Category: Comedy

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Marsupilami volume 6: Fordlandia


By Yann & Batem; created by Franquin, coloured by Leonardo and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-026-5 (Album PB/Digital edition)

One of Europe’s most popular and evergreen comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed yellow-&-black ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The mighty manic 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 “Jije” Gillain was crafting the eponymous keystone strip for flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou when he abruptly handed off the entire kit and caboodle to his assistant André Franquin. The apprentice gradually shifted format from 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 heritiers, he devised a beguiling and boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until his resignation from the feature – Franquin frequently included the bombastic little beast in Spirou’s increasingly exotic 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.

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 and concocting raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. However, Franquin quickly patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he unleashed Gaston Lagaffe, whilst still legally obligated to carry on his Tintin strip work too and, in 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem formally began assisting him, but after ten more years the artist had reached his Spirou limit. In 1969 Franquin quit 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…

Tapping old comrade Greg as scripter and inviting commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (pen-name “Batem”), he launched his new raucous comedy feature. The first of these was La Queue du Marsupilami, released in 1987 (translated by Cinebook as The Marsupilami’s Tale) by Franquin’s own Marsu Productions. Ultimately, his collaborators monopolised the art duties, and in recent years, crass commercialism triumphed again. Since 2016 the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have reconnected, allowing the old gang to act out in shared stories again…

Fordlandia was released in November 1989: the sixth of 33 solo albums (not including all-Franquin short-story collection/volume #0 Capturez un Marsupilami), a gripping comedy action romp, bigging up the fantasy element and capitalising on both weird-but-true history and a growing cast of regular players…

Blessed with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously adaptive anthropoid regarded as one of the rarest animals on Earth. It inhabits the rain forests of Palombia, speaking a language uniquely its own, and has a reputation for causing trouble and instigating chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that extends to associates of different species…

The tale is set in the timeless but increasingly fragile teeming life-web of the Palombian rainforest, as it endures its latest environmental disaster. The current grandiose folly of the humans from Palombian capital city Chiquito is a huge dam that has dried up the Amazonian tributary of the once inaccessible Rio Huaytoonarro.

El Presidente’s pride & joy – dubbed “Huetnomor” – has triggered a domino effect for all who depend upon the river waters, from the ubiquitous piranha and crocodiles infesting it to the savage Havoca folk exploiting it, and the lost and broken degenerates of many nations hiding along its length…

Normally such projects would have failed from human malfeasance or due to the interference of the mighty Marsupilami and his extended clan, but our golden wonder is currently preoccupied by a mystery: the disappearance of his adored mate Marsupilamie …and even rival primate Mars the Black …

A creature of great empathy and primordial sensitivity, the bereft beast quickly deduces they have been taken by an old enemy: vile hunter Bring M. Backalive…

Left alone to care for their three cubs, Marsupilami’s vengeful screams alert jungle-dwelling white kids Sarah and Bip, who have been raising themselves in the green hell – with a little oversight from the Marsupilami patriarch they call “Marsu”. The human youngsters soon save the babies from drugged darts and – as enraged papa goes after the abductors – set off on a parallel investigation which takes then to disreputable shanty town and den of thieves Leyofdasaus…

It’s a canny move, as the rogues and scoundrels squatting and rotting there are currently being beguiled by a deadly glamour queen also looking for Backalive. A serial millionaire marrier, “Gringa” Rosanna Roquette is tracking down a couple of old spouses whilst ostensibly seeking the location of 20th century lost city Fordlandia.

If you’ve never heard of the place I strongly urge you to crank up your search engine of choice right now…

Also converging on the tatty township and the craven hunter is animal trainer Noah, currently helping Mars’ beastly bride Venus find her missing mate. Soon he and she are working with Sarah and Bip to save all the stolen Marsupilamis.

