Category: Cartooning Classics

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The Perils of Pushing 40


By Colin Whittock (Century Hutchinson)
ISBN: 0-7126-1290-4

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a fond look at a resolutely British cartoon compendium and indulged in a few sound and certain smirks and chuckles. This time it’s a little known collection of cartoons about the inexorable passage of time from one of our best yet criminally under-celebrated gagsters.

Of course it’s really just another excuse to bemoan the loss of those once-ubiquitous cheap ‘n’ cheerful gag-filled paperbacks which are now all-but-forgotten fossils of a once mighty industry; fast fading as the much more important-sounding Graphic Novels and Trade Collections carve a niche in our psyches and on our bookshelves.

Me, I’m still convinced that there’s a place on those shelves for some new collections of our magnificent history of graphic giggles and cartoon chortles…

…And, having again glanced at the wasteland that is daytime TV, I’m firmly of the opinion that Parliament should mandate that all new homes have at least one bookshelf built in…

None of which matters a jot or tittle as I call to your attention to a particularly fine example of a lost Artform: themed gag-books which sadly were the last commercial gasp in a tradition of pictorial entertainments that began with Punch and evolved into a saucy standby of British life for nearly a century before fading away, to only haunt bargain bins, Jumble Sales and junk shops…

Colin Whittock was born in Birmingham in 1940 and, after the traditional period of vocational wandering in the wilderness in which he worked as a shopfitter, eventually took up his brushes, pens and pencils to work as a freelance cartoonist.

In 1969 he became Editorial Cartoonist on the Birmingham Evening Mail – a position I suspect he still holds – and also worked as Sports cartoonist for the Sunday Mercury. In his spare time he produced the full-colour feature strip Kev, freelanced for Punch and Private Eye, as well as The Daily Mirror, The Sun, Daily Sketch, Tit-Bits, Weekend, Reveille and The Oldie whilst pursuing a healthy and respectable sideline in advertising, with commissions from greetings card companies, TNT, British Telecom, Jaguar and Powergen amongst others.

British readers of a certain vintage would recognises the art if not the name, as Whittock also worked for years on Buster, Whizzer & Chips, The Beano and other humour weeklies.

He succeeded Leo Baxendale on Champ, and also drew Catnap, Lazy Bones, Clever Dick & Mizz Marble amongst others. The comics work dried up in 1989 as our industry contracted to near death and he again concentrated on gag panels, although he soon began producing scripts for BBC Radio’s venerable News Huddlines and continued his series of Perils of… books such as this one.

Way back when in 1986, he was at his wry, dry best when sharply observing the pitfalls and pratfalls of the big Four Oh!, remarking with assured style on the absurdity of waning life and drained vitality…

The linked cartoons are clustered into successively trenchant chapters beginning with ‘Fit at 40’, rancorously discussing medical screening, doctors in general and particular, exercise and dieting before moving on to the reason for all that torment in ‘Sex’…

Bitter comparisons abound in ‘The Younger Generation’ and ‘Pet Pals’ describes our often double-sided relationship with things hairy, tooth-filled, unpredictable and expensive before men and women of that uncertain age are shown bearing up under the pressure of ‘The Social Whirl’ and making the unwelcome effort to ‘Dress for Success’…

There’s always the imminent threat of more leisure time, successfully countered by ‘The Sporting Hero’ and the glaring giveaway of outdated taste is tackled in ‘The Music of Time’. At least holidays are a safe subject, as (not) seen in ‘Away From it All’, but never forget that such jaunts can have unexpected repercussions such as ‘Late Arrivals’…

Even if an “Autumn” baby does occur though at least that’s a reason to keep ‘On the Job’ but those work woes won’t assuage the concerns of the world-weary middle-aged in ‘The Future’…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly smart ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones, pricking our pomposities, stroking our happy places and feeding our fascinations, and this sort of thing used to be bread ‘n’ butter in our game. We’re all going to really miss them if they disappear forever, so why not get a bookshelf if you don’t have one yet and start filling it with magical material like this…
© 1986 Colin Whittock. All Rights Reserved.

