-strip star Romero, who had begun his career in Spain in 1953, producing everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards, often in conjunction with his brother Jorge Badía Romero. He even formed his own publishing house.

“Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before assuming the art duties on the high-profile Modesty strip in 1970, only leaving when this enticing new prospect appeared. Political and editorial intrigue saw Axa cancelled in the middle of a story in 1986 and Enric soon returned to Blaise until creator Peter O’Donnell retired in 2001. Since then he has produced Modesty Blaise material for Scandinavia and a number of projects such as Durham Red for 2000AD.

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 1978 to her abrupt disappearance in 1986 and other than these slim volumes from strip preserver Ken Pierce has never been graced with a definitive collection. It should be noted also that at the time of these books the strip was still being published to great acclaim.

The first black and white volume opens with an informative essay ‘Introducing Axa’ by publisher and historian Maggie Thompson outlining the history of and indifference to nudity in British newspaper strips after which ‘The Beginning’ takes us to 2080AD and a domed city where restless, buxom, anti-social amazon Axa chafes under the stifling oppressive security of the State which controls the citizens’ lives down to the most minute detail.

Throwing off her shackles and her clothes she leaves her assigned mate Jon, breaks out and flees to the post-apocalyptic wastelands created by The Great Contamination, populated only by mutants and monsters. In a cave she is attacked by a giant spider and saved by Matt, a debased (but hunky) warrior of the Middle People tribe. Taken to their village she discovers that the free primitives are just as hide-bound and oppressive as the City Men. Fleeing the village with the captivated Matt she finds a gleaming long-sword and finally discovers the secret of total true freedom is the ability to defend oneself…

Matt convinces her to return to the Middle Men, but she is betrayed and condemned to be a breeding female, but finds unwelcome release when she and her fellow captives are taken by raiding mutants. Easily escaping, she follows the raiders, intent on freeing the other captive women, once more linking up with the double-crossing Matt.

Surviving the monsters of the wilderness they catch up with the raiders only to be captured. After a climactic battle where Axa’s arguments and beliefs are more effective than any weapons, the rescued women are freed…

This segues straight into ‘The Chosen’ as Axa discovers that her fierce nature and astounding exploits has led the Middle People to declare her a goddess. Bemused by the attention at first she soon finds at it’s all a ploy by the wily tribe’s leader. Goddesses are locked up in temples where they can’t interfere or change the way the people are governed…

Never defeated, Axa breaks out and battles her way to freedom, dragging the ambivalent and indecisive Matt with her. Trekking through a beast-infested desert she is soon lost, alone and near death when she is rescued by Jon. Thinking he has come to join her she awakes to find herself a prisoner, returned to the Dome for therapy.

Sanitized and “Depersonalised’ with mind-bending drugs she once more becomes a decent citizen, but the lure of freedom is too strong and once more she rebels. Throwing off the chemical cosh Axa once more makes a break for the outside, but this time with the sanction of the Dome’s ruler who wants the unconquerable woman to undertake an impossible mission…


The second volume, containing the next two adventures, opens with a text appreciation and recap by Catherine Yronwoode after which Axa the Desired begins with the unstoppable freedom-seeker heading towards the coast, closely followed by the reluctant Jon, torn between his desire for her and disgust with the tainted world beyond the Dome.

Soon they have found a colony of survivors eking out an existence from the slowly healing seas, but are betrayed only to be rescued by two sailors from a foreign land. Jon has had enough and bolts back for the safety of the Domed City and Axa takes ship with the mariners, but the constant storms which batter the poisoned seas destroy their boat and she is washed ashore on an island where the old civilisation seems to have survived.

Appearances are deceiving: the lifestyle of the islanders is about to end as their stockpiled resources of guns and food and gasoline are all but gone. All but handsome Jason Arkady are decrepit dotards and their enclave was doomed until the healthy, hopefully fertile Axa turned up…

Initially horrified, the suave Jason almost turns the wild-woman’s head, but as the mad cracks in the isolated island-culture begin to show, she bolts and discovers that her companion from the shipwreck has been hiding out on the beach, secretly aided by Jason…

When the three try to escape, the suppressed insanity of the Arkady clan boils over in a cascade of blood, bullets and conflagration…

The next saga – also called ‘the Desired’ – sees the trio reach what was once Europe where the biggest surprise was Axa’s discovery of another Dome, just like the one she fled from but located at the bottom of a shallow sea. However this bastion of technology is even worse than her old home as the rulers are women who have dominated their own men and use mutants adapted to aquatic conditions as slaves and beasts of burden.

Even after all her woes at male hands Axa cannot abide the loss of any creature’s liberty and rejects the overtures of the Sea Women to join their society. Moreover when the slaves’ long-planned revolt erupts she manages to avoid taking sides and broker a solution acceptable to all…

These tales are classically European if not British in style: lavishly drawn, cunningly written, expansive in scope and utterly enchanting in their basic simplicity. Eminently readable and re-readable, perhaps the distant promise of a major motion picture (although the project has been in a development wasteland much like the one seen here since 2005) might lure a bold publisher into producing some definitive collectors editions…

© 1981, 1982, Express Newspapers, Ltd. First American Collectors Edition Series © 1982 Ken Pierce, Inc.

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Merry Christmas, Boys and Girls!

In keeping with my own self-created Christmas tradition here’s another selection of British Annuals that contributed to making me what I am today, selected not just for nostalgia’s sake but because they are still eminently palatable and worthy of your attention, even under here in the disconcertingly futurist 21st Century.

After decades when only American comics and nostalgia items were considered collectable, recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in home grown product. If you’re lucky enough to stumble across a vintage volume, I hope my words can convince you to acquire it. However, if I can also create a groundswell of publishers’ attention, maybe a lot of magical material out there in print limbo will resurface in affordable new collections…

Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of readers once again. On one level the tastes of the public have never been more catholic than today and a sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base. Let’s make copyright owners aware that there’s money to be made from these slices of our childhood. You start the petition… I’ll certainly sign it.

Hanna-Barbera’s The Impossibles Annual

By various (Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co.)
No ISBN

British Comics have always fed from 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 Champion the Wonder Horse or Lone Ranger and a host of others would require original material or as a last resort, similarly themed or related strips. The Impossibles Annual was one of these and used both solutions…

Frankenstein, Jr. and the Impossibles debuted in America in Fall 1966, an early entry in Hanna-Barbera’s line of spoof superheroes cartoons (preceded by Atom Ant and followed by the likes of Captain Caveman and Hong Kong Phooey) and led to a string of straight adventures heroes like Birdman, Johnny Quest and the magnificent Alex Toth-designed Space Ghost.

Frankenstein Jr. was an affable giant robot built by the rather recondite Professor Conroy who went crimefighting with his builder’s spunky son Buzz, whilst The Impossibles were a trio of superheroes who travelled the world defeating evil at the behest of their mysterious handler “Big D”. Their cover was a pop group of the same name, and, since television and comics producers love to hedge their bets, Multi Man Fluid Man and Coil Man bore a more than coincidental resemblance to a certain band from Liverpool who were currently taking the world by storm…

The show ran for two seasons, but Hanna-Barbera’s comicbook connection Gold Key only ever released one issue of Frankenstein Jr. (which included an Impossibles back-up) and the contents of that are all included here, so the British publisher found themselves having to reprint other H-B adaptations as well as paying for new material – in the traditional form of text stories and features.

With typical British eccentricity the B-feature got top billing here so the titular stars don’t actually appear too often in this 64 page nostalgia goldmine, which opens with just such an illustrated prose story (sadly uncredited and anonymous). ‘The Impossibles Cure a Doctor’ is an impressively clever duel with a mad scientist, promptly followed by a Gold Key strip ‘The Impossibles vs. The Mirror-Man’ (probably drawn by unsung genius of cartoon comics Pete Alvarado – but I’m only guessing).

Next up is the first associative fill-in; one of two rewritten strips featuring future family The Jetsons. ‘Auto-Pappy’ (and the subsequent ‘How to Mine a Moon!’ might actually be The Rogue Robot and The Wild Moon Chase from #22 of their own Gold Key comic series, but again I’m positing not positive), after which Big Franky and little Buzz tackled ‘The Image Invasion’.

