Category: Comedy

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No Need For Tenchi!


By Hitoshi Okuda, translated by Fred Burke (Viz Graphic Novel)
ISBN: 978-1-56931-180-6 (tank?bon PB)

The one real problem with manga is that translated past triumphs seldom stay in print. There are dozens of classic collections that demand rediscovery by a casual rather than otaku audience and many minor masterpieces languish lost when they could be appreciated and adored…

This bright and breezy adventure comedy from 1987 is a rare reversal of the usual state of affairs in that a TV anime came first and the manga serial was its spin-off. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki debuted as a 6-part TV show (termed an OVA or Original Video Animation in Japan) that proved so blisteringly popular that even before the original season concluded further specials and episodes were rushed into production. Over the next decade or so two more seasons appeared as well as spin-off shows and features (for a total of 98 episodes all told), plus games, toys, light novels and, of course, a comic book series.

The translation most commonly accepted for the pun-soaked title is No Need For Tenchi, but equally valid interpretations include Useless Tenchi, No Heaven and Earth and This Way Up.

The assorted hi-jinks of the show resulted in three overlapping but non-related continuities, with the Hitoshi Okuda manga serials stemming directly from the first season. Okuda eventually produced two comics sagas in this format: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki which began in 1994 and features here – and follow-up Shin Tenchi Muyo! which I’ll get to one fine day…

The strip debuted in the December 16th 1994 Sh?nen anthology (comics pitched at 10-18 year old males) Comic Dragon Jr. It ran until Jun 9th 2000, generating 12 volumes of classic laughs and thrills. The stories are generally regarded as non-canonical by fans of the various TV versions, but of course we don’t care about that since the printed black and white tales are so much fun and so well illustrated…

This first volume collects the first seven issues of the Viz tome Tales of Tenchi, which did so much to popularise Manga in the English-speaking world, and opens with a thorough and fascinating recap of that first TV season – from which all succeeding manic mirth and mayhem proceeds – before cracking on to bolder and better bewilderments starring the entire copious cast on all new adventures and exploits…

Tenchi Masaki is an ordinary lad living peacefully in the countryside with his father Nobuyuki and grandfather Katsuhito, until one day he breaks opens an ancient shrine and lets a demon out. Hell-fiend Ryoko tries to kill him but a magic “Lightning Eagle Sword” helps him escape. The demon follows though, demanding the sword and things get really crazy when a spaceship arrives, revealing Ryoko is in fact a disgraced alien pirate from the star-spanning Jurai Empire.

Starship Ryo-oh-ki is full of attractive, shameless, immensely powerful warrior-women including Princess Ayeka, her little sister Sasami and supreme scientist Washu. This gaggle of violently disruptive visitors moves in with Tenchi and family, causing nothing but trouble and embarrassment. Soon the boy and his sword are being dragged all over the cosmos in the sentient Ryo-oh-ki (who, when not on duty, prefers the form of a cute rabbit/cat hybrid critter).

Ayeka and Sasami both harbour feelings for hapless Tenchi but things get really complicated when grandfather Katsuhito is revealed to be Yosho, a noble Prince of the Jurai. It appears Tenchi and those darned space girls are all related…

Tales of Tenchi opened with ‘The Genius’ as the star, currently studying Jurai warrior training under his grandfather’s diligent tutelage, falls foul of the princesses’ growing boredom. Ryoko attacks again, precipitating a devastating battle that threatens to burn the entire landscape to ashes, but is the aggressor really the demon pirate?

In ‘Double Trouble’ the other Ryoko tries to take Tenchi’s sword – in actuality a puissant techno-artefact known as the Master Key – before being defeated by the original, but at the cost of shock-induced amnesia. As the refugees all decompress, ‘Under Observation’ depicts outrageous and inadvisable potential cures for the distressed Ryoko but when the defeated doppelganger’s master Yakage arrives, the entire extended family are endangered. The terrifying star-warrior challenges Tenchi to a duel…

Part 4 ‘Plunder’ is one colossal hi-energy clash as the boy valiantly demonstrates all he has learned to drive off the intruder, but only after the villain takes Ayeka hostage, demanding a rematch in 10 days’ time…

Intensifying his training in ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ Tenchi prepares for the upcoming clash whilst Ryoko pursues Yakage into space, unaware that super-scientist Washu has hidden herself aboard the pursing ship…

‘A Good Scolding’ reveals intriguing history regarding the assorted super-girls whilst Tenchi trains for the final confrontation before concluding chapter ‘Relationships’ brings things to a spectacular climax whilst still leaving a cliffhanger to pull you back in for the next addictive instalment…

Blending elements of Star Wars: A New Hope with classic Japanese genre themes (fantasy, action, fighting, embarrassment, loss of conformity and hot chicks inexplicably drawn to nerdy boys), this rousing romp also includes comedy vignettes starring ‘The Cast of No Need For Tenchi’, and fourth-wall-busting asides, to top off a delightfully undemanding fun-fest to satisfy not just manga maniacs but also any lover of fanciful frivolity and sci fi shenanigans.
© 1994 by Hitoshi Okuda/Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co Ltd., Tokyo. NO NEED FOR TENCHI! is a trademark of Viz Communications Inc.

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Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comics Strips volume 1 – Through the Wild Blue Wonder


By Walt Kelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-869-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. was born on August 25th 1913 and started his cartooning career whilst still in High School, as both artist and reporter for the Bridgeport Post. Moving to California in 1935, he joined the Disney Studio, working on shorts and features like Dumbo, Fantasia and Pinocchio… until the infamous animators’ strike in 1941.

Refusing to take a side, Kelly moved back East and began drawing comic books – primarily for Dell Comics, who had the Disney funnybook license. Despite his glorious work on such humanistic classics as the movie tie-in Our Gang, Kelly much preferred anthropomorphic animal and children’s fantasy (like Walt Kelly’s Santa Claus Adventures) and created Albert the Alligator and Pogo Possum for Animal Comics #1 (cover-dated December 1942). He sagaciously retained the copyrights in the ongoing tale of two Bayou critters and their young African-American pal Bumbazine. Although the black kid soon vanished, the animal stars stayed on until 1948 when Kelly became art editor and cartoonist for hard hitting, left-leaning liberal newspaper The New York Star.

On October 4th 1948, Pogo, Albert and an ever-expanding cast began their careers on the funny pages, appearing six days a week until the periodical folded in January 1949.

Although a gently humorous kids feature, by the end of its run – included in full at the rear of this magnificent tome – the first glimmers of the increasingly barbed, boldly satirical masterpiece of velvet-pawed social commentary began to be seen…

This first of 12 volumes tracks the ascent of the scintillating, vastly influential strip; don’t believe me, just listen to Gary Trudeau, Berke Breathed, Bill Watterson, Jeff McNally, Bill Holbrook, Mark O’Hare, Alan Moore, Jeff Smith and even Goscinny & Uderzo and our own Maurice Dodd & Dennis Collins, whose wonderful strip The Perishers owes more than a little to the sublime antics of the Okefenokee Swamp citizenry…

After The Star closed, Pogo was picked up for mass distribution by the Post-Hall Syndicate and launched on May 16th 1949. A colour Sunday page debuted January 29th 1950 and both were produced simultaneously by Kelly until his death on October 18th 1973 (and even beyond, courtesy of his talented wife and family…)

At its peak the strip appeared in 500 papers in 14 countries whilst book collections (which began in 1951) number nearly 50 and have collectively sold 30 million copies. This volume includes every Star strip, the Dailies from inception to December 30th 1950, plus the Sundays – in their own full colour section – from January 29th to December 31st 1950, plus supplementary features including a Foreword from columnist Jimmy Breslin, an Introduction by biographer Steve Thompson, a week-by-week highly detailed contents section, useful guide ‘About the Sundays’ by Mark Evanier and an invaluable context and historical notes feature ‘Swamp Talk’ by the amazing R.C. Harvey.