Marsu’s search has been plagued by misfortune. He too is closing in on Backalive and his former flunky (dissolute riverboat captain Bombonera) but cannot stop Roquette and the shabby captain teaming up and heading for the fabled missing metropolis…

Fortune finally shifts the good guys’ way when Marsu links up with Sarah, Bip, Noah and Venus. By dubious means, they then secure their own steamboat from an outcast who used to work in Fordlandia. After many more trials and tribulations, they finally confront the tawdry trapper and consequently uncover a bizarre and deranged plot by one of Rosanna’s former husbands…

Croesus Gummyfeather is convinced the world will soon suffer a second biblical flood and has been paying Backalive to gather two of every animal to stock his fabulous flying ark, and the inevitable confrontation between all aggrieved parties occurs just as the cloud-wracked heavens open…

And, as the deluge kicks off a climactic clash, back at Huetnomor, the engineers and architects wish they hadn’t skimped and grafted and cut so many corners when building the massive – but apparently soluble – hydro-megalith…

Combining astute political commentary with high octane blockbuster action and outrageous comedy antics, this tale is a superbly smart fantasy and 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.
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1991 by Franquin, Yann & Batem. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.

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Gomer Goof volume 4: The Goof is Out There


By Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-439-7 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Like so much in Franco-Belgian comics, it started with Le Journal de Spirou. The magazine had debuted on April 2nd 1938, with its engaging lead strip created by Rob-Vel (François Robert Velter). In 1943, publishing house Dupuis purchased all rights to the comic and its titular star, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm for the redheaded kid’s exploits. Ultimately the publisher would become a character in its own periodicals publications…

In 1946 Jijé’s assistant André Franquin was handed creative control of the Spirou strip. He gradually switched from short gag vignettes to extended adventure serials, introducing a broad, engaging cast of regulars and in 1952 created phenomenally popular wonder-beast The Marsupilami. Debuting in Spirou et les héritiers, this critter grew into a spin-off star of screen, plush toy stores, console games and albums in his own right. Franquin continued crafting increasingly fantastic tales and absorbing Spirou sagas until his resignation in 1969.

Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924. Drawing from an early age, the lad only began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943. When the war forced the school’s closure a year later, he worked at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels, where he met Maurice de Bévére (AKA Lucky Luke creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford (“Peyo”, of The Smurfs and Benny Breakiron) and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient). All but Peyo signed on with Dupuis in 1945.

Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist and illustrator, producing covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. During those early days, Franquin and Morris were tutored by Jijé, at that time chief illustrator at LJdS. He made them – and fellow newbie Willy Maltaite (AKA “Will” – Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a smoothly functioning creative bullpen known as La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They would ultimately revolutionise 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 préfabriqué (#427, June 20th 1946) and eager office junior ran with it for two decades; enlarging the feature’s scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans met startling new characters like comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics the Count of Champignac…

Spirou & Fantasio became a globetrotting journalist team, visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of bizarre and exotic arch-enemies. Throughout all that, Fantasio was still a full-fledged reporter for Le Journal de Spirou and had to pop into the Dupuis office all the time. Sadly, lurking there – or was it just in the artist’s head? – was an accident-prone, smugly big-headed office junior in charge of minor jobs and dogs-bodying. Franquin called him Gaston Lagaffe…

There’s a long history of fictitiously personalising those mysterious back room creatives and all the arcane processes they indulge in to make our favourite comics, whether it’s Stan Lee’s Marvel Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious “Mr. Editor” and underlings at The Beano and Dandy. Let me assure you that it’s a truly international practise and the occasional asides on text pages featuring well-meaning foul-up/office gofer Gaston (who debuted in #985, cover-dated February 28th 1957) grew to be one of the most popular components of the comic, whether as short illustrated strips or in faux editorial reports in text-feature form.

On a strictly personal note, I still think current English designation Gomer Goof (this name comes from an earlier, abortive attempt to introduce the character to American audiences) is unwarranted. The quintessentially Franco-Belgian tone and humour doesn’t translate particularly well (la gaffe translates as “blunder” not “idiot”) and the connotation contributes nothing here. When he surprisingly appeared in a 1970s UK Thunderbirds annual as part of an earlier syndication attempt, Gaston was rechristened Cranky Franky. Perhaps they should have kept that one or, best of all, his original designation…

