Category: Comedy

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Dear DC Super-Villains


By Michael Northrop & Gustavo Duarte, coloured by Cris Peter & lettered by Wes Abbott (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1779500540 (PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal to Steal Stocking Stuffer… 9/10 (just give it back after reading, okay?)

Superheroes are purely iconic embodiments if not “perfectualisations” of a whole bunch of deep things about humans. Ask any psychologist or modern philosopher. Sadly, such pristine intellectualisations don’t cut much ice (just ask Captain Cold) in the stories-for-money racket; and every hero from Gilgamesh to the Scarlet Pimpernel and every sleuth and super-doer since mass entertainment began owes a huge recurring debt to the bad lurking in the shadows or monster rampaging down main street.

DC have a particularly fine stable of misguided miscreants, justifiable revengers and thieving psychotic loons – just look at how many have their own titles, shows and films – and their antics as much as the heroes we’re supposed to admire are part of children’s awareness and maturing processes (even boys, who I’m forced to admit frequently grow up by a different set of metrics to girls or other flavours of kids).

Reprising or rather expanding their 2019 hit, Michael Northrop (Trapped, Plunked, Gentlemen, TombQuest) and Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro, Monsters! and Other Stories link both please), turn their delightful comedic eyes on the bad guys who might well be a Legion of Doom but still have it in them to answer a few salient questions from some curious kids with a really good search engines…

In Cairo, a major heist is capped by a relaxing moment of downtime as Selina Kyle responds to a ‘Dear Catwoman’ query about getting caught, whilst Earth’s most maximumly imprisoned mad scientist accepts a rash challenge from a heckler who thinks he’s safely anonymous in ‘Dear Lex Luthor’ and ‘Dear Harley Quinn’ shares her experiences of stand-up comedy and chaotic behaviour…

All these messages come courtesy of the Legion of Doom forwarding service but the would-be world conquerors are generally fretful and bad tempered while trying to find a new leader. Those tensions a painfully apparent in ‘Dear Gorilla Grodd’ as the Super-Ape shares school memories – but never bananas – even as ‘Dear Giganta’ offers advice on bullies and being the tallest girl in class.

When a disabled girl challenges ‘Dear Sinestro’ to examine his motivations, it sparks an unexpected sentimental response, and even ruthless hardcase rogue ronin ‘Dear Katana’ also reassesses her life after opening a succinctly sharp email question, whereas the modern-day pirate king only gets “fished” after clicking on ‘Dear Black Manta’, leading to a long-awaited calamitous convergence, supervillain showdown and inevitable big battle with the JLA in concluding chapter ‘Dear DC Super-Villains’…

Big, bold, daft and deliriously addictive, this in another superb all-ages action romp packed with laughs and delivering a grand experience for any who red it. Extra material includes ‘Who’s Who in the Legion of Doom’ of the heroes, and creator biographies in ‘Auxiliary Members!’ plus an extract from Metropolis Grove by Drew Brockington. If you love comics and want others to as well you couldn’t do more that point potential fans this way. Actually, just show, tell, or email them: pointing is rude…
© 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Dear Justice League


By Michael Northrop & Gustavo Duarte, coloured by Ma Maiolo & lettered by Wes Abbott (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8413-8 (PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Comic Perfection and Ideal Stocking Stuffer… 10/10

Keystone of the DC Universe, the Justice League of America is the reason we have a comics industry today. After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – for which read the launch of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s progress was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus, what seems blindingly obvious to everyone blessed with four-colour hindsight was irrefutably proven: a number of popular characters combining forces can multiply readership. Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick…

The Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a landmark in industry development but faded and failed after tastes changed at the end of the 1940s. When Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956 the true turning point came a few years later with the (inevitable?) teaming of his freshly reconfigured mystery men. When wedded to relatively unchanged costumed big guns who had weathered the first fall of the Superhero, the result was a new, modern, Space-Age version of the JSA and the birth of a new mythology.

The moment that changed everything for us baby-boomers came with The Brave and the Bold #28 (cover dated March 1960): a classical adventure title recently retooled as a try-out magazine like Showcase. Just in time for Christmas 1959, ads began running…

“Just Imagine! The mightiest heroes of our time… have banded together as the Justice League of America to stamp out the forces of evil wherever and whenever they appear!”

When the JLA launched it cemented the growth and validity of the genre, triggering an explosion of new characters at every company producing comics in America and even spread to the rest of the world as the 1960s progressed. Superheroics have waned since, but never gone away, and remain a trigger point for all us kids. However, comics have grown serious and mature, and we increasingly left the kids out of the equation, letting TV cartoons pick up the slack. Even the roster in this tale is informed as much by animation adventures as potent printed page-turners…

Well, superheroes are still kids’ stuff as this superb book – and its sequel – attest. An early entry in DC’s project to bring their characters back to young readers, Dear Justice League takes all the iconic riffs and paraphernalia attached to the team and comedically runs wild with a core conceit: the heroes individually answering emails – or other, older, lesser communications – from young fans with problems to share or questions needing answers.

Played strictly for laughs by Brazilian illustrator/slapstick maestro Gustavo Duarte (Bizarro, Monsters! and Other Stories link both please), the segmented saga is composed by author and journalist Michael Northrop (Trapped, Plunked, Gentlemen, TombQuest) who blends charm with wit and a great deal of heart for maximum effects.

It begins as long-suffering little Ben Silsby gets under some steel-hard skin by texting ‘Dear Superman’, whilst ‘Dear Hawkgirl’ distracts the winged wonder so much during an alien bug battle that she neglects her beloved hamster. Although old foe Black Manta is no problem, the Sea King reads a ‘Dear Aquaman’ question and must ponder hygiene issues to the point of upsetting Hall of Justice roommate Purdey (his goldfish)…

As the team convene to discuss big bug activity, a ‘Dear Wonder Woman’ direct message send the Amazing Amazon off on an embarrassing memory moment whilst ‘Dear Flash’ takes on bullies, poor concentration and bad parenting, ‘Dear Green Lantern’ trades fashion tips and colour swatches with grade school diva-to-be Shalene and ‘Dear Cyborg’ finds a different kind of opponent online and ready to rock…

Ultimate paranoid the Dark Knight doesn’t do email and must find another way to respond to a ‘Dear Batman’ that sets his sentimental heart and brutal boyhood into perspective, which all sets the scene for ET extermination excitement as the bug subplot rattling through all the vignettes boils over into all-ages cartoon action in blockbuster finale ‘Dear Justice League’…

Pure comics nostalgia writ large and hard hitting. Enjoy all you oldster kids…

Extra material includes creator biographies, the ‘Hall of Justice Top Secret Files (No Peeking!)’ of our heroes, and their animal ‘Auxiliary Members!’ before concluding with come-hither extracts from other kid-friendly books in the line (specifically the sequel plugged next) and Superman of Smallville by Art Baltazar & Franco.

