There’s a HAIR in My Dirt! – A Worm’s Story


By Gary Larson, coloured by Nick Bell of Wildstorm Productions (Little, Brown and Co/HarperCollins)
ISBNs: 978-0-31664-519-5 (HC)       978-0060932749 (PB)

We may not be rocket scientists but all cartoonists tend to lurk at the sharp end of the IQ bell curve – and then there’s Gary Larson. He could be a rocket scientist if he wanted to. Happily though, his inclinations tend towards natural history and the Life Sciences.

And making people laugh in a truthful, thinking kind of way…

Larson was born in 1950 and raised in WashingtonState. After school and college (also WashingtonStatewhere he got a degree in communications) he bummed around and got a job in a music store – which he hated. During a self-imposed sabbatical he evolved into a cartoonist by submitting to Pacific Search (now Pacific Northwest Magazine) in Seattle who promptly astonished him by accepting and paying for his six drawings. Bemused and emboldened Larson kept on doodling and in 1979 The Seattle Times began publishing his strip Nature’s Way. When The San Francisco Chronicle picked up the gag feature they renamed it The Far Side…

From 1980 on the Chronicle Syndicate peddled the strip with huge success. The Far Side became a global phenomenon and Larson’s bizarre, skewed and bitingly surreal strip starring nature Smug in Tooth and Claw almost took over the world. With 23 collections (over 45 million copies sold), two animated movies, calendars, greetings cards and assorted merchandise seemingly everywhere, the smartypants scribbler was at the top of his game when he retired the feature on January 1st 1995.

After fifteen years at the top, Larson wanted to quit while he was ahead. He still did the occasional promo piece or illustration but increasingly devoted his time to ecological causes and charities such as Conservation International. He still does.

Of course he couldn’t stop drawing or thinking or, indeed, teaching and in 1998 created the stunningly smart and cool children’s book for concerned and nervous adults under the microscope here.

There’s a HAIR in My Dirt! brilliantly, mordantly tells a parable within a fable and serves up a marvellously meaningful message for us to absorb and ingest whilst simultaneously making us laugh like loons and worry like warts.

One day underground a little worm having dinner with his folks finds something unnatural and icky in his meal and starts bemoaning the lowly status and general crappiness of his annelidic existence (look it up, I’m showing off and making a comedic point too…). To counter this outburst of whingeing Father Worm offers a salutary tale to put things into their proper perspective…

Thus begins the tragic tale of Harriet, a beautiful human maiden living – she believed – at one with world in the woods, enraptured with the bountiful Magic of Nature and of one particular frolicsome day encountering cute squirrels, lovely flowers, icky bugs, happy birds, playful deer, tortoises and every kind of creature… and completely missing the point about all of them…

Masquerading as an acerbic faux fairytale teller, Larson delivers an astoundingly astute and unforgettable ecology lesson equally effective in educating young and old alike about Nature’s true nature – and yet still miraculous wonders – all whilst maintaining a monolithic amount of outrageous comic hilarity.

This sublime illustrated yarn became a New York Times Best Seller on its release and still serves as a fabulous reminder of what really clever people can achieve even if they don’t do rocket science…

Seriously though: There’s a HAIR in My Dirt! is one of the smartest, funniest and most enticingly educational kid’s book ever created and should be on every school curriculum. Since it isn’t, perhaps it’s best if you picked one up for the house…?
© 1998 FarWorks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sumo


By Thien Pham (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-581-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: just because it’s great… 10/10

This book is about looking.

The magically multi-cultural nature of pictures mixed with words continually generates a wealth of absolutely fantastic and improbable gems for readers with eyes and minds wide open. This deliciously absorbing visual poem only arrived in the review books delivery a few days ago and it’s honestly become one of this year’s favourites – one of the most elegiac and gently enthralling visual experiences I’ve encountered in many a year…

It’s all about pasts and futures…

The tale begins in a Japanese Dojo as another rikishi in training greets the dawn. He does his assigned chores and works out with the other jonokuchi in the heya training stable. Despite his superior strength, size and speed, he is again knocked out. The supervising oyakata is in despair and doubts the spirit and determination of his latest find…

Scott thought he was a big man in every sense of the term, but High School Football glory days never turned into the glittering, lucrative Pro career he dreamed of. So he somehow ended up in his small town ofCampbell with his best buddies, drinking beer and wasting his days.

Then when his adored girlfriend Gwen dumped him, even that shallow, pointless life needed to end. They had been together since grade school…

However, years ago a visiting Japanese Sumo trainer had seen the boy play and never forgotten the warrior spirit he saw displayed in that sports arena. When the venerable gentleman offered a chance for fame and glory, Scott thought long and hard…

With nothing to lose, Scott accepts a bizarre offer: move to Japan and try out as a junior wrestler in the decidedly un-All American enterprise known as Sumo…

This is a hard look at expectations and second chances…

The transition hasn’t been what he expected or hoped for. They dyed his hair and changed his name since all Sumo have professional shikona stage-names and looks. Only now “Hakugei” is failing again and if it wasn’t for the trainer’s daughter Asami and the idyllic occasional break spent fishing, his new life would be as intolerable as his old one…

This story is about striving…

With time fast running out, Hakugei has to decide what he really wants and he has to do it before the last match of the mae-zumo tournament. He has to win at least one bout or be sent home in disgrace …and he’s just lost the fourth one in a row…

It’s all about the buildup towards tension’s inevitable release…

This surprisingly contemplative and lyrical exploration of love, hope, honour and gigantic nearly-naked men bitch-slapping each other in truly explosive manner effortlessly blends and intercuts flashbacks and real time to craft a sublimely skilful and colourfully emotive experience. Cartoonist and teacher Thien Pham (Level Up) hypnotically and enthrallingly marries two wildly disparate worlds to produce an enchanting and thoughtful story that will delight and astound. This is a graphic novel you must read over and over again.
© 2012 Thien Pham. All rights reserved.

Richie Rich Gems Special Edition


By Sid Jacobson, Ernie Colón, Ralph Newman, Lennie Herman, Warren Kremer, Sid Couchey & various (Ape Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-937676-27-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a cheap and cheerful treat for the entire family starring a true icon of kids comics… 8/10

Even if in today’s world the subtext that money fixes everything might be a little harder to swallow, the core premise of this golden classic is charmingly simple: Richard “Richie” Rich Jr. is the only child of the wealthiest man in the world, but hasn’t let the money spoil him. The lad loves simple pleasures and prefers to pal around with proper kids like Freckles and Pee-Wee Friendly rather than his obnoxious wannabe-girlfriend Mayda Munny or mean, spoiled cousin Reggie Van Dough Jr.

Moreover Richie is utterly smitten with pretty, proud pauper Gloria Glad, who spends all her time trying to convince Richie to stop showering her with imprudent, impractical presents and flashy, expensive treats.

Even so the trapping of outrageous fortunes are always there: allowing for incredible adventures and wild situations…

Once upon a time the American comicbook for younger readers was totally dominated by Gold Key, with their TV and Disney licenses, and Harvey Comics. The latter had begun in the 1941 when Brookwood Publications sold its comicbook licenses for Green Hornet and Joe Palooka to entrepreneur Alfred Harvey. Hiring his brothers Robert B. and Leon, the new publisher began making impressive inroads into a burgeoning new industry.

For nine years the company combined conventional genres and some licensed properties in a bid for the general market, but from 1950 increasingly concentrated on a portfolio of   wholesome, kid-friendly characters for early readers and fans of gentle comedy.

In the late 1940s the Harvey Brothers struck a deal with Famous Studios/Paramount Pictures to produce strips starring movie animation stars Little Audrey, Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip and Casper, the Friendly Ghost to supplement newspaper comics stars such as Blondie and Dagwood, Mutt and Jeff and Sad Sack amongst others, and eventually minted original wholly-owned stars such as Little Dot, Little Lotta and Richie Rich.