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

As previously stated, Gomer makes his living (let’s not dignify or mis-categorise what he does as “work”) at the Spirou editorial offices: occasionally reporting to go-getting journalist Fantasio, complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other staffers, generally ignoring the minor design jobs like paste-up, “gofer-ing” and office maintenance he’s paid to handle. There’s also editing readers’ letters… the official reason why fan requests and suggestions are never answered…

Gomer is lazy, peckish, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, with his most manic moments all stemming from “inventing”, cutting work corners and stashing or illicitly consuming contraband food in the office…

This leads to constant clashes with police officer Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, yet the office oaf remains eternally easy-going and incorrigible. Only two questions are really important here: why does Fantasio keep giving him one last chance, and what can gentle, beguiling, flighty, impressionable, utterly lovelorn secretary Miss Jeanne possibly see in the self-opinionated idiot?

Originally released in 1969 as the sixth collection of Le Journal de Spirou strips Gaston – Un gaffeur sachant gaffer, this fourth Cinebook compilation eschews longer cartoon tales and comedic text “reports” from the comic’s editorial page to deliver non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single-page bursts.

It begins at the New Year and here the office hindrance – as ever – invents stuff that makes life harder for everyone; amiably passes on bugs and ailments; sets driving records no one can believe or probably survive and scotches attempts by financier De Mesmaeker (in-joke analogue of fellow creator Jidéhem – real name is Jean De Mesmaeker ) the explosively irate businessman whose ever-failing efforts to get his contracts signed render him a constant foil for and unfortunate victim of the Goof…

There is also an unwelcome return for his devastating musical invention as the recurrent saga of his truly terrifying Brontosaurophone/Goofophone continues to disrupt commerce, glass, the environment and most organic life in earshot…

Set in snowy, foggy wonderlands, Gomer disastrously pioneers powered ice skating before revolutionising record keeping and book storage with his mechanical successor to ladders, prior to embarking upon an extended sequence of episodes wherein Gomer’s attempts to do away with unsightly, annoying, constantly shedding Christmas tree needles results in the birth of a monster. He should never have dabbled with glue and pressure hoses, but at least he had his Goofophone music to console him…

All too soon, though, he’s back to breaking laws physicists consider sacrosanct – such as when he began dabbling with perpetual motion technology – or upsetting traffic cops, firemen and clients. Somehow, always and in all ways, the Goof keeps letting down his colleagues and employers, like when he decided to fix the big clock on the building exterior, or tweaked the overstretched office fuse board to accommodate his new secret electric stove…

Many strips involve manic efforts to modify the motorised atrocity he calls his car: an appallingly decrepit and dilapidated Fiat 509 auto(barely)mobile desperately in need of his many well-meant attempts to counter its lethal road pollution. It’s the reason he always has the sniffles or wears some kind of bandage, plaster or splint…

At heart, though, Gomer is a Good Samaritan and champion of animals. Many strips here prove how his love of all creatures great and small trumps minor considerations like personal safety, traffic laws or city ordinances, even though his distinctly novel approach to cookery borders on criminal perversity…

This time out there’s also a deep concentration on home – and office – improvements and novel – if somewhat risky – variations on established and beloved sports all given a fresh makeover by the unique innovator, such as when he showed Prunelle and Fantasio how he had beefed up bouncy amusement “the spacehopper”…

And he should never ever have been allowed to bring his chemistry set to work…

In this volume, we meet his opposite number from across the road. Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street is a like-minded soul and born accomplice always eager to slope off for a chat, and a devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He even collaborates on such retaliations as Gomer inflicts on officer Longsnoot…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin to flex whimsical muscles and even subversively sneak in some satirical support for his beliefs in pacifism and environmentalism. However, at their core the gags remain supreme examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading.

Have you started Goofing off yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2019 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Dandy Book 1972


By many & various (D.C. Thomson & Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-043-6 (HB)

For generations of British fans Christmas means The Beano Book, The Broons, Oor Wullie and making every December 25th magical. There used to be many more DC Thomson titles, but the years have gradually winnowed them away. Thankfully, time means nothing here, so this year I’m concentrating on another Thomson Christmas cracker that made me the man wot I am. As usual my knowledge of the creators involved is woefully inadequate but I’m going to hazard a few guesses anyway, in the hope that someone with better knowledge will correct me whenever I err.

