Category: Comedy

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If You Steal


By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-854-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize). He won another Sproing in 2001 for series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels.

A global star among cartoon cognoscenti, he has received major awards from all over the planet. Jason’s work always jumps directly into a reader’s brain and heart, utilising the beastly and unnatural to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a softly relentless quest for answers. That you don’t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar “funny-animal” characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist he is…

The stylised artwork is delivered in formalised page layouts rendered in a minimalist evolution of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, thick outlines and settings of seductive simplicity; augmented by a deft and subtle use of flat colour which enhances his hard, moody, suspenseful and utterly engrossing Cinema-inspired world.

The superbly understated art acts in concert with his dead-on, deadpan pastiche repertoire of scenarios which dredge deep from our shared experience of old film noir classics, horror and sci fi B-movies and other visual motifs which transcend time and culture, and the result is narrative dynamite.

This compilation collects eleven short yarns and opens with the eponymous and eerie ‘If You Steal’, wherein cheap thug Paul perpetually risks everything – including the one person who keeps him feeling alive – in search of quick cash: only to lose it all in the end, after which ‘Karma Chameleon’ sees a small desert community dealing with the discovery of a giant, carnivorous and extremely predatory lizard which nobody seems able to see. Good thing masturbation-obsessed boffin Dr. Howard Jones and his long-suffering daughter Julia are in town…

The deliciously wry and whimsically absurdist Samuel Beckett spoof ‘Waiting for Bardot’ then segues neatly into a dashing mystery of masked derring-do as ‘Lorena Velazquez’ eventually tires of waiting for her ideal man to finish off a necessarily interminable and horrific army of villains prior to doling out a maiden’s traditional rewards, before a fugitive murderer narrates his own paranoia-fuelled downfall after his ‘New Face’ briefly tempts him with love and the never-to-be-achieved promise of peace and safety…

A series of six faux horror comics covers combines to relate the trials of chilling romances in ‘Moondance’. The classic fear theme extends into a rip-roaring battle against the undead in ‘Night of the Vampire Hunter’ and ‘Polly Wants a Cracker’ follows the other unique career path of artistic legend/assassin-for-hire Frida Kahlo.

A junkie musician pushes his luck against some very bad guys because ‘The Thrill is Gone’ after which ‘Ask Not’ takes a trawl through history from Stonehenge in 2583 BC to Salon de Provence in 1554 AD (courtesy of Nostradamus) to 1960s Cuba, revealing the truth behind the assassination of JFK and Abraham Lincoln and what parts Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby actually played in that millennial plot: a parallel worlds yarn like no other…

The book ends with a stunning, deeply moving graphic examination of dementia which is both chilling and oddly-heart-warming as aging Emma deals with the scary creatures who keep taking away the names of things in ‘Nothing’: proving once more that behind innocuous-seeming cartoons and contemporary fairy tale trappings Jason’s work is loaded with potent questions…

If You Steal resonates with Jason’s favourite themes and shines with his visual dexterity and skewed sensibilities. disclosing a decidedly different slant on secrets and obsessions. Primal art supplemented by sparse and spartan “hardboiled Private Eye” dialogue, enhanced to a macabre degree by solid drawing and skilled use of silence and moment, all utilised with devastating economy, affords the same quality of cold, bleak yet perfectly harnessed stillness which makes Scandinavian TV dramas such compelling, addictive fare.

These comic tales are strictly for adults, yet allow us all to look at the world through wide-open young eyes. They never, however, sugar-coat what’s there to see…
If You Steal is © 2015 Jason. All rights reserved.

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Marsupilami volume 5 Baby Prinz


By Franquin, Batem & Yann; coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-542-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

One of Europe’s most popular comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The frantic, frenetic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of European entertainment invention who originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

In 1946 Joseph “Jijé” Gillain was crafting eponymous keystone strip Spirou for flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou when he abruptly handed off the entire kit and caboodle to his assistant Franquin. The apprentice took the reins, slowly abandoned a previous format of short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers, he devised a beguiling and boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until his resignation in 1969 – Franquin frequently included the bombastic little beast in Spirou’s increasingly fantastic escapades …

The Marsupilami returned over and over again: a phenomenally popular magical animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own.

André Franquin was born on January 3rd 1924 in Etterbeek, Belgium. Somewhat a prodigy, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943, but when the war forced the school’s closure a year later, he found animation work at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels. Here he met Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke‘s creator Morris), Pierre Culliford (Peyo, creator of The Smurfs) and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945, all but Culliford signed on with publishing house Dupuis, and Franquin began a career as a jobbing cartoonist and illustrator, drawing covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. During those formative days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé – at that time the main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He quickly turned the youngsters – and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite (AKA Will: writer/artist of Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, The Garden of Desire and much more) – into a potent creative bullpen dubbed La bande des quatre; or “Gang of Four”. They subsequently revolutionised Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling.

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through a storyline (Spirou et la maison préfabriquée, in Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946). The eager novice ran with it and carried on with Spirou for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until the feature became purely his own.

Every week, fans would meet startling and zany new characters like comrade eventual co-star Fantasio or crackpot inventor Count of Champignac, and ultimately Spirou et Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, “reporting back” their exploits in unbroken four-colour glory for and in Le Journal de Spirou…

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own band of apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill/Billy and Buddy); Jidéhem (Sophie, Starter, Gaston Lagaffe/Gomer Goof) and Greg (Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Achille Talon, Zig et Puce), who all worked with him during his tenure on Spirou et Fantasio.

In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis resulted in Franquin signing up with publishing rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon.

Franquin and Dupuis patched things up within days, and he went back to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he co-created Gaston Lagaffe, but was still legally obliged to carry on his Tintin strip work too. From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but a decade later the artist had reached his Spirou limit and in 1969 resigned for good, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker.