Fun, deceptively thrilling and infinitely re-readable, this old school treat is a must have item for anyone who loves superheroes.
© 2019, DC Comics All Rights Reserved.

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Gomer Goof volume 11: Goof-Off at the Gomer Corral


By Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-128-6 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Little Euro-Sparkle for Any Occasion …9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924, André Franquin began his astonishing comics career in a golden age of European cartooning. As assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on the strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature in 1946, and went on to create countless unforgettable new characters like Fantasio and The Marsupilami. Over two decades Franquin made the strip purely his, expanding Spirou & Fantasio’s scope and horizons, as they became globetrotting journalists who visited exotic places, exposed crimes, explored the incredible and clashed with bizarre, exotic arch-enemies. Throughout, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, popping back to base between assignments. Sadly, ensconced there was an arrogant, accident-prone office junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. This was Gaston Lagaffe; Franquin’s other immortal – or peut-être unkillable? – conception…

There’s a hoary tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy; it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though, after debuting in LJdS #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable dimwit grew – like one of his monstrous projects – beyond control, becoming one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic, whether guesting in Spirou’s adventures or his own strips/faux reports on the editorial pages he was supposed to paste up. Initial cameos in Spirou yarns or occasional asides on text pages featured well-meaning foul-up and ostensible gofer Gaston lurking and lounging amidst a crowd of diligent toilers: a workshy slacker employed as a general assistant at LJdS’s head office. The scruffy bit-player eventually and inevitably stumbled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned helpfulness wedded to irrepressible self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati vehicles and recognise recurring riffs from Only Fools and Horses and Mr Bean. It’s blunt-force slapstick, paralysing puns, fantastic ingenuity and inspired invention, compiled to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (that there’s British punning, see?) and ensure no good deed goes noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer can be seen (if you’re quick) toiling at Spirou’s editorial offices: initially reporting to Fantasio, but latterly complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other harassed and bewildered staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to actually handle. These include page paste-up, posting packages, filing, clean-up, collecting stuff inbound from off-site and editing readers’ letters (the real reason fans’ requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered)…

Gomer is lazy, hyperkinetic, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry: a passionate sports fan and animal lover whose most manic moments all stem from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing. It leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like increasingly manic traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, plus ordinary passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street. Through it all, the obtuse office oaf remains affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions matter: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what does gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne see in the self-opinionated idiot, and will perpetually-outraged capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

In 1979, after a long pause while the auteur dealt with his mental health issues, Gaston – Lagaffe mérite des baffes became the 13th collected album and in 2023 was Cinebook’s 11th translated compilation. As Goof-off at the Gomer Corral, it offers single page bursts and half-page gags in non-stop all-Franquin jabs and japes. From this point on the frequency of Gaston collections reduced by 50%…

A brighter spotlight falls upon Longsnoot (AKA Joseph Longtarin in European editions) too, a protracted war of nerves across future volumes as Gomer increasingly clashed with forces of authority, and revealed here via many car-based clashes and a cold war involving parking meters culminating in the Goof’s invention of mobile dummy replicas of the despised coin collectors.

As always, forward looking Gomer is blind to the problems his antiquated automobile causes, despite numerous attempts to soup up, cleanse, modify and mollify the motorised atrocity he calls his. The decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of assisted execution than his many well-meant engineering interventions, as seen in its brief conversion to natural gas fuel, petrol-powered gassifiers, onboard coal-burners and addition of crash bags years ahead of anything produced by hitmen or torturers. With travel so important, it’s no wonder he also finds time to similarly improve his motor bike with augmented horns and lethally heated seats…

Work gets tougher as a succession of nightmares plague Gomer even as unanswered mail piles up, making more trouble for Prunelle and in-house staff artist Yves (occasionally “Yvon”) Lebrac who often act as unwilling, inadvertent beta testers for our well-meaning, overly-helpful, know-it-all office hindrance. This time the poor saps are at ground zero for numerous moments of projectile madness after Gomer improves the pedal bin lid springs…  Devoted to his inhouse menagerie (Cheese the mouse, goldfish Bubelle, an adopted feral cat and a black-headed gull) our loving lad adds doors and passages and even teaches them all to blow gum bubbles. It doesn’t take long, but the clean-up sure does… almost as long as training a troupe of snails to perform a nightclub act…

Although there’s less opportunity to invent interesting foodstuffs, Gomer has leisure enough to augment office traffic, filing and even automate suitcase usage, but his greatest triumph this time round is renovating the office reference library, creating a thing of architectural wonder and lethal imprecision…

At least lovely Miss Jeanne and forever faithful pal Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street are able to appreciate the efforts made to improve the world, even if it seems at the cost of a few paltry lives and much municipal and private property…

Far better enjoyed than précised or spoken of, these strips allowed Franquin to flex whimsical muscles, subversively sneak in satirical support for their environmental beliefs, pacifism and animal rights and remain sublime examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading. Why haven’t you got your Goof on yet?

Isn’t it time you started Goofing around?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2023 Cinebook Ltd.

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Hägar the Horrible: The Epic Chronicles – Dailies 1980-1981


By Dik Browne (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-715-1 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect Traditional Plunder-fun… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Although very much in decline these days, for nearly 200 years cartoon strips and gag-panels were the universal medium of wit, satire, mirth and cultural exchange. Latterly we purveyors of primarily sequential narrative have exhibited an unhappy tendency to become protective and parochial about our own particular specialism within the greater art form. How many times have we heard an artist or writer working on a hot new comic book property revelling in sales of 50 thousand monthly copies, almost simultaneously disparage strips such as Dilbert, Dick Tracy or Garfield whose daily readership can be numbered in millions, if not billions?