Kelly’s genius and gift was the ability to beautifully, vivaciously draw comedic, tragic, pompous, sympathetic characters of any shape or breed and make them inescapably human and he used that gift to blend hard-hitting observation of our crimes, foibles and peccadilloes with rampaging whimsy, poesy and sheer exuberant joie de vivre. The hairy, scaly, furry, feathered, slimy folk depicted here are inescapably us, elevated by burlesque, slapstick, absurdism and all the glorious joys of wordplay – from puns to malapropisms to raucous accent humour – into a multi-layered hodgepodge of all-ages accessible delight.

In later volumes Kelly set his bestial cast loose on such timid, defenceless victims as Senator Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, the John Birch Society, Richard Nixon and the Ku Klux Clan, but he starts off small here, introducing gently bemused Pogo, boisterous, happily ignorant Albert, dolorous Porkypine, obnoxious turtle Churchy La Femme, lugubrious hound Beauregard Bugleboy, carpet-bagging Seminole Sam Fox, pompous (not) know-it-all Howland Owl and a multitude more in gags and extended epics ranging from assorted fishing trips, building an Adam Bomb, losing and finding other people’s children, electioneering, education, kidnapping, the evil influence of comic books, Baseball season, why folks shouldn’t eat each other, Western cow punchers, cows punching back, New Years Resolutions, public holidays and so much more…

The Sundays also opened with one-off gags but soon evolved into convoluted, mesmeric continued sagas such as the search for the Fountain of Youth, building a school and keeping it filled, Albert elected Queen of the Woodland by elf-like forest fauns – and why that was ultimately a very bad thing indeed…

Timeless and magical, Pogo is a true giant not simply comics, but also of world literature, and this magnificent edition should be the pride of every home’s bookshelf and digital library.
POGO Through the Wild Blue Wonder and all POGO images, including Walt Kelly’s signature © 2011 Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc. All other material © 2011 the respective creator and owner. All rights reserved.

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Gomer Goof volume 7: Gomer, Duke of Goofington


By Franquin, with Roba, Bibi and various: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-590-5 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Like so much in Franco-Belgian comics, it all started with Le Journal de Spirou, which debuted on April 2nd 1938, with its iconic lead strip created by François Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel. In 1943, publisher Dupuis purchased all rights to the comic and its titular star, and comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm for the redheaded kid’s further exploits as the magazine gradually became a cornerstone of European culture.

In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin was handed creative control. Graduating from gag vignettes to extended adventure serials, he introduced a broad and engaging supporting cast of regulars as well as phenomenally popular wonder beast The Marsupilami. Debuting in 1952 (in Spirou et les héritiers) that critter eventually became a spin-off star of screen, plush toys, console games and albums in his own right.

Franquin crafted increasingly fantastic and absorbing Spirou sagas until a final resignation in 1969. Over two decades he had enlarged the feature’s scope and horizons, until it became purely his own. In almost every episode, fans met startling and memorable new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio, crackpot inventor Count of Champignac and even supervillains. Spirou & Fantasio evolved into globetrotting journalists visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the incredible and clashing with bizarre and exotic arch-enemies.

Throughout it all, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit fictional – Le Journal de Spirou reporter who had to pop into the office between cases. Sadly, lurking there was an accident-prone, big-headed junior in charge of minor jobs and dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe – Franquin’s other immortal creation…

There’s a long tradition of comics personalising fictitiously mysterious creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s the Marvel Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy – it’s a truly international practise.

Occasional asides on text pages featured well-meaning foul-up/office gofer “Gaston” (who debuted in #985, February 28th 1957). He grew to be one of the most popular and perennial components of the comic, whether as a guest in Spirou’s cases or his own strips and faux reports on editorial pages.

In terms of actual schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and timeless elements of well-intentioned self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill and Jacques Tati and recognise recurring situations from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em or Mr Bean. It’s slapstick, paralysing puns, infernal ingenuity and invention, pomposity lampooned and no good deed going noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer draws a regular pay check (let’s not dignify or mis-categorise what he does as “work”) from Spirou’s editorial offices: reporting to journalist Fantasio, or complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other, more diligent staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring those minor jobs he’s paid to handle. These include page paste-up, posting (initially fragile) packages and editing readers’ letters… and that’s the official reason why fans’ requests and suggestions are never answered…

Gomer is lazy, over-opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, with his most manic moments all stemming from cutting work corners and stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office. This leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in seemingly unaffiliated bystanders like traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, as well as simple passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all our office oaf remains eternally affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions really matter here: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what can gentle, lovelorn, increasingly hot Miss Jeanne possible see in the self-opinionated idiot and will angry capitalist/ever-outraged financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

In 1971, Gaston – Le cas lagaffe was the ninth European compilation and in 2020 became Cinebook’s seventh translated compilation: again focussing on non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single- page bursts, but regrettably reducing the strip count from the original 54 to 44. Here our well-meaning, overconfident, overly-helpful know-it-all/office hindrance invents more stuff making life unnecessarily dangerous. These include a carrot-shotgun to refresh and fortify rabbits as they evade hunters, personal weather control, a too-fast collapsible bike and jet-powered mail delivery system, but he also accidentally ruins his image and work-avoiding record by providing a scratch solution to keep the studio active and productive during a major power cut…

Despite resolute green credentials and leanings, Gomer is colour-bind to the problems his antiquated automobile cause, even after his attempts to soup up the fuel injection result in the world’s most potent blue dye which constantly escapes from the battered exhaust pipe as an all-consuming cobalt cloud.

Many strips feature his doomed love affair with and manic efforts to modify and mollify the accursed motorised atrocity he calls his car. Sadly, the decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of a merciful execution than his many well-meant engineering interventions for countering its lethal road pollution and failure to function. Now it also confirms his outlaw status with the gendarmerie – quite literally – with many moments of floating “blue flu”…

As he concentrates of making motoring faster and more fun if not actually safer, Gomer’s big heart swells to encompass more animal pals. He adopts a feral cat and black-headed gull to accompany illicit studio companions Cheese the mouse and goldfish Bubelle, but their hyperactive gluttonous presences generate much chaos, especially whenever benighted business bod De Mesmaeker turns up with more crucial contracts for poor Prunelle to sign. Their residence even triggers a shift in work attire, with safety superseding style as a prerequisite…

Fresh strands of anarchic potential are explored during the organisation of events for Spirou creators like Lambil (Bluecoats) and Roba (Billy & Buddy), with Gomer wearing mascot costumes and paying heavily for it. Then there’s the arrival of Mr. Bacus. He’s an auditor for Dupuis, resolved to find financial fault and cut calamitous costs, but he’s far too curious for an office where the gofer stashes weird science prototypes, arcane chemical concoctions and a manic menagerie able to shred chairs and open sardine tines with a bash of the beak. At least he learns why redecorating costs are so high and frequent…

Gomer’s chum and opposite number Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street is a like-minded soul and born accomplice, ever-eager to slope off for a chat and a confirmed devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He is always ready to help, as here when assisting in transporting an out-of-control cactus from Aunt Hortense’s home to the office. It doesn’t fit there either, but at least has plenty of fresh victims to puncture and terrify…

In his spare time Gomer continues his dream of revolutionising kite-flying, but again has trouble with Christmas after the office plays host to the live turkey he rescued last year…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin and occasional co-scenarists and idea providers like Roba, Bibi, Michel, Yvan Delporte & Jidéhem (AKA Jean De Mesmaeker: just one of many in-joke analogues who populate the strip) to flex their whimsical muscles and even subversively sneak in some satirical support for their beliefs in pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights. These gags are sublime examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading.