Even though the company constantly tried to diversify into mainstream genres such as horror, science fiction, western, war and superhero (producing some of the very best “forgotten classics” of the era) it was always the kids’ titles that made the most money. In 1959 the Harvey’s bought the controlling rights to their Famous Studios characters just in time for the 1960s boom in children’s television cartoons.

The result was a stunning selection of superb young reader comics starring Casper, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Nightmare, The Ghostly Trio, Stumbo, Wendy, the Good Little Witch and Hot Stuff, the Little Devil all bolstered by weekly “Harveytoons” TV shows.

It was a new Golden Age for kid-appropriate funny books that lasted until declining morals, the inexorable rise of “free” entertainments such as television, games saturation and rising print costs finally forced Harvey to bow out in 1982 when company founder Alfred Harvey retired.

During that boom period, however, a new star had risen to staggering dominance.

Richie Rich first debuted as a back-up strip by Alfred Harvey and artist Warren Kremer in Little Dot #1 (September 1953) but was only given his chance at solo stardom in 1960 by line editor Sid Jacobson in 1960.

As both writer and editor, Jacobson masterminded the Harvey Comics monopoly of strips for younger American readers in the 1960s and 1970s, devising Wendy and many others whilst re-creating Richie Rich, and spinning the character off into more than 55 separate titles between 1960 and 1982.  When the company folded he then worked the same magic for Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, where he oversaw a vast amount of family-friendly material; both self created – such as Royal Roy or the superb Planet Terry – and a huge basket of licensed properties.

In latter years he has worked closely with fellow Harvey alumnus Ernie Colón on such thought-provoking graphic enterprises as The 9/11 Report: a Graphic Adaptation in 2006 and its 2008 sequel After 9/11: America’s War on Terror, Che: a Graphic Biography and Vlad the Impaler.

Colón was born in Puerto Rico in 1931: a creator whose work has been loved by generations of readers. Whether as artist, writer, colourist or editor his contributions have benefited the entire industry from the youngest (Monster in My Pocket, Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost for Harvey Comics, and many similar projects for Marvel’s Star Comics), to the traditional comicbook fans with Battlestar Galactica, Damage Control and Doom 2099 for Marvel, Arak, Son of Thunder and Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, the Airboy revival for Eclipse, Magnus: Robot Fighter for Valiant and so very many others.

There are also his sophisticated experimental works such as indie thriller Manimal, and his seminal genre graphic novels Ax and the Medusa Chain. Since 2005 he’s been hard at work on the strip SpyCat for Weekly World News.

Jacobson and Colón were reunited with one of their oldest projects in 2011 when Ape Entertainment relaunched and resurrected the “Poor Little Rich Kid” as contemporary kids adventure comicbook Richie Rich: Rich Rescue – which saw the beloved, whimsical child character and friends reformatted as altruistic young trouble-shooters helping the less fortunate.

Touted as a blend of “James Bond and Indiana Jones with the bank account of Donald Trump” the comic miniseries also prompted two one-shot seasonal specials (Valentine’s Day and Winter 2012) combining new material with a wealth of themed reprints from the vast archives. This slim digitally (re)coloured compilation happily re-presents them both in one single tome with a gold-plated guarantee of scintillating satisfaction…

The wealth of wholesome fun opens with the all-new ‘Unhappy Valentine’s Day’ by Jacobson & Colón, wherein nasty Reggie sabotages Gloria’s card to Richie, only to reap his usual reward of regret and recrimination courtesy of Richie’s devoted robot maid Irona, after which the vintage treasures begin with ‘Box of Chocolate’ (by Ralph Newman & Warren Kremer), wherein crafty Richie again sneaks a sumptuous gift to his disapproving girl Gloria.

‘The Great Mansion Mystery’ by Lennie Herman & Colón told of how ghostly presences in the vast Rich residence turned out be long lost – really, really lost – lovers, whilst ‘Ju$t Married!’ (Herman & Kremer) saw Richie save the day when the confetti and rice ran out at a High Society ceremonial, and ‘All That Glitters’ (Newman & Colón) again found Gloria accepting a simple gift with unsuspected cachet and value…

Richie’s ‘Electric Serenade’ (by Newman & Sid Couchey) actually charmed the stubborn little red-head, but Mayda Munny was far from happy with Richie’s expansive courtship of her rival in ‘Too Much Gloria’ (Herman & Kremer), after which it was back to business as ‘Garden Party’ by Herman & Kremer, ‘The Sound of Money’ by Newman & Colón and ‘Big Drink’ from Newman & Couchey all demonstrated the lovesick lad’s largesse but lack of restraint when shopping for the feisty Miss Glad…

Mayda once again calamitously tried to outshine her rival by becoming the ‘The Big Donator’ at a gem-studded charity event (Herman & Colón), whilst Richie was too touched by Gloria’s gift to him to reveal what truly constituted ‘Giant Jellybeans’ (Newman & Colón). The romantic reminiscences conclude with ‘Wel-Gum Home!’ by Newman & Couchey as the Lucky Lad reciprocated in his own unique style…

The Winter Special again opened with a new yarn in the spooky saga of ‘The Walking, Stalking and, Yes, Talking Snowmen’ by Jacobson & Colón wherein another of Reggie’s cruel pranks inevitably rebounded on him, after which some indoor fun in the mansion proved that there was ‘Snow Need for a Heater’ (Newman & Couchey) and ‘Snow Much Fun!’ (Newman & Colón) again displayed how imagination and improvisation were always more desirable that any expensive toy.

Newman & Kremer united to tell of ‘The Abominable Snow Plan’ of Reggie Van Dough and how Richie scotched his sneaky schemes Yeti again in ‘A Snow Thing’, after which ‘Snow Time to Play’, ‘Snow Problem’ (Newman & Colón), Kremer’s ‘Snow Problem Bonus Pin-up’ and Newman & Colón’s ‘It Seems Like Real Fun’ all demonstrate the sheer joy of combining skiing with mischief-making …

Topping off the package are four single-page gag strips from the Rich Rescue series featuring the odd inventions of on-staff boffin Professor Keenbean.

Keenbean’s Corner #1-4′ are by Patrick Rills & James Silvani and reveal the ups and downs of science in relation to super submarines, mouthy microchips, exo-skeleton gadgets and unsanctioned tinkering with faithful old Irona…

With contemporary children’s comics all but extinct these days, it’s lucky we have such timeless classics to draw upon and draw kids in with, and compilations like this one belong on the shelves of every funnybook-loving parent and even those still-contented couples with only a confirmed twinkle in their eyes. This clutch of classic children’s tales is a fabulous mix of intoxicating nostalgic wonder and exuberant entertainment which readers of all ages cannot fail to love…
™ and © 2012 Classic Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Mac’s Year: 1984 – Cartoons from the Daily Mail


By Mac – Stan McMurtry (Sphere)
ISBN: 978-0-7221-5798-5

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner” – James Bovard

If you live long enough you’ll experience the pop culture keystones of every definitive era of your life at least twice more. The base, tasteless and utterly superficial aspects of the 1980s are currently doing the rounds again as the current generation – which was too young to remember them – get all nostalgic for the good bits and blithely ignore all the bad stuff: same as it ever was…

For us Brits it was Union-Bashing, Loads-a-Money, Yobs and Yuppies, poverty, excess, Royal Weddings, daft hair and Thatcher, whilst America endured trickle-down Reaganomics, insider dealing, illicit warfare and poodle rock – so nobody really got off lightly either side of the Pond – and then all the money ran out…

The truly amazing – and most depressing – realisation is that the issues never go away. The names and faces of the political or industrial scoundrels and mountebanks may change, but the mistakes they make and problems they create just keep going, so it’s always a wearisome, disturbing but oddly topical exercise to examine news cartoons this long after the fact and discover how distressingly familiar the hot topics still are. Same as it ever was…

So here’s another little dip into the vast forgotten annals of cartoon comedy generated by Britain’s greatest natural resource (and still un-privatised so it belongs to us all for the moment) – Clever Folks What Make Us Laugh…

Oftentimes our industry is cruel and unjust and frequently prone to guilt by association. This collection of cartoons is by Stan McMurtry – perhaps unfairly attributed a cartoon champion of the Populist Right – who, as “Mac”, has worked for nearly 40 years as social and political cartoonist for The Daily Mail.