Let’s all just try to remember that tastes differ, and that we’re all just making lines on a surface here, and most especially that TV and Computer Games are the real enemy of our industry, shall we?

OK, rant over.

Mainstream cartooning is a huge daily joy to a vast and often global readership whose needs are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers dipping their toes in the sequential narrative pool. Even the stuck-up stickybeaks who have STILL pointedly “never read a comic” have enjoyed strips or panels, and in this arena Britain has seen not only a golden bounty of home produced material but also imported some of the very best the rest of the world has to offer.

Richard Arthur Allan “Dik” Browne was a native New Yorker born in 1917 who studied at Cooper Union and apprenticed as a copy boy and art-bod for the New York Journal America before joining the US Army. His wartime duties in the Engineering Corps included strategic map-making, but whilst in service he also created the comic strip Jinny Jeep about the Women’s Army Corps, which set the tone for his peacetime career. As a professional cartoonist and illustrator, he worked for Newsweek and in advertising after mustering out, gaining a reputation as a superb logo designer (The Campbell Soup Kids, Chiquita Banana and the Birdseye Bird number amongst his most memorable creations).

Dik also dabbled with comic books – a few Classics Illustrated Junior issues – and produced children’s books, before teaming up in 1954 with Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker to draw hugely successful spin-off strip Hi and Lois. Whilst illustrating that family comedy – and deviously training his sons Chance and Chris to take eventually over his cartooning duties – Browne devised another strip that he would write as well as render.

Hägar the Horrible debuted through the King Features Syndicate on February 4th 1973 and quickly became a global hit. The strip is a fixture of 1900 papers in 56 countries and a dozen languages with the characters migrating to books, comic albums, games, animated movies, toys and more. Dik Browne retired from cartooning in 1988 and died from cancer on June 4th 1989. Chance continued Hi and Lois whilst Chris, assisted by Gary Hallgren, wielded pen, waved sword and wore the chief’s horned helmet on Hägar until his own death on February 5th 2023…

A certified classic of World Cartooning, Hägar the Horrible is the ongoing subject of comprehensive collectors series. This one – the sixth monolithic hardback compendium of a treasured and much missed series – is a personal favourite, covering 7th July 1980 – January 2nd 1982, with the hard-drinking, voracious sea-roving Viking and his scurvy crew trekking out to far climes before perennially staggering home to their quirky families in a never-ending stream of sight gags, painful puns and surreal situations.

We open with a passionate reverie from a close associate and fellow star cartoonist in the Foreword by Lynn Johnston before Chris Browne shares memories of one of his dad’s most imaginative and appealing children’s books (The Land of Lost Things, co-created with Mort Walker) in ‘The Lost World of Dik Browne’. Then, before the cavalcade of comic calamity commences, readers old and new are regaled with a handy chart of the Hägar Family Tree, reintroducing the great man and his doughty dependents: Helga the long-suffering wife, studious son Hamlet and troublesome teenaged daughter Honi. Also making an appearance are faithful canine Snert, stroppy house-duck Kvack and the hero’s faithful if intellectually challenged sidekick Lucky Eddie…

The magic of these daily strips’ stream of japes and capers is that they constantly revisit established themes and hot-button topics. Over hundreds of pages that follow you will see Hägar’s perpetual struggle to bring home the bacon (and wine and gold and textiles and…), spar with Helga as she fruitlessly struggles to civilise her barbaric oaf of a man, and Honi’s torment as she pines equally for seedy musician Lute and noble knight Sir Philip Courtright whilst testing out other matrimonial options; and alternatively considers a career as an axe-swinging Valkyrie…

Bookish Hamlet is always there to disappoint and delight his gregarious, bellicose dad; Snert and Kvack frequently outwit and appal the humans who share their home whilst Lucky Eddie and the mismatched crew of incompetent sea-reavers follow the red-bearded rascal into battle against foreign armies, daunting dragons, a coterie of assorted clergy and the unwelcoming elements, content in the knowledge that somehow, somewhere they will find more booze…

Enticing, irrepressible, outrageously old-fashioned, utterly unreconstructed, hilarious and yet deeply satisfying, Hägar the Horrible is a masterpiece of the strip cartoonists’ unique art form and one guaranteed to deliver delight over and over again to young and old alike.
Hägar the Horrible is © 2014 King Features Syndicate ™ & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. All strips © 1980 & 1981 King Features Syndicate. All rights reserved. All other material © 2014 their respective authors.

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Tiny Titans volume 3: Sidekickin’ it


By Art Baltazar & Franco with (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2653-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fun Family Fables …9/10

DC’s characters have become a mainstay of kids’ television fare with their much-missed Cartoon Network imprint arguably the last bastion of children’s comics in America, consolidating the link between TV and 2D fun and thrills with stunning interpretations of such TV landmarks as Ben 10, Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and others. That kids’ comics line also reverse-engineered truly exceptional material based on TV iterations of their proprietary characters like Legion of Super Heroes, Batman: Brave and the Bold, Supergirl and Krypto the Super Dog as well as material like Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! which was merely similar in tone and content.

For many – me included – the imprint’s finest release, and one which has a created a sub-genre recreated at many different publishers, was a series ostensibly aimed at beginning readers, but which became a firm favourite of older fans… and a multi-award winner too.

Superbly mirroring the magical wonderland inside a child’s head where everything is happily mixed up together, Tiny Titans is a sublime antidote to continuity cops and slavish fan-boy quibbling (erm, uh…  I think you’ll find that in…) by reducing the vast cast of the Teen Titans Go! animated series, the greater boutique of the mainstream comic books and (ultimately) the entire DC Universe to little kids and their parents/guardians in the wholesome kindergarten environment of Sidekick City Elementary School. It’s a scenario spring-loaded with in-jokes, sight-gags and beloved yet gently mocked paraphernalia of generations of strip readers and screen-watchers…

Collecting issues #13-18 (April to September 2009) of the magically madcap and infinitely addictive all-ages mini-masterpiece, this third volume begins on a petulant note with Pet Club at Wayne Manor. Art Baltazar and co-creator Franco (Aureliani) have mastered a witty, bemusingly gentle manner of storytelling that just happily rolls along, with the assorted characters getting by and trying to make sense of the great big world, having “Adventures in Awesomeness”. The method generally involves stringing together smaller incidents and moments into an overall themed portmanteau tale and it works astoundingly well.