He tapped old comrade Greg as scripter and invited commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (pen-name Batem) to collaborate on – and later monopolise – the art duties for a new series of raucous comedy adventures. In recent years, the commercial world has triumphed again and since 2016 the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have again collided allowing the old firm to act out in shared stories again…

Blessed with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously adaptive anthropoid inhabiting the rain forests of Palombia and regarded as one of the rarest animals on Earth. It speaks a language uniquely its own and also has a reputation for causing trouble and instigating chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that takes the form of “tough love”…

Baby Prinz was released in 1989, fifth of 32 albums (not including all-Franquin short-story collection volume #0, AKA Capturez un Marsupilami): a canny fable on the dangers of power which opens in Palombian capital city Chiquito, where zookeepers examine an all but forgotten exhibit. This Marsupilami has been caged for decades – nobody knows quite how many – and seems to by dying. The event has deeply agitated all the other animals, and during the fuss a macaw escapes, heading straight for the dark heart of the dense rainforest…

Soon, it finds jungle-dwelling white kids Bip and Sarah, who have been raising themselves in the green hell – with a little oversight from the Marsupilami patriarch. The bird carries a desperate request: the zoo “Marsu” is willing himself to die but the macaw believes a quick intervention from a fresh, wild cousin might give his oldest friend a reason to go on…

The bird has it all figured out. There’s a festival looming and all Chiquito is gearing up for fancy dress larks as the nation celebrates the anniversary of the coup that first brought Papa Prinz to tyrannical power. He’s been dead for years now and his son Baby Prinz is in charge but has to publicly appear to give a speech. It’s a tradition.

Everyone is very excited. Baby Prinz is seldom seen after surviving 12 annual coup attempts and assassinations. His Papa managed 27 before finally being killed by revolutionaries, and the people know that when Baby ceremonially appears again, they can have another go at the little dictator. It’s also tradition…

As festivities escalate, secret police are everywhere: spying on gatherings of one or more people and anticipating trouble on every side. The oppressed and very drunk citizens carry on regardless, gleefully aware of the covert Seguridad cops’ big blunder. Each spy/thug wears exactly the same Marsupilami costume…so they can recognize each other in the crowds…

There is one snag, however. Spoiled, despotic fop Baby Prinz has reached his emotional limit. His nerve has gone. He cannot face making a balcony speech to the foul, unwashed rabble who are literally beneath him.. and probably all concealing a weapon to kill him with. He just wants to curl up in his sensory deprivation tank with his collection of plush animal toys, but his overbearing and bullying major domo/butler/father’s best friend won’t let him…

Just one appearance is enough. The crowds confirm that their tyrant is not a “real man” and their shouts convince the army (the usual suspects and beneficiaries of every Palombian revolution) pick sides and start the process all over again…

As his guardian leads Baby Prinz to safety through long-disused escape tunnels, the rioting people are briefly halted by the rumour of deadly mechanised secret weapons. These mobile landmines are also disguised as Marsupilamis, and the entire revolution is being screened live by television cameramen even more ferocious than the rioters…

All this time the jungle kids, macaw and true Marsupilami have been heading towards the largely abandoned zoo, where the keeper and his wife are drinking and viewing all the excitement from the comfort of his office. The former government employees’ position of safely distanced neutral observance vanishes as the Baby and his major domo exit the escape tunnel under the lion enclosure (formerly the far-safer sloth cage), leaving the big cats their own way out via the tunnel back to the palace.

Safely stashing the fed-up, brain-shocked dictator in another cage, his bad but loyal butler goes looking for hidden passports, unaware that his useless boss has piqued the waning attention of an astoundingly ancient inmate… particularly the froufrou designer handbag with all the designer recreational pharmaceuticals in it…

As latest opportunist Aquileo Zavatas declares himself the new boss, the jungle-based rescue party’s progress is briefly halted when rioters attempt to remove Marsupilami’s “disguise” and discover to their eternal regret that there are worse things in life than a cop in a monkey suit… especially after the furious furry (called by Polombians “El diablo”, and “La catástrofe amarilla”) is trapped inside a tank carrying live rounds and more than lives up to his hype…

Joined by his friends, they continues causing chaos in the streets, even as the old Marsu revives and proceeds to enact his new last wish: travelling to the fabled Marsupilami’s grave yard to end his days among his own kind. Typically, the leechlike Baby Prinz has attached himself to the old beast and the macaw and goes with them…

Ending with astute political comics commentary and a fantastic twist of fate, this tale is a superbly savvy comparison of duty, family values and the power of corruption, but don’t worry about all that because it’s also another masterfully madcap rollercoaster of hairsbreadth escapes, close shaves and sardonic character assassinations, packed to the whiskers with wit and hilarity.

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkeys are moodily macabre, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. Fancy channelling your inner El diablo and joining in the fun? It all stars with Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah…
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1990 by Franquin, Yann & Batem. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

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Mickey All-Stars (The Disney Masters Collection)


By Giorgio Cavazzano & Joris Chamberlain and many & various: translated by David Gerstein & Jonathan H. Gray (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-369-1 (HB) eISBN 978-1-68396-422-3

Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, Mickey Mouse was first seen – if not heard – in the silent cartoon Plane Crazy. The animated short fared poorly in a May 1928 test screening and was promptly shelved.

It’s why most people who care cite Steamboat Willie – the fourth completed Mickey feature – as the official debut of the mascot mouse and his co-star and occasional paramour Minnie Mouse since it was the first to be nationally distributed, as well as the first animated feature with synchronised sound. The film’s astounding success led to the subsequent rapid release of its fully completed predecessors Plane Crazy, The Gallopin’ Gaucho and The Barn Dance, once they too had been given new-fangled soundtracks.

From those rather timid and tenuous beginnings grew an immense fantasy empire, but film was not the only way Disney conquered hearts and minds. With Mickey a certified, solid gold screen sensation, the mighty mouse was considered a hot property ripe for full media exploitation and he quickly invaded America’s most powerful and pervasive entertainment medium: comic strips…

In close to a century of existence, Walt Disney’s anthropomorphic everyman Mickey Mouse has tackled his fair share of weirdos and super freaks in tales crafted by gifted creators from every corner of the world. A true global phenomenon, the little wonder staunchly overcame all odds and pushed every boundary, and he’s always done so as the prototypical nice guy beloved by all.

He might have been born in the USA, but the Mouse belongs to all humanity now. Mickey has always been and is still a really big deal in Europe and thus, when his 90th anniversary loomed, a comics movement grew to celebrate the event in a uniquely comic strip way.