Why haven’t you Goofed off yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

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Breaking Cat News: Cats Reporting on the News That Matters to Cats


By Georgia Dunn (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-1-4494-7413-3 eISBN: 978-1-4494-7927-5

As I eagerly await the imminent release of the next feline frenzy fact file from Georgia Dunn (Gosh! When willit bee Septemphber?) I feel the need to revisit how it all began… 

Cats rule the world. Just ask the internet. Now, now, now. Those of us with moggies also learn pretty quickly that they run the house too. However, illustrator and cartoonist Georgia Dunn found a way to make her indolent furry overlords earn their keep after watching them converge on a domestic accident and inquisitively and interminably poke their little snouts into the mess.

Thus was born Breaking Cat News: a hilariously beguiling series of strips detailing how – when no-one’s looking – her forthright flurry of felines form their own on-the-spot news-team with studio anchor Lupin, and field reporters Elvis (investigative) and Puck (commentary) delivering around-the-clock reports on the events that really resonate with cats – because, after all, who else matters?

The history and development of the feature is covered in Dunn’s Introduction (which you can read if your own murder-mittened mates give you some time off) before this superbly engaging full-colour digest-sized (165 x 203 mm) paperback concentrates on crucial domestic and foreign issues.

Drawing attention on the home front are items such as ‘Everything is Broken and We Don’t Know Who Did It’, ‘The Food Bowl is Still Empty’, ‘The People Bought Some Stupid-Looking Thing For the Dining Room’, ‘The Woman is Cooking Bacon’, ‘The Woman is Trying to Use a Laptop’, ‘The Woman is Trying to Make the Bed’ and ‘The People Bought a Different Kind of Kibble’ whilst long-range outside broadcasts confirm ‘The Man is in the Backyard’, ‘The Neighborhood is Under Attack’ and ‘The Trees are Falling Apart’…

The rolling news is backed up by In-Depth packages devoted to ‘The People Are Going Insane’ (moving house to us two-foots) and the entire team undertake a dedicated series on a lengthy brush with maternity (‘The Woman is Feeling Under the Weather’, ‘The Spare Room is Filled With New Cat Furniture’, ‘The Woman has a Hair Ball’ and ‘The People are Awake in the Middle of the Night’) to prove that cats don’t just want vapid snippets of information for mayfly attention spans, but can also handle complex issues with no simple solutions…

Smart, witty, imaginative and deliciously whimsical, Breaking Cat News is a fabulously funny regularly re-readable feel-good feature rendered with great artistic elan and a light and breezy touch that will delight not just us irredeemable cat-addicts but also anyone in need of good laugh.
© 2016 Georgia Dunn. All rights reserved.

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Benny Breakiron volume 1: The Red Taxis


By Peyo, with backgrounds by Will: translated by Joe Johnson (Papercutz/NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-59707-409-4 (HB/Digital edition)

Pierre Culliford was born in Belgium in 1928 to a family of British origin living in the Schaerbeek district of Brussels. An admirer of the works of Hergé and American comics in Mickey, Robinson and Hurrah!, he developed his own artistic skills, but war and family bereavement forced him to forgo further education and find work.

After toiling as a cinema projectionist, in 1945 he joined C.B.A. animation studios, where he met André Franquin, Morris and Eddy Paape. When the studio closed, he briefly studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts before moving full-time into graphic advertising. In his spare time he submitted comic strips to the burgeoning post-war comics publishers. The first sale was in April 1946: Pied-Tendre, a tale of American Indians which saw print in Riquet, the comics supplement to the daily L’Occident newspaper. Further sales to other venues followed and in 1952 his knight found a permanent spot in Le Journal de Spirou. Retitled Johan et Pirlouit, the strip prospered and in 1958 introduced a strange bunch of blue woodland gnomes called Les Schtroumpfs.

Culliford – now using the nom de plume Peyo – would gradually turn those adorable little mites (known to us and most of the world as the Smurfs) into an all-encompassing global empire, but before being sucked onto that relentless treadmill, he still found time to create a few other noteworthy strips such as the titanic tyke on view here today.

In 1960, Benoit Brisefer – AKA Benedict Ironbreaker (Steven Sterk in Dutch) – debuted in LJdS #1183 (December 1960). With some slyly added tips of the beret to Siegel & Shuster’s Superman (check out that cover, fanboys!), what gently unfolds are wry bucolic romps of an extraordinary little lad living a generally quiet life in an unassuming little French – or maybe Belgian? – town.

Quiet, well-mannered and a bit lonely, Benny is the mightiest boy on Earth: able to crush steel or stone in his tiny hands, leap huge distances and run faster than a racing car. He is also generally immune to all physical harm, but his only real weakness is that all his strength deserts him whenever he catches cold… which he does with frightening ease and great frequency…

Benny never tries concealing his powers but somehow the adults never catch on. They usually think he’s telling fibs or boasting, and whenever he tries to prove he can bend steel in his hands the unlucky lad gets another dose of the galloping sniffles!

Most kids avoid him. It’s hard to make friends or play games when a minor kick can pop a football like a soap bubble and a shrug can topple trees...

Well-past-it Brits of my age and vintage might remember the character from weekly comics in the 1960’s. As Tammy Tuff – The Strongest Boy on Earth – and later as both Benny Breakiron and Steven Strong – our beret-wearing wonder appeared in Giggle and other periodicals from 1967 onwards.

With Peyo’s little blue cash-cows taking up ever larger amounts of his concentration and time, other members of his studio assumed greater responsibilities for Benoit as years passed. Willy Maltaite (“Will”), Gos, Yvan Delporte, Françoise Walthéry and Albert Blesteau all pitched in, and Jean Roba created many eye-catching LJdS covers. However, by 1978 the demands of the Smurfs were all consuming and all the studio’s other strips were dropped.

You can’t keep a good super-junior down though and, after Peyo’s death in 1992, his son Thierry Culliford & cartoonist Pascal Garray revived the strip, adding six more volumes to the eight generated by Peyo and Co. between 1960 and 1978.

Thanks to US publisher Papercutz, some – but not yet all! – of the gloriously genteel, outrageously engaging power fantasies are available to English-language readers again, both as robust full-colour hardbacks and eBooks, and this initial exploit begins in sedate micro-metropolis Vivejoie-la-Grande, where the sweet kid goes about his solitary life, doing good deeds in secret and being as good a boy as he can.

However, his sense of fair play is outraged when aging taxi driver Monsieur Dussiflard becomes the target of a dirty tricks campaign by new company Red Taxis. When he and the incensed cabbie challenge the oily company CEO in his flashy high-rise office, Benny is shooed away and the elderly driver vanishes.