After a handy and as-standard identifying roll-call page, ‘Tough Cookie’ features Raven feeding park critters but desperately striving to keep her hard-as-nails rep intact, after which bubble-headed Psimon goes to science club and gets caught in some uncool name-calling. The main event kicks off with the kids and their pets convening at Stately Wayne Manor and incurring the wrath of dapper, long-suffering manservant Alfred. The Penguins don’t help… no, wait, they actually do. ‘A Hot Spot’ then finds Raven and Kid Devil trading power sets with Firestarter Hotspot and evoking the joys of being a Bird Scout, after which The Kroc Files shows the Wayne’s wonderful ultimate butler and the roguish reptilian each demonstrating ‘How to Pick up the Dry Cleaning’, before the issue ends with a Tiny Titans Bubble Squares puzzle and a pinup of bird-themed champions Hawk, Dove and Raven.

Sea-themed issue #14 opens with a proudly shouted ‘Aw Yeah Titans!’ and class trip to Paradise Island. The boys just can’t understand why they have to stand on tables while the girls can run about freely wherever they like and play with the all the weird animals…

Back in Sidekick City, Cyborg’s vacuum cleaning invention runs amok while Beast Boy and little Miss Martian stage a shapeshifting duel, even as on Paradise Island ‘Stay for Dinner’ sees Wonder Girl and the other Wonder Girl guests for lunch – as lunch – of Mrs. Cyclops.

Wrapping up affairs is another Kroc Files (‘How to Bake a Chocolate Cake’), a string of gags in Time for Jokes by the Riddler’s kid Enigma plus a ‘Paradise Island Pet Club Pin-up!’

The next issue finds ‘Bunnies, Bunnies, Everywhere Bunnies’ at Wayne Manor, where Alfred opts to stay home and watch the kids and their pets. Sadly, magician Zatara joins the fun and once more loses his magic wand to playful Beppo the Super Monkey. Cue rapid rabbit reproduction…

Elsewhere, Deathstroke’s daughter Rose lands her share of babysitting duties, and soon learns how to handle the Tiny Terror Titans before a ‘Tiny Titans Epilogue’ reveals a marvellous secret regarding one of those proliferating bunnies, as issue concludes with more activity freebies: ‘Pet Club Mammal Travel’ and a bonus pin-up of Rose and those Tiny Terrors…

Issue #16 revisits a perennial puzzle of comics, specifically ‘Who’s the Fastest?!’ as Coach Lobo sets his heart on making the Sidekick Elementary kids ultra-fit. Part of the regimen includes a footrace around the entire world, and Supergirl, Inertia and Kid Flash all think they have it nailed…

Lesser-powered tykes find unique ways to cope with natural obstacles – such as the ocean – in ‘As the Race Continues…’ while the Coach takes a load off with coffee and comics, and the Wonder Girls and Shelly trade costume tips. Down south, late starters Mas y Menos join the final dash to the finish where a non-starter surprisingly triumphs…

In the aftermath, shrinking-hero contingent The tiny Tiny Titans indulge in ‘One more Contest’ before an ‘Aw Yeah Pin-up’ of Supergirl and Kid Flash follows a Tiny Titans Coin Race activity page. ‘Raven’s Book of Magic Spells’ starts as a play date but is bewilderingly disrupted when Trigon’s devilish daughter shows off her latest present in ‘Mixin’ it Up’: accidentally manifesting unlikely mystical heavyweight Mr. Mxyzptlk. And so, hilarity and impish insanity ensue…

Back in what passes for the land of reason, Robin, Beast Boy and Cyborg are tasked with recovering Batman’s cape and mask in ‘Battle for the Cow’ (if you read DC regularly, you know how painful a pun that is). Naturally, Starfire and Bumblebee have a sensible, pain-free solution to their woes, after which the Boy Wonder’s birthday party displays a fashion parade of alternative costumes in the present-giving portion of festivities…

Those tiny Titans go clothes hunting in ‘Shop Shrinking’ while Kid Flash, Robin and Cyborg ask ‘Hey, What’s Continuity?’ Wrapping up is another Kroc Files contrasting how Alfred and the lizardly lout cope with ‘Walking in the Rain’, topped off with Special Bonus Pin-up ‘The Return of the Bat-Cow!’

Concluding the juvenile japery is a fall from grace which can only be called ‘Infinite Detention’ as lunch lady Darkseid is demoted to Janitor for the Day and typically overreacts to boisterous behaviour in the hallways. With both good kids and bad suffering after-class incarceration, arguments ensue and the stern Monitor increase the tally for the slightest infraction. Soon kids are facing days of detention. Sadly for the Monitor, his nemesis Anti-Monitor has popped by with coffee and more stupid pranks…

One final Kroc Files reveals ‘How to go Bowling’ and Enigma offers another session of ‘Aw Yeah Joke Time!’ before the tome terminates with a selection of character sketches and studies repackaged as ‘Class Photos’.

Despite being ostensibly aimed at super-juniors and TV kids, these wonderful, wacky yarns – which marvellously marry the heart and spirit of such classic strips as Peanuts and The Perishers with something uniquely mired and marinated in pure comicbookery – are an unforgettable riot of laughs no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly intoxicating. What more do you need to know?
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Kids Are Still Weird – and More Observations From Parenthood


By Jeffrey Brown (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-344-8 (digest TPB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-345-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fabulous Family Fable … 9/10

It’s never too late to find a treasure or have a good time. Cartoonist Jeffrey Brown certainly knows that, as a glance at any of his painfully incisive autobiographical mini-comics, quirky literary graphic novels and hilarious all-ages comedy cartoons will show.