Invitations went out to creators with a connection to Disney endeavours from countries like Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Belgium, France and more. The rules were simple: each auteur or team would have a single page to do as they liked to, for and with Mickey and all his Disney pals, with the only proviso that each exploit must begin and end with the Mouse passing through a door. The whole affair would be framed by an opening and closing page from illustrator Giorgio Cavazzano and scenarist Joris Chamberlain…

The result is a stunning joyous and often wholesomely spooky rollercoaster ride through the minds of top flight artists all channelling their own memories, feelings and childhood responses to the potent narrative legacy of Mickey & Friends: a tumbling, capacious, infinitely varied journey of rediscovery and graphic virtuosity that is thrilling, beautiful and supremely satisfying.

This translation comes with an explanatory Foreword laying out the rules far better than I just did and ends with ‘The All-Star Lineup’ offering full and informative mini biographies of all concerned responsible for each page.

They are – in order of appearance – Flix, Dav, Keramidas, Fabrice Parme, Alfred, Brüno, Batem & Nicholas Pothier, Federico Bertolucci & Frédéric Brrémaud, Silvio Camboni & Denis-Pierre Filippi, Thierry Martin, Guillaume Bouzard, José Luis Munuera, Alexis Nesme, Fabrizio Petrossi, Jean-Philippe Peyraud, Pirus, Massimo Fecchi, Boris Mirroir, Godi, Florence Cestac, Éric Hérenguel, Marc Lechuga, Cèsar Ferioli, Tebo, Clarke, Dab’s, Pieter De Pootere, Antonio Lapone, Ulf K, Pascal Regmauld, Johan Pilet & Pothier, Mathilde Domecq, Nicolas Juncker, Jean-Christophe & Pothier, Mike Peraza, Arnaud Poitevin & Chamberlain, Olivier Supiot, Éric Cartier, Zanzim, Marco Rota, Paco Rodriguez, Sascha Wüsterfeld, and the aforementioned Giorgio Cavazzano & Joris Chamberlain.

Frantic, frenzied fun for one and all. Everything you could dream of and so much more…

© 2021 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cedric volume 7: Isn’t It Past Your Bedtime?


By Laudec & Cauvin; colours by Leonardo, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-025-8 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Raoul Cauvin is one of Europe’s most successful comics scripters. Born in Antoing, Belgium in 1938, by 1960 he was working in the animation department of publishing giant Dupuis after studying Lithography. Happily, he quickly discovered his true calling was writing funny stories and began a glittering, prolific career at Le Journal de Spirou.

With Salverius, he conceived the astounding successful Bluecoats, and dozens more award-winning series like Sammy, Cupidon, Les Femmes en Blanc, Pauvre, Lampil Boulouloum et Guiliguili, and Agent 212: cumulatively comprising well over 240 separate albums.

His collaborator on superbly witty kid-friendly family strip Cédric is Italian born, Belgium-raised Tony de Luca, who studied electro-mechanics and toiled as an industrial draughtsman before making his own break into bandes dessinée. Following some fanzine efforts in the late 1970s as “Laudec”, he landed soap-style strip Les Contes de Cure-la-Flute at Le Journal de Spirou in 1979. He traded that for a brace of war-time serials (L’an 40 in 1983 and March Noir et Bottes à Clous in 1985) whilst working his way around the comic’s other strips. In 1987, he joined Cauvin on the first Cédric shorts. From then on all was child’s play…

We have Dennis the Menace (the Americans have their own too, but he’s not the same) whilst the French-speaking world has Cédric: an adorable, lovesick rapscallion with a heart of gold and an irresistible penchant for mischief. He’s also afflicted with raging amour…

Collected albums – 34 so far – of variable-length strips ranging from a ½ page to half a dozen began appearing in 1989, and remain amongst the most popular and best-selling in Europe, as is the animated TV show spun off from the strip.

…A little Word to the Wise: this is not a strip afraid to suspend silly yoks in deference to a little suspense or even near-heartbreak. The bonny boy is crushingly smitten with Chen: a Chinese girl newly arrived in class and so very far out of his league, leading to frequent and painful confrontations and miscommunications. That gradually starts changing here…

Whilst the advice given by his lonely, widowed grandpa is seldom of any practical use, it often picks open scabs from the elder’s long, happy but now concluded marriage. These moments can reduce normal humans to tears…

This seventh Cinebook translation debuted in Europe in 1995 as Cédric – Parasite sur canapé and opens with a typically chaotic school event as ‘Look at the Birdie’ details why photographers hate kids and school photo day, after which Grandpa is shamed into a new coat by a brief park encounter in ‘Worn Out’…

When the old duffer comes down with a virus the well-meaning kid borrows a neighbour’s baby thermometer and makes the mistake of telling his ailing ancestor how it was most recently used in ‘Sick from Top to Bottom’, after which Cédric confronts the true emotional cost of donating old toys to charity in ‘The Christmas Present’.

‘Shocking’ takes a dive into drama as Cédric witnesses a car accident up close, but his parents can’t conceive of why the school psychologist can’t see him…

Body issues surprisingly arise when the kid the accidentally glimpses Grandpa in the bath and inadvertently shakes the elder’s formerly robust self-image in ‘A Critical Eye’ and ‘Blurp!’ reveals a close – and illicit – encounter with Asian cuisine resulting in an unforeseen gastric event before a romantic turning point arrives when Cédric and Chen eavesdrop on the adults recapturing their own youthful days in ‘Shall We Dance?’

Following a classmate’s funeral, the boy’s ‘Low Spirits…’ prompt an uplifting pep talk from dad that has the reverse effect upon the old guy (theoretically) nearest the grave, and a common nightmare comes true, sparking a near riot at school when Cédric becomes ‘Prisoner of the Toilet’…

A bone of domestic contention devolves into four-way chaos over what to watch on TV, with Grandpa eventually triumphing through guile and long-experience in ‘Whatever it Takes…’ after which birthday girl Chen proves a little less than perfect when her ‘Pastry Failure…’ incapacitates her devout admirer…

‘Grandpa Gets Some Air’, in which the old fossil responds to the gift of a free flight in a two-man plane with his typical cunning, and cowardice is followed by ‘Payment in Kind’ wherein the hapless lad dutifully tries fundraising by selling school raffle tickets but is instead introduced the concept of “barter”…

Cédric’s mediocre sporting achievements are again exposed in cross-country lark ‘Where Are the Others?’ and ‘Reluctant Volunteer’ shows why so many kids hate clowns – as well as a uniquely Cédric response to circus acts – before this show closes with the last bow of a veteran cast member. ‘Recline? Decline!’ sees Grandpa finally part with his beloved Him-shaped armchair. Typically, the high design replacement is not what anybody wants or is comfortable with…

Sharp, rapid-paced, warmly witty yet unafraid to explore life’s harshest moments, the exploits of this painfully keen, beguilingly besotted rapscallion are a charming example of how all little boys are just the same and infinitely unique. Cédric is a picture-perfect family portrait ideal for youngsters of every vintage…
© Dupuis 1995 by Cauvin & Laudec. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.