Cartooning is a hard, demanding, mercurial job and a regular gig is every brush-monkey’s dream. Although it’s fair to say that most artists who settle in one place have an affinity for a periodical’s positions, stance and core politics, there will always be friction between creative expression and the Editor’s own inclinations and prudence…

The precociously artistic Mac was born inEdinburghin 1936 but raised inBirminghamfrom 1944. His father, a travelling salesman, never supported his son’s dreams of a career in art, but Stan persevered, attending Birmingham College of Art from 1950-1953, after which his 2-year National Service saw him serve in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps until 1956.

On demobilisation he entered the animation industry (at Henley-On-Thames), producing short films for the newly-launched commercial broadcast company ITV. Two of his efforts were prize winners at Cannes. Like so many other artists he also began contributing to the huge and broad cartoon market, selling his first job to Today in 1961. He became a full-time freelancer in 1965, drawing comics strips for a number of Odhams/IPC kids’ periodicals such as Wham! and Buster whilst selling gag panels to Punch, The London Evening News and others.

When Norman Mansbridge retired in 1968, Mac was offered his spot as topical cartoonist on the Daily Sketch, a centrist paper whose politics the artist generally agreed with.

In 1971 the paper was absorbed by the Daily Mail, a broadsheet which was repositioning itself as a tabloid. The once-posh paper had for years favoured the use of two staff cartoonists but was letting the revered Wally “Trog” Fawkes go (to The Observer). Offered the vacant chair, Mac alternated with the venerable John Musgrave-Wood – who signed his beautiful but so savage visual blasts against the Left “Emmwood” – until the senior partner retired in 1976.

From then, although other cartoonists appeared, the paper was Mac’s playground. Despite Editor David English constantly urging McMurtry to be “more politically minded”, Mac felt happiest employing sarcasm and gentle mockery, regarding his job as making “the dreary news-copy of the daily paper brighter by putting in a laugh”.

Mac has always been adamant that he was more a social than political animal. Even whilst spending decades turning last night’s newsflash into this morning’s mirth, McMurtry has always pursued other lucrative creative pursuits: working in advertising, straight illustration and greetings card design. In 1977 he wrote and drew children’s book The Bungee Venture and negotiated it into a Hanna-Barbera animated feature. With writing partner Bernard Cookson he also wrote TV scripts for comedians Tommy Cooper and Dave Allen. He was awarded an MBE in 2003 and remains at large and comically active to this day…

Artists like Mac who were commenting on contemporary events are poorly served by posterity. This particular volume (re-presenting a selection of single panel-gags from August 9th 1983 to June 8th of the politically and culturally front-loaded year 1984), like all of these books, was packaged and released for that year’s Christmas market, with the topics still fresh in people’s minds.

Decades later the drawing is still superb and, despite perhaps the wry minutiae escaping a few, the trenchant wit, dry jabs and outraged passion which informed these visual ripostes are still powerfully effective. And obviously human nature never changes and there’s nothing new under the sun…

Many of the blasts in this book deal unkindly – but rather hilariously, I’m forced to admit – with the fallout from the Greenham Common protest (and I’m speaking as someone who lost his then-girlfriend to that clarion call to arms, and marvels that today’s Occupy movement is so marvellously Co-Ed), underage sex and contraception, industrial turmoil and business closures, Health scandals and the NHS under attack whilst the Police themselves were increasingly Under The Cosh: same as it ever was…

There’re also episodes of Royal embarrassment and unwise escapades caught on film, doping and gender testing at major sporting events, the outrages of racist football thugs and players, vacillating doctors’ advice on booze and smokes, turmoil as opposition leaders were judged inadequate and heartfelt tributes to entertainment giants who had passed away…

Then as now, the overwhelming rain and horrendous climate often seized our attention, as did Irish Republican killers, the threat of Iran, illegal American wars, Arab Oil, celebrity love cheats, Airline blues, tacky TV Magicians, Judges with no grasp of modern life, holiday horrors, Parliamentary scandals (sex and money) and mouthy maverick cricketers causing trouble, all while the battle for equal pay for women was raging…

We kept annoying the French, there were Olympic surprises, welcome pops at privileged Toffs and posh-boys, wry Anniversary celebrations of WWII, the Scots were revolting, we all thought the Chancellor was inept or crooked, there were Papal gaffes and the Press was obsessed with Princesses…

My absolute favourite gag is a panel from February 23rd 1984 in which an ambitious couple behind a tree aim a little tot at the pram carrying the baby William Windsor and urged her to ‘Think of your career, kid – just saunter up to the Prince William and say “Hello gorgeous’”…

Thankfully some progress has occurred. Less perennial topics included pops at the PM’s idiot children (give it time), the prejudices shown to returned and wounded servicemen, body-issues and diet Nazis, arrogant and paranoid Yankee Presidents, insane African dictators, out of control school kids and… Hey, wait a minute…

Despite being often and usually unfairly targeted by factions of the Left and Right – and even accused of racism on one occasion – Mac is one of most celebrated and lauded cartoonists in British history: his energy, creativity, perspicacity and grasp of the public mood generating thousands of unforgettable gags and acres of brilliant cartoons.

His comical commentaries, produced on a punishing daily deadline, were appreciated if not feared by Peers and plebs alike and were all created with a degree of craft and diligence second to none. Even now, decades later, they are still shining examples of wit and talent… and still bitingly funny too.

It’s a terrible shame that the vast body of graphic excellence which topical cartoonists produce has such a tenuous shelf-life. Perhaps some forward-looking educational institution with a mind to beefing up the modern history or social studies curricula might like to step in and take charge of the tragically untapped and superbly polished catalogue of all our yesterdays.

Clearly they’re all short of a bob or two these days and I’m pretty sure these cartoon gems could find a willing market eager to invest in a few good laughs, or even market them as social history books that students might actually enjoy absorbing. Same as it never was…

© 1984 Stan McMurtry. All rights reserved.

Brought to Light – Thirty Years of Drug Smuggling, Arms Deals, and Covert Action


By Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz, Joyce Brabner, Tom Yeates, Paul Mavrides & others (Eclipse Books/Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-0913035672 (Eclipse),                978-1-85286-154-4 (Titan)

“It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind” – Voltaire

There’s no more painful truism than Politics is Dirty Business, but as information has become more readily obtainable and widely disseminated from the 1980s onward, scandal after scandal has surfaced everywhere men of power play their games, seemingly impossible to cover up by administrations and regimes all over the planet.

This was never more common than in Ronald Reagan’s America.

No matter what else you may think of the Land of the Free, that’s one supreme advantage that their Inalienable Right to Free Speech gives them over so many other cultures. Still, that’s nothing a few judicious Plutocratic backhanders and dedicated lobbyists won’t one day fix, I’m sure…

As always us proud, dirty Liberals in comics got into the exposé act early and often, hopefully opening many young complacent eyes at just the right developmental moment…

While I’m unsure of the exact and total effect of comic condemnation as opposed to legal sanctions and official reprimands, I am utterly certain that politicians eventually have to listen to the people who vote them in and out, so the power to arouse Joe Public is one I completely appreciate and respect – even if these days there’s an apparent campaign of legalised disenfranchisement being steadily carried in the once-civilised west…

During the Reagan Era, many of the poisonous pigeons of previous administrations finally came home to roost and a high-profile legal case involving a CIA operative accused of blowing up journalists in South America first cast a very unwelcome light on US covert operations in sovereign nations.