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1975, Brown studied Fine Art at the Chicago Art Institute but abandoned painting to concentrate on comics. His intense, bizarrely funny observational strips garnered him fans amongst in-the-know consumers and fellow creators alike: all finding something to love in such varied fare as his 4-volume “Girlfriend Trilogy” (Unlikely, AEIOU and Every Girl is the End of the World For Me and opening shot Clumsy), Bighead, A Matter of Life, Little Things, Funny, Misshapen Body, Undeleted Scenes, Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Other Observations, Little Things or Sulk. If he’s new to you and you’re looking for a new multi-ranging talent to follow, other career treats include the Lucy & Andy Neanderthal series, slyly satirical all-ages funny stuff for The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, Marvel’s Strange Tales, Incredible Change-Bots, and similar visual venues.

Happily, unlike so many creators with such an eclectic oeuvre, Brown also achieved a measure of mainstream success thanks to a keen artistic sense and lifelong love affair with the most significant popular arts phenomenon of the last 45 years. In 2012 Brown created a breakout best-seller with an hilarious exploration of soft, nurturing side of the Dark Lord of the Sith. Wondering what might have been, Brown had the most dangerous man (more or less) in the Empire spend a little quality time with his missing offspring.

The hilarious pre (Jedi) school experiences of Darth Vader and Son (as would have been seen in Star Wars – Episode Three and a Half) were followed by Vader’s Little Princess, Star Wars: Jedi Academy and more, investigating deliriously daft and telling snatches of Skywalker domesticity – like baseball practise with light sabres – and was utterly irresistible.

No fan of the all-conquering franchise could possibly do without those deliciously sweet treats and those superbly subversive cartoon confections fully inform this stunning collation of similar kiddie hijinks which exploit the best thing about being a cartoonist with children… ready-made, constant gag ideas just waiting to be shared…

A follow-up to 2014’s Kids are Weird, here Brown and wife Jennifer reveal more things Oscar – and his little brother Simon – do and say that make sense to them but cause hidebound adults to gasp, splutter, spit-take and reach for notebooks. It’s a world of froot loops and green poops, toys (soft and so not) and declamatory statements, books read and trips misremembered and a package of experiences designed to prompt the response “yeah, but mine went…”

Both delicious and agonising in their forthright simplicity, these non-sequential pictorial snippets reveal how we’ve all been there, or somewhere quite near. Packed with joyous wonder, Kids Are Still Weird is a magical delight for all engaged in raising the next generation and an intoxicating examination of what makes us human, hopeful and incorrigible…
© 2024 Jeffrey Brown.

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Basil Wolverton’s The Culture Corner


By Basil Wolverton (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-308-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because it’s Still Funny… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Basil Wolverton was one of a kind; a cartoonist and wordsmith of unique skills and imagination and one whose controversial works inspired and delighted many whilst utterly revolting others. Born in Central Point, Oregon on July 9th 1909, Wolverton worked as a Vaudeville performer, reporter and cartoonist, and – unlike most cartoonists of his time – preferred to stay far away from the big city. For most of his life he mailed in work from the rural wilderness of Vancouver, Washington State.

He made his first national cartoon sale at age 16 and began pitching newspaper strips in the late 1920s. A great fan of fantastic fiction and the swiftly-developing science fiction genre, Wolverton sold Marco of Mars to the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929 but the company then declined to publish it, citing its similarity to the popular Buck Rogers feature.

Equally at home with comedy, horror and adventure fantasy material the young creative dynamo adapted easily to the concept of superheroes, and began working extensively in the new medium of comicbooks, where he produced such gems as Spacehawks and Disk-Eyes the Detective for Circus Comics, plus a brace of minor hits and unabashed classics: the grimly imaginative (but unrelated) sci fi cosmic avenger Spacehawk for Target Comics and Rockman – Underground Secret Agent for Timely/Marvel’s USA Comics.

Seemingly tireless, Wolverton produced an apparently endless supply of comedy features too, ranging from extended series like Superman/boxing parody Powerhouse Pepper to double, single and half-page gag fillers such as ‘Bedtime Bunk’, ‘Culture Quickie’ and ‘Bedtime Banter’. In 1946 he infamously won a national competition held by Al Capp of Li’l Abner fame to visualise Lena the Hyena, that strip’s “ugliest woman in the world”, and during the 1950s space and horror boom crafted some of the most imaginative short stories comics have ever seen. Of course, he also worked for Mad Magazine.

Wolverton had been a member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s (prototype televangelist of a burgeoning Christian fundamentalist movement) Radio Church of God since 1941. In 1956, he illustrated the founder’s pamphlet ‘1975 in Prophecy’ and two years later produced a stunning illustrative interpretation of The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last. Soon after he began writing and drawing an illustrated six-volume adaptation of the Old Testament entitled ‘The Bible Story: the Story of Man’ serialised in the sect’s journal The Plain Truth. In many ways, these religious works are his most moving and powerful.

In 1973, Wolverton returned to comic books, illustrating more of his memorably comedic grotesques for DC’s Plop!, but the aging artist suffered a stroke the next year. Basil Wolverton died on December 31st 1978.

In 2010 Fantagraphics collected a spectacular haul of Wolverton’s very best gag features in a uniquely informative hardback also available in a fancy-shmancy sci fi digital edition.

Culture Corner ran as a surreal, sublimely screwball half-page “advice column” in Whiz Comics, as well as The Marvel Family and The Daisy Handbook from 1946 to 1955, when publisher Fawcett sold off its comic division to Charlton Comics – including the very last unpublished strips. The hermit-cartoonist was clearly a meticulous creator, and his extensive files have bequeathed us a once-in-a-lifetime insight into his working practice and the editorial exigencies of the period.

Wolverton sent a fully pencilled rough of each proposed episode to Will Lieberson and Virginia Provisiaro (Executive editor and Whiz Comic’s editor respectively) who would comment, then commission or reject. The returned pencils would then form the skeleton of the instalment. This marvellously madcap tome re-presents the full-colour strips with (almost) all of the original pencil roughs – diligently stored by Wolverton for decades – as counterpoint and accompaniment, revealing the depth not only of Wolverton’s imagination at play but also his deft facility with design and inking.

Also included are many extra roughs and all the extent rejected ideas – still some of the most outrageous tomfoolery ever unleashed even after all these years.