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The Joy of Headaches – How to Survive the Sexual Revolution


By Martin Honeysett (Century Publishing)
ISBN 10: 0-7126-0491-X,      ISBN 13: 978-0712604918

I’ve got a dose of the post-Christmas glums today so it’s probably time to roll out another cartoon compendium and indulge in a bit of safe smirks. This time it’s a little known collection of cartoons about British bedtime habits from one of our best modern gagsters.

Of course it’s really just another excuse to bemoan the loss of those once-ubiquitous cheap ‘n’ cheerful gag-filled paperbacks which are now all-but-forgotten fossils of a once mighty industry; fast fading as the much more important sounding Graphic Novels and Trade Collections carve a niche in our psyches and on our bookshelves.

…And, having glanced at daytime TV over the break, I’ve since firmly fixated on another frightening thought – how many modern homes even have bookshelves any more?

None of which matters a jot or tittle as I call to your attention to a particularly fine example of a lost Artform: themed gag-books which sadly became the last commercial gasp in a tradition of pictorial entertainments that began with Punch and evolved into a saucy standby of British life for nearly a century before fading away, to only haunt bargain bins, Jumble sales and junk shops…

Martin Honeysett was born in Hereford in 1943 and, after the traditional wandering about not knowing what to do with himself, at the end of the 1960s became an animator, illustrator, award-winning cartoonist, painter and educator whose prolific works regularly appeared in the aforementioned Punch, as well as Daily Mirror, Private Eye, Radio Times, The Oldie, The Spectator, Evening Standard, Sunday Telegraph and Observer amongst others. He was a visiting professor at theKyotoSeikaUniversity, Faculty of Art,Japan, from 2005 to 2007.

These days he’s probably best known for magnificently illustrating books for children and adults, such as Bert Feggs Nasty Book, scripted by Terry Jones & Michael Palin, The Queen and I by Sue Townsend, Dick King-Smith’s H. Prince and Ivor Cutler’s mesmeric poetry books Gruts, Fremsley and  Life in a Scotch Sitting Room.

Way back when in 1984, he was an edgy, wryly sharp observer and commentator upon the absurdity of contemporary life, and this collection is a grippingly intriguing discourse on our nasty monkey mating habits and social gaffe-ability, stitched together with a running theme of how the more things change the more they stay the tedious same…

Warning: this hilarious treatise contains lots of wickedly naked people making a mess, frightening the horses, scandalising the neighbours, boring the kids and generally being rudely funny…

Beginning with a trenchant examination of with-it parents in a “permissive society”, what kids already know, lots of spoofs on the peccadilloes of the aristocracy, love amongst the Poor, a history of sex – especially the Swinging Sixties -, social nudity, commercial innovations and the latest technical improvements, before the emphasis easily shifts to niche areas of the intercoursing game.

There are examinations into School Sex Education, fidelity, promiscuity, international mores and incongruities, the mania for manuals and furtive practising leading to a thorough exploration of personal relationships, exploding long-held myths and getting to grips with that contentious size issue…

Much mention is made of medical matters, physical functions, foreign imports and tactics, the nature of consent and the roles of School, Church and State concerning private Citizens’ and citizen’s Privates…

With telling observations on birth control, marital norms, porn, assorted forms of human neutering, infections and disease control, the nuanced differences between “kinky” and “perverted” – as well as taboo, illegal and just plain wrong – addressed, readers will soon be assured that they too can do it right, do it often and do it well into old age.

…Even if the range and choice of partner(s) might cause a few sharp intakes of breath.

Rest assured, however, that there’s still room for old-fashioned Romance.

Sort of.

Dedicated to the certain premise that (other) people having sex is simultaneously better than yours but still truly hilarious, this snappy little monochrome tome is a cut above much of the era’s rather tawdry treatment of the subject, superbly rendered and still marvellously entertaining even in these liberally licentious times – and for a change, this one is still readily available from a range of internet retailers…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly smart ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones, pricking our pomposities, stroking our happy places and feeding our fascinations, and this sort of thing used to be bread ‘n’ butter in our game. We’re all going to really miss them if they disappear forever, so why not get a bookshelf if you don’t have one yet and start filling it with magical material like this…
© 1984 Martin Honeysett. All Rights Reserved.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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.