The Dandy comic predated The Beano by eight months, utterly revolutionising the way children’s publications looked and – most importantly – how they were read. Over decades it produced a bevy of household names that delighted millions, with end of year celebrations being bumper bonanzas of the weekly stars in magnificent bumper hardback annuals.

Premiering on December 4th December 1937, The Dandy broke the mould of its hidebound British predecessors by utilising word balloons and captions rather than narrative blocks of text under sequential picture frames. A colossal success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano. Together they revolutionised children’s publications. Dandy was the third longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino – launched in 1924 – and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937).

Over decades the “terrible twins” spawned countless cartoon stars of unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted generations of avid and devoted readers…

The Christmas Annuals were traditionally produced in the wonderful “half-colour” British publishers used to keep costs down whilst bringing a little spark into our drab and gloomy young lives. The process involved printing sections with only two (of potentially 4) plates, such as blue/Cyan and red/Magenta as seen in this majority of this tome. The versatility and palette range provided was astounding. Even now the technique screams “Holidays” to me and my contemporaries, and this volume uses the technique to stunning effect.

As you can see, the fun-filled action begins on the covers and continues on the reverse, with front-&-back covers and Introduction pages occupied by superstar Korky the Cat (by Charlie Grigg) setting the tone with a sequence of splendid seasonal sight gags.

D.C. Thomson were also extremely adept at combining anarchic, clownish comedy with solid fantasy/adventure tales. The eclectic menu truly opens with some topical environmentalism working as drama in Paddy Brennan’s ‘Guardian of the Red Raider’. Such picture thrillers still came in the traditional captioned format, with blocks of typeset text rather than word balloons. Here, bedridden schoolboy Freddy Gibbon “adopts” a vixen and her cubs, secretly safeguarding them from harm until they can fend for themselves.

From there we revert to the cheeky comfort of simpler times as Dirty Dick – by the incredibly engaging Eric Roberts (no, not the actor) – finds our perennially besmudged and befouled boy on his best and cleanest behaviour in anticipation of a visit from his American penfriend. However, in comics good intentions count for nothing…

Appropriately switching to black and blue plates, we next meet eternal enemies Bully Beef and Chips. Drawn by Jimmy Hughes, the thuggish big kid’s antics invariably proved that a weedy underdog’s brain always trumped brutal brawn, as here where little Chips orchestrates well-deserved payback after Bully forces little lads to play with his dangerously-rigged Christmas crackers…

Hugh Morren’s The Smasher was a lad cut from the same mould as Dennis the Menace and in the first of his contributions carves a characteristic swathe of anarchic destruction, when seeking to join a cowboy movie location shoot,

A quick switch to red & black – and all the tones between – signals the advance of hard-pressed squaddie Corporal Clott (by David Sutherland) who again bears the brunt of cruel misfortune and surly Colonel Grumbly when ordered to provide a slap-up feed for a visiting General…

The prolific Roberts always played a huge part in making these annuals work and next up his signature star Winker Watson hosts double-page picture puzzle ‘Catch the Imps!’: testing mind, eye and vocabulary before Shamus O’Doherty’s Bodger the Bookworm is seduced away from his comfortable reading to play football… with catastrophic repercussions…

Back in black & blue, traditional chaotic school hijinks get a cruel and crazy feudal spin in Ron Spencer’s Whacko! before we stay on topic but jump 500 years to the then-present and a different take on the education crisis. Whilst much comics material was based on school as seen by pupils, George Martin’s Greedy Pigg featured a voracious teacher always attempting to confiscate and scoff his pupils’ snacks. This time, he forsakes tuck boxes and extends his reach to the fodder fed to zoo animals – and gets what he deserves after masquerading as a gorilla…

Unforgivably racist but somehow painfully topical, Hughes’ Wun Tun and Too Tun the Chinese Spies traces the misadventures of badly-briefed oriental agents in old Blighty. Here they get lost in and misunderstand the point of sewers, after which Sutherland’s Desperate Dan offers a range of incidents deriving from the sagebrush superman letting his beard grow out of control.