Suspicions aroused, Benny investigates and is attacked by thuggish Red Taxi employees. Only after thrashing and humiliating the goons does Benny realise that he still doesn’t know where Dussiflard is, so he retroactively throws the fight…

Just as he is imprisoned with his fellow abductee, the worst happens and the bombastic boy comes down with a stinker of a cold! Helpless as any other 8-year old, he’s stuffed in a crate with the codger cabbie and loaded onto a freighter headed to the Galapagos Islands…

With all opposition ended, the Boss and his Red Taxi stooges begin the final stage of a devilish plot, utterly oblivious to the dogged determination of Benny – who escapes the ship and an alluring tropical paradise, impatiently waits for his cold to clear up and none too soon sets off on a race against time, the elements and his own woefully-lacking knowledge of geography if he is to stop the ruthless criminals…

A superbly sweet and sassy spoof and fabulously winning fantasy of childhood validation and agency, The Red Taxis offers a distinctly Old World spin to the notion of superheroes and provides a wealth of action, thrills and chortles for lovers of astounding adventure and incredible comics excellence.
© Peyo, 2013 – licensed through Lafig Belgium. English translation © 2013 by Papercutz. All rights reserved.

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Frankenstein: The Mad Science of Dick Briefer


By Dick Briefer with Bruce Elliott & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-688-4 eISBN: 978-1-63008-186-7

The Golden Age of American comic books is usually associated with the blockbusting birth and proliferation of the Superhero, but even at the headiest heights of costumed crusader craziness other fantastic fantasy fashions held their own. Some of the very best – like Jack Cole’s Plastic Man and the unlikely weird warrior under discussion here – managed to merge genres and surmount their origins through astounding graphic craft, a healthy helping of comedic legerdemain and a deft dose of satire…

Richard Briefer was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan on January 9th 1915. He was a pre-Med student who also studied at the Art Student League in New York City and got into the fledgling funnybook business in 1936, working for the Will Eisner/Jerry Iger shop after selling early work to Wow, What a Magazine! and others.

He adapted literary classics like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and – as Dick Hamilton – created early super-team Target and the Targeteers for Novelty Press. Briefer wrote and drew Rex Dexter of Mars, Dynamo, Biff Bannon, Storm Curtis, Crash Parker and more for a range of publishers. For Timely he co-created The Human Top and, as Dick Flood, produced anti-Nazi strip Pinky Rankin for The Daily Worker – the newspaper of the American Communist Party.

Another criminally near-forgotten master craftsman, Briefer is best remembered amongst we fading comics cognoscenti for Frankenstein; a suspense strip that debuted in Prize Comics #7 (cover-dated December 1940) before gradually evolving into a satirical comedy-horror masterpiece offering thrills and chills whilst ferociously sending up post-war America.

A truly unique vision, Briefer’s Frankenstein ran intermittently until 1954 when the toxic paranoiac atmosphere of the anti-communist, anti-comics witch hunt killed it. The author moved into advertising and latterly portraiture and, despite numerous attempts to revive the strip, never published any more of his absurd and acerbic antic…

Dick Briefer died in December 1980.

Here, however, as part of the wonderful and much missed Dark Horse Archives series (please bring ‘em back guys!), you can enjoy the superbly surreal strip in all its manic glory from the horrible heydays…

Re-presented for your delectation are the contents of Frankenstein #1-7 (January 1945-May 1947) with Briefer at the peak of his powers, writing and drawing deliciously demented delights that made him a legend amongst comics creators if not the general public.

After gleaning a few salient facts from appreciative devotee John Arcudi in his Foreword, and relishing some ultra-rare original art from Briefer and Alex Toth, the merry madness begins with #1 as we reveal ‘Frankenstein’s Creation’…

After a bored mad scientist reads an old book, he decides to create his own version of the infamous creature. Sadly, despite scrupulously following the recipe, the malevolent modern Prometheus’ secret formula only manifests a loving, protective nature in his super-strong homunculus, and the hulking “Frankenstein monster” soon becomes a boon to his community and embarrassment to his malignant maker.

Left to his own devices, our artificial Adam is then drawn to the quiet little everytown of Mippyville where the populace are fighting off a supernatural invasion of atrocious arcane predators. ‘Frankenstein and the Ghouls and Vampires’ sees the creature – originally mistaken for a “Bobbysox” pop singer by the town’s screaming teenagers – hilariously clean up the infernal infestation before setting up home in a ramshackle abandoned mansion.

Only one thing is missing to complete his dreams of domestic bliss until a brief dalliance with the local spider saleswoman results in her becoming ‘Frankenstein’s Wife’. The mild man-monster soon learns why a hasty marriage often leads to repentance at leisure…

Mippyville is a place that just attracts weirdness, and the first issue concludes with another mad doctor, as deranged surgeon Professor Hugo von Hoogenblotzen kidnaps Frankie and attempts to graft him to an elephant in ‘Frankenstein and the Manimals’…

The second issue begins with ‘Frankenstein!’ – a quick recap of past events – before our unlikely star tracks down a mad mass-murderer who wants others to suffer for his art in ‘Frankenstein and the Statue Maker’, after which the animal-loving oaf is accidentally mistaken for a mere beast and purchased by a moody millionairess.

She puts him on a leash to one-up her pals in the Exotic Pets Club but ‘Frankenstein’s Job’ soon teaches all and sundry the true value of animal companionship…

Eventually restored to his own home, ‘Frankenstein’s Ark’ finds the towering twit re-enacting the building of the fabled lifeboat to save his animal chums, but still ending up clashing with a hoarding hermit and his mutant allies…

Issue #3 (July/August 1946 and with scripting assistance from Bruce Elliott) introduced ‘Frankenstein’s Family’ as the big guy secures gainful employment as a junk man, whilst his new boss tinkers with salvaged machines from a devil doctor’s lab. This results in an army of molecularly-unstable juvenile duplicates of Frankie and a great deal of gross chaos…

A legion of escaped horrors attack Mippyville in ‘Frankenstein and the Monsters’, only to find the town’s ghastly defender too much to handle before ‘Frankenstein and the Mummies’ affords a quick jaunt to Egypt where the monster befriends a quartet of ancient, entombed pharaohs…

‘Frankenstein and the Time Machine’ apparently sends the credulous colossus into the furious future and perilous past, but all is not as it seems…

The regular cast expanded in the next issue (September/October 1946) as ‘Frankenstein and Awful Annie’ finds the mellow fellow aiding the local purveyor of potions and charms to the city’s supernatural community when her long-lost son wants to come home for a visit. After that debacle, he then makes another odd acquaintance in ‘Frankenstein Meets the (Terrible) Werewolf’ which debuts the gentlest magical man-eater on earth…

Another whirlwind romance goes awry after ‘Frankenstein Sees the Effect of the Youth Restorer’ and makes an amorously ill-advised move on a once-elderly neighbour, before his mystic mates throw the monster a birthday party in ‘Frankenstein and the Sorcerer’ and start a magic war that only subsides after the gentle giant accidentally lands a job as a photographic model…

Briefer was an inveterate tinkerer, always looking for innovative new ways to present mirthful material, and Frankenstein #5 (November/December 1946) trialled a new format of interlinked yarns beginning with ‘Act 1: How I Rehabilitated Maladjusted Ghosts’ as the creature becomes troubleshooter for the restless dead and unmasks a murderer.