Next up is a stunning show-stealer from artist Dan Spiegle whose Space Ghost thriller ‘Zorak’s Revenge’ blew my mind over forty years ago and still does the business now. It originally appeared in a one-shot from Christmas of 1966 (cover-dated March 1967, because that’s the way the Americans did things). The all-out action against aliens and monsters is followed by another comedy romp when ‘Frankenstein Jr. Meets the Flea Man’ and that aforementioned Jetsons retread, after which a crossword featuring those fabulous future folks gives us all pause for thought.

The Impossibles Annual ends as it began with another prose piece, but one starring Franky and the boy Buzz as they faced ‘A Spook in his Wheel.’

A lost bauble probably only recalled by increasingly doddery dotards, this book is packed with solid family entertainment from simpler times – and possibly created for simpler kids – but I’d love to be proved wrong..

All other material ™ and © 1968 Hanna Barbera Productions Inc. The Jetsons ™ 1968 Screen Gems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Marvel Comic Annual 1969

By various (World Distributors, Ltd.)
No ISBN

When Stan Lee rejuvenated the American comic-book industry in the early 1960s, his biggest advantage wasn’t the small but superb talent pool available, but rather a canny sense of marketing and promotion. DC, Dell/Gold Key and Charlton all had limited overseas licenses (usually in dedicated black-and-white anthologies liked the much beloved Alan Class Comics such as Suspense) but Lee – or his business managers – went further, sanctioning Marvel’s revolutionary early efforts in regular British weeklies like Pow!, Wham!, Smash! and even the venerable Eagle.

There were two wholly Marvel-ised papers, Fantastic! and Terrific! which ran from 1967 to 1968. These slick format comics featured a number of key Marvel properties, and, appearing every seven days, soon exhausted the back catalogue of the company.

After years of being a guest in other publications Marvel finally secured their own UK Annuals through the publishing arm of World Distributors and this sparkling collection is one of the very best. Completely gone are the text pieces, quizzes and game pages that filled out British Christmas books, replaced with cover-to-cover superhero action produced by the emergent House of Ideas at the very peak of their creative powers and even includes a few almost Golden Age classics. Moreover it’s in full colour throughout – almost unheard of at the time.

A closer look by Marvel scholars would ascertain that all of the strips published here were actually taken from the wonderful 25¢ giants (Marvel Tales, Marvel Collectors Item Classics and Marvel Superheroes) released during the previous year, perfectly portioned out to fit into a book intended for a primarily new and young audience.

Behind the delightful painted cover the enchantment commences with a John Romita drawn Captain America tale from 1954, as the Sentinel of Liberty and Bucky lay waste to a scurvy gang of Red Chinese dope smugglers in ‘Cargo of Death’, promptly followed by a spectacular Thor saga from Lee, Jack Kirby & Chic Stone as the Thunder God tackled ‘The Cobra and Mr. Hyde’ complete with cameo from the mighty Avengers.

The first of two Hulk shorts comes next, another commie-busting classic with science fiction overtones Lee, Kirby & Dick Ayers’s ‘The Gladiator from Outer Space’ is a terrific all-action mini-blockbuster, perfectly complimented by the superbly Lee & Steve Ditko sinister crime Shocker wherein Spider-Man finds himself trapped between ‘The Goblin and the Gangsters!’

Unsung genius Bill Everett provided two superb Sub-Mariner tales, both from the fabulous 1950s, and the secret origin saga ‘Wings on his Feet’ is the first and undeniable best of these, his magical line-work wonderfully enhanced by the bold colour palette and crisp heavy white paper of this comfortingly sturdy tome.

He is followed by a masterful clash of titans as ‘Iron Man Faces Hawkeye the Marksman’ by Lee & Don Heck, before ‘The Hulk Triumphant’ (concluding chapter of the very first appearance wherein the Green Goliath ended the menace of Soviet mutation The Gargoyle) and this Annual ends with an enthralling Everett Sub-Mariner epic as the Prince of Atlantis defeated mad scientists and monsters ‘On a Mission of Vengeance!’

These oft-reprinted tales have never looked better than on the 96 reassuringly solid pages here: bold heroes and dastardly villains running riot and forever changing the sensibilities of a staid nation’s unsuspecting children. Magic, utterly Marvellous Magic!
© 1969 Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation, Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

The Dandy Book 1968

By various (D.C. Thomson & Co.)
No ISBN

For many British fans Christmas means The Beano Book (although Scots worldwide have a pretty fair claim that the season belongs to them with collections of The Broons and Oor Wullie making every December 25th magical) but I’ve done one of those so this year I’m concentrating on a another Thomson cracker that made me the man wot I am. As usual my knowledge of the creators involved is woefully inadequate but I’m going to hazard a few guesses in the hope that someone with better knowledge will correct me when I err.

The Dandy comic actually predated the Beano by eight months, completely revolutionising the way children’s publications looked and most importantly how they were read. Over the decades it too produced a bevy of household names that delighted generations and the end of year celebrations were bumper bonanzas of the comic’s weekly stars in brief and extended stories.

The action here begins on the inside front cover as seminal star Korky the Cat (by Charles Grigg?) got the ball rolling – wrapped up the show at the end – before unique cowboy superman Desperate Dan suffers a prank from his equally rambunctious nephew and niece which literally brings the house down and hard-pressed squaddie Corporal Clott (by Dennis the Menace originator Davy Law or possibly his successor David Sutherland) finds guard duty in the snow a little chilly, taking ludicrous steps to warm up. He was equally ill-considered in his other two appearances this year…

D.C. Thomson were extremely adept at combining anarchic, clownish comedy with solid fantasy adventure tales such as ‘The Island of Monsters’ (illustrated by Paddy Brennan or perhaps Ron Smith) a thrilling castaway yarn as two boys find themselves marooned on a tropical paradise where all the animals suddenly grow to incredible size. He/they might also be the artist on the other science fiction thriller in this volume. ‘Captain Whoosh’ was a jet-pack wearing thief constantly foiled by plucky paperboy Terry Ball who here foils the rocket rogue’s attempts to plunder Moortown’s extremely well-stocked Art Gallery and museum. These picture thrillers usually came in the old-fashioned captioned format, with blocks of typeset text rather than lettered word balloons.

These annuals were traditionally produced in the wonderful “half-colour” that many British publishers used to keep costs down whilst bringing a little spark into our drab and gloomy young lives. This was done by printing sections of the books with two plates, such as blue/Cyan and red/Magenta: The versatility and palette range this provided was astounding. Even now this technique screams “Holidays” to me and my contemporaries, and this volume uses the technique to stunning effect.

The Smasher was a lad from the same mould as Dennis the Menace and in the four episodes here (by Hugh Morren) he carves a characteristic swathe of anarchic destruction, whilst a great deal of material was based on school as seen by both teachers and pupils. ‘Greedy Pigg’ (by George Martin), featured a voracious teacher always attempting to confiscate and scoff his pupils snacks. He fails miserably three times in this book… After a giant rebus crossword quiz by Eric Roberts (or perhaps Tom Williams), Dan returns only to fall foul of tomato growers, whilst Korky accidentally talks himself into a duel and ends up soundly thrashed. The immortal cat fares far better in his spats with be-kilted Highland strongmen, a beach inspector and in an angling competition but comes painfully second to boxing organisers when he tries to view without paying…

There’s one more extra-long Desperate Dan tale (wherein he paints the town red, but not in a good or gentle way) at the end of the book, but before then the magnificent Eric Roberts does double-duty this year with five strips starring perennial bath-dodger Dirty Dick and an extended seasonal saga of Boarding School bright-spark Winker Watson, and still found time and energy to illustrate five giant puzzle-spreads, whilst the inevitable outcomes of the four clashes between Bully Beef and Chips (drawn by Jimmy Hughes) invariably found the underdog’s brain always trumps brutal brawn.