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Green Eggs and Maakies


By Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-618-8 (HB/Digital edition)

As a career and lifestyle, cartooning has far more than its share of individuals with a unique perspective on life. Ronald Searle, Charles Addams, George Herriman, Gerald Scarfe, Rick Geary, Steve Bell, Berke Breathed, Ralph Steadman, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Gary Larson – the list is potentially endless.

Perhaps it’s the power to create entire carefully curated and scrupulously sculptured worlds coupled with the constant catharsis of vented spleen that so colours their work – whether they paint or draw – or maybe it’s simply the crucible of constant deadlines that makes their efforts so addictive and effective.

Tony Millionaire loves to draw and does it very, very well: referencing classical art, vintage children’s book illustration and an eclectic mix of pioneering comic strip draughtsmen like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray, Elzie Segar and that George Herriman guy. These influences, styles and sensibilities he seamlessly blends with the vision of European engravings masters from the “legitimate” side of the pictorial storytelling racket. The result is eye-popping…

Born Scott Richardson, he especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as formative influences.

He has a variety of graphical strings to his bow – such as his own coterie of books for children like the superbly stirring Billy Hazelnuts and Sock Monkey series; animation triumphs and the brilliant if disturbing weekly strip Maakies – which recounts the riotously vulgar and absurdly surreal adventures of Irish monkey Uncle Gabby and fellow dissolute über-alcoholic/nautical adventurer Drinky Crow.

They are abetted but never aided by a peculiarly twisted, off-kilter cast of reprobates, antagonists and confrontational well-wishers such as Drunken Cop, old Wachtel, The Captain’s Daughter and avian Aunt Phoebe whilst constantly opposed by nefarious Gallic crocodile The Frenchman. Or not. Sometimes. It depends…

Launching in February 1994 in The New York Press, the strip is now widely syndicated in US alternative newspapers such as LA Weekly and The Stranger and globally in comics magazines like Linus and Rocky. There was even an animated series on Adult Swim.

Since continuity usually plays second fiddle to the avalanche of inventive ideas and outré action the strips can be read in almost any order, and the debauched drunkenness, manic ultra-violence in the manner of the best Tom & Jerry or Itchy & Scratchy cartoons, acerbic view of sexuality and deep core of existentialist angst still finds a welcome with Slackers, Laggards, the un-Christian and all those scurrilous lost Generations since X… and everyone addicted to bad taste tomfoolery. This lovely lush landscape collection from 2013 compiles two years of impossibly wonderful weirdness and plumbs new depths of daft depravity proving clearly time cannot wither his infinitely grotesque variety one little bit…

In the grand tradition of the earliest US newspaper cartoon features, each episode comes with a linked mini-strip running across the foot of the strip – although often that link is quite hard to ascertain. Nominally and notionally based in a naval setting of rousing rip-roaring 19th century sea-faring situations, replete with maritime monsters and stunning vistas, the dark-and-bitter comical instalments vary from staggeringly rude and crude through absolutely hysterical to conceptually impenetrable.

Be warned: Millionaire’s gags are utterly unfettered by bounds of taste or simplistic acquiescence to wholesome fun-squelching decency.

He often promotes his other creative endeavours on Maakies pages and digresses into autobiography and personal rants, brings in guest creators to mess with his toys and even invites the readership to contribute: ideas, pictures, objects of communal interest – especially any tattoos his dedicated readership can be enticed/bothered to submit. This penetratingly incisive, witty and often poignant cartoon arena is his playground and if you don’t like it, leave… but quietly please, ’cause there’s a hangover going on here most days…

Green Eggs and Maakies offers, in starkly indisputable monochrome, more of the wonderful same with such spit-take, eye-watering, drinks-coming-out-of-your-nose moments as how mermaids and ugly fish are created, fun with snakes, the thoughts of ‘Real Ladies of the Dog Park’; arguably the best Superman fart joke ever, and so much more, scraped like barnacles from the edges of all time and space and history.

Moreover, in a positive frenzy of public-spirited beneficence, this book features ‘Maakies Womb Portraits’; returning visits of ‘Dr. Dubel, Helicopter Faith Healer’; easily absorbed lessons on ‘How to Drink’; scatological marriage proposals, a running commentary on ‘Married Days’ and general sex advice; revelations of ‘The Accidental Sobrietist’; secrets of such self-surgical procedures as removing impacted belly hair or how to conduct an auto-splenectomy; an ode to ‘The Robust Human Liver’ and more bright ideas from ‘The Universal Moon Genius’.

All the timeless favourite themes Millionaire specialises in are on show, and the usual variations of sordid sexual encounters, ghastly interspecies progeny, assorted single entendres, bodily function faux pas and gory death-scenes share space with some of literature’s greatest poets and sots – who never knew what hit them…

There are even a few continued tales starring ‘Noah’s Ark’, barbarian dwarf ‘Klaus Santa, son of Kleas, son of Wachtel’ and two sets of cut-out, colour-and-keep Christmas tree ornaments to make any seasonal pine a domestic no-go zone…

If you’re not easily upset this is a spectacularly funny and rewarding strip, one of the most constantly creative and entertaining in existence today, and if you can thrive on gorge-rousing gags and mind-bending rumination this is an experience you simply cannot deny yourself.

If you’re still not a fan, Green Eggs and Maakies is the perfect opportunity to become one, and if you’re already converted it’s an ideal gift for them that isn’t…
© 2013 Tony Millionaire. All rights reserved.

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Lucky Luke volume 19: On the Daltons’ Trail


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-007-8 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Doughty, Dashing and Dependable cowboy champion Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles across the fabulously mythic Old West, enjoying light-hearted adventures on his rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. The taciturn nomad regularly interacts with a host of historical and legendary figures as well as even odder folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European ideas…

Over seven decades his unceasing exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums with sales totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages… thus far. That renown has led to a mountain of spin-off albums and toys, computer games, animated cartoons, a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but who knows when…?

The brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first seen in Le Journal de Spirou‘s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke sprang to laconic life in 1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American tourist Rene Goscinny. When Rene became regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary, heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation August 25th 1955. In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with La Diligence (The Stagecoach).

Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. The artist died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and others, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante…

Lucky Luke has history in Britain too, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using the nom de plume Buck Bingo.

In each of these venues – as well as many attempts to follow the English-language album successes of Tintin and Asterix – Luke laconically puffed on a trademark roll-up cigarette which hung insouciantly and almost permanently from his lip. However, in 1983 Morris – amidst pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” – substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, thereby garnering for himself an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organisation.

Strictly for the sake of historical veracity, that tatty dog-end has been assiduously restored for this particular tale and indeed all of Cinebook’s fare – at least on interior pages. They are the most successful in bringing Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves, and it’s clearly no big deal for today’s readership as we’re at 81 translated tomes and still going strong. That’s not even considering the hefty compilations of early pre-Goscinny adventures and the inclusion of spin-offs such as Kid Lucky…

Sur la piste des Dalton was Morris & Goscinny’s 8th collaboration, originally serialised in 1962 before becoming the 17th album release in the same year: a wittily hilarious outing incorporating a little in-story continuity as the dutiful volunteer lawman is called upon to deal with some troublesome old acquaintances. It’s also the story that gave the world a key supporting character: one who ultimately shambled into his own spin-off series…

There’s a penitentiary in Texas that is the regular second home to the appalling Dalton Brothers: the worst and most-feared outlaws in numerous states and territories. Sadly, it is staffed by shiftless idiots, and when once again owlhoot miscreants Averell, Jack, William and devious, slyly psychotic, tyrannical diminutive brother Joe shuck their shackles, the hapless guards trust the facility’s dog to track them down.

Prison guard dog Rin Tin Can is a pathetic pooch with delusions of grandeur: a mutt who is vain, lazy, overly-friendly, exceedingly dim and utterly loyal to absolutely everybody, but the one thing he ain’t is: good at his job…

As Rantanplan – “dumbest dog in the West” and a wicked parody of pioneering cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin – the pestilential pooch became an irregular co-star before eventually landing his own spin-off series.

Here, after encountering the escapees mid-tunnel and running away, the canine sentinel is dragged into a search party that constantly stops searching seconds before catching their quarry quartet. Moreover, more than a little bit fed up with continually having to recapture the bandit brothers, Lucky has told the guards he’s not helping this time…

That determination only lasts until the brothers rob his rancher pal Old Tex and before long the rangy range-rider is back on their trail, hampered by that well-intentioned but inept hound, while aided by Joe’s frustrated determination to maraud across the region and eternally-hungry Averell’s ceaseless pursuit of another meal…

The tide turns at Horse Gulch where the fugitives get guns, ammo, and transportation (of a sort) and finally resume their favourite pastime, indulging in a rampage of robbery and riot. At the height of the campaign of chaos, Lucky captures and jails Joe. While Luke is deterring a lynch-mob, the dog accidentally finds the remaining brothers and successfully distracts our hero, allowing the Daltons to capture him.

He is humiliatingly traded for Joe’s release and the robbery rollercoaster ramps up until the hero starts thinking smart. Engineering a showdown at Sinful Gulch, Lucky lays his trap and once again triumphs…

Trigger-fast pacing and sublimely stuffed with classic set-piece slapstick, crafty cinematic caricature and potent puns, On the Daltons’ Trail is a brilliant blend of daft wit and rapid action heavy on absurdity, with plenty of canny twists to keep readers guessing and giggling. Here is another wildly entertaining all-ages confection by unparalleled comics masters, affording an enticing glimpse into a unique genre for today’s readers who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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Marsupilami volume 4: The Pollen of Monte Urticando


By Franquin, Batem & Yann; coloured by Leonardo and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-458-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

One of Europe’s most popular comic stars is an eccentric, unpredictable, rubber-limbed ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The frantic, frenetic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and stalwart of European entertainment who originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

In 1946 Joseph “Jijé” Gillain was crafting eponymous keystone strip Spirou for flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou when he abruptly handed off the entire kit and caboodle to his assistant Franquin. The apprentice took the reins, slowly abandoned a previous format of short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers, he devised a beguiling and boisterous South American critter to the mix. The hairy hero returned over and over again: a phenomenally popular magic animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own. Franquin also frequently included the bombastic little beast in Spirou’s increasingly fantastic escapades until his resignation in 1969…

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924. A bit of a prodigy, he began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943, but when the war forced the school’s closure a year later, the lad found animation work at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels. Here he met Maurice de Bevere (Lucky Luke‘s creator Morris), Pierre Culliford (Peyo, creator of The Smurfs) and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient).

In 1945, all but Culliford signed on with publishing house Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist and illustrator, producing covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu.

During those formative early days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé – at that time the main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He quickly turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will – (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, The Garden of Desire) into a potent creative bullpen dubbed La bande des quatre – or “Gang of Four” – who subsequently revolutionised Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling.

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriquée, (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946). The eager novice ran with it for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own.

Almost every week, fans would meet startling and zany new characters such as comrade and eventual co-star Fantasio or crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac. In the ever-evolving process Spirou et Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, continuing their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory and “reporting back” their exploits in Le Journal de Spirou…

In a splendid example of good practise, Franquin mentored his own band of apprentice cartoonists during the 1950s. These included Jean Roba (La Ribambelle, Boule et Bill/Billy and Buddy), Jidéhem (Sophie, Starter, Gaston Lagaffe/Gomer Goof) and Greg (Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Achille Talon, Zig et Puce), who all worked with him during his tenure on Spirou et Fantasio.

In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis resulted in Franquin signing up with publishing rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon.

Franquin and Dupuis patched things up extremely quickly, and he returned to Le Journal de Spirou; subsequently – in 1957 – co-creating Gaston Lagaffe, and now legally obliged to carry on his Tintin work too. From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist had reached his Spirou limit and resigned for good, happily taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued in later life by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own new adventures of the fuzzy and rambunctious miracle-worker.