The daftness drifts into more brilliantly entertaining eco-messaging as Peter Potter’s Otters – by Grigg employing his dramatic style – sees a gamekeeper’s son contrive to rescue a family of river-dwelling “pests” from the community seeking to eradicate them…

Jack Edward Oliver’s My Woozy Dog Snoozy proves utterly useless as a security guard, but does usher in green & black tones to welcome back Korky the Cat, whose clash with a fish farm’s “security guards” segues into a doggerel dotted Zany Zoo feature. An examination of The Smasher’s evolutionary forebears heralds a resumption of blue hues as Roberts delivers another classic Winker Watson yarn that is now sadly drenched in controversy and potential offense.

It begins when the Third Form lads of Greytowers School act on their love of the BBC’s Black and White Minstrel Show (look it up, but be prepared to be appalled before realising just how far we’ve come…): adding a blackface minstrel skit to the Christmas Concert. When chastised and rebuffed by form master Mr. Creep, schoolboy grifter Winker institutes a cunning scheme – worthy of Mission Impossible or Leverage – to make the teacher the butt of a joke and star of the show…

The green scene enjoys one last outing for a lengthy police spoof. Created by John Geering and played strictly for laughs, P.C. Big Ears was an overzealous beat copper with outrageous lugholes whose super-hearing and faithful dog Sniffer helped him crush “crime”. Here the dynamic duo are hot on the trail of a truant schoolboy, but pay a irritating price for their dutiful diligence, after which another light-hearted drama ensues, courtesy of Bill Holroyd.

With premium blue & red plates back in play home-made mechanoid Brassneck kicks off an avalanche of trouble after a service by his inventor. Uncle Sam pal warns the robot-boy’s pal Charley Brand that the automaton might be a little fragile for a while but is blithely unaware how rowdy and boisterous school can be. When a couple of unavoidable buffets trigger wild outbursts, Brassneck’s antics close the school, empty the parks and even cause animal escapes from the zoo before order is finally restored…

Desperate Dan then catches cold and almost decimates the environment in his efforts to get warm and stop sneezing before Korky the Cat suffers the downside of camping, and pint-sized hellion Dinah Mite (drawn by Ron Spencer) tests some possible careers should she ever leave school.

Another blue section opens with animal gags in Jokey Jumbo and Winker Watson puzzle feature ‘It’s as Easy as ABC’ before My Woozy Dog Snoozy compounds his worthlessness when a burglar breaks in.

A switch to red and black sees Corporal Clott suckered by a spiv and become the proud new owner of a lethally destructive vacuum cleaner after he replaces the naff motor with a leftover jet engine. Blue tones are back as George Matin’s big-footed klutz Claude Hopper learns why he’s not cut out for a job waiting tables and Korky the Cat wins a fancy dress competition by being extremely cool…

More red & blue pages picture Dirty Dick at his dustily destructive worst before a switch to yellow & black plates finds Greedy Pigg imitating a tramp to get scrumptious handouts before Wun Tun and Too Tun the Chinese Spies return in another distressingly outdated and inappropriate espionage episode.

Rendered in red and black. Sandy Calder powerfully illustrates Scruffy the Bad-Luck Doggie as ordinary kid Danny Dunlop saves a scrappy mutt from bullies trying to drown it, but takes some time and effort – and a few hard knocks – adjusting to being the owner of a semi-feral delinquent dog…

Sentiment surrenders to surreal silliness and yellow hues as Desperate Dan teaches a dog how to be fierce, before Bodger the Bookworm enflames his family by practising matchstick tricks and Korky successfully poaches a fish in more ways than one, after which black & blue tones detail a pretty Darwinian battle for survival and supremacy amongst alley cats as Boss of the Backyards (by Murray Ball – whose wonderful Footrot Flats strips are just crying out for a modern archival edition) sees a tough newcomer challenge a wild moggy in the kingdom of bins and backstreets…

Dirty Dick is tarred by own insolence – and tar – in a very early example of photobombing and My Woozy Dog Snoozy turns the tables on his longsuffering owner, before P.C. Big Ears finds his own hound complicit in apple scrumping. Corporal Clott then dumps the colonel in a frozen river and Korky again profits from his thieving ways…

Another flush of red & blue captures Bully Beef and Chips causing chaos with a doctor’s play set and Greedy Pigg outsmarted by the dog he borrowed to steal food for him, and true blue drama Bold Ben’s Boulder (by Victor Peon?) has a young boy save his uncle’s fortune and life when Burmese bandits go on a kidnapping spree before one final flush of red & black sees Desperate Dan solve a lighting crisis with a little illuminating larceny…

With Puzzle Answers and the aforementioned Korky endpapers wrapping up proceedings, let’s celebrate another tremendously fun book; with so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this book is 51 years old, and still available through second hand outlets.