This book is not short on drama or comedy adventure either. ‘Spunky and his Spider’ is the delightful rustic tale of an affable, truanting kid and his devoted, amiable apple-loving, giant antediluvian arachnid by the fabulous Bill Holroyd, who also crafted a hilarious school Christmas party romp starring schoolboy Charley Brand and his robotic pal ‘Brassneck’ and a cheeky sci fi giggle-fest starring alien visitor ‘Super Sam’ and his humongous minder Big Boris on a fact-finding mission to a town near you… As with the thrillers these yarns also came typeset, allowing more of the fabulous artwork to shine through.

‘Randall’s Vandals’, by an artist I don’t recognise, is the story of a canny gamekeeper’s son seeing off a bunch of rowdy big city poachers and everybody’s favourite sheepdog Black Bob tugs at the heartstrings in the book’s only prose story as a wilful lad playing with fireworks renders the legendary Border Collie a (temporarily) ‘Blind Bob!‘ The beautiful illustrations are, as ever, by the great Jack Prout.

Stuffed with activity and gag-pages, and bursting with classic kid’s comedy and adventure this is a tremendously fun book, and even in the absence of the legendary creators such as Dudley Watkins, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid, there’s still so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this book is over four decades old. If ever anything needed to be issued as commemorative collections it’s such D.C. Thomson annuals as this…

© 1968 D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Comics at War


By Denis Gifford (Hawk Books)
ISBN: 978-0-96824-885-6

Often the books we write about our comics are better than the stories and pictures themselves: memorable, intensely evocative and infused with the nostalgic joy that only passing years and selective memory bestows.

That’s not in any way to denigrate or decry the superb works of the countless, generally unlauded creators who brightened the days of generations of children with fantastic adventures and side-splitting gags in those so flimsy, so easily lost and damaged cheap pamphlets, but rather because of an added factor inherent in these commemorative tomes: by their very existence they add the inestimable value and mystery of lost or forgotten treasures into the mix.

A perfect example of this is today’s wonderful item, a copious and huge chronicle released as an anniversary item in 1988 celebrating the wartime delights rationed out to beleaguered British lads and lasses, compiled by possibly the nation’s greatest devotee and celebrant of child-culture.

Denis Gifford was a cartoonist, writer, TV show deviser and historian who loved comics. As both collector and creator he gave his life to strips and movies, acquiring items and memorabilia voraciously, consequently channelling his fascinations into more than fifty books on Film, Television, Radio and Comics; imparting his overwhelming devotion to a veritable legion of fans.

If his works were occasionally short on depth or perhaps guilty of getting the odd fact wrong, he was nevertheless the consummate master of enthusiastic remembrance. He deeply loved the medium in concept and in all its execution, from slipshod and rushed to pure masterpieces with the same degree of passion and was capable of sharing – infecting almost – the casual reader with some of that wistful fire.

With hundreds of illustrative examples culled from his own collection this volume was released to commemorate the outbreak of World War II and revels in the magnificent contribution to morale generated by a battalion of artists and (usually anonymous) writers, covering the output of an industry that endured and persevered under appalling restrictions (paper was a vital war resource and stringently rationed), inciting patriotic fervour and providing crucial relief from the stresses and privation of the times.

Abandoning academic rigour in favour of inculcating a taste of the times this 160 page book reprints complete sample strips of the period beginning with the affable tramps and cover feature of Jester, Basil and Bert (by George Parlett), covering the start of the war in four strips from January to November 1939, before dividing the collection into themed sections such as ‘Be Prepared’ (with examples of Norman Ward’s Home Guard heroes Sandy and Muddy from Knock-Out and John Jukes’ Marmaduke, the Merry Militiaman from Radio Fun.

‘At War With the Army’ displays the ordinary Englishman’s perennial problem with Authority- displaying Koko the Pup and Desperate Dan (by Bob MacGillivray and Dudley Watkins from D.C. Thomsons’ Magic and The Dandy), Weary Willie and Tired Tim (from Chips and superbly rendered by Percy Cocking), as well as stunning two-tone and full colour examples from Tip-Top, The Wonder and others.

‘Tanks a Million!’ finds selections from the height of the fighting, and brings us head-on into the controversial arena of ethnic stereotyping. All I can say is what I always do: the times were different. Mercifully we’ve moved beyond the obvious institutionalised iniquities of casual racism and sexism and are much more tolerant today (unless you’re obese, gay, a smoker or childless and happy about it), but if antiquated attitudes and caricaturing might offend you, don’t read old comics – it’s your choice and your loss.

The strip that started this tirade was an example of Stymie and his Magic Wishbone from Radio Fun (a long-running strip with a black boy-tramp in the tradition of minstrel shows) from a chapter dealing with the comic strip love-affair with armoured vehicles and includes many less controversial examples from Tiger Tim’s Weekly, Knock-Out, Chips and Dandy, featuring stars such as Our Ernie, Our Gang, Stonehenge, Kit the Ancient Brit and Deed-A-Day Danny.

…And if you think we were hard on innocent coloured people just wait till you see the treatment dealt to Germans, Italians and Japanese by our patriotic cartoonists…

‘At Sea with the Navy!’ highlights nautical manoeuvres from Casey Court (Chips, by Albert Pease), Rip Van Wink (Beano, James Crichton), Lt. Daring and Jolly Roger (from Golden, by Roy Wilson, Billy Bunter (Knock-Out, by Frank Minnitt), Hairy Dan (Beano, Basil Blackaller) and Pitch and Toss (Funny Wonder, Roy Wilson again) whilst ‘Sinking the Subs’ takes us below the surface with Our Ernie, Desperate Dan, Koko, Pansy Potter, Alfie the Air Tramp and Billy Bunter.

Britain’s fledgling flying squad takes centre-stage with ‘In the Air with the R.A.F.’ featuring Freddie Crompton’s Tiny Tots, Korky the Cat from Dandy, The Gremlins (Knock-Out, by Fred Robinson) and Koko the Pup.

‘Awful Adolf and his Nasty Nazis!’ demonstrates just what we all thought about the Axis nations and even indulges in some highly personal attacks against prominent personages on the other side beginning with Sam Fair’s riotously ridiculing Addie and Hermy, (Beano‘s utterly unauthorised adventures of Hitler and Goering), whilst Our Ernie, Lord Snooty, Pitch and Toss, Big Eggo (Beano, by Reg Carter), Plum and Duff (Comic Cuts, Albert Pease) and the staggeringly offensive Musso the Wop – He’s a Big-a-Da-Flop, (Beano, Artie Jackson and others) all cheered up the home-front with devastating mockery.

‘Doing Their Bit’ gathers wartime exploits of the nation’s stars and celebrities (turning Britain’s long love affair with entertainment industry stars into another bullet at the Boche. Strips featuring Tommy Handley, Arthur Askey, Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Flanagan and Allen, Haver and Lee, The Western Brothers, Sandy Powell, Old Mother Riley featuring Lucan & McShane, Claude Hulbert, Duggie Wakefield, Joe E. Brown, Harold Lloyd, Lupino Lane and Laurel and Hardy re-presented here were collectively illustrated by Reg and George Parlett, Tom Radford, John Jukes, Bertie Brown, Alex Akerbladh, George Heath, Norman Ward and Billy Wakefield.

The kids themselves are the stars of ‘Evacuation Saves the Nation!’ as our collective banishment of the cities’ children produced a wealth of intriguing possibilities for comics creators. Vicky the Vacky (Magic, George Drysdale), Our Happy Vaccies (Knock-Out, by Hugh McNeill) and Annie Vakkie (Knock-Out, by Frank Lazenby) showed readers the best way to keep their displaced chins up whilst ‘Blackout Blues!’ find the famous and commonplace alike suffering from night terrors.

Examples here include Grandma Jolly and her Brolly, Will Hay, the Master of Mirth, Ben and Bert, Barney Boko, Crusoe Kids, Grandfather Clock, Constable Cuddlecock and Big Ben and Little Len whilst ‘Gas Mask Drill’ sees the funny side of potential asphyxiation with choice strips such as Stan Deezy, Hungry Horace, Deed-A-Day Danny, Big Eggo, Good King Coke and Cinderella.