In ‘Act 2: How I Had (and Lost) a Pet Dinosaur’, he accidentally hatches an antediluvian egg and manages to switch it with a parade-balloon doppelganger, whilst ‘Act 3: How I Became a Genii in a Magic Bottle’, sees the monster mysteriously abducted by a street-corner hustler before escaping to save the town from a malicious malady in concluding ‘Act 4: How I Conquered a Terrible Plague’. The experiment was dropped for a more traditional anthological format in the sixth (March/April 1947) issue…

Here the madcap merriment opens with ‘The Last Smile’ as Frankie is mistaken for a fugitive murderer and placed on death row, after which he hunts down ‘The Ghostnapper’ who abducts spirits and steals their big white sheets…

The rising cost of funerals informed the riotous case of ‘One Small Bier’ as the monster tries a new career as a mortician before heading into the country to investigate accursed, self-propagating automobiles going on an uncanny ‘Joyride’…

The final issue comes from May/June 1947 #7, opening with ‘Silas Grunch Gets His’ – co-written with Ed Goggin – as a conniving miser tortures kids by building a funfair children can’t get into… until the Big Guy steps in…

The monster plays cupid and brings two bizarre, lonely people together in ‘The Strange Love of Shirley Shmool’ with romance also informing Frankenstein’s laying of ‘The Curse of the Flying Dutchman’ Here the giant goof opens a Lonely Hearts Agency and matches the immortal wandering mariner with the girl of his nightmares! This leads to a clash with atom-age seductress ‘The Lorelei’ and a frankly hideous trading of jobs and gender roles before politics rears its ugly (multiple) heads as Frankenstein is convinced to run for President of the Magician’s Guild and endures the voodoo ‘Pins and Needles’ of a frustrated rival…

A truly unique treat from a singular and utterly eccentric creative force, Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein is remarkable work by a one-of-a-kind creator. If you groove on the grotesque, love to be scared, love to laugh and love comics, this is a book for you…
Frankenstein: The Mad Science of Dick Briefer. Dark Horse Books ® and logos are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ducoboo volume 2: In the Corner!


By Godi & Zidrou, coloured by Véronique Grobet & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-26-7 (Album PB/Digital edition)

School stories and strips of every tone about juvenile fools, devils and rebels are a lynchpin of modern western entertainment and an even larger staple of Japanese comics – where the scenario has spawned its own wild and vibrant subgenres. However, would Dennis the Menace (ours and theirs), Komi Can’t Communicate, Winker Watson, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Power Pack, Cédric or any of the rest be improved or just different if they were created by former teachers rather than ex-kids or current parents?

It’s no surprise the form is evergreen: schooling (and tragically, sometimes, a lack of it) takes up a huge amount of children’s attention no matter how impoverished or privileged they are, and their fictions will naturally address their issues and interests. It’s fascinating to see just how much school stories revolve around humour, but always with huge helpings of drama, terror, romance and an occasional dash of action…

One of the most popular European strips employing those eternal but basic themes and methodology began in the last fraction of the 20th century, courtesy of scripter Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) and illustrator Godi.

Drousie is Belgian, born in 1962 and for six years a school teacher prior to changing careers in 1990 to write comics like those he probably used to confiscate in class. Other mainstream successes in a range of genres include Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, African Trilogy, Shi, Léonardo, a superb revival of Ric Hochet, and many more. However, his most celebrated and beloved stories are the Les Beaux Étés sequence (digitally available in English as Glorious Summers) and 2010’s Lydie, both illustrated by Spanish artist Jordi Lafebre.

Zidrou began his comics career with what he knew best: stories about and for kids, including Crannibales, Tamara, Margot et Oscar Pluche and, most significantly, a feature about a (and please forgive the charged term) school dunce: L’Elève Ducobu…

Godi is a Belgian National Treasure, born Bernard Godisiabois in Etterbeek in December 1951. After studying Plastic Arts at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels he became an assistant to comics legend Eddy Paape in 1970, working on the strip Tommy Banco for Le Journal de Tintin whilst freelancing as an illustrator for numerous comics and magazines. He became a Tintin regular three years later, primarily limning C. Blareau’s Comte Lombardi, but also working on gag strip Red Rétro by Vicq, with whom he also produced Cap’tain Anblus McManus and Le Triangle des Bermudes for Le Journal de Spirou in the early 1980s. He also soloed on Diogène Terrier (1981-1983) for Casterman.

Godi then moved into advertising cartoons and television, cocreating with Nic Broca the animated TV series Ovide. He only returned to comics in 1991, collaborating with newcomer Zidrou on L’Elève Ducobu for magazine Tremplin. The strip launched in September 1992 before transferring to Le Journal de Mickey, and collected albums began in 1997 – 27 so far in French and Dutch, with separate editions for Turkish and Indonesian readers.

When not immortalising modern school days for future generations, Godi latterly diversified, co-creating (1995 with Zidrou) comedy feature Suivez le Guide and game page Démon du Jeu with scripter Janssens.

The series has spawned a live action movie franchise and a dozen pocket books plus all the usual attendant merchandise paraphernalia. English-speakers’ introduction to the series (5 volumes thus far) came courtesy of Cinebook with 2006’s initial release King of the Dunces which was in fact the 5th European collection L’élève Ducobu – Le roi des cancres.

The unbeatable format is loads of short – most often single page – gag strips just like you’d see in The Beano, featuring a revolving cast who are all well established by this point, but also fairly one-dimensional and easy to get a handle on.

Our star is a well-meaning, good natured but terminally lazy young oaf who doesn’t get on with school. He’s sharp, inventive, imaginative, inquisitive, personable and just not academical at all. We might today put him on a spectrum or diagnose a disorder like ADHD, but at heart he’s just not interested and can always find better – or at least more interesting – things to do…

Dad is a civil servant and Mum left home when Ducoboo was a baby, but then there’s a lot of that about. Leonie Gratin – from whom he constantly copies answers to the interminable tests – only has a mum. As this collection shows the seniors do not get on when it comes to matters of child-rearing, and Madame Gratin believes that stupidity is hereditary and passed on through the male line…

Ducoboo and his class colleagues attend Saint Potache School and are mostly taught and tested by ferocious, impatient, mushroom-mad Mr Latouche. He’s something of humourless martinet, and thanks to him, Ducoboo has spent so much time in the corner with a dunce cap on his head that he’s struck up a friendship with the biology skeleton. He (she? they) answers to Neness and is always ready with a theory or suggestion for fun and frolics…

As L’élève Ducobu – Au Coin! this volume was first released in 1998: the second riotous compilation which begins with the start of a new term and traces a year in the life of all concerned. On view are always relevant riffs on being late and missing class; roll calls and registers; times tales and dictation woes; imaginative ways for Ducoboo to copy answers; writing lines and ways to hack the system; the ultimate futility of bad boys actually working and still being called a cheat and always, always cheating, copying and guessing answers…

Escape – either physically or via various dreams and daydreams – is mixed with actual and frequently surreal human interactions like Leonie bringing ferocious hound Growler to class to guard her test answers or even entombing herself in a concrete blockhouse during exams to keep the arch copier at bay in weekly single instalments. These are counterpoised by extended sequences.