Basil Wolverton was something of an inventor and DIY maestro, according to his son Monte’s illuminating introduction, turned the family home into a dream-house Rube Goldberg or our own Professor Brainstawm would be proud of. That febrile ingenuity is clearly seen in the advisements of Croucher K. Conk Q.O.C. (Queer Old Coot) as with awesome alliteration and pre-Rap rhyming riffs, the surly savant suggests solutions for some of life’s least tiresome troubles.

Among the welter of whacky wisdoms here, some of the most timelessly true are ‘How to Raise Your Eyebrows’, ‘How to Eat your Spaghetti without Getting Wetty’, ‘How to Clap without Mishap’, ‘How to Stop Brooding if your Ears are Protruding’, ‘How to Bow’ and ‘How to Grope for Bathtub Soap’: prominent amongst more than a hundred other sage prescriptions, so whatever your age, alignment or species this crazy chronicle has something that will change your life – and often for the better!

Graphically grotesque, inveterately un-sane and scrupulously screwball, this lexicon of lost laughs is still a must have item for anyone in need of certifiably classy cheering up.
© 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Red Moon


By Carlos Trillo & Eduardo Risso, translated by Zeljko Medic (Dark Horse/SAF Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-447-7(HC)  eISBN: 978-1-62115-916-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Marvel’s Most Magical… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

If you like a whiff of tongue in cheek whimsy with your fantastic fairytales you might want to take a look at this superb treat from prolific and much-missed Argentinean journalist and comics writer Carlos Trillo (Topo Gigio, Alvar Mayor, El Loco Chávez, Peter Kampf, Cyber Six, Point de rupture) and terrifyingly versatile illustrator Eduardo Risso (Batman, 100 Bullets, Jonny Double, Parque Chas, Simon, Boy Vampire), starring an affable boy acrobat and a tempestuous little princess.

Los misterios de la Luna roja was originally released as a quartet of comics between 1997 and 1998 by Ervin Rustemagi?’s Balkan publishing powerhouse Strip Art Features and appears here as compiled in a stunning translated tome thanks to Dark Horse Comics. Kicking off with scene-setting epic ‘Bran the Invisible’, the supremely wry, deftly comedic action opens as junior tumbler Antolin and his showbiz mentors Crocker & Theo fetch up their travelling show in the extremely depressed and downhearted land of Burien.

Unable to raise a single smile or any sign approbation, the lad soon learns that the kingdom is in mourning. Burien’s Lord and defender has been stricken with grief since his wife Tyl died. Moreover, their daughter Moon is both bonkers and prone to violence. She also talks to (shouts at and fights with) an invisible friend…

However, after encountering the red-haired daughter of the despondent widower, Antolin is quickly forced to conclude that she’s not crazy at all. His first clue is that unseen Bran apparently predicted the acrobat’s arrival and how the orphan boy would help “Red Moon” save the land. The clincher, though, is that something undetectable keeps hitting him…

There’s no time to waste since the marauding armies of the cruel yet cowardly Lord of Leona are already making their uncontested way over the now-undefended borders…

And thus begins an epic confection with crucial quests, astounding odysseys, barbarically vile villains, fairy queens, witches, dragons and monsters all in attendance as the valiant children – and Bran – flee the invasion, uncover the incredible truth of Tyl’s fate and seek to amass a meagre but prophesied army of incredible individuals to rescue Burien and restore Moon’s father to his previous competence and glory…

The saga concludes as Antolin and Red Moon return to the troubled land of Burien resolutely accompanied by their implausibly unbeatable ‘Attack Circus’ – and a few useful Fairy trinkets – resolved to repel the vile invasion and deliver to the sadistic Leona his just deserts. Controversially, that inevitable prospect provides no Happy Ever After for Antolin, who learns in the throes of triumph for Burian that his beloved mentors Theo & Crocker were sent to certain doom by the invaders…

Thus he sets off again, following their trail into ‘The Never Kingdom’ and is soon delighted to see Moon – and (not see) Bran – following the former partner-in-peril. Braving icy wastes, horrific beasts and a population of magically-mutated monsters, the kids challenge the power of wicked crone Panta and consequently discover that the malevolent sorceress and cannibal might perhaps be the long-lost mother of foundling Antolin…

Family feeling doesn’t count for much in Panta’s world, so there are few regrets after Moon discovers the secret of reversing the witch’s transformation spells and starts putting the Never Kingdom to rights…

The fabulously engaging, deliciously trenchant frolics then wrap up with the introduction of insalubrious junior jester Patapaf – and his ventriloquistic stick Pitipif – who play a critical role in the search for ‘The Book of All Dreams’.

With peace and joy restored to his subjects, the widowed Lord of Burian remarries but his new bride is almost immediately abducted by invulnerable ogre Lamermor de Granf to ensure that her husband will duel him for the right to rule Burien. Outraged Moon can do nothing until she enjoys a fairy-sent dream and learns the smug giant has a hidden weakness. Setting off with Patapaf to find wandering showman Antolin and talking cat Blas Pascual de la Galera the little warriors invade Witch Queen Yaga’s fortress – and subconscious – to ferret out a long-occluded means to destroy Lamermor, accidentally acquiring an unlikely ally who will ensure their victory and a Happy Ending at last…

Fast, funny and filled with family-friendly action and thrills, Red Moon is a delirious double-edged delight, with knowing sophistication for adult readers working side-by-side with gloriously inventive takes on traditional tale-telling, adeptly realised by Risso’s magnificently surreal illustration.

Ideal bedtime reading for anybody and any time.
Red Moon™ & © 2005, 2006, 2014 SAF Comics. All rights reserved.

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Clifton volume 3: 7 Days to Die


By Turk & De Groot, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-08-3 (Album TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Seeing ourselves through other’s eyes is always a salutary experience and our Continental cousins in the comics biz are especially helpful in that respect as regards the core characteristics of being British.

For some inexplicable reason most of Europe’s comics cognoscenti – most especially the French and Belgians – seem fascinated with us. Maybe it’s a shared heritage of Empires in Decline and old cultures and traditions in transition? An earlier age might claim it’s simply a case of “Knowing your Enemy”. Whether looking at Anglo air ace Biggles, indomitable scientific adventurers Blake and Mortimer, the Machiavellian machinations of Green Manor or the further travails of Long John Silver, the serried stalwarts of our Scepter’d Isles apparently cut a dashing swathe through the pages of Europe’s assorted strip-magazines and albums.