‘Barrage Balloons!’ lampoons the giant sky sausages that made life tricky for the Luftwaffe with selections from Luke and Len the Odd-Job Men (from Larks by Wally Robertson), It’s the Gremlins, Alfie the Air Tramp, and In Town this Week from Radio Fun, whilst ‘Tuning Up the A.R.P.!’ deals out the same treatment to the volunteers who patrolled our bombed-out streets after dark. The Air Raid Precautions patrols get a right sending up in strips starring Deed-A-Day Danny, Big Eggo, P.C. Penny, Ben and Bert, Marmy and His Ma, Lord Snooty and his Pals, The Tickler Twins in Wonderland, Our Ernie, Tootsy McTurk, Boy Biffo the Brave and Pa Perkins and his Son Percy.

The girls get a go in the vanguard with ‘Wow! Women of War!’ starring Dandy‘s Keyhole Kate and Meddlesome Matty (by Allan Morley and Sam Fair respectively), Dolly Dimple (Magic, Morley again), Tell Tale Tilly, Peggy the Pride of the Force, Pansy Potter the Strongman’s Daughter, Big Hearted Martha Our A.R.P. Nut and Kitty Clare’s Schooldays whilst the Home Guard stumble to the fore once more in a section entitled ‘Doing Their Best’ with examples from Tootsy McTurk (Magic, John Mason), Casey Court, Lord Snooty, Deed-A-Day Danny, and Big Eggo.

Imminent invasion was in the air and the cartoonist responded with measured insolence. ‘Hop It, Hitler!’ displays our fighting spirit with examples such as Bamboo Town (Dandy, Chick Gordon), Sandy and Muddy, Pansy Potter, the astonishingly un-PC Sooty Snowball, Hair-Oil Hal Your Barber Pal and Stonehenge Kit, whilst espionage antics are exposed in ‘I Spy Mit Mein Little Eye!’ in Laurie and Trailer the Secret Service Men, more Sandy and Muddy, Herr Paul Pry, Big Eggo and Lord Snooty.

‘Wireless War!’ celebrates both radio stars and enemy broadcasts with a selection from Tommy Handley, Troddles and his Pet Tortoise Tonky-Tonk, Happy Harry and Sister Sue, Crackers the Perky Pup, Our Gang and a couple of examples of John Jukes’ spectacularly wicked Radio Fun strip Lord Haw-Haw – The Broadcasting Humbug from Hamburg.

‘To Blazes With the Firemen!’ is a rather affectionate and jolly examination of one of the toughest of home-front duties with a selection of strips including Podge (who’s dad was a fire-fighter, drawn by Eric Roberts for Dandy), Casey Court, Pansy Potter and In Town This Week.

Rationing was never far from people’s minds and an art-form where the ultimate reward was usually “a slap-up feed” perfectly lambasted the measures in many strips. Examples here include The Bruin Boys from Tiny Tim’s Weekly, Freddy the Fearless Fly (Dandy, Allan Morley), Cyril Price’s vast ensemble cast from Casey Court (Chips), Our Ernie and Dudley Watkins’ Peter Piper from Magic, all in need of ‘Luvly Grub!’

Under the miscellaneous sub-headings of ‘Salvage’, ‘Comical Camouflage!’, ‘Workers Playtime!’ and ‘Allies’, strips featuring Ronnie Roy the Indiarubber Boy, Ding Dong Dally, Desperate Dan, Tin-Can Tommy the Clockwork Boy, Big Hearted Arthur and Dicky Murdoch and other stalwarts all gather hopeful momentum as the Big Push looms and this gloriously inventive and satisfying compilation heads triumphantly towards its conclusion.

‘V for Victory!’, wherein a telling gallery of strips celebrating the war’s end and better tomorrows features final sallies from Casey Court, Weary Willie and Tired Tim, a stunning Mickey Mouse Weekly cover by Victor Ibbotson, Its That Man Again – Tommy Handley, Laurel and Hardy and from Jingles, Albert Pease has the last word with ‘Charlie Chucklechops Speaking… About New Uses for Old War materials’…

Some modern fans find a steady diet of these veteran classics a little samey and formulaic – indeed I too have trouble with some of the scripts – but the astonishing talents of the assembled artists here just cannot be understated. These are great works by brilliant comic stylists which truly stand the test of time. Moreover, in these carefully selected, measured doses the tales here from a desperate but somehow more pleasant and even enviable time are utterly enchanting. This book is long overdue for a new edition and luckily for you is still available through many internet retailers.
Text and compilation © 1988 Denis Gifford. © 1988 Hawk Books. All rights reserved.

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Jack Staff: Everything Used to Be Black and White


By Paul Grist (Dancing Elephant/Image)
ISBN: 978-1-5824-0335-9

Growing up a comic fan in 1960s and 1970s Britain was an oddly schizophrenic situation. Not only were we bombarded and enthralled by our own weirdly eclectic mix of TV stars, Empire jingoism and military bluster, fantastic anti-establishment fantasy, science-fiction and sport yarns – augmented by the sheer inspired, madcap anarchy of the gag strips that always accompanied such adventure serials in our anthology weeklies, but from 1959 we also had unfettered access to the exotic worlds and thinly veiled cultural imperialism of American comicbooks, bulk-imported as ballast in cargo ships and readily available in glorious full colour…

And don’t even get me started on the few, but classy European wonders such as Tintin, Lucky Luke and Asterix that also filtered into the funnybook gestalt brewing in our fevered little heads. All this pictorial wonderment tended to make us young disciples a tad epicurean in our tastes and broad-minded, eccentric synthesists about our influences…

I’ve followed Paul Grist’s work since the small press days of Burglar Bill and St. Swithin’s Day and his brilliantly refined design sense and incisive visual grasp of character have made his interpretations of Grendel, Judge Dredd and other commercial properties an excellent example of why individuality always trumps house-style. However, when he writes his own material, he steps into a creator class few can touch, always blending and refining the key elements of genre and shared public consciousness into a stunningly inviting new nostalgia. For a perfect example check out what he accomplished with hard-boiled detective archetypes in his splendid Kane (see Kane: Welcome to New Eden among others).

He established his own company, Dancing Elephant Press, to produce the kind of works big-time publishers lacked the imagination to support and in 2002 returned to the childhood delights of superhero comics with the creation of Jack Staff, who began life as a proposed Union Jack story for Marvel.

When they pulled the plug, Grist, unable to let a good idea go and now freed of the usual creative restraints that come from playing with other people’s toys, went wild and produced a purely British take on the superhero phenomenon that is simultaneously charming, gripping and devilishly clever.

I usually go into laborious (most would say tedious) detail about the events in these graphic novel reviews but this first Jack Staff collection (gathering the first 12 issues) will be an exception as Grist’s captivating style here – based on and mimicking the anthology format of British Weeklies such as Lion and Valiant – mean that each issue feels like seven stories in one. As my intention is to convince to buy this book I’m sacrificing detail for brevity… you lucky people.

Becky Burdock is a feisty girl reporter for trashy newspaper The World’s Press in a nondescript British city.  In ‘Yesterday’s Heroes’ whilst hunting down a serial killer scoop on the “Castletown Slasher” she accidentally stumbles onto the identity of Jack Staff (Britain’s greatest costumed hero since WWII, but a man missing since the 1980s) when local builder John Smith saves her from a collapsing billboard.

This precipitates memories of a wartime international superhero team’s The Freedom Fighters and a battle against a centuries old vampire and strangely involves the British Q Branch (investigating un-rational or weird crimes) and US superhuman Sgt. States, Staff’s opposite number and another seemingly immortal patriotic hero.

Marvel Zombies will rightly identify this tale has echoes of the Roy Thomas & Frank Robbins “Baron Blood” storyline from the 1970s comic The Invaders and if Marvel had been more accommodating this would indeed have been a classy sequel to that saga. However they missed their chance and this magically tongue-in-cheek pastiche is the magnificent result.