However, even after very public hearings and a torrent of media scrutiny, nobody particularly high up was ever punished, and those middle-rankers actually convicted of crimes were soon Presidentially pardoned…

The Christic Institute, a “Public Interest” law firm which had successfully tackled the Nuclear Power industry on behalf of Karen Silkwood, the Ku Klux Klan, institutionally corrupt Police Departments and the American Nazi Party, finally met their match when they tried to use Rico (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) Laws to expose clandestine elements of the Administration which wilfully circumvented the Senate, Congress and the Constitution in pursuit of their own illegitimate goals.

Prior to that they had acted upon the behalf of American reporters Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey when they brought suit against the covert, unsanctioned CIA agents who had been working with right-wing terrorist groups – Contras – and even destabilising democratically elected socialist governments in Central America.

Devised as a “Flip Book” with two separate stories joined back to back, I’ve decided to start with ‘Flashpoint – The La Penca Bombing’, constructed from legal affidavits and the journalists’ own accounts by editor/scripter Joyce Brabner and illustrated by Thomas Yeates.

Beautifully rendered with stylish aplomb, this tale of cynical, institutionalised malfeasance documents the growth of a clandestine wing of operatives designed to work beyond the oversight of Congress to make America safe by any means necessary. It opens by covering the fall of Cubato Castro and Vice-President Nixon‘s illegal formation of a Contra-revolutionary army to take the island back for the Mafia bosses who had previously run it. This led to the gradual growth of an illicit anti-communist “Secret Team” which would perpetrate and facilitate countless acts of terrorism across the continent and incidentally create most of the trade routes and contacts used by drug cartels for the next fifty years.

In 1980 President Reagan had authorised the CIA to fund, train and supply “Contras” in Honduras with the intention of unseating Nicaraguan revolutionary Eden Pastora“Comandante Zero” – who had overthrown the regime of corrupt Right Wing reactionary President Anastasio Somoza in 1978.

When he refused overtures to work with the CIA, Pastora became a prime target for the Secret Team which consisted of obsessive American patriots, anti-communist thugs and career criminals. It was decided that assassination was the most expedient solution…

The focus then switches to Avirgan and Honey, whose latest overseas assignment saw them and their family transfer fromAfricatoCosta Rica. In 1984, as part of their news brief, Avirgan attended an international press conference held by Pastora in La Penca where the disillusioned Nicaraguan leader was stating his new aim and denouncing his erstwhile comrades who had abandoned their revolutionary principles and started cashing in…

Comandante Zero narrowly escaped death in a huge bomb blast which, according to figures at the time, killed 8 and brutally maimed another 28 journalists.

In the aftermath the recovering Avirgan and Honey began diligently investigating the hitman who caused the blast and overturned a can of worms which changed America’s conception of itself. Eventually they resorted to litigation, exposing key players to piercing public scrutiny in the groundbreaking case of Avirgan vs. Hull. The CIA agent was only one of more than twenty covert American operatives involved in the network and who would all figure prominently in the later Congressional Investigations and Tower Commission reports we know today as the Iran-Contra Scandals.

…And of course the Secret Team struck back in their own time-honoured and so-very effective ways…

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons” – Bertrand Russell

This documentary foray into the underprovided genre of graphic activism alternatively undertakes a sublimely surreal and devastatingly memorable tutorial as Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz transform the dry facts of redacted history into a masterful and impassioned satirical blast against the unsanctioned status quo with ‘Shadowplay – The Secret Team’.

A guy walks into a bar and cosies up to a smug, drunk and pompously bloated American Eagle. Soused and soured, the repellent fallen symbol begins to boast and babble of the things he and his guys at The Company have been proud to do to keep America Strong and Free since WWII…

Acerbic, biting and miraculously packed with astoundingly copious information, this is a visual tour de force which sublimely demonstrates the unmatched ability of comics to convey hard facts, inform by implication, and even shade tone and timbre. Translating the most dry and dusty detail to beguiling, unforgettable truths, the battered old bird reveals the complete history and exposes the many sins of the Central Intelligence Agency from Pinochet to Noriega, Vietnam to Iran and all over South America in a litany of horror too incredible to be made up…

A supremely evocative counter-attack against the unsanctioned dark forces which have committed innumerable atrocities in the name of the American People, this immorality play still has terrifying resonance to today’s world and remains one of the most bleakly lovely exhibitions of sequential narrative ever produced.

This striking chronicle also includes text pieces from attorney Daniel Sheehan and author Jonathan Marshall and extensive creator biographies plus a ferocious cartoon history – ‘Ailing World’ – of America and a world map of ’30 Years of Covert Action: Brought to Light’ from underground cartoonist and political activist Paul Mavrides, relating many of the CIA’s past “successes” in election tampering, drug trafficking, assassination and other less definable exercises in democracy.
© 1989 Eclipse Enterprises, Inc. Flashpoint: the La Penca Bombing © 1989 Joyce Brabner & Thomas Yeates. Shadowplay: the Secret Team © 1989 Alan Moore & Bill Sienkiewicz. Ailing World & Map of Covert Operations © 1989 Paul Mavrides. All other material © 1989 the respective creators/owners.

Stabbed in the Front – Post-War General Elections through Political Cartoons


By Dr. Alan Mumford (Centre for the Study of Cartoons & Caricature, U of K,Canterbury)
ISBN: 978-1-90267-120-8

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else” – Clarence Darrow

From its earliest inception cartooning has been used to sell: initially ideas or values but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comicbooks the sheer power of narrative with its ability to create emotional affinities has been linked to the creation of unforgettable images and characters. When those stories affect the daily lives of generations of readers, the force that they can apply in a commercial or social arena is almost irresistible…

InBritainthe cartoonist has held a bizarrely precarious position of power for centuries: the deftly designed bombastic broadside or savagely surgical satirical slice instantly capable of ridiculing, exposing and always deflating the powerfully elevated and apparently untouchable with a simple shaped-charge of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor.

For this method of concept transmission, literacy or lack of education is no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved millennia ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and a pantheon of idealised saints, a picture is absolutely worth a thousand words…

More so than work, sport, religion, fighting or even sex, politics has always been the very grist that feeds the pictorial gadfly’s mill. This gloriously informative book (sponsored by the marvellous Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent at Canterbury), offers a fantastic overview of political adaptability and cultural life as Britain moved from Empire to mere Nationhood in the latter half of the 20th century, examined through General Elections and the wealth of cunningly contrived images and pictorial iconography they provoked and inspired.

After an effusive Foreword by professional politician and celebrated cartoon aficionado (the Rt. Hon.) Lord Kenneth Baker of Dorking, author Alan Mumford – a specialist in management training – covers the basic semiology and working vocabulary of the medium in his copious Introduction.

Designating definitions and terms for the treatise, he subdivides the territory into ‘Origins’, ‘Criteria for Selection’, ‘Newspapers and Magazines’, ‘The Longevity of Political Cartoonists’, ‘References, Symbols and Metaphors’, ‘The Impact of Cartoons on General Elections’ and ‘Savagery in Political Cartoons’ as a very effective foundation course in how to best contextualise and appreciate the plethora of carefully crafted mass-market messages which follow.

The format is extremely ergonomic and effective. Thus Philip Zec’s iconic cartoon and caption/slogan “Here You Are. Don’t Lose it Again!” begins the Great Endeavour with historical background in The Run-up to the General Election of 1945, followed by Election Issues and the 1945 Campaign, major Personalities of the 1945 General Election, Results of… and finally a nominated “Cartoonist of the Election” whose work most captured the spirit of or affected the outcome of a particular contest.