One such is inspired by the boy’s greatest wish come true: contracting an illness that keeps him at home and bedbound. The fool has developed Acute Duncitis, but his sweet relief is short lived as Latouche and gloating Leonie delight in bringing work and punishment assignments home for him to not do…

Christmas comes and goes as do the first snowfalls before another extended run of gags focussing on the class and its weedy teacher enduring mass swimming lessons, where – amidst the usual hijinks and low comedy – a little romance is forestalled by our idiot getting between Latouche and burly, buxom lifeguard Miss Katherina…

Just like your educational memories, days and daftness rapidly pass and as the holidays unleash the youngsters the teachers confront the prospect of weeks of idleness with typical stoic ingenuity…

Wry, witty and whimsical whilst deftly recycling constant and adored childhood themes, Ducuboo is an up-tempo, upbeat addition to the genre every parent or pupil can appreciate and enjoy. If your kids aren’t back from school quite yet, why not anticipate keeping them occupied when that happens with In the Corner! and thank your lucky stars that there are kids far more demanding than yours…?
© Les Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard) 1998 by Godi & Zidrou. English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

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Bunny vs Monkey: Machine Mayhem!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-297-7 (TPB)

Bunny vs. Monkey has been a staple of The Phoenix since the very first issue in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal arch-enemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands.

Concocted with gleefully gentle mania by cartoonist, comics artist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Flember), these trendsetting, mind-bending yarns have been wisely retooled as graphic albums available in remastered, double-length digest editions such as this one. Now brilliantly beach-ready comes a handy pocket paperback edition to consult when the surf’s all unsanitary and there’s sand or sandwiches in the Gameboy…

The tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little anthropoid plopped down after a disastrous British space shot. Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab specimen Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of his strange new world, despite all efforts from reasonable, sensible, contemplative resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and genteel good breeding, the laid-back lepine just could not contain the incorrigible idiot ape, who was – and still is – a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating troublemaker…

Problems are exacerbated by other unconventional Crinkle creatures, particularly a skunk called Skunky who has a mad scientist’s attitude to life and a gift for building robots and super-weapons…

With artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras, the saga resumes with the war of nerves and mega-ordnances apparently over. The unruly assortment of critters cluttering up the bucolic paradise had finally picked sides and the battles at last ended. They even seemingly forgot the ever-encroaching Hyoomanz…

Following a double-page pin-up of the ever-expanding cast, this archive of anarchic insanity opens in the traditional manner: divided into seasonal outbursts, and starting with a querulous teaser tale as Spring begins in ‘D.I.Whyyyy?’

As the animals gather to help Bunny repair his much-abused house, universal innocents Pig Piggerton and Weenie squirrel – more keen than skilled – realise that cheese is not a suitable substitute for wallpaper paste, plaster or cement…

Despite the subsequent collapse, times are good and very peaceful since the awful ape went away and Ai (an Aye-aye) acts quickly to keep it that way when Bunny feels nostalgic for the old days. Sadly, somebody’s listening and brings in a ‘Makeshift Monkey!’ – until the real deal returns in ‘The Little Monkey Who Cried…’

Before long Skunky is back too and everyone’s fleeing for their lives from deadly underground tentacles, but life quickly slips into its old pattern… until obsolescence rears its ugly head and cyborg gator Metal Steve is pronounced ‘Out of Warranty’: left to wither on Skunky’s scrapheap…

Back and still bad, Monkey briefly inflicts himself on Bunny and wrecks the joint again in ‘The Housemate’ after which our mercurial monochrome megamind constructs a replacement for the gone gator: triggering ‘Robot Rampage’ when infinitely superior mechanoid Metal E.V.E. lay down her own law…

Falling foul of another near-lethal prank the silly simian is scientifically resurrected and evolved in ‘Curse of the Monkey’ only to trip on his own incompetence and barely escape a fishy final fate in ‘Toilet Run!’

A close call with humans in ‘Bunny vs Monkey Jellybeans!’ precedes piratical pretenders Weenie and Pig’s ‘A Dangerous Voyage’, before Monkey endures his own Journey into the Unknown. As “The Most Brilliant Animal in the Woods” Skunky convinces his erstwhile ally to shrink down and explore the inner cerebellum of brain-battered, bewildered ex-stuntman Action Beaver for ‘The Lost Memory’ of a misplaced ultimate weapon, which is what probably inspires him to make his own, after entering a competition and prematurely unleashing his ‘Winning Entry’…

Metal E.V.E. is forming her own plans but they have to wait a bit as she’s ‘Keepin’ Busy’ with some domestic chores in Skunky’s lab, but it’s not long until Summer begins and the woods are imperilled by subterranean invasion from new menace ‘Roland T. Mole’…

Hijinks in parallel dimensions herald the arrival of doomsayer ‘Skunky?’ as the forgotten stuntman stumbles with catastrophic consequences into his ancestral homeland in ‘Beaverville’. Monkey meanwhile creates unexpected carnage but precious little terror with super-cute kaiju ‘Rofl Axolotl’ before being painfully reminded how dangerous the woods can be in ‘So Beautiful’…

After a brief and deceptive flirtation with ‘The Dark Arts’, the hairy halfwit returns to science by creating little golden minions, but his ‘Gloobs’ prove too smart for servitude, so instead embraces high fashion in ‘C’est Chic!’ Utterly uncaring, Weenie and Pig go about their business until a ‘A New Friend’ almost breaks up the partnership. The swiftly-developing relationship of ‘Weenie and Winnie’ seems set to end the good old days, but another robotic invasion sets the world to rights in ‘Just Checking’…

A reality-altering beast threatens in ‘Wishful Thinking’ and the entire woods go all French just as aliens invade in ‘L’Honk Honk’ before Monkey & Skunky explore artisanal dining in ‘Eat Up!’, with appalling consequences for their customers, after which Ai and Monkey discover uncanny ‘Night Lights’ in the deep dark woods…

The season concludes with Metal E.V.E. getting ahead by installing crucial ‘Upgrades’ and inadvertently making contact with an unsuspected predecessor just as Autumn opens with ‘Bumblesnatch’ and pig & squirrel enjoying super-powers-inducing chewing gum whilst Crinkle Woods is catapulted into a different kind of chaos when broached by pet pooch ‘Fluffy’…

When ‘The Summoning’ invokes some pretty indifferent forest gods, Skunky lodges with over-accommodating Bunny, who is soon sucked into unwanted adventure ‘Down Below’ and unearths E.V.E.’s brave new world. Hopeless old ally Metal Steve then runs amok with nano-bots and spawns unlikely armageddon beast ‘Pig-Kira!’