There are still superhumans in this world such as heroic Tom Tom, the Robot Man and the villainous Doc Tempest and even mortal champions such as Albert Bramble and his son Harold who battle dark forces as Vampire hunters, but even they cannot prevent Becky from becoming a victim of the killer stalking the city. John Smith is clearly reluctant to rejoin the masked hero community but events keep pushing him until he uncovers an international conspiracy of sanctioned atrocity that naturally gets hushed up by the powers that be…

These stories are rife with references and cameos from fifty years of popular culture – and not just comics: thinly disguised TV icons such as Steptoe and Son, Dad’s Army and The Sweeney jostle alongside purely comicbook stars such as Captain America and Dr. Strange and members of our own uniquely bizarre pantheon such as Robot Archie, Zip Nolan, Kelly’s Eye, Jason Hyde, Adam Eterno and even relatively real people such as Alan Moore and Neal Gaiman.

A far larger part is played by incomparable poacher turned gamekeeper The Spider in the second story-arc ‘Secrets, Shadows and the Spider!‘ as things go quirkily cosmic when Becky Burdock, Vampire Reporter and the increasingly intriguing Q cops stumble into real X Files territory and we get some welcome background into recent history when a 1960s super-criminal starts stealing again.

Or does he? The Spider never shot anybody before…

The mystery is cleared up when elderly Alfred Chinard (it’s a partial anagram – work it out…) hires builder John Smith and springs a trap on his old foe before they notionally team up to stop the real thief. Of course it doesn’t really go Jack’s way and he is literally left holding the bag. After a full length Q adventure ‘Quotations’ involving a meta-fictional serial killer, ‘Out of Time’ rounds out the book.

Here, Victorian showman and escapologist Charlie Raven (a canny reworking of the superb Janus Stark) enters the picture, encountering a Dorian Gray-like mystery and losing a battle to a foe who consumes time itself. As a result the charismatic Raven endures an Adam Adamant moment and ends up in 21st century Castletown, where his enemy is still predating the human populace. Also causing trouble is Ben Kulmer – the invisible bandit known as The Claw (lovingly homaging Ken Bulmer, Tom Tully and Jesús Blasco’s astounding antihero The Steel Claw).

When that nice Mr. Chinard turns up again the stage is set for a spectacular time-rending chronal clash involving the entire expansive cast that is spectacular, boldly bewildering and superbly satisfying

The stark yet inviting black and white design, refined, honed and pared down to a minimalist approachability has an inescapable feeling of Europe about it. If ever anyone was to create a new Tin Tin adventure, Grist would be the ideal choice to draw it. Not because he draws like Hergé, but because he knows his craft as well as Hergé did. However I’m deliriously happy that he has so brilliantly assimilated the essences of the cherished keystones of my beloved comics-consuming past and given them such a vital and compelling new lease of life.

Thrilling, funny, fabulous. Buy this Book!

™ & © Paul Grist. All rights reserved.

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Great British Comics


By Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury (Aurum)
ISBN: 978-1-84513-170-3

We’re far too reluctant in this country to celebrate the quality and history of our own comic strip tradition; preferring simply to remark on the attention grabbers or impressive longevity of one or two classic and venerable holdovers when the actual truth is that for an incredibly long time the British comics and periodicals industry was vast, varied and fantastically influential.

After my now Customary Disclaimer where I admit that I know and have worked with an author or creator before, (in this case editor/designer/curator/writer/journalist/historian and genuinely brilliant dedicated devotee of all things panel-related, Paul Gravett) and admit to a possibly conflict of interest, I’d like to turn your attention fully to this truly marvellous pictorial dissertation, chronicle, memoir and celebration of the uniquely different world of comforting whimsy, raging tomfoolery, outrageous derring-do, jingoism, anarchy and class warfare that is British comics.

First released in 2006 this confabulation “celebrating 100 years of Ripping Yarns and wizard wheezes” traces the history and social impact of the medium from its earliest popular origins in such illustrated literary pamphlets as the Glasgow Looking Glass and Punch through the separation into adult and juvenile publications, prose story-papers, newspaper strip features and eventually the frenetic blend of words and drawings that we think of today as sequential art.

The book is liberally, bounteously stuffed with not just reams of illustrations but also loads of evocative photographs of the creators (for so long rendered invisible and uncredited by corporate dictat) and most importantly the generations of eager end-users who devoured these imagination-sparking treasures.

‘Lost Worlds of Topsy-Turvy’ tracks the progress of the medium and its lasting effects through an examination of nostalgia and fascination, providing an impressive overview of how and why we love these things and even including a chart marking the chronological timeline of British comics and how long they ran for. Got a favourite publication? Check it out here…

‘For Richer, For Poorer’ features the classic family and national set-up under the British class system, with examples from Alley Sloper’s Half-Holiday, The Broons, Weary Willie and Tired Tim and Posy Simmonds’ The Silent Three through to the terrifying modern icons The Fat Slags from Viz, also visiting with such varied neighbours as Giles’ immortal family, Donald McGill’s saucy postcards, Raymond Williams and the drawing room humour of Bateman, Fougasse, Heath Robinson and Reg Smythe’s Andy Capp.

The vast pictorial end-section includes further graphic examples including strips from Funny Wonder, The Joker, The Jester, John Millar Watt’s Pop, The Ruggles, The Gambols, and even such lost minor modern classics as Phil Elliott’s The Suttons makes a worthy appearance alongside more well-known strips as Alex, Bristow, The Fosdyke Saga and Colonel Pewter.

‘Spitting Images’ covers the British public’s love affair with entertainment and celebrities; spotlighting such publications as Dan Leno’s Comic Journal, Film Fun, Radio Fun, Look-In and others, with strips starring Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Laurel and Hardy, Terry-Thomas, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and The Beatles, proper heroes such as Horatio Nelson, Churchill, Isombard Kingdom Brunel, Dylan Thomas, James Joyce and Andy Murray, plus notionally lesser lights such as Troy Donahue, Adam Ant, Big Daddy, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Hitler and McFly plus so many others all rendered with tremendous skill, wit and not a little Anglo-Saxon charm and sarcasm…

‘Down on Jollity Farm’ explores our vast wealth of anthropomorphic modern fairy-tales from George Studdy’s Bonzo, Teddy Tail, Tiger Tim and the Bruin Boys, Muffin the Mule, Rupert Bear, Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, Count Duckula, Danger Mouse and Wallace and Gromit; even finding room for less savoury kiddies’ fare as the government sponsored adaptation of Animal Farm, Fungus the Bogeyman, Firkin the Cat and Savage Pencil’s punk poesy Rock ‘n’ Roll Zoo.

The anarchic animal stars of DC Thomson, Fleetway and Odhams Press are represented by such wild and woolly class acts as Kid Kong, The Crows, Sid’s Snake, The Three Bears, Mickey the Monkey, Mighty Moth and my own personal bete noir-et blanc, Reg Parlett’s fabulous Mowser the Priceless Puss…

Our preoccupation and virtual obsession with school days is made manifest in ‘Wheezes in the Tuck Shop’ examining the range of educational experience from Billy Bunter and Just William to The Bash Street Kids and the Swots and the Blots, and includes little gems such as Oor Wullie, Lord Snooty and his Pals, Nipper, Dennis the Menace, Roger the Dodger, Winker Watson, Baby Crockett, Sweeney Toddler, and Johnny Fartpants yet still finds room for such unconventional problem children as Ken Reid’s The Nervs, Dare-a-Day Davy and Faceache, Lew Stringer’s Tom Thug and Stephen White’s Dreadlock Holmes.

British kids of all ages have always been captivated by weird worlds and fantastic futures and ‘Things to Come’ traces the development of the science fiction and fantasy strips in the children’s papers from Tom Wilkinson’s fantastical Professor Radium, through such adventure stalwarts as Swift Morgan, Captain Conquest, Jet-Ace Logan, General Jumbo, Robot Archie, Rick Random and all the rest, with all appropriate attention paid to the iconic Dan Dare and Judge Dredd whilst still finding time and space for the likes of Jeff Hawke, the Trigan Empire, and such TV titans as Dr. Who, Thunderbirds, Stingray, Fireball XL5 and such truly groundbreaking strips as V for Vendetta and The Amazing Mr. Pleebus.