This methodology then proceeds to efficiently and comprehensively recreate the tone of each time, augmented whenever possible by a personal interview or remembrance from one of the campaigners involved. These telling vignettes include contributions from Frank Pakenham/Lord Longford, Barbara Castle, Edward Heath, Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins, Kenneth Baker again, Jim Callaghan, Jim Prior, Margaret Thatcher, David Steel, Norman Tebbit, John Major and Tony Blair…

Each fact-packed, picture-filled chapter then dissects every succeeding campaign: 1950’s tame ‘Consolidation not Adventure’ which resulted in Labour and Clement Attlee’s second victory by the narrowest – practically unworkable – of margins, Churchill’s resurgence in 1951 as ‘The Grand Old Man Returns’ and a slow steady decline in fortunes and growth of a New Politics as Anthony Eden’s star rose for the 1955 General Election when ‘The Crown Prince Takes Over’…

In an era of international unrest Harold McMillan eventually rose to become Tory top gun and in 1959 was ‘Supermac Triumphant’, but domestic troubles – race, unionism and the always struggling economy – wore away his energies. In a minor coup he was ousted andSirAlecDouglasHome took over mid-term, consequently losing to glib, charismatic new Labour leader Harold Wilson.

This entire era is one of aged and infirm Big Beasts passing away suddenly with too many lesser lights to succeed them; further complicated by both Labour and Conservative parties rent by infighting and jockeying for position with wannabe upstarts such as the Liberals cruising the room looking to pick up what scraps they could (so it’s not a new thing, OK?).

In 1966 “Labour Government Works” took Labour to a second term but social turmoil in the country, with unions demands spiralling out of control, enabled Edward Heath to lead the Conservatives into the most dangerous and turbulent decade in modern British history. The General Election of 1970 proved ‘Wilson Complacent, Heath Persistent’…

There were two General Elections in 1974.

A massive ongoing crisis in industrial relations and the growing racial tension caused by maverick Tory Enoch Powell’s continual cries to “end Immigration or face rivers of blood in the streets” forced Prime Minister Heath to ask in February ‘Who Governs Britain?’ He was informed by the disaffected electorate “Not you, mate.”

Even though Wilson and Labour were returned to power, the majority was miniscule and by October the people were compelled to do it all again and ‘Vote for Peace and Quiet’.

Although he’d again narrowly led them to victory, Wilson’s time was done and he abruptly resigned in 1976 to be replaced by deputy Jim Callaghan.

Heath too was reduced to the ranks and relegated to the Tory Back benches, replaced by a rising star from Finchley. As Britain staggered under terrifying economic woes in 1979, Callaghan called an election and lost to Margaret Thatcher who had famously said “No Woman in My Time” would ever be Prime Minister. I think that was the last time she ever admitted to being wrong…

Despite horrifying and sustained assaults on the fabric of British society – and great unpopularity – she enjoyed two more election victories: in 1983 “The Longest Suicide Note in History” and again in 1987 as ‘Thatcher Moves Forward’ before finally being turned on by her own bullied and harried cabinet.

The best political cartooning comes from outrage, and the Tory administrations of the 1980’s provided one bloated, bile-filled easy mark after another. Just look at TV’s Spitting Image which grew fat and healthy off that government’s peccadilloes, indignities and iniquities (as well as Reagan’sAmerica and the Royal Family) in just the way that millions of unemployed and disenfranchised workers, students and pensioners didn’t. The election cartoons reproduced here from that period, come from a largely Tory Press, and whilst contextualised and accurate don’t approach the level of venom she engendered in certain sections.

For a more balanced view one should also see Plunder Woman Must Go! by Alan Hardman, Drain Pig and the Glow Boys in Critical Mess,  You are Maggie Thatcher: a Dole-Playing Game or even Father Kissmass and Mother Claws by Bel Mooney & Gerald Scarfe, not to mention any collection of the excoriating Steve Bell’s If…

In 1992 the only thing stopping a Labour landslide was the party itself, which had so dissolved into factional infighting and ideological naval-gazing that not even the fiery oratory of Welsh Wizard Neil Kinnock could pull them together. Once again however the newspapers claimed the credit when Tory consensus/concession leader John Major pulled off a surprising ‘Triumph of the Soapbox?’

That Labour Landslide had to wait until 1997 and the ‘Teeth and Sleaze’ of Tony Blair (although at that time we all thought the latter term only applied to corrupt Tory MPs selling parliamentary time and attention to business interests) which brings this incredibly appealing tome to a close. Since then a whole lot has happened and I think it’s long past time for a new, revised and updated edition…

As well as making addictively accessible over half a century of venal demagoguery, hard work, murky manipulations, honest good intentions and the efforts of many men and women moved in equal parts by dedication and chicanery, this oversized monochrome tome is also literally stuffed with the best work some of the very best cartoonists ever to work in these Sceptred Isles.

The art, imagination, passion and vitriol of Abu, Steve Bell, Peter Brookes, Dave Brown, Michael Cummings, Eccles, Emmwood, Stanley Franklin, George Gale, Nick Garland, the Davids Gaskill and Ghilchik, Les Gibbard, Charles Griffin, Graham High, Leslie Illingworth, Jak, John Jensen, Jon, Kal, David Low, Mac, Mahood, Norman Mansbridge, Sidney Moon, Bill Papas, Chris Riddell, Paul Rigby, Rodger, Stephen Roth, Martin Rowson, Willie Rushton, Peter Schrank, Ernest Shepard, Ralph Steadman, Sidney Strube, Trog, Vicky, Keith Waite, Zec and Zoke are timeless examples of the political pictorialist’s uncanny power and, as signs of the times, form a surprising effecting gestalt of the never happy nation’s feeling and character…

None of that actually matters now, since these cartoons have performed the task they were intended for: shaping the thoughts and intentions of generations of voters. That they have also stood the test of time and remain as beloved relics of a lethal art form is true testament to their power and passion, but – to be honest and whatever your political complexion – isn’t it just a guilty pleasure to see a really great villain get one more good kicking?

Stuffed with astounding images, fascinating lost ephemera and mouth-watering tastes of comic art no fan could resist, this colossal collection is a beautiful piece of cartoon history that will delight and tantalise all who read it… and it’s still readily available through the University of Kent’s website…
© 2001. Text © 2001 Alan Mumford. All illustrations © their respective holders or owners. All rights reserved.

The Adventures of Tintin – Breaking Free


By J. Daniels (Attack International/Freedom Press)
ISBNs: 0-9514261-0-9,      978-0-9514261-0-4,        978-1-90449-117-0 (Freedom Press)

“Freedom of the Press is only guaranteed to those who own one” – Abbott Joseph Liebling

Politics is always composed of and used by firebrands and coldly calculating grandees, but that’s the only guiding maxim you can trust. Most other people don’t give a toss until it affects them in the pocket and, no matter to what end of the political spectrum one belongs, the greatest enemy of the impassioned ideologue is apathy. This forces activists and visionaries to ever-more devious and imaginative stunts and tactics…

Crafted by the enigmatically anonymous J. Daniels and concocted and released by the anarchist faction Attack International in 1988, The Adventures of Tintin – Breaking Free is a perfect exercise in the use of Détournement (“turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself”), using mimicry, mockery, parody and satire to counter the seductive subversion of the Monied Interests of the status quo.

It also reads rather well as social documentary and human drama, for all its earnest worthiness and fiercely dogmatic posturing…

The gimmick is this: the comforting cosy style and iconic images of Hergé’s immortal adventurers are removed into our pedestrian oppressive, corrupt world and co-opted to incite a revolution in thinking and action…

In Chapter 1, ‘We’ve Had Enough!’ has unemployed hothead, petty thief and disenfranchised youthful dole-queue outcast Tintin visit his uncle on the run-down-and-dying council estate where the once-vital man and his wife Mary now live on the breadline. The boy needs money and The Captain suggests a labouring job with him on the new building site. Although there’s work to be had, tensions are high there: dangerous working conditions, shoddy management practices and subsistence wages for the desperate men crafting luxury flats for more of the rich and gentrified types steadily pushing real people out of the community…

Another alienated faction joins the swell of discontent when squatters break in to the flat next door and the Captain helps them sort out the utilities. Everybody knows the council is letting the estate die of neglect so that the corrupt councillors can sell it off, so the lesbian activists are welcomed as fellow fighters against the powers that be.