Once that menace vanishes into vapour, the mostly organic animals unite to formulate ‘Some Kind of Plan’ for fighting E.V.E. – all except ‘Nurse Monkey’ who’s keen to explore other lifestyles – before reenlisting in ‘Roll Up! Roll Up!’ with a barmy spinning machine. It has no chance of easing their plight but will probably end their lives before she does…

The crusade pauses for Weenie’s birthday and the hunt for ‘The Best Present in the World’, but restarts again when E.V.E. crashes the party with ‘Something to Say’ about the “rise of the machines” and end of all flesh…

Skunky’s response is yet another monster, but giant mecha-hedgehog ‘Thunderball!’ is easily overcome, and as so-distractable Monkey goes wild among the fallen leaves in ‘Leaf it Alone’, the machine rise begins in ‘Nahhhhh!’…

Sadly, Metal E.V.E. makes a big mistake then, spilling Monkey’s drink and kicking the conflict to an unprecedented new level…

Pausing for Weenie, Pig, Ai and Bunny to share some ‘Scary Stories’ around a nighttime campfire, the constant crisis enters a new phase when the ghost of local legend Fantastic Le Fox manifests, even as our ape oaf is transformed into E.V.E.’s ‘Metal Monkey’…

Le Fox is ‘An Old Friend’ resolved to help the animals survive and his strategic advice is welcome, but the turning point comes in ‘Clash of the Robots’ as Metal Monkey and Steve duel, even as their mecha-mistress takes full charge, unleashing DNA-altering microbots that put the fleshy freedom fighters to flight in ‘Uh-Oh-Nano!’

Winter sets in and hostilities suddenly cease as all concerned succumb to the temptation of chucking ‘Snowballs’ and the end gets nigher in a wave of robotic attacks triggered by ‘Metal Mania’. Yet again, everything pauses as Christmas provides a moment to unwrap ‘Presents’ but – drenched in seasonal spirit – ‘An Unlikely Hero’ dares to bring the message of the moment right to the robot queen. The act unwittingly changes the course of history in the woods, leaving only some ‘Tidying Up’ to restore everything to what passes for normal…

The animal anarchy might have ended for now, but there’s more secrets to share thanks to detailed instructions on ‘How to Draw Metal Steve’ and ‘How to Draw Metal E.V.E.’ to wind down from all that angsty furore…

The zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird wit, brilliant invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. This is the kind of comic parents beg kids to read to them. Shouldn’t that be you?
Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2022. All rights reserved.

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The Bluecoats volume 15: Bull Run


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-061-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (and/or Dutch-language iteration De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to supplant the irreplaceable Lucky Luke when that laconic maverick defected from weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival publication Pilote.

From its first sallies, the substitute strip swiftly became hugely popular: one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe. In case you were wondering, it is now scribed by Jose-Luis Munuera and the BeKa writing partnership and we’re up to 66 tomes…

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually adopted a more realistic – yet still overtly comedic – tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer.

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling was comedy and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou.

In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues sold alone has over 15 million copies… and counting. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains.

Here, designated The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy, honest fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen defending America during the War Between the States.

The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from second volume Du Nord au Sud, the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, perpetually fighting in the American Civil War.

All subsequent adventures – despite often ranging far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your run-of-the-mill, whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and ferociously critical of the army and its inept orchestrators and commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled and even heroic… if no easier option is available.

Chesterfield is big and burly, a professional fighting man and proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in patriotism and the esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirking his duty and hungry to be a medal-wearing hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in: a situation that once more stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment.

Coloured by Vittorio Leonardo, Les Tuniques Bleues – Bull Run was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou (#2558-2562) during 1987 and collected into another mega-selling album before the year was out. The 27th continental album, it was Cinebook’s 15th translated Bluecoats album.

Bull Run offers the creators’ trenchant and bitterly hilarious account of the infamous and calamitous first full clash between North and South, which took place on July 21st 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia. That was only 30 miles from national capital Washington DC, near the city of Manassas, from which the Confederates derived their own name for the debacle – the Battle of First Manassas.

A story within a story, it’s the account of what just happened as told by one who survived the debacle sharing confidences with a new recruit who can’t understand why nobody will speak of it…

Safely hidden away Blutch starts talking, telling how before any fighting began, President Lincoln’s generals gave the leader bad advice and pompous assurances, and a publicity campaign to recruit volunteers was badly administered. Moreover, the crisis fostered a festival atmosphere and civilians flocked to the proposed battleground to see the spectacle…

It was certainly impressive. The Union forces included not just American infantry, cavalry and artillery, but also many foreign contingents and brigades: Crimean Zouaves, Italian Garibaldians, Bavarians, Croats, Cossacks, Chinese and more. What a pity nobody drilled them in taking orders in English…

Still angry from being tricked into joining up, Blutch was already wary and could not bear to see the eagerness on the face of his glory-struck comrade Chesterfield. That’s why – when the call came from on high – he broke the habit of a lifetime and volunteered to join the proud few called on to serve drinks and refreshments to the spectators and upper ranks…

Already class divisions had appeared: the cavalry were expressly ordered not to speak to foot soldiers. That would prove catastrophically crucial as the battle unfolded and messages could not be passed…

Most telling of all, the Confederate forces were well-trained, well-disciplined and did not overconfidently consider the battle a foregone conclusion…

With carnage and confusion everywhere, Blutch’s deepest convictions are completely confirmed, and the jolly adventure becomes a complete rout, made all the worse for death-or-glory Chesterfield, who is ignominiously saved from capture or worse by his sneaky pal’s ungentlemanly behaviour and dirty tricks. That’s why the sergeant never talks about Bull Run…

Painfully cleaving to the bald facts of history, this episode is far darker than most, with the underlying horror leavened by a narrative distancing that allows ridiculously surreal black comedy and bitter satire to blossom constantly.

Combining pointedly seditious polemic with stunning slapstick, Bull Run mordantly manipulates the traditions of war stories to hammer home the point about the sheer stupidity of war and crushing cruelty of arrogant elitism. These yarns weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the best kind of war-story and Western: appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1987 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.

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Kurt Cobain & Mozart Are Both Dead – A Leonard & Larry Collection


By Tim Barela (Palliard Press)
ISBN: 978-1-88456-804-6 (Album PB)

We live in an era where Pride events are world-wide and commonplace: where acceptance of LGBTQIA+ citizens is a given… at least in all the civilised countries where dog-whistle politicians, populist “hard men” totalitarian dictators (I’m laughing at a private dirty joke right now) and sundry organised religions are kept in their generally law-abiding places by their hunger for profitable acceptance and desperation to stay tax-exempt, scandal-free, rich and powerful.

There’s still too many places where it’s not so good to be Gay but at least Queer themes and scenes are no longer universally illegal and can be ubiquitously seen in entertainment media of all types and age ranges and even on the streets of most cities. For all the injustices and oppressions, we’ve still come a long, long way and it’s and simply No Big Deal anymore. Let’s affirm that victory and all work harder to keep it that way…

Such was not always the case and, to be honest, the other team (with religions proudly egging them on and backing them up) are fighting hard and dirty to reclaim all the intolerant high ground they’ve lost thus far.

Incredibly, all that change and counteraction has happened within the span of living memory (mine, in this case). For English-language comics, the shift from simple illicit pornography to homosexual inclusion in all drama, comedy, adventure and other genres started as late as the 1970s and matured in the 1980s – despite resistance from most western governments – thanks to the efforts of editors like Robert Triptow and Andy Mangels and cartoonists like Howard Cruse, Vaughn Bod?, Gerard P. Donelan, Roberta Gregory, Touko Valio Laaksonen/“Tom of Finland” and Tim Barela.

A native of Los Angeles, Barela was born in 1954, and became a fundamentalist Christian in High School. He loved motorbikes and had dreams of becoming a cartoonist. He was also a gay kid struggling to come to terms with what was still judged illegal, wilfully mind-altering psychosis and perversion – if not actual genetic deviancy – and an appalling sin by his theological peers and close family…

In 1976, Barela began an untitled comic strip about working in a bike shop for Cycle News. Some characters then reappeared in later efforts Just Puttin (Biker, 1977-1978); Short Strokes (Cycle World, 1977-1979); Hard Tale (Choppers, 1978-1979) plus The Adventures of Rickie Racer, and cooking strip (!) The Puttin Gourmet… America’s Favorite Low-Life Epicurean in Biker Lifestyle and FTW News.