If you’d been paying attention instead of staring out the window you might have noticed that all the above cited specimens in ‘Wheezes in the Tuck Shop’ were boys, but don’t think we’ve forgotten the weaker sex (I just checked and there still isn’t an emoticon for trenchant, bitter irony); they just get a section all to themselves in ‘Jolly Hockey Sticks to Sheroes’.

Ladies and girls in comics haven’t always been well-treated. That’s more because the material was mostly created by men not women rather than for any male militant or subversive agenda. However the wealth of strips produced over the decades usually makes up in sheer visual quality what it might lack in relevance or political correctness.

This chapter delves into the female experience through full-on action stars such as Modesty Blaise, Lady Penelope, Judge Anderson and Tank Girl, thoroughly Modern Misses like Three Girls in a Flat, Carol Day, Tiffany Jones, Beryl the Bitch and Tamara Drew and the best from a century of unrepentant glamour pusses from Jane to the inimitable Arthur Ferrier’s assorted dazzling “Dizzy Dames”.

Those all important school days are covered with outings ranging from the little darlings of St. Trinians, to Bunty, Misty, an assortment of ballerinas, gymnasts and orphans and such daring vengeance-taking teams as the Silent Three and The Four Marys. Not-so-Good-Girls include Beryl the Peril, Pansy Potter (…the Strong Man’s Daughter), Keyhole Kate, Minnie the Minx and the formidable Bad Penny.

This compelling compendium concludes with a chapter on the broad spectrum of fantastic adventure heroes and the anti heroes we Brits have always seemed more comfortable with. Exemplars include The Spider, Marvelman, Chang the Yellow Pirate, P.C. 49, Captain Pugwash, Morgyn the Mighty, Desperate Dan, historical bravos like Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Captain Blood, detectives including Sexton Blake, Blackshirt, Tug Transom, Buck Ryan and Romeo Brown, and a sporting pantheon which includes the Tough of the Track, Wilson – the immortal Man in Black, His Sporting Lordship, race car ace Skid Solo and of course the legendary Roy of the Rovers.

The British love of combat is represented by Biggles, Battler Britton, V for Vengeance, Charley’s War, Darkie’s Mob, the fearsome Captain Hurricane and a selection from the long running Commando Picture Library among others, western strips by Tony Weare, Denis McCloughlin, Robert Forest and Frank Humphris, and our frankly skewed take on superheroes is displayed in and counter-pointed by examples including House of Dollman, Frankie Stein, Jonah, Grimly Feendish, The Cloak, Charley Peace, Yellowknife of the Yard, Kelly’s Eye, Janus Stark, the Steel Claw, Billy the Cat and Captain Britain.

If you’re a lover of epics there are also stirring reminders of the spectacular grandeur of Michael Moorcock and Ron Embletons’s Wrath of the Gods, Wulf the Briton (Mike Butterworth and Embleton) and Tom Tully and Frank Bellamy’s Heros the Spartan…

Whilst not too detailed this splendid tome contains a magical abundance of images and information and presents them in a welcoming torrent of bite-sized facts and gloriously moving pictures pages that no old fan could resist and which cannot help but beguile and intrigue the unconverted. This is a perfect introduction to the medium and could almost act as a shopping list for any publisher looking to find the next big thing to bring back.

Just imagine: brand new collections of any or all of these immaculate confections…

© 2006 Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury. All Rights Reserved. All artwork © its respective owners and holders.

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Knights of Pendragon: Once and Future


By Dan Abnett, John Tomlinson, Gary Erskine & Andy Lanning (Marvel/Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-431-7

The world was a rapidly changing place in 1990 and fledgling offshoot Marvel UK was critically rising high thanks to the immensely impressive original Captain Britain material being created by Alan Moore and Alan Davis. On a roll, the company attempted to expand its line with an associated title, once more combining Arthurian fantasy with tried and true Marvel superheroic action. Or so everybody thought…

The Knights of Pendragon prominently featured Captain Britain on the covers but the epic tale that unfolded over the next few months was far more a supernatural horror story in the manner of prophetic TV show “Doomwatch” than a traditional Fights ‘n’ Tights slugfest – even by the often outré British standards.

Steeped in ecological hot-button topics and starring, initially at least, a podgy, over-the-hill welsh copper who had begun life as a authoritarian gadfly before becoming a solid, stolid comrade to Brian Braddock (Cap’s aristocratic Alter Ego), Knights of Pendragon followed Chief Inspector Dai Thomas as he seemingly went off the deep end, plagued by horrific premonitions of grisly massacres that all seemed linked to environmental crimes perpetrated by globe-girdling conglomerate the Omni Corporation. However as the months unfolded a pattern slowly unfolded that indicated something far older and more dangerous than money was flexing long dormant fangs and sinews…

This book gathers issues #1-9, July 1990-March 1991, of the first volume (a second far more traditional series followed in 1993) and sees the saga begin with ‘Brands and Ashes’ as Thomas is summoned by Captain Britain to a meeting of the clandestine agency the Weird Happenings Organisation. It appears the retired cop’s dream of 87 hungry patrons mysteriously suffocating in a spacious, airy well-ventilated burger-bar has come hideously true. Meanwhile Omni Corp exec Grace has sent her dashing leg-breaker Dolph to “reason” with the minister in charge of W.H.O….

As Thomas is briefed on an increasingly large and violent tide of bizarre eco-mysteries, down in Kent something horrible is occurring on an Omni farm using new and lethally dangerous pesticides. Rogue TV journalist Kate McClellan is circling too. She smells a big story and is ruthlessly open-minded. She wants and will publish the truth no matter how strange and impossible it might appear…

Thomas is getting worse. His visions now include blackouts and fugue episodes in which he sees himself as the medieval hero of the ancient epic “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” battling ogres, villains and monsters.

‘Skin and Bone’ finds him following a lead to Africa where ivory poachers are using helicopters and assault rifles to slaughter elephants in vast numbers. McClellan is there before him and has already discovered a link to smuggled diamonds and Omni but before Thomas can make an arrest the supernal force he is slowly coming to believe in exacts its own bloody justice, whilst ‘Oil and Water’ sees cop and reporter in Florida, investigating another bizarre Omni-related atrocity – smuggling endangered species – when an ambush goes wrong. Any doubt of supernatural involvement is abandoned when they are rescued from certain death by a creature that cannot possibly exist…

Thomas is gradually changing: evolving into a younger, fitter version of himself and the premonitions and dreams of Gawain are occurring more frequently. In ‘Blood and Feathers’, Grace decides to end the old copper’s interference with an elite squad of high tech mercenaries led by Dolph. After smashing another animal smuggling ring – with his bare hands – Thomas and McClellan are attacked in broad daylight. He overcomes the super-commandoes with ease, but the machinations of Grace have made him a liability to W.H.O. and Captain Britain is ordered to bring him in at all costs…

‘Hope and Glory’ reveals Kate is having visions of her own. As Thomas makes his way across Costa Rica hunting the thing that’s hunting Omni’s assorted enterprises, she is arrested by W.H.O. agents. Dai is close to the answers he’s been seeking as he enters an apocalyptic area of jungle deforestation, convinced he is Gawain reborn. The spirit of the planet has given man one final chance to live with, not against, the eco-system, but the forces of progress and destruction are subtle and have turned his greatest friend against him…

After a stupendous battle Thomas is beaten to death by Captain Britain, and in the concluding ‘Once and Future’ Gawain takes full control of his broken body, casually revealing the guilt-wracked superhero to be Lancelot whilst Kate houses the spirit of Guinevere. Attacked by demonic monsters the trio trek through the devastated rain-forest, making a pilgrimage to the home of the embattled animating force called the Green Knight, saving the Green Chapel, mystical heart of the world, from dark forces that have worked through Omni and other modern enterprises which value profit over the planet…

Its mission accomplished, Gawain’s essence leaves Dai’s body, resurrecting and healing him, but there has been no victory, only a truce. The Green Knight will no longer attack human greed and folly directly, but the latest Knights of Pendragon are expected to work in its stead. The second story-arc sees new men of goodwill chosen as hosts for the immortal heroic essences and a redefinition of the vague dark forces they must combat.