He tapped old comrade Greg as scripter and invited commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (pen name Batem) to collaborate on – and later monopolise – the art duties for a new series of raucous comedy adventures. In recent years the commercial world has triumphed again and since 2016 the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have again collided allowing the old firm to act out in shared stories again…

Now numbering 32 albums (not including all-Franquin short-story collection volume #0, AKA Capturez un Marsupilami), the fourth of these was Le pollen du Monte Urticando, released in November 1989 and translated with staggering accuracy here as Marsupilami: The Pollen of Monte Urticando.

Blessed with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously adaptive anthropoid inhabiting the rain forests of Palombia and regarded as one of the rarest animals on Earth. It speaks a language uniquely its own and also has a reputation for causing trouble and instigating chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that takes the form of “tough love”…

Although touching down in the dense Palombian rainforest, this saga introduces fresh exotic vistas and some more interesting facts about the astounding simians in another compelling, wildly wild wildlife presentation from a veteran team of unnatural historians…

It transpires that some distance from the natural habitat of the beasts, a desolate old caldera is a micro-environment housing the last specimens of the Comitl cactus. Every 15 years the spiky plants eject huge clouds of pollen that flood the arid enclosure before spreading far and wide. For inexplicable reasons, this potent powder has a marked effect on young Marsupilamis, and when the latest batch starts changing the proud parents’ new brood, it’s a sign of a rite of passage coming…

Reluctantly bringing his little trio to the primordial enclave to trigger the next stage in their development, daddy dearest tearfully ditches his toddling brood, trusting the wonder stuff to wreak its magic and that the lava, sinister vegetation and primordial monsters won’t bring tragedy…

A wry compendium of bizarre fantasy, inspired non-stop Tom & Jerry style gag riffs and devilish whimsical bemusement, this tale premiers the most sympathetic “villain” in comics history in the form of tatty, toothless, starving and undeterrable aged jaguar Gatogordo, to cap a delicious manual in Marsupilami rearing. This is a hilarious rollercoaster of thrills and chills that naturally restores order at the last, reuniting panicking  parents with pups one step closer to being full grown pains in the… Palombia.

Another masterfully madcap rollercoaster of hairsbreadth escapes, close shaves and sardonic character assassinations, this eccentric exploit of the unflappable golden monkeys is moodily macabre, furiously funny and instantly engaging: providing riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. How about channeling your inner child and joining in the fun?

Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah!
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1989 by Franquin, Yann & Batem. English translation © 2019 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Archies & Josie and the Pussycats (Archie & Friends All-Stars Series volume 8)


By Dan Parent, Bill Galvan, Rick Koslowski & Jim Amash (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-879794-61-0 (TPB/digital editions)

MLJ were a publisher who jumped on the “mystery-man” bandwagon following Superman‘s 1938 debut. They unleashed their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders, beginning with Blue Ribbon Comics (November 1939), promptly followed by Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was a standard blend of costumed heroes, two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gags.

After a few years Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in their blossoming market. In December 1941 the costumed heroes and two-fisted adventure strips were nudged aside by a far less imposing hero, an “average teen” who would have ordinary adventures like the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 introduced a gap-toothed, freckle-faced red-headed goof showing off to the pretty blonde next door. Taking his lead from Mickey Rooney’s popular Andy Hardy matinee movies, Goldwater developed a youthful everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work. The 6-page tale entitled ‘Archie’ introduced goofy Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper. Archie’s unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted there, as did small-town utopia Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had won its own title. Archie Comics #1 was MLJ’s first non-anthology magazine and with it began the gradual transformation of the company. With the introduction of filthy-rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comic book industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon.

By 1946 the kids had taken over, so MLJ renamed itself Archie Comics, retiring its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming to all intents and purposes a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like the Man of Steel’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV, movies, a chain of restaurants and in the swinging sixties a pop hit as “Sugar, Sugar” (a tune from their animated show) became a global smash. Their wholesome garage band “The Archies” has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

With such a successful format, naturally the company tried to add supplemental stars to their four-colour firmament, Wilbur Wilkins (1994), Suzie (1945), Ginger (1951) and Seymour, My Son (1963) – with varying degrees of success. However, another 1963 premiere did catch and hold readers’ attention. Her name was Josie and she was created by Dan DeCarlo as a female Archie.

With issue #45 (1967) the titian-haired ingénue and her best friend Melody formed a band and the title was changed to Josie and the Pussycats. Fame, stardom, a TV cartoon series, a major motion picture and two soundtrack albums later the band were only occasional visitors in the Archie universe until someone had a cunning idea…

Most of her supporting cast was introduced in the first issue, including best friend Pepper, boyfriend Albert… and Melody. Spoiled rich kids Alex and Alexandra Cabot joined the cast and the book changed its name with #45, and that way it remained until the final issue in 1982.

One other fact about Archie’s publisher’s is that they certainly know how to create different publishing events that capture the attention of the general public – as anybody who saw the 1994 Archie Meets the Punisher inter-company crossover or 2015’s Archie vs. Sharknado can attest…

The Archies & Josie and the Pussycats collects a storyline from 2009-2010 wherein ‘It Starts with a Kiss!’ as the two clean-living bands are signed to tour together, and our red-headed star and the Pussycats’ African-American bassist Valerie are drawn irresistibly together.

After a stolen kiss during a late-night song-writing session, the attraction grows stronger in ‘More Than Words’ as hapless Archie tries to concentrate on his daily life – and Betty & Veronica – but can’t get Val off his mind. Moreover, the normally “sensible one” in Josie’s band is similarly distracted…

Luckily for all, the tour soon ends and the girls are bound for Europe and a series of solo gigs, but the tearful farewell proves the attraction has grown into something far more serious. All the while, Pussycat’s rat-bag manager Alex Cabot has been trying to scotch the situation and now goes into overdrive in his scheming.

The 2-part ‘Love Smackdown!’ follows the separated and lovelorn Archie and Valerie as distance, daily drudgery, temptation and Alex all work to keep them apart. After a misunderstanding leaves the couple acrimoniously separated forever, events – and a new combined tour – seem destined to rekindle the fire, but do Betty and Veronica want Archie for themselves or do they want him to be happy…?