Tensions mount as the National Front recruit in broad daylight, skinheads carry out racist attacks and yuppie winebars push out good old-fashioned working-men’s pubs. Soon Tintin is striking back whenever he can: vandalising posh cars and pickpocketing rich poseurs. All proper men need is jobs, beer, football and a decent life, but the boy soon has his eyes opened – if not his opinions changed – when he is made painfully aware of how even those lower class paragons treat their women…

Events come to a head when a worker dies on the building site and the supervisor is more concerned about lost time; even suggesting poor Joe Hill was drunk and not the hapless victim of negligent, non-existent safety procedures…

‘One Out, All Out!’ sees a wildcat strike seeking compensation for Joe’s widow escalate into a national furore after trade union officials strike a shady deal with the property developers and the incensed workers reject their useless official action for measures that will actually work.

Soon bosses and unions are conspiring together to break the unsanctioned, unofficial action as the ordinary people rally around the strikers, providing food, money and – most important of all – encouragement.

Soon the authorities resort to their tried and true dirty tactics: picket-breaking riot squads, undercover agent provocateurs, intelligence-led targeted arrests of “ringleaders” and general, brutal intimidation.

Scab labour is harshly dealt with in ‘Let’s Get Organised’ as the hard-working, underappreciated women increasingly take up the challenge. The movement is growing in strength and national support. Soon other cities are in revolt too, and The Captain is becoming an unwilling and unlikely figurehead. Tintin, ever impatient, finds like-minded hotheads and secretly begins a campaign of literally explosive sabotage…

It all culminates in ‘Getting Serious’ as everything kicks into overdrive when the Captain endures a punishment beating from unidentified thugs and his family is similarly threatened. Scared but undeterred, the old salt carries on, and planning for a national march continues unabated. With reports coming in of similar movements inPoland,Yugoslavia and other Warsaw Pact countries (the Soviet Empire was still very much in existence and continually crushing workers’ freedoms at this time) the local groundswell becomes a national expression of solidarity and the underclass consolidates under a mass rallying call to arms…

When the riot squads are again deployed it all turns ugly and the events go global, but in the aftermath The Captain has been “disappeared” or, as the authorities would have it, been “arrested for conspiracy”.

With half a million people on the streets of the city, the powers-that-be move to full military response but it’s too late…

The later edition, published by Freedom Press in 2011, also includes the infamous early adventures of this extremely alternative Tintin (as first seen in polemical pamphlet The Scum in 1986) from the scallywag’s days sorting out Rupert Murdoch from the picket line at Wapping during the legendary Printer’s Strike…

Passionate and fiercely idealistic, the initial release of Breaking Free unsurprisingly unleashed a storm of howling protest from the establishment, Tory Press and tabloid papers (especially News International) and by all accounts even Prime Minister Thatcher was “utterly revolted”.

Of course that only meant that the little guys had won: achieving a degree of publicity and notoriety such puny, powerless underdogs could only have dreamed of but never afforded by any traditional means of disseminating their message…

More a deliciously tempting dream than a serious clarion call to end social injustice, this is a wickedly barbed and superbly well-intentioned piece, lovingly capturing the sublime Ligne Claire style and utterly redirecting its immense facility to inform and beguile…

First released in April 1988 by Attack International. This book proudly proclaims that no copyright has been invoked unless capitalists want to poach it…

Apes of Wrath


By Steve Bell (Methuen in association with The Guardian)
ISBN: 978-0-41377-450-7

For as long as we’ve had printing in this country we’ve had gadfly artists commentating on society and its iniquities, and visually haranguing the powerful, pompous, privileged and just plain perfidious through swingeing satire and cunning cartoons.

Even after many centuries of savage satirical Masters, we’re still throwing up brilliant firebrands and cruelly artistic geniuses whose political acumen, societal consciences and staggering graphic gifts irresistibly combine to make the powerful, unscrupulous and hypocritically venal sweat a bit in their own self-important juices whilst making we mere rabble of hoi-polloi and avowed plebs chuckle and smirk at their revealed discomforts…

Probably the most effective and dedicated of the modern crop of cartoonist champions of the underclass (or “the public” as I call them) is Steve Bell, who has been skewering the Great and the not-so Good since 1977.

Born in Walthamstow in 1951, raised in Sloughand North Yorkshireand educated at Teeside College of Art, the Universities of Leeds and later Exeter(where he obtained a teaching qualification from St. Luke’s Campus), he abandoned education for freelance art as both comics artist (the Gremlins in Jackpot) and cartoonist.

His strident, polemical strips ‘Maggie’s Farm’ (Time Out and City Limits) and ‘Lord God Almighty’ in The Leveller led to a commission from The Clash for the album Sandanista! and eventually his own regular feature ‘If…’ which began in national newspaper The Guardian in 1981 and is still going hard and strong…

It’s a controversial maxim of political cartooning that you’re only as good as the times you’re in and the targets on offer, but if so either Bell has been born into the End of Days or he’s particularly blessed in having a perpetually renewing procession of perfectly risible prime lampooning targets – or maybe that should be “suspects”…

After lambasting a succession of utterly ghastly Tory leaders and their appalling acolytes at home, and rabid Rightist rulers abroad for years, blow me if a global swing to the left didn’t seemingly leave Bell with nothing to shoot at. However it all soon proved to be a false alarm which offered a new American C-i-C with his own on-board, self-destructive arsenal of gaffes and a covert continuation of Conservative idiocy ideology at home with the election of Labour’s Saviour Tony Blair.

And then in 2000, the Nicedaysmerca and birthplace of Freem even found itself another Bush to hide in front of…

Collecting and repurposing comical cutlass-slashes, surgically sardonic scalpel-cuts, a riot of rapier-like witticisms and, when nothing else will do, the occasional bludgeon with the blunt-end of a cartoon cudgel, this crushingly hilarious  full-colour  – and often off-colour – compendium collects Guardian cartoons from 1988, 1991 and 1998-2004, tracing the rise of the Bush Dynasty in war and profit peace, without ever underplaying the key role played by dogged Little Britain in assuring a nice steady pace on the road to mutually-assured Armageddon…

The grand conceit of this savage little hardcover treat is that we get to peek beneath the hem of great men in a time of turrble crisis where Freeman Moxy were threatened and only the Curge of our leaders kept us all from  being wiped out by Slamic Fananimalism and Terrrsts. Moreover we get to hear it all in the humble words of George Dubya Bush as he recounts his role in countering the crisis…

Featuring 110 wickedly manic graphic salvoes against just about everybody and a few utterly damning moral condemnations as only arch cartoonists can concoct them, Apes of Wrath captures the true spirit of those troubled times with such standout pictorialised diatribes as ‘Bigtime for Bonzo’, ‘Electile Dysfunction’, ‘Al Who’da??’, ‘The Age of Irony is Dead…’, ‘Corporate Responsibility’, ‘The Humanitarian Thrust Continues’ and so many more…

Thoughtfully containing a comprehensive glossary of frequently-used terms such as “Morl Curge” (What you need to be a wurl class wurl leader), “Cladral damage” (What happens to pain in the ass innocent bystanders that don’t keep their heads down) and “Diplocrap” (talking to forners) which will help us all speak Presidentially and understand the complexity of high level negotiation, this chronicle of catastrophe is a perfectly guided missile of agonised, mordant mirth that no as-yet free-thinking individual should miss, especially as elections just keep on happening…
Text © 2004 Steve Bell. Illustrations © 1988, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Steve Bell. All rights reserved.