Clifton was originally devised by child-friendly strip genius Raymond Macherot (Chaminou, Les croquillards, Chlorophylle, Sibylline) for iconic magazine Le Journal de Tintin; a doughty True Brit troubleshooter who debuted in December 1959, just as a filmic 007 was preparing to set the world ablaze…

After three albums worth of material – compiled and released between 1959 and 1960 – Macherot left Tintin for arch-rival Le Journal de Spirou and his eccentric comedy crime-fighter forlornly floundered until LJdT revived him at the height of the Swinging London scene and aforementioned spy-boom, courtesy of Jo-El Azaza & Greg (Michel Régnier). These strips were subsequently collected in 1969 as Les lutins diaboliques in French and De duivelse dwergen for Dutch-speakers.

Then it was back into retirement until 1971 when first Greg (with artist Joseph Loeckx) took his shot; working until 1973 when writer Bob De Groot and illustrator Philippe “Turk” Liegeois fully revived the be-whiskered Brit for the long haul. They produced ten tales of which this – 1979’s 7 jours pour mourir – was fourth. From 1984 on, artist Bernard Dumont (AKA Bédu) – limned De Groot’s scripts before eventually assuming the writing chores as well, until the series at last concluded in 1995 …but not for long…

In keeping with its rather haphazard Modus Operandi and indomitably undying nature, the Clifton experience resumed yet again in 2003, crafted by De Groot & Michel Rodrigue for four further adventures; a grand total of 25 to date. The setup is deliciously simple: pompous, irascible Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton, ex-RAF, former Metropolitan police Constabulary and recently retired from MI5, has a great deal of difficulty dealing with being put out to pasture in rural Puddington. He thus takes every opportunity to get back in the saddle, occasionally assisting the Government or needy individuals as an amateur sleuth. Sadly for Clifton – as with that other much-underappreciated national treasure Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army – he is too keenly aware that he is usually the only truly competent man in a world full of blithering idiots…

This particular tale strays somewhat from well-trodden humour paths, indulging in some frantic action and sinister suspense bombastic whilst still resolutely going for comedy gold. In his third Cinebook album – as first seen in 2005 – the Gentleman Sleuth is notably absent as the tale opens in London at the secret Headquarters of MI5. Veteran warhorse and ultra-capable spymaster Colonel Donald Spruce is having a little bit of a crisis…

A battled-scarred survivor of simpler times, Spruce longs for one last field mission, but is instead swamped with petty admin nonsense. That all changes in an instant as the computer boffins in charge of Betty – latest in the line of “Thinkover” super-calculators – discovers a little problem. In the age of automation, Betty controls every aspect of physical eliminations for the agency. “She” is an infallible electronic assassination expediter. Information on a target is fed in and Betty commences a contract, contacting outside agents to do the dirty work, providing all details they will need to complete the commission. No hostile has ever lasted more than a week when Betty is concerned: she provides efficiency, expediency, economy and utter deniability…

Except now the harassed technos are enduring a severe tongue-lashing from Spruce who has noticed that the latest print-out is retired agency star (and his old chum) Harold Wilberforce Clifton. As Spruce fumes and fulminates the abashed boffins try to explain that the process is irreversible. They can’t contact the contractors to cancel the hit. Clifton is as good as dead…

With no other choice, the Colonel frantically phones the retired agent and gives him the bad news. Our hero, unwilling to bow out gracefully, immediately goes on the run, using all his cunning and years of tradecraft to stay one step ahead of his faceless hunters. His stalkers however, are seasoned professionals too, and luck more than guile is the only thing saving him from an increasingly spectacular succession of devastating “accidents”…

Thematically far darker than previous tales, 7 Days to Die is nevertheless stuffed with hilarious moments of slapstick and satire to balance some pretty spectacular action set-pieces as frantic flight, devious disguise and even coldly calculated counterattack all fail to deter the implacable assassins. However as the climax approaches Clifton and Spruce individually come to the same stunning conclusion: this selection by Betty might not have been an accident after all…

Visually spoofing the 1970s’ original era of Cool Britannia and staidly stuffy English Mannerism with wicked effect, these gentle thrillers are big on laughs but also pack a lot of trauma-free violence into the eclectic mix. Delightfully surreal, instantly accessible and doused with serous slapstick À la Jacques Tati and deft, daft intrigue like Carry On Spying or Morecambe & Wise’s The Intelligence Men, this romp rattles right along offering readers a splendid treat.
Original edition © 1979 Le Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) by De Groot & Turk. English translation © 2005 Cinebook Ltd.

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Asterix and the Missing Scroll


By Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad, translated by Anthea Bell (Sphere/Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-1-51010-045-9 (album HB/Digital edition) 978-1-51010-046-6 (album PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Classical Way to Celebrate the Season… 9/10

Asterix the Gaul is probably France’s greatest literary export and part of the fabric of French life. The feisty, wily little warrior who fought the iniquities and viewed the myriad wonders of Julius Caesar’s Roman Empire with brains, bravery and – whenever required – a magical potion imbuing the imbiber with incredible strength, speed and vitality, is the go-to reference for all us non-Gallic gallants when we think of France.

The diminutive, doughty darling was created at the close of the 1950s by two of our artform’s greatest masters, with his first official appearance being October 29th in Pilote #1, even though he had actually debuted in a pre-release teaser – or “pilot” – some weeks earlier. Bon Anniversaire mon petit brave!

His adventures touched billions of people all around the world for five and a half decades as the sole preserve of originators Rene Goscinny and/or Albert Uderzo. After close on 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – was the first released as a complete original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new album was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees, but none more so than this one which was created by Uderzo’s handpicked replacements – scripter Jean-Yves Ferri (Fables Autonomes, La Retour à la terre, De Gaulle à la plage) and illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, Le Piège Malais, Tatum, Spirou) – who had taken up a somewhat poisoned chalice on his retirement in 2009. And so began the further adventures of truly immortal French heroes. Happily the legacy was in safe hands, especially after this first book was meticulously overseen by Uderzo every step of the way…

Whether as an action-packed comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or as a punfully sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads, the new work is just as engrossing as the previously established canon, and English-speakers are still happily graced with the brilliantly light touch of translator Anthea Bell who, with former collaborator Derek Hockridge, played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so palatable to English-speakers around the globe.