The only thing better would by curated archive reissues and digital editions…
© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd, 1971.

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Merry Christmas Every One!

In keeping with my self-imposed Holidays tradition, here’s another pick of British Annuals selected not just for nostalgia’s sake but because it’s my wife’s house and my rules…

After decades when only American comics and memorabilia were considered collectable or worthy, a resurgence of interest in home-grown material means there’s lots more of this stuff available. So, if you’re lucky enough to stumble across a vintage volume, modern facsimile or even one of the growing number of digital reproductions increasingly cropping up, I hope my words can convince you to expand your comfort zone and try something old…

Still topping my Xmas wish-list are more collections from fans and publishers who have begun to rescue this magical material from print limbo in (affordable and annotated) new collections…

Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of readers once again. As the tastes of the reading public have never been broader and since a selective sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base, let’s all continue rewarding publishers for their efforts and prove that there’s money to be made from these glorious examples of our communal childhood.

These materials were created long ago in a different society for a very different audience. As such much material is inadvertently funny, blatantly racist and/or sexist and pretty much guaranteed to offend somebody sooner or later. Think of it as having to talk to your grandparents about “back when everything was better”…

If you don’t think you can tolerate – let alone enjoy – what’s being discussed here, maybe it’s not the book you need today. Why not look at something else or play a game instead?

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Archie: 80 Years of Christmas (Archie Christmas Digests book 3)


By Dan Parent, Angelo DeCesare, Francis Bonnet, Pat & Tim Kennedy, Bill & Ben Galvan, Jeff Shultz, J. Torres, Hal Lifson, Bob Bolling, Mike Pellowski, Dexter Taylor, Kathleen Webb, Dan DeCarlo & family, Stan Goldberg, Henry Scarpelli, Holly G!, John Lowe, Rudy Lapick, Frank Doyle, Dan DeCarlo, Alison Flood, George Gladir, Jon D’Agostino, Joe Edwards, Chic Stone, John Rosenberger, Dick Malmgren, Al Hartley, Joe Sinnott, Victor Gorelick, Bill Vigoda, Terry Szenics, Mario Acquaviva, Harry Lucey, Tom Moore, Harry Sahle, Bob Montana & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-64576-927-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Unmissable Tradition… 9/10

As long-term readers might recall, my good lady wife and I have a family ritual we’re not ashamed to boast of or share with you. Every Christmas, we barricade the doors, draw the shutters, stockpile munchies (healthy ones, because we’re old now), bank up the fires and lazily subside into a huge pile of seasonal comics from yesteryear.

(Well, I do: she also insists on a few monumental feats of cleaning and shopping before manufacturing the world’s most glorious and stupefying meal to accompany my reading, gorging and – eventually, inevitably – snoring… Oh, so much snoring and from all ends!)

The irresistible trove of funnybook treasures generally comprises older DC’s, loads of Disney’s and British annuals, but the vast preponderance is Archie Comics.

From the earliest days this American institution has quite literally “owned Christmas” via a fabulously funny, nostalgically charming, sentimental barrage of cannily-crafted stories capturing the spirit of the season through a range of cartoon stars from Archie to Veronica, Betty to Sabrina and Jughead to Santa himself…

For most of us, when we say “comic books” thoughts turn to anthropomorphic animals or steroidal types, and women in too-skimpy tights and G-strings: hitting each other, bending lampposts and lobbing trees or cars about. That or stark, nihilistic crime, horror or science fiction sagas aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of confirmed fans…

Throughout the eight decades of the medium, other forms and genres have waxed and waned. One that has held its ground over the years – although almost completely migrated to TV these days – is the genre of teen-comedy, begun by and synonymous with a carrot topped, homely (at first, just plain ugly) kid named Archie Andrews.