You’ll Never Know Book 3: Soldier’s Heart


By C. Tyler (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-588-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an ideal example of Art for Our Sake… 10/10

In 2009 illustrator, educator, performer and occasional cartoonist Carol Tyler (The Job Thing, Late Bloomer) published the first of a trilogy of graphic memoirs examining her tempestuous relationship with her father. Chuck, a veteran of World War II and by all measures A Good and Decent Man, had been a mystery and painful cipher to his girl for years but everything changed one day in 2002.

After six decades of brusque taciturnity and scarily obsessive sublimating self-reliance, during which he had edited his service career out of his life, Chuck suddenly and explosively opened up about his time in Africa and Europe. However, he would not or could not recall his later experiences in Italy and France as the War staggered to a close…

Disease and growing infirmity had suddenly produced in her once strong-but-distant father a terrifying openness and desire to share his long-suppressed war experiences and history.

As if suddenly speaking for an entire generation who fought and died or survived and somehow soldiered on as civilians in a society with no conception of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, Chuck Tyler began to unburden his soul.

Galvanised and hungry to learn more, Carol began creating an album of his army years but soon came up against a mental blank-period: one for which no corroborating records existed. For, as much as he could effusively recall, there was so much more that had been excised from Chuck’s mind and apparently erased by the government…

It became a quest: a relentless search for hidden truths which abruptly collapsed when the irritably mutable elder suddenly turned on her and the painful, frustrating search for the past.

In 2010, second volume Collateral Damage was released and found Carol coping with her own husband Justin‘s infidelities, mental dilemmas, betrayal and desertion. This led to a resumption of the father-and-daughter recording and re-ordering of Chuck’s recollections of Italy and France (including the infamous Battle of the Bulge) whilst re-examining her own agonisingly chaotic, self-destructive existence and hidden demons.

Carol was forced to examine her troubled past through a new lens. How much did growing up the child of a devoted, loving husband who was incomprehensibly somehow a coldly, unapproachable father, shape her own parade of life-errors and marital mishaps?

Could she prevent her increasingly wild daughter Julia from perpetuating the cycle by making the same bad choices she had?

As her parents’ physical and mental states inexorably deteriorated, Chuck had become obsessed by the mystery of the missing months he’d forgotten and a potential “Government Pay-out”. In his more open and lucid moments he gratefully accepted Carol’s aid in trying to solve the dilemma and so the pair began to explore numerous Federal and Veteran’s Administrative archives and resources…

During an increasingly critical reappraisal of the family’s shared experiences, Carol subsequently discovered how her mother Hannah or “Red” had coped with dark tragedies and suppressed secrets on the Home Front, and gained enhanced perspective but no satisfactory answers to the continuing conundrum of her father.

Rushing to finish her self-appointed task of turning her father’s life into a comprehensible chronicle whilst her parents both visibly declined with every visit, Carol’s personal life was also becoming uncontrollable and too much to endure…

Exploring three generations of a family born out of collateral damage and which never truly escaped WWII, the saga concludes with the revelatory breakthrough moments of Soldier’s Heart, opening with a moving visual introduction by Carol and Red before revealing how Julia’s spiralling behavioural  problems brought a chastened and resolutely repentant Justin back into the fold. Julia’s troubles prove to have a biological and psychological basis and, whilst Justin came back into their lives, he never made it to Carol’s bed. As the once-marrieds moved into a new holding pattern, the cartoonist’s military searches brought her to the actual man of her dreams but family loyalty kept him from her too…

With ‘The Mind’ awhirl Carol found solace and renewed balance by adopting a miraculous dog before embarking on a frighteningly close shave involving Chuck, a gun and a mouse in ‘The X-mas Tale’ whilst New Year ruminations on the price soldiers always pay and how we honour the fallen in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Walking the Mat’ bring the pensive and elegiac narrative to ‘Dad’s Army Scrapbook and Tour of Duty Highlights part V: Rhineland Dec. 1944-Mar. 1945’…

Here at last the researches find a crucial turning point as Chuck’s broken memories and the records pinpoint a discrepancy – although the old soldier’s recall describes his duties and exploits up to March when he was sent home, the files show that he didn’t get back to America again until November…

Further investigations and a growing network of helpful contacts lead them towards the National Archives Personnel Records Center in St. Louis and Carol resolves to take her folks on an epic road trip to Missouri. Although personally revelatory, the excursion turns into a frustrating bureaucratic nightmare in ‘Prairie Trek by Truck with Hannah and Chuck’ and advances the Tour of Duty Scrapbook not one jot.

Now the project’s very last hope is a ‘Trip to the National Archives and WWII Memorial – Washington, D.C. 2004’ but the journey is almost finished before it’s begun when Chuck’s latest home-improvement project turns the family home into an asbestos-soaked  death-trap and the old man’s toxic other self resurfaces.

With relations between father and daughter at their lowest ebb for years, the Washington excursion begins with little hope for success but leads unbelievably to a spectacular and moving breaking of the mental dam and subsequent epiphany of shocking proportions…

The story doesn’t end there but moves on to re-begin for the Tyler clan and there’s still one last moving ‘Epilogue’ before the close of this very special, grimly life-affirming account.

Ruminative, pensive and moodily elegiac with a series of stunning set-piece illustrations eerily reminiscent of American master of stoic isolation Edward Hopper blending into a mixed palette of cartooning and illustration disciplines, C. Tyler’s art adroitly mirrors her eclectic, entrancing non-sequential story-form, with a beguiling, bewildering array of styles meshing perfectly and evocatively to create a fully immersive comics experience.

Offering warmth, heartbreak, horror, humour, angst, tragedy, triumph and hope in a seductive display simultaneously charming and devastatingly effective, this grand narrative is itself constructed like a photo album (hardback, landscape and copiously expansive at 310x265mm) redefining the eternal question “How and Why Do Families Work?”

The mystery of the Soldier’s Heart is a magnificent conclusion to Tyler’s triptych of discovery and one no lover of comics or student of the human condition should miss.

© 2012 C. Tyler. All rights reserved.

The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm


By Norman Hunter, illustrated by W. Heath Robinson (Puffin/Red Fox and others)
ISBNs: PSS33 (1969 Puffin edition)             978-1-86230-736-0 (Red Fox 2008)

Although I’m pushing a number of comic-based kids books this week I’d be utterly remiss if I didn’t also include at least one example of the venerably traditional illustrated novel which used to be the happily inescapable staple of bedtime for generations. This particular example is particularly memorable, not simply because it’s a timeless masterpiece of purely English wit and surreal invention, but also because most editions are blessed with a wealth of stunning pictures by an absolute master of absurdist cartooning and wry, dry wit.

Norman George Lorimer Hunter was born on November 23rd, 1899in Sydenham; a decade after that part of Kentbecame part of the ever-expanding Countyof London. He started work as an advertising copywriter and moved into book writing soon after with Simplified Conjuring for All: a collection of new tricks needing no special skill or apparatus for their performance with suitable patter, Advertising Through the Press: a guide to press publicity and New and Easy Magic: a further series of novel magical experiments needing no special skill or apparatus for their performance with suitable patter published between 1923 and 1925.

He was working as a stage magician in Bournemouthduring the early 1930s when he first began concocting the genially explosive exploits of the absolute archetypical absent-minded boffin for radio broadcasts. The tales were read by the inimitable Ajax – to whom the first volume is dedicated – as part of the BBC Home Service’s Children’s Hour.

In 1933 The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm was published in hardback with 76 enthrallingly intricate illustrations by W. Heath Robinson to great success, prompting the sequel Professor Branestawm’s Treasure Hunt (illustrated by James Arnold & George Worsley Adamson) four years later.

During WWII Hunter moved back to Londonand in 1949 emigrated to South Africawhere he worked outside the fiction biz until his retirement. He returned to Britainin 1970, following the release of Thames Television’s Professor Branestawm TV series which adapted many of the short stories from the original books in the summer of 1969.