As you surely already know, half of these intoxicating epics are set in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the rest take place in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany where, circa 50 B.C., a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul.

Although the country is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, the very tip of the last named regions stubbornly refuses to be pacified. The Romans, utterly unable to overrun this last bastion of Gallic insouciance, are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – and yet these Gauls come and go as they please. Thus a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently cut off (in the broadest, not-true-at-all sense) by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium: filled with veteran fighters who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there…

Their “confined detainees” couldn’t care less: casually frustrating and daily defying the world’s greatest military machine by simply going about their everyday affairs, untouchable thanks to a miraculous magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of diminutive dynamo Asterix in merry conjunction with his simplistic, supercharged best pal Obelix…

Le Papyrus de César was released on October 22nd 2015, simultaneously hurtling off the shelves of many nations as Asterix and the Missing Scroll (or whatever the local language equivalent of the many nations addicted to these epics might be). Even though, as with many previous tales, it takes its momentum from satirising current affairs, the resemblances to certain unscrupulous publishing magnates and founders of information-leaking internet sites are both remarkable and – I’m sure – utterly coincidental. After all, who doesn’t like fake news and genuine censorship?

This home fixture begins away in glorious Rome where Caesar anticipates the release of his memoirs Commentaries on the War with the Gauls (or Commentarii de Bello Gallico as your granddad probably knew it). Unimaginative, forthright Caesar ended the ruminations with a final scroll detailing how he has been unable to completely end the conflict because of repeated incidents with a small village of indomitable Gauls who simply won’t accept that they’ve been conquered. He is shocked – but not averse – to the suggestion of his advisor and publisher Libellus Blockbustus who recommends that they just leave it out of the released edition…

The expurgated publication is a sensation throughout the empire, and far away in that still-unconquered enclave, life goes on as usual after publication. In fact, when the latest “newspaper” arrives the villagers are only concerned with the latest horoscopes. As myopic Wifix reads them out, aged Geriatrix takes his prediction to heart and sees “new conquests” in his future, whilst Obelix is mortally crushed by a rather specific prognostication to “avoid conflict, take stock and go easy on the roast boar”…

Asterix, who shares the same birthday as his ponderous pal, doesn’t believe in all that astrology rubbish, but cannot shake the big buffoon out of a debilitating dudgeon. Although that means things grow quiet in Gaul, back in Rome a clandestine crisis has erupted. Mute Numidian Scribe Bigdatha has taken umbrage with the massaging of the truth and, believing the public has a right to know everything, has turned whistleblower. Swiping Caesar’s 24th scroll – “Defeats at the Hands of the Indomitable Gauls of Armorica” – he has passed it on to Confoundtheirpolitix, a Gaulish “newsmonger without borders”. Fearing the scandal will affect profits and dreading what Caesar will do if he’s made to appear foolish or dishonest, Blockbustus instigates emergency measures: sending Roman secret police to arrest the scribe and newsmonger. Confoundtheirpolitix, however, has already rushed to Armorica seeking sanctuary in a certain village Romans cannot enter…

When details of the scroll’s omissions are revealed (particularly Asterix’ many exploits such as The Chieftain’s Shield, Mansions of the Gods and so on) the Gaulish villagers react in different ways – those that aren’t still fighting over the horoscope predictions at least…

The excitable Lutetian newsmonger is adamant that the contents of the scroll could topple Caesar and something must be done to preserve it, prompting Chief Vitalstatistix to affably write his own history of the war to set things right. More sensibly, Getafix suggests that since Gauls don’t appreciate writing but memorialise facts and history in their oral tradition, he should transport the potentially devastating data to the Forest of the Carnutes where Grand Druid Archaeopterix can commit the information to his mighty and phenomenal cogitative cranial chronicles…

Meanwhile word has reached Centurion Verigregarius in Totorum to get that scroll back at all costs and he surrounds the village with a cordon of his best warriors. That means nothing to the villagers, of course. In the dead of night Asterix, Getafix and faithful petite wonder-hound Dogmatix sneak out of a secret door and set out on their mission, dragging with them dolorous, downcast and decidedly pacifistic Obelix. They are unaware that they are being stalked by a crack squad of elite Roman army surveillance specialists, equipped with the latest advancement in the empire’s covert communications technology…

Back in Rome, every fresh evidence of Caesar’s delight in his new-found authorial celebrity terrifies Blockbustus more and more. With the humiliating last chapter still out there, a ruler’s reputation (and thus publisher’s life) remains balanced on a knife-edge. Succumbing to panic, the wily advisor heads for Armorica to take personal charge of the search, even as our heroes reach the fabled forest. As their stalkers fall victim to the unique and fabulous security measures of the Carnutes druids, Getafix renews old acquaintances and begins the torturous process of committing the scroll to Archaeopterix’s capacious memory…

In Totorum, deprived of all the ongoing fresh facts and breaking news, Blockbustus and Verigregarius plan a major assault on the village to retrieve the scroll they think is still there. Their cause is greatly advanced when they catch Confoundtheirpolitix outside the stockade and take him hostage. Thankfully, the embattled Gauls have a messaging system which can reach all the way to the great forest, and Archaeopterix has a power-potion of his own which will allow his guests to get back home in time to save the day…

Even Obelix gets to play, once he learns that he was read the wrong horoscope and can have as many boars and hit as many Romans as he wants. But then, Julius Caesar angrily arrives and all Tartarus breaks loose…

Fast-paced, furiously funny, stuffed with action and hilarious, contemporary swipes and timeless jibes plus a marvellously enchanting double twist ending, this is a splendid continuation of the series by creators who clearly know what they’re doing and enjoy doing it. Asterix and the Missing Scroll is an unmissable joy for lovers of laughs and devotees of comics alike and a welcome addition to the mythic canon.
© 2015 Les Éditions Albert René. English translation: © 2015 Les Éditions Albert René. All rights reserved.