Moreover, what’s the deal with Valerie’s old flame Declan McCord? He says he’s just a fill-in musician, but does the charismatic Celtic pop-star have plans to win Valerie back for himself…?

Star-crossed love and nigh-torrid melodrama combine with classic Riverdale slapstick in this delightful young romance that shows a burgeoning slice of maturity in the world’s favourite teenager (and don’t quibble: BTS and this week’s pop idol have limited shelf-lives, but Archie has been a teen heartthrob for seven decades) and the tale ends on a fascinating and intriguing open note…

This snazzy tome also has some impressive extra features including writer Dan Parent’s ‘Liner Notes’, full background and histories for The Archies and Josie and the Pussycats, and ‘Once More With Feeling’: 8 pages of penciller Bill Galvan’s art and unused covers reproduced before inkers Rick Koslowski & Jim Amash worked their own particular magic upon them.

All the world loves a lover and a pair is even better, and this satisfyingly enticing down-to-earth comedy-drama is a solid example of the kind of comics there just aren’t enough of. Remember, “Superheroes aren’t the only fruit” – despite all the tights and stuff…
© 2010 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Salvatore volume 1: Transports of Delight


By Nicolas de Crécy, coloured by Ruby & Walter, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-593-1 (TPB)

Nicolas de Crécy was in the Class of ’87 – the first year to graduate from the École supérieure de l’image d’Angoulême. After a stint at Disney he moved into bande dessinée and has released upwards of 3 dozen books and albums since he began professionally working in 1990: both one-offs like Journal d’un fantôme, Escales, Plaisir de myope and La Nuit du grand méchant loup and serials such as Léon la came, Monsieur Fruit, and Salvatore.

That last one is about a dog who’s a grease-monkey…

Salvatore mends cars: a mechanic and absolute wizard with all things metallic and oil-spattered, but a grumpy sod who dislikes customers so much he built his garage on the peak of a mountain to discourage them. However, he is simply so good that they all come anyway, prepared to put up with the hassle and his attitude, if only he will fix their ailing vehicles.

Moreover, Salvatore has a secret he needs peace and quiet for and that’s so attractive…

He has plenty of pain in his life but has struggled on, buoyed by an artisan’s dedication and sensibilities. It’s what makes him such an exceedingly good mechanic. One day, the tragically short-sighted widow Amandine pulls into his frosty, cloud bedecked garage with a suspicious knocking in her engine and his life changes for ever…

As well as practically blind, Amandine is heavily pregnant with twelve piglets (not unknown for a sow of her breed) and something softens within the cold canine. Offering her the unexpected hospitality of his fondue lunch, the spanner jockey nevertheless succumbs to his one weakness – “borrowing” a surplus part from her vehicle for his great project.

The little mutt has a dream and is prepared to sacrifice his principles to achieve it. Once, he loved and lost Julie. The bitch – don’t know what breed or her pedigree – moved to South America and since then he has devoted all his spare time to building a fantastic vehicle to follow her, where undoubtedly, love will reunite them forever…

His super-car is almost ready: the last part necessary can be picked up on the way; all he has to do is reach an understanding with its current owner – a perfectly reasonable bull named Jerome. Amandine, however, has not quite left his life: visually impaired to a comic degree, and heavily pregnant, she cannot be trusted to drive a small family runabout down a snow-capped alpine slope…

Her chaotic and magnificently slapstick journey leaves her and the car stranded many kilometres away atop a Parisian garret where she prematurely delivers her dozen babies. Horribly one little piggy goes missing on the way to hospital, and one fine day that stray waif will have a huge impact on Salvatore’s fate…

First seen in 2005 as Transports Amoureux (beautifully coloured by Ruby) ‘Transports of Love’ seamlessly segues here into the second album, Le Grand Départ –‘The Grand Departure’ – with tints and hues provided here by Walter.

Finally off on his dream trip in the almost-perfect Julie-Mobile, Salvatore has hit a snag. Jerome might be an amenable type, but the wife who just divorced him is not. She took the car – including that desperately needed final component – as part of the settlement and had it dismantled as an art installation – or possibly just out of sheer spite.

Amandine, meanwhile, has broken out of hospital with eleven piglets, driven by maternal hormones to find her missing infant. The lost cherub has fallen into odd circumstances, amongst sewer scum, political activists and a seductively dark and twisted catwoman siren of the underworld…

Hard-pressed by defrayed and delayed desire for his distant Julie, Salvatore’s ethics have degenerated to the point where he’s contemplating fraud and outright theft to get that vital last component. Fortunately, he has allied with a mysterious and peculiarly moralistic tiny mute man with a knack for computers. Perhaps together they can find a way to ease true love’s path?

Surreal and joyously whimsical, but with a delightfully dark edginess, this lost delight from multi-award winning cartoonist de Crécy – who revolutionised French comics with such popular and groundbreaking works as Période glaciaire /Glacial Period and The Celestial Bibendum – is a hypnotically addictive, daftly sophisticated fable of the dangerous accelerant called love and remains one of the best comics you STILL haven’t read.

Funny, gently adventurous, subversively satirical and filled to bursting with empathy and pathos, this beguiling yarn will schmooze itself into your head and make itself far too comfortable to have removed…
© 2005 Dupuis, by de Crécy, Ruby. © 2006 Dupuis, by de Crécy, Walter. English edition © 2010 NBM. All rights reserved.

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Popeye volume 1: Olive Oyl & Her Sweety (The E.C. Segar Popeye Sundays


By Elzie Crisler Segar with Sergio Ponchione, Cathy Malkasian & various(Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1- 68396-462-9 (PB/digital edition)

Popeye popped up in the Thimble Theatre comic strip for January 17th 1929. The strip was an unassuming feature that debuted on 19th December 1919: one of many newspaper cartoon funnies to parody, burlesque and mimic the era’s silent  movies serials. Its more successful forebears included C.W. Kahles’ Hairbreadth Harry and Ed Wheelan’s Midget Movies / Minute Movies .

These all used a repertory company of characters to play out generic adventures firmly based on those expressive cinema antics. Thimble Theatre‘s cast included Nana and Cole Oyl, their gawky daughter Olive, diminutive-but-pushy son Castor, and Horace Hamgravy, Olive’s sappy, would-be beau.