Following the show Hunter resumed writing: another 11 Branestawn tomes between 1970-1983, plus a selection of supplemental books including Professor Branestawm’s Dictionary (1973), …Compendium of Conundrums, Riddles, Puzzles, Brain Twiddlers and Dotty Descriptions (1975), …Do-it-yourself Handbook (1976) and many magic-related volumes.

Norman Hunter died in 1995.

William Heath Robinson was born on May 31st 1872 into something of an artistic dynasty. His father Thomas was chief staff artist for Penny Illustrated Paper. His older brothers Thomas and Charles were also illustrators of note.

After schooling William tried unsuccessfully to become a watercolour landscape-artist before returning to the family trade and in 1902 produced the fairy story ‘Uncle Lubin’ before contributing regularly to The Tatler, Bystander, Sketch, Strand and London Opinion. During this period he developed the humorous whimsy and penchant for eccentric, archaic-looking mechanical devices that made him a household name.

During the Great War he uniquely avoided the Jingoistic stance and fervour of his fellow artists, preferring instead to satirise the absurdity of conflict itself with volumes of cartoons such as The Saintly Hun. Then, after a 20-year career of phenomenal success and creativity in cartooning, illustration and particularly advertising, he found himself forced to do it again in World War Two.

He died on13th September 1944.

Perhaps inspired by the Branestawm commission, Heath Robinson’s 1934 collection Absurdities hilariously describes the frail resilience of the human condition in the Machine Age and particularly how the English deal with it all. They are also some of his funniest strips and panels. Much too little of his charming and detailed illustrative wit is in print today, a situation that cries out for Arts Council Funding or Lottery money, perhaps more than any other injustice in the sadly neglected field of cartooning and Popular Arts.

The first inspirational Professor Branestawm storybook introduces the dotty, big-domed, scatterbrained savant as a ramshackle cove with five pairs of spectacles – which he generally wears all at once – and his clothes held together with safety pins …probably because the many explosions he creates always blow his buttons off.

The wise buffoon spends most of his days thinking high thoughts and devising odd devices in his “Inventory” whilst his mundane requirements are taken care of by dotty, devoted, frequently frightened or flustered housekeeper Mrs. Flittersnoop. Branestawm’s best chum is the gruff Colonel Dedshott of the Catapult Cavaliers, although said old soldier seldom knows what the scientist is talking about…

The over-educated inspirationalist and his motley crew first appeared in ‘The Professor Invents a Machine’ which saw the debut of an arcane device that moved so quickly that Branestawm and Dedshott were carried a week into the past and accidentally undid a revolution in Squiglatania – and ended up upsetting everybody on both sides of the argument.

In ‘The Wild Waste-Paper’ Mrs. Flittersnoop’s incessant tidying up caused a spill of the Professor’s new Elixir of Vitality and the consequent enlargement and animation of a basket full of furiously angry bills, clingy postcards and discarded envelopes, whilst in

‘The Professor Borrows a Book’ the absent-minded mentor mislaid a reference tome and had to borrow another from the local library.

A house full of books is the worst place to lose one, and when the second one went walkies Branestawm had to borrow a third or pay the fine on the second. By the time he’d finished the Professor had checked out fourteen copies and was killing himself covertly transporting it from library to library…

When his stuff-stuffed house was raided by ‘Burglars!’ the shocked and horrified thinker was driven to concoct the ultimate security system. It was the perfect device to defend an Englishman’s Castle – unless he was the type who regularly forgot his keys and that he had installed an anti-burglar machine…

When he lost a day because he hadn’t noticed his chronometer had stopped, the Professor invented a new sort of timepiece that never needed winding. Even the local horologist wanted one.

Sadly the meandering mentalist had forgotten to add a what-not to stop them striking more than twelve and as the beastly things inexorably added one peal every hour soon there were more dings than could fit in any fifty-nine minutes. ‘The Screaming Clocks’ quickly became most unwelcome and eventually an actually menace to life and limb…

The Professor often thought so hard that he ceased all motion. Whilst visiting ‘The Fair at Pagwell Green’ Mrs. Flittersnoop and Colonel Dedshott mistook a waxwork of the famously brilliant bumbler for the real thing and brought “him” home to finish his pondering in private. Sadly the carnival waxworks owner alternatively believed he had a wax statue that had learned to talk…

‘The Professor Sends an Invitation’ saw the savant ask Dedshott to tea but forget to include the laboriously scripted card. By means most arcane and convoluted, the doughty old warrior received an ink-smudged blotter in an addressed envelope and mobilised to solve a baffling cipher. Of course his first port-of-call had to be his clever scientific friend – who had subsequently forgotten all about upcoming culinary events…

‘The Professor Studies Spring Cleaning’ found Branestawm applying his prodigious intellect and inventive acumen to the seasonal tradition that so vexed Mrs. Flittersnoop before inevitably finding a way to make things worse. He thus constructed a house-engine that emptied and cleaned itself. Of course it couldn’t really tell the difference between sofa, couch cupboard or housekeeper…

‘The Too-Many Professors’ appeared when the affable artificer invented a solution which brought pictures to life. Flittersnoop was guardedly impressed when illustrations of apples and chocolates became edibly real but utterly aghast when a 3-dimensional cat and elephant began crashing about in the parlour.

So it was pretty inevitable that the foul-smelling concoction would be spilled all over the photograph albums…

In a case of creativity feeding on itself, ‘The Professor Does a Broadcast’ relates how the brilliant old duffer was asked to give a lecture on the Wireless (no, not about radio, but for it…). Unaccustomed as he was to public speaking, the tongue-tied boffin had Dedshott rehearse and drill him until he could recite the whole speech in eleven minutes. Of course the scheduled programme was supposed to last half an hour…

A grand Fancy Dress Ball resulted in two eccentric pillars of Pagwell Society wittily masquerading as each other. Naturally ‘Colonel Branestawm and Professor Dedshott’ were a great success but when the Countess of Pagwell‘s pearls were purloined whilst the old duffers changed back to their regular attire nobody noticed the difference or believed them…

‘The Professor Moves House’ found the inventor forced to rent larger premises because he had filled up the old one with his contraptions. However Branestawm’s attempts to rationalise the Moving Men’s work patterns proved that even he didn’t know everything. At least the disastrous ‘Pancake Day at Great Pagwell’ rescued his reputation when his magnificent automatic Pancake-Making Machine furiously fed a multitude of friends and civic dignitaries. The Mayor liked it so much he purchased it to lay all the municipality’s pavements…

This gloriously enchanting initial outing ends with ‘Professor Branestawm’s Holiday’ as the old brain-bonce finally acquiesced to his housekeeper’s urgent urgings and went for a vacation to the seaside. Keen on swotting up on all things jellyfish the savant set off but forgot to check in at his boarding house, prompting a desperate search by Dedshott, Flittersnoop and the authorities.

Things were further complicated by a Pierrot Show which boasted the best Professor Branestawn impersonator inBritain: so good in fact that even the delinquent dodderer’s best friends could not tell the difference.

With the performer locked up in a sanatorium claiming he wasn’t a Professor, it was a lucky thing the one-and-only scatty scholar was unable to discern the difference between a lecture hall and a seaside show-tent…

As I’ve already mentioned, these astonishingly accessible yarns were originally written for radio and thus abound with rhythmic cadences and onomatopoeic sound effects that just scream to be enjoyed out loud. This eternally fresh children’s classic, augmented by 76 of Heath-Robinson’s most memorable character caricatures and insane implements, offer some of the earliest and most enduring example of spiffing techno-babble and fabulous faux-physics – not to mention impressive iterations of the divine Pathetic Fallacy in all its outrageous glory – and no child should have to grow up without visiting and revisiting the immortal, improbable Pagwell Pioneer.

In 2008 a 75th Anniversary edition of The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm was released by Red Fox but you’re just a likely to find this uproarious ubiquitous marvel in libraries, second-hand shops or even jumble sales – so by all means do…
© 1933 Norman Hunter. All rights reserved.