In ‘Revelations’ author Ben Gallagher is drawn to a remote Scottish island to bear witness to a brutal slaughter of dolphins, whilst in London a serial killer hunts successful businesswomen and in her technological ivory tower, Omni exec Grace is possessed by the Green Knight’s opposite number, a vile entity calling itself The Bane.

During the Great War the British Empire was championed by a pioneering band of costumed heroes. Union Jack was mere mortal who used brains, brawn and good British ordnance to battle the Hun in two world wars before being succeeded by his son. The third incarnation was Joey Chapman, a true working class hero who here finds himself the next recipient of the spirit of Lancelot.

Kate has a troubled son squirreled away at a remote boarding school. When Cam McClellan goes missing after being possessed by the Merlin analogue known as Herne the Hunter, the situation forces elderly history teacher Peter Hunter to reveal his darkest secret. ‘The Only Child’ describes how in the Great War the schoolmaster was masked mystic superman Albion, but with his surrendered Pendragon force now inhabiting a disturbed child he fears he must reassume the role he gratefully relinquished decades ago.

Captain Britain and Union Jack join the search for Cam but spend more time battling each other than actually helping, leaving the London serial killer free to attack his next target – the world-famous TV journalist Kate McClellan. However, even though the madman is old acquaintance he has not reckoned on her new status as a full-blown Pendragon.

Events take a truly dark turn when Grace arrives at the school to abduct the confused and immensely powerful Cam, intending to corrupt him as once she damned Arthur’s son Mordred…

Gallagher’s sensitively creative yet indomitable nature makes him a perfect host for the returned Sir Percival and in the untitled closing tale he sees the powers arrayed against the returned Knights in full flow, as an innocent dies and entire families of dolphins are sacrificed to the horrific greed and paranoia of humanity and the awful hunger of the Bane

The epic has been building across the nine issues of the series collected here, written with chilling passion by Dan Abnett and John Tomlinson and illustrated with stunning power by then fresh-faced new boy Gary Erskine, suitably inked by near-veteran Any Lanning.

With intriguing and revelatory reminiscences from the writers and original series editor Steve White describing the initial resistance and eventually outright hostility from upper management to the title plus a cover gallery by such leading lights as Alan Davis, Simon Bisley, John Bolton and others, this engrossing and still controversial epic revives a pivotal moment in British mainstream comics and still enthrals two decades later.

Ending on a pensive set of cliffhangers, this absorbing thriller is but half-done, with another utterly fabulous and morally challenging volume still to see. I can’t wait…

© 1990, 1991, 2010 Marvel Entertainment LLC and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini.

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Commando Annual 1989


By various (DC Thomson & Co)
ISBN: 0-85116-422-6

Dundee-based DC Thomson is probably the most influential comics publisher in British history. The Beano and The Dandy revolutionised children’s reading, the newspaper strips Oor Wullie and The Broons (both created by the legendary Dudley D. Watkins) have become a genetic marker for Scottishness and the uniquely British “working class hero” grew from the prose-packed pages of Adventure, Rover, Wizard, Skipper and such action-packed  picture papers as Victor, Hotspur and Warlord.

Their comics for girls also shaped generations and still evoke passionate memories – don’t take my word for it either – just ask your mum or grandmother about Judy, Bunty, Diana, Mandy and the rest….

In 1961 the company launched a digest-sized title called Commando. Broadly similar in dimensions to a slim paperback book, it offered 68 black and white pages per issue and an average of two panels a page. Each issue told a complete war story (generally based in World War I or II – although all theatres of conflict have featured since) and told tasteful yet gripping stories of valour and heroism in stark dramas which came charged with grit and authenticity. The fully painted covers made them look more like novels than comics and they were a huge, instant success. They’re still being published.

A number of these stirring sagas have recently been collected in sturdy, capacious hardback volumes, re-presenting  a dozen classics at a time – and I highly recommend them (see for example Commando: True Brit in our own archive section) but in its decades of unflinching service Commando has occasionally produced other collections such as this redoubtable annual from 1989 (the first of two) which contains shorter stories in a more traditional panel format, rendered in varying degrees of colour and offering all new stories.

Because of previous company policy these tales are all uncredited, (happily not the case nowadays) but as I’d rather not prove my ignorance by guessing who did what, I’m saying nothing and you’ll have to be content with the work itself, although the many fan-sites should be able to provide information for the dedicated researcher. Typically when looking at British comics Gold, this book is readily available through a number of online retailers and wonderfully reasonable in price.

Behind the stunning wraparound cover by Ian Kennedy lie seven cracking yarns. In full colour ‘The Young ‘Un!’ follows coal ship crewman Joe Simes as he struggles to come to terms with his father’s death; a victim of the Royal Navy’s foolish, doctrinaire policies – or at least that what he thought until he joined up… whilst ‘No Surrender’ sees intransigent troublemaker Angus McKay fight his own comrades and Germans with equal passion during a mission to Norway and ‘Duel in the Sun’ pits rebellious Australian pilot Mark Hudson against his own commanders when all he really wants is to kill the Japanese genius shooting down allied pilots as if they were sitting ducks…

‘Killed in Action’ is the part-colour tale (black, white, grey and yellow) and sees cruel, cowardly lieutenant Vivian Fawcett-Bligh challenged by a common soldier who knows all his secrets. Set in the African desert in 1941, it doesn’t end the way you might expect… ‘Big Bird, Little Friend’ is another spectacular full-colour air adventure featuring two rival pilots – one British and the other an American – whose bitter quarrel is finally resolved in the flak-blistered skies over Europe and ‘The Good Soldier’ looks at the war through German eyes as Panzer commander Martin Winter becomes increasingly disaffected and appalled by SS atrocities on the Russian Front…

The strips conclude with another half-colour adventure ‘The Three Musketeers’: wherein three boyhood chums are reunited with explosive results on the beaches of Dunkirk, and this classy package also contains a wealth of feature pages and many brilliant painted pin-up pages.

So ubiquitous and effective were Thomson’s war publications that they moulded the character of three generations of boys – and continue to do so eight times every month. This magical slice of the Blitz Spirit is a wonderful example of purely British comic-making: rousing, passionate and winningly understated, so if you’re looking for a more home-grown comics experience, well-written and wonderfully illustrated, get some in and check this out…
© 1988 D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Judge Dredd: The Apocalypse War


By John Wagner, Alan Grant, Carlos Ezquerra & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-634-7

Britain’s last great comic megastar might be described as a combination of the other two, combining the fantastic science and adventure of Dan Dare with the unrelentingly seditious anarchy and absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre home-grown comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD.

However with at least 52 2000AD strips a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and later The Metro), the Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections and even two rather appalling DC Comics spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print from Rebellion.

One of the most attractive packages and certainly one of the most compelling is this sharply stylish black and white deluxe hardcover collection featuring one of the greatest storylines in the entire canon.

Judicial Briefing: Dredd and his dystopian ultra-metropolis of Mega-City One were created by a very talented committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others but with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and several pseudonymous names.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans and jobs are both beloved pastimes and treasured commodities. Boredom and madness has reached epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away from mental meltdown. Judges are last-ditch peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and instantly trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate and final…

They are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realise is that the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy leavened with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

Dredd’s world is a polluted and precarious Future Tense with all the key analogues for successful science fiction (as ever a social looking-glass for the times it’s created in) situated and sharply attuned to a Cold War Consumer Civilisation. The planet is divided into political camps with Post-nuclear holocaust America locked in a slow death-struggle with the Sov Judges of the old Eastern Communist blocs: militaristic, oppressive and totalitarian – and that’s by the US Judges’ standards, so just imagine what they’re like…

In 1981 Progs (that’s issue numbers to you) #236-244 featured a nine-part story ‘Block Mania’ which detailed an all-out war between two colossal habitation blocks in Mega-City One. With weekly instalments illustrated by Mike McMahon, Ron Smith, Steve Dillon and Brian Bolland (who also supplied some incredible covers) the all-out confrontation between Enid Blyton and Dan Tanna Blocks rapidly proliferated, engulfing surrounding Hab-units, spreading like a plague – or a chemical weapon.