MLJ were a small publisher who jumped on the “mystery-man” bandwagon following the debut of Superman. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following-up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. Content was a standard blend of costumed heroes and two-fisted adventure strips, although Pep did make a little history with its first lead feature The Shield, who was the American industry’s first superhero to be clad in the flag (see America’s 1st Patriotic Hero: The Shield).

After initially revelling in the limitless benefits of the Fights ‘N’ Tights game, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (MLJ, duh!) spotted a gap in their blossoming market. In December 1941 their stable of costumed cavorters and two-fisted adventurers were gently nudged aside – just a fraction at first – by a wholesome, improbable and far-from-imposing new hero: an unremarkable (except, perhaps, for those teeth) teenager who had ordinary adventures just like the readers might, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Inspired by the hugely popular Andy Hardy movies, Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist: tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it all work. Their precocious new notion premiered in Pep #22: gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed and obsessed with impressing the pretty blonde girl next door.

An untitled 6-page tale introduced hapless boob Archie and wholesome Betty Cooper. The boy’s unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted in the story, as did idyllic small-town utopia Riverdale. It was a huge hit and by the winter of 1942 the kid and his pals won a title of their own.

Archie Comics #1 was MLJ’s first non-anthology title and with it began a slow, inexorable transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of ultra-rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon…

By 1946, the kids were in charge and the publisher rebranded as Archie Comics: retiring most of its costumed cohort years before the end of the Golden Age, becoming to all intents and purposes a publisher of family-friendly comedies. The hometown settings and perpetually fruitful premise of an Eternal Romantic Triangle – with girl-hating best bud Jughead and scurrilous rival Reggie Mantle to test, duel and vex our boy in their own unique ways – the scenario was one that not only resonated with the readership but was infinitely fresh…

Like Superman, Archie’s success forced change in content at almost every other publisher, building a multi-media brand which encompasses TV, movies, newspaper strips, toys, games and merchandise, a chain of restaurants and, in the swinging sixties, a pop music milestone when Sugar, Sugar – from the animated TV cartoon – became a global pop smash. Clean and decent garage band “The Archies” has been a fixture of the comics ever since…

The Andrews boy is good-hearted, impetuous and lacking common sense, Betty his sensible, pretty girl next door loves the ginger goof, and Veronica is rich, exotic and glamorous: only settling for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Archie, of course, is utterly unable to choose who or what he wants. Over the years, other girls like Cheryl Blossom and pop Pussycat Valerie have also added to his confusion…

Unconventional, food-crazy Jughead is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo, providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. That charming House of Luurve (and Annexe of Envy) has been the rock-solid foundation for seven decades of funnybook magic. Moreover, the concept is eternally self-renewing…

This eternal triangle has generated thousands of charming, rowdy, gentle, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending humorous dramas ranging from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, with the kids and a constantly expanding cast of friends – junior genius Dilton Doily, genial giant jock Big Moose and aspiring cartoonist Chuck amongst many others – growing into American institutions and part of the nation’s cultural landscape.

Archie’s world thrives by constantly re-imagining its core archetypes: seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside its bright, flimsy pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and young romance. Every social revolution has been assimilated into the mix and, over decades, the company has confronted most social issues affecting youngsters in a manner always both even-handed and tasteful.

Constant addition of new characters such as African-Americans Chuck and his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Latinx couple Frankie and Maria, spoiled Cheryl Blossom and gay teen Kevin Keller have contributed to a wide and appealingly broad-minded scenario.