The series ticked along for a decade, competent and unassuming, with Castor and Ham Gravy (as he became) tumbling through get-rich-quick schemes, fear-free adventures and simple gag situations until September 10th 1928, when explorer uncle Lubry Kent Oyl gave Castor a present from his latest exploration of Africa: a hand-reared Whiffle Hen – most fabulous of all birds. It was the start of something groundbreaking.

Whiffle Hens are troublesome, incredibly rare and possessed of fantastic powers, but after months of inspired hokum and slapsick shenanigans, Castor was resigned to Bernice – for that was the hen’s name – when a series of increasingly peculiar circumstances brought him into contention with the ruthless Mr. Fadewell, world’s greatest gambler and king of the gaming resort of ‘Dice Island’.

Bernice clearly affected writer/artist E.C. Segar, because his strip increasingly became a playground of frantic, compelling action and comedy during this period…

When Castor and Ham discovered that everybody wanted the Whiffle Hen because she could bestow infallible good luck, they sailed for Dice Island to win every penny from its lavish casinos. Sister Olive wanted to come along but the boys planned to leave her behind once their vessel was ready to sail. It was 16th January 1929…

The next day, in the 108th instalment of the saga, a bluff, irascible, ignorant, itinerant and exceeding ugly one-eyed old sailor was hired by the pair to man the boat they had rented, and the world was introduced to one of the most iconic and memorable characters ever conceived. By sheer, surly willpower, Popeye won the hearts and minds of readers: his no-nonsense, grumbling simplicity and dubious appeal enchanting the public until by the end of the tale, the walk-on had taken up full residency. He would eventually make the strip his own…

The Sailor Man even affably bulldozed his way onto the full-colour Sunday Pages which form the main course of this curated collection spanning 2nd March 1930 through February 28th  1932.

This paperback is the first of four that will contain the entire Segar Sunday canon and is designed to be stored in a forthcoming slipcase. Spiffy as that sounds, the wondrous stories are also available in digital editions if you want to think of ecology or mitigate age and muscle strain in your spinach-deprived muskles…

Since many papers only carried dailies or Sundays, not necessarily both, a system of differentiated storylines developed early in American publishing, and when Popeye finally made his belated appearance, he was already a fairly well-developed character.

Thus, Segar concentrated on more family-friendly gags – and eventually continued mini-sagas – and it was here that the Popeye/Olive Oyl modern romance began: a series of encounters full of bile, intransigence, repressed hostility, jealousy, mind games and passion which usually ended in raised voices and scintillating cartoon violence – and they are still as riotously funny now as then. Olive was well ahead of her time: the serendipitous stick insect knew her mind and always gave better than she got…

Preceding the vintage treats, this tome also offers some modern and very lovely laudatory comic strips in Sergio (DKW; Grotesque; Memorabilia) Ponchione’s ‘Have a Segar’ and Cathy (Percy Gloom; Eartha) Malkasian’s ‘Oomph – A Popeye Short’: each offering their unique interpretations of Segar’s now meta-real cast and how they changed the world…

When the wondrous weekly full-page instalments start we see Castor Oyl heading home at the heart of the Depression accompanied by Ham Gravy who is appalled to find a ghastly sailor man pitching woo at his (presumed) sweet patootie. When the rival suitors clash, it’s Olive who has the final word …and throws the last punch!

From there onwards, in done-in-one gag instalments an unlikely but enduring romance blossomed (withered, bloomed, withered some more, hit cold snaps and early harvests – you get the idea…) as Olive pursued her man and Popeye vacillated between ignoring her and moving mountains to impress her. As she always kept her options open, he spent a lot of time fighting off – literally – her other gentlemen callers…

A mercurial creature, the maiden miss Oyl spent a lot of her time trying to stop her beau’s battles – tricky, as he spent his time ashore as an extremely successful “sprize fighter” – but would batter mercilessly any floozy who cast cow eyes at the devil-may-care matelot…

In these early formative Sundays, we see how Castor becomes Popeye’s manager and how originally-philanthropic millionaire Mr. Kilph moves from eager backer to demented arch enemy, willing to pay any price to see Popeye pummelled. Opponents include husky two-fisted guys with names like Bearcat, Mr. Spar, Kid Sledge, Joe Barnacle, Kid Smack, Kid Jolt, The Bullet, Johnny Brawn, an actual giant dubbed Tinearo and even a trained gorilla (Kid Klutch), but none ever win and Kilph goes crazier and crazier…

Among many timeless supporting characters, mega moocher J. Wellington Wimpy debuts here as a lazy and corrupt ring referee in extended, trenchant and scathingly witty sequences about boxing. Rowdy, slapstick cartoon violence is at a premium – family values were different then – but Segar’s worldly, probing satire and Popeye’s beguiling (but relative) innocence and lack of experience keeps the entire affair in hilarious perspective whilst making him an unlikely and lovable waif, albeit one eternally at odds with cops and rich folk…

We see softer sides of the sailor-man as he repeatedly gives away multiple purses – and even houses – to widows and “orphinks”, and his rebellious core with numerous jail sentences self-commuted. Popeye always escapes, but – being scrupulously fair-minded – never fails to turn himself in when his latest escapade ends.

After a riot of fun, bonkers pugilism and mad love, this initial outing closes with the Sailor Man’s bold disclosure that the secret of his strength is spinach. Cue a riot at Rough-House‘s seedy diner…

Segar famously considered himself an inferior draughtsman – most of the world disagreed and still does – but his ability to weave a yarn was unquestioned, and grew to astounding and epic proportions in these strips.

Week after week he was creating the syllabary and graphic lexicon of a brand-new art-form: inventing narrative tricks and beats that generations of artists and writers would use in their own cartoon creations.

Popeye is fast approaching his centenary and well deserves his place as a world icon. How many comics characters are still enjoying new adventures 93 years after their first? These volumes are the perfect way to celebrate the genius and mastery of E.C. Segar and his brilliantly flawed superman. These are books that belong in every home and library.
This edition of Popeye Volume 1: Olive Oyl and Her Sweety is © 2021 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All Segar comics and drawings © 2021 King Features Syndicate. Inc./ ™Hearst Holdings, Inc. Strips provided by Bill Blackbeard and his San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, “Have a Segar!” © Sergio Ponchione. Translation © Jamie Richards. “Oomph” © Cathy Malkasian. All rights reserved.