Against a backdrop of utter berserker carnage Dredd discovers a plot by Sov agents to destabilise Mega-City One…

For once the Judge is too late and as his city burns the Dictatorat of East-Meg One launch a nuclear strike, following up with a ground-forces invasion. The Judges hit back with their own nukes and terrified of global Armageddon Mega-City Two and Texas City declare themselves neutral. Mega-City One will stand or fall alone…

Over forty years after the Battle of Britain ‘The Apocalypse War’ stunned and delighted readers. This epic tale of dogged resistance and bloody pyrrhic victory is a masterpiece of drama and tragedy, with Carlos Ezquerra drawing all 26 weekly chapters (even some covers!), and three decades later it still ranks as one of the greatest Dredd tales ever published.

Spectacular, violent, epic and leading to almost incomprehensible actions from someone most readers still considered a “hero” and “good guy” this is as powerful an anti-war story as Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun’s Charley’s War and deserves as much acclaim and respect.

This volume collects the entire saga and its prequel Block War into one mesmerising and compelling work of glittering triumph and dark tragedy, and should grace the shelves of every serious fan of the medium – and the message.
® & © 2003 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

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Judge Dredd Featuring Judge Death


By John Wagner & Brian Bolland (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-386-5

Britain’s last great comic icon could be described as a combination of the other two, combining the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the terrifying anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD.

However with at least 52 2000AD strips a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and later The Metro), the Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections and even two rather appalling DC Comics spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print.

One of the nicest looking packages and certainly one of the most inviting for new readers is this sharply stylish black and white deluxe hardcover collection featuring some of the formative work of superstar artist Brian Bolland.

Bolland by his own admission was an uneconomically slow artist and much of his Dredd work appeared as weekly portions of large epics with other artists handling other episodes, but all the cases collected here are self-contained or short continued sagas, resulting in a wicked compendium of his best, funniest and most striking material all in one magnificent volume.

FYI: Dredd and his dystopian ultra-metropolis of Mega-City One were created by a committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others but with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and several pseudonymous names.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans and jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom has reached epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away mental meltdown. Judges are peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate…

They are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realise is that the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

In Prog (that’s issue number to you) 149-151 (January 26th – February 9th 1980), with the continuity firmly established Wagner, writing as John Howard, introduced ‘Judge Death’, undead lawman from an alternate Earth, where the Judges, when faced with the same problems as our world took their creed to its only logical conclusion: If all crime is perpetrated by the living then to eradicate crime…

With all life ended in his own dimension the ghostly ghoul extended his mission to ours, wiping out criminals and law-abiding citizens alike, with the Judges – even Dredd – unable to stop him until the flamboyant and unconventional psychic hottie Judge Anderson of PSI Division sacrificed herself to trap the evil spirit forever…

As if…

With Wagner clearly on a creative roll the fans spoke long and loud and thus both the Zombie Peacemaker and Anderson were returned within a year in the manic mayhem of ‘Judge Death Lives’ (credited to T.B. Grover but still Wagner really; Progs 224-228, August 8th – September 5th 1981), as a desperate citizen released the horror from his eternal tomb at the behest of three more expired Judges: Mortis, Fire and Fear.

Reunited with their leader the Dark Judges went about their duty executing all of Mega-City One and it took a trip to their home “Deadworld” before Dredd and Anderson could stop the slayers – albeit temporarily. Both Anderson and Death went on to win their own series…

For a while early on in his career, Dredd was seconded to the Moon to oversee the colony there – which was as bonkers as Mega-City One – in conjunction with Cold War enemies the Sov Judges.

From that period came ‘The First Lunar Olympics’ and ‘War Games’ (Progs 50-51, February 5th and 11th 1978) a vicious swipe at contemporary sport’s politicisation which was and still is bloody, brutal and bitingly funny, whilst ‘The Oxygen Board’ and ‘The Face-Change Crimes’ (Progs 57 & 52, March 25th and  February 18th 1978 respectively) are hilariously inventive bank-raid capers with the kind of mordant twists which elevated Dredd so far beyond all other cop and sci-fi strips.

Once rotated back Earthside it was business as unusual in ‘The Fog’ (Prog 127, August 25th 1979) a chillingly atmospheric pastiche of horror film classic House of Wax, whilst in ‘The Forever Crimes’ (Prog 120, July 7th 1979) Dredd showed that being dead was no valid reason for a perp to avoid his sentence and this spectacular chronicle ends with the glorious insane ‘Punks Rule!’ (Prog 110 April 28th 1979), an epilogue to the epic Judge Caligula story-arc, with the Judges slowly resuming control of Mega-City One after a civil war and revolution, with Dredd personally stamping out street gangs that had carved out their own little empires in the aftermath.

Beautifully drawn these are perfect short stories starring modern Britain’s most successful and iconic comic character: timeless classics that no real comic fan can ignore – and just for a change something that you can easily get your hungry hands on…
® & © 2001 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

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Belt Up: Thelwell’s Motoring Manual


By Norman Thelwell (Magnum/Eyre Methuen)
ISBN: 0-413-37320-7

Norman Thelwell (3rd May 1923 – 7th February 2004) is one of Britain’s greatest and most beloved cartoonists. His superbly gentle cartooning combined mannered abstraction with a keen and accurate eye for background detail, not just on the riding and countryside themes that made him a household name, but on all the myriad subjects he turned his canny eye and subtle brush upon. His compositions are an immaculate condensation of everything deprecatingly; resolutely Baby-Booming British – without ever becoming parochial or provincial. He also had a gently vicious, charmingly sardonic sensibility that enabled him to repeatedly hit home like a mink cosh…

His work has international implications and scope, displaying the British to the world for decades. There are 32 books of his work and every aficionado of humour – illustrated or otherwise -could do much worse than possess them all.

From 1950 when his gag-panel Chicko began in the Eagle, and especially two years later with his first sale to Punch, he built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always funny work. He appeared in innumerable magazines, comics and papers ranging from Men Only to Everybody’s Weekly. In 1957 his first collection of published cartoons Angels on Horseback was released and in 1961 he made the rare reverse trip by releasing a book of all-new cartoons that was subsequently serialised in the Sunday Express.

His dry, sly, cannily observed drawings were a huge success and other books followed to supplement his regular appearances in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Every so often an extra edge of refined bile entered his work, as can be seen in this splendidly spiteful collection of reworked ideas from Punch with new, specially created material on that bane of the modern world, the Motor Car.

Within these pages is a bombastic barrage of car-themed cartoon experiences so nearly universal in range and breadth that any poor fool who has ever put pedal to metal cannot help but cringe in sympathy.

From the wonderfully silly to the pitch-blackly trenchant, created by a man who has come to epitomise middle-class values, aspirations and self-delusions, Thelwell dismantled our love affair with the infernal combustion engine and manufacturers’ style over substance, but, knowing human nature never really evolves, didn’t expect to alter a single point of view… just blow off steam at the extremes of daftness and pigheadedness we can resort to whilst trying to get somewhere in comfort and good time…

Broken down into the hilarious Diagram of Controls, followed by such sections as Technical Terms, Men and Their Motors, Women at the Wheel, Children’s Corner, How to Have an Accident, You Have Been Warned, How to Give a Driving Lesson, Do’s and Don’ts for Drivers, Drivers Frantic and How to Get Rid of Your Car this brilliantly vitriolic visual thesis is still bitingly funny today: another startling exhibition of the artist’s fantastic, funny foresight and the British motorist’s beloved intransigence.

The roads may have become an even more frustrating arena than Thelwell could have imagined, but the lure of the open highway or a coveted parking space still obsesses us all and these superb cartoons are simply the most effective cure to traffic jam whim-whams that I can imagine. Timeless and delightful, why not idle your racing engine and pick up this book…?
© 1974, 1978 Norman Thelwell.