In 1980, the cartoonist unsuccessfully pitched a domestic (or “family”) strip called Ozone to LGBT news periodical The Advocate. Among its proposed quotidian cast were literal and metaphorical straight man Rodger and openly gay Leonard Goldman… who had a “roommate” named Larry Evans…

Gay Comix was an irregularly published anthology, edited at that time by Underground star Robert Triptow (Strip AIDs U.S.A.; Class Photo). He advised Barela to ditch the restrictive newspaper strip format in favour of longer complete episodes, and printed the first of these in Gay Comix #5 in 1984. The remodelled new feature was a huge success, included in many successive issues and became the solo star of Gay Comix Special #1 in 1992.

Leonard & Larry also showed up in prestigious benefit comic Strip AIDs U.S.A. before triumphantly relocating to The Advocate in 1988, and – from 1990 – to its rival publication Frontiers. The lads even moved into live drama in 1994: adapted by Theatre Rhinoceros of San Francisco as part of stage show Out of the Inkwell.

In the 1990s their episodic exploits were gathered in a quartet of wonderfully oversized (220 x 280 mm) monochrome albums which gained a modicum of international stardom and glittering prizes. This compendium was the second compiled by Palliard Press between 1993 and 2003, following Domesticity Isn’t Pretty and paving the way for Excerpts from the Ring Cycle in Royal Albert Hall and How Real Men Do It.

Triptow provides sly and witty Foreword ‘Discovering the World of Leonard & Larry’ before a copious, detailed and lengthy Introduction reintroduces the huge byzantinely interwoven cast in tasty bite-sized Gordian knots (sorry, the classical and literary allusions peppering the comics are eerily infectious…).

‘The Cast of Characters – So Far’ re-briefs us on star couple Leonard Goldman and Larry Evans, ‘Larry’s Relatives’, ‘Leonard Relatives’, ‘The In-Laws’ and ‘Friends and Acquaintances’ which prominently features the dream manifestations – or is it the actual ghosts? – of composers Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his bitter frenemy Johannes Brahms…

This family saga is primarily a comedic comedy of manners, played out against social prejudices and grudging popular gradual acceptances, but it also has shocking moments of drama and tension and whole bunches of heartwarming sentiment set in and around West Hollywood.

The extensive and extended Leonard & Larry clan comprise the former’s formidable unaccepting mother Esther – who still ambushes him with blind dates and nice Jewish girls – and the latter’s ex-wife Sharon and their sons Richard and David.

Teenaged Richard recently knocked up and wed equally school-aged Debbie, and promptly made Leonard & Larry unwilling grandparents years (decades even!) before they were ready. The oldsters adore baby Lauren – who is two when this book starts – but will soon relive all that aging trauma when Debbie announces the kid will soon be an older sister…

Maternal grandparents Phil and Barbra Dunbarton are ultra conservative and stridently Christian, and spend a lot of time fretting over Debbie and Lauren’s souls and social standing. They’re particularly concerned over role models and what horrors she’s being exposed to whenever the gay grandpas babysit…

David Evans is as Queer as his dad, and works in Larry’s leather/fetish boutique store on Melrose Avenue. That iconic venue provides plenty of quick, easy laughs and even some edgy moments thanks to local developer/predatory expansionist Lillian Lynch who wants the store at any cost. It’s also the starting point for the many other couples in Leonard & Larry’s eccentric orbit.

Their friends and clients enjoy even larger roles this time around whilst cunningly presenting other perspectives on LA life and the ever-evolving scene. Flamboyant former aerospace engineer Frank Freeman lives with acclaimed concert pianist Bob Mendez and has an obsessive yen for uniforms, which comes in handy when Bob is targeted by a sex-crazed celebrity stalker. It’s no use at all though, when she kidnaps them at gunpoint and demands Bob satisfies her every desire…

Larry’s other employee is Jim Buchanan, whose alarming dating history suddenly picks up when he meets a genuine cowboy at one of L & L’s parties. Merle Oberon is a newly “out” Texan trucker who adds romance and stability to Jim’s lonely life. Sadly, that’s only until Merle is discovered by Hollywood and pressured by agents, manager and co-star to go right back “in” again if he really wants to be a movie megastar…

Jim, by the way, is the original and main focus of the overly-critical dead composers’ puckish visits…

Among the highlights this time are the cast’s participation on the “March on Washington” in April 1993 in support of Gay Rights, Larry’s jury duty and the introduction of a draconian Judge who is also a major purchaser of the Melrose’ stores most imaginative BDSM under-apparel, jury service, and Jim and Merle’s fraught but fun foray to Texas to get the blessing of the cowboy’s fundamentalist parents…

The opposing sides/families in the “lifestyle vs sin” debate meet often and outrageously and there’s even a couple of ceremonies (this is long before same sex weddings were legal) to confirm that the heart wants what the heart wants.

Terrifyingly there’s also a second episode of “queer-bashing” (David being the first in the previous volume) that results in Larry’s death.

Thankfully his trip to heaven is pleasant and his prompt return to the mortal coil proves “God Loves Gays” and provides sublimely satisfying satirical laughs whilst scoring major points… When he revives it’s to meet his new – and so very, very ugly – grandson… and thus life goes on…

As well as featuring a multi-generational cast, Leonard & Larry is a strip that progresses in real time, with characters all aging and developing accordingly. The strips are not and never have been about sex – except in that the subject is a constant generator of hilarious jokes and outrageously embarrassing situations. Deftly skewering hypocrisy and rebuking ignorance with dry wit and great drawing, episodes cover various couples’ home and work lives, constant parties, physical deterioration, social gaffes, rows, family revelations, holidays and even events like earthquakes and fanciful prognostications. Tchaikovsky and Brahms are also regular visitants and serve to keep the proceedings wry, sarcastic and surreal…

Leonard & Larry is a traditionally domestic marital sitcom/soap opera with Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz – or more aptly, Dick Van Dyke & Mary Tyler Moore – replaced by a hulking bearded “bear” with biker, cowboy and leather fetishes and a stylishly moustachioed, no-nonsense fashion photographer. Taken in total, it’s a love story about growing old together, but not gracefully or with any dignity…

Populated by adorable, appetising fully fleshed out characters, Leonard & Larry is about finding and then being yourself: an irresistible slice of gentle whimsy to nourish the spirit and beguile the jaded.

If you feel like taking a Walk on the Mild Side now this tome is still at large through internet vendors. So why don’t you?
Kurt Cobain & Mozart Are Both Dead © 1993 Palliard Press. All artwork and strips © 1996 Tim Barela. Introduction © 1996 Robert Triptow. All rights reserved.

After decades of waiting, the entire ensemble is available again courtesy of Rattling Good Yarns Press. Sublimely hefty hardback uber-compilation Finally! The Complete Leonard & Larry Collection was released in 2021, reprinting the entire saga – including rare as hens’ teats last book How Real Men Do It (978-1955826051). It’s a little smaller in page dimensions (216 x280mm) and far harder to lift, but it’s Out there if you want it…