One of the most effective tools in the company’s arsenal has been the never-failing appeal of seasonal and holiday traditions. In Riverdale it was always sunny enough to surf at the beach in summer and it always snowed at Christmas…

The Festive Season has never failed to produce great comics stories, and Archie also started early (1942) and kept on producing memorable year-end classics. The stories became so popular and eagerly anticipated that in 1954 the company created a specific oversized title – Archie’s Christmas Stocking – to cater to demand, even as it kept the winter months of its other periodicals stuffed with assorted tales of elves and snow and fine fellow-feeling…

For this extra-festive celebratory commemoration, the editors have done something rather smart and savvy. Most collections – and there have been many – have advanced forward chronologically to whenever “now” is, but this one postulates a countdown back to the earliest natal nonsense, and thus we begin with a selection from The 2020s, but only after brief overview ‘80 Years of Holiday Hijinks’…

Santa’s globetrotting troubleshooter Jingles the Elf – who cannot be seen by adults – has been a seasonal Archie regular for decades. Here Dan Parent & Jim Amash – with colourist Glenn Whitmore & letterer Jack Morelli – reveal ‘That Elf is Shelved!’ (from Archie Comics Jumbo Digest #315, January 2021) as the playful but exhausted pixie pops in to Riverdale and becomes a helpless tool of Archie’s inability to pick just one girl…

Betty & Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest #289 (January 2021) declares ‘You’re Baking Me Crazy!!’ as Parent, Bob Smith, Whitmore & Morelli depict the eternal rivals competing to create the best Gingerbread House, but making a cookie rookie mistake by letting Jughead judge…

The same creative team unleashed a ‘Blast From the Past’ (World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #315, December 2020) as the gang help Pop Tate decorate his diner and recall when they all made him ornaments. It was soooo long ago, but soon they’re squabbling over which one was best …and best-beloved…

Archie Comics Jumbo Digest #304 (January 2020), finds Angelo DeCesare, the Kennedy Bros!, Smith, Whitmore & Morelli introducing old-fashioned Dad Andrews to social media in ‘Yule Tube’ after which ‘It’s the Thoughtlessness That Counts’ (World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #94, January 2020 by Francis Bonnet, Bill & Ben Galvan) again sees Archie reel from misdirecting his gifts…

Distant decade The 2010s opens with ‘Santa Sleighed’ (Archie & Me Comics Digest #12, November 2018 by Parent, Jeff Shultz, Jim Amash, Whitmore & Morelli) as the fabled deliveryman makes an unscheduled pit stop at the Lodge mansion, before Little Archie makes trouble – and a big mess – trying to impress grade schoolers Betty & Veronica in ‘Snow Problem!’, courtesy of J. Torres, Bob Bolling & Amash as first seen in Archie Comics Double Digest #257 (February 2015). The era ends with Hal Lifson, Bill Galvan Amash, Phil Felix & Barry Grossman conjuring ‘An Old School Yule’ (Archie Double Digest #233, December 2011) with the world-weary teens recalling their childhoods when Christmas was fun, and going attic and basement diving to reconstruct a Christmas their parents can actually enjoy…

Stopping our retrograde voyage in The 2000s, ‘Christmas Cookies’ stars Little Jughead in a foody fable by Mike Pellowski, Dexter Taylor, Al Milgrom, Bill Yoshida & Grossman. It comes from Archie’s Double Digest Magazine #148 (February 2004) and sees the entire class required to create an original Holidays dish. Juggie’s is exceptional and its effects are global – even reaching Santa at the Pole…

That darned attention-seeking elf returns in ‘Jingles All the Way’ (Archie #543, February 2004, by Kathleen Webb, Stan Goldberg, Amash, Vickie Williams & Grossman), trying to pry Archie away from Betty & Veronica for some guy time and good deeds. However, its greedy Jughead who finds somewhere the pixie can really make a difference…

Archie’s Holiday Fun Digest Magazine #9 (December 2004) provides Betty & Veronica’s ‘Holiday Style’ pinups by Parent, as a prelude to Webb, Shultz, Henry Scarpelli & Yoshida celebrating ‘A Dreamy Teen Christmas’ (Betty & Veronica #156, February 2001), with the rivals asked to decorate a very special tree for a charity bash, but unable to cease sparring over Archie…

Cheryl Blossom #28 (January 2000, by Holly G!, John Lowe, Yoshida & Grossman) finds Riverdale’s most spoiled brat in a war of excess with Veronica. Their flashy cash contest seeks to prove who’s swankiest, but the ‘Holi-Daze’ leave Betty and the plebian kids better off. Then The 1990s test failing memories with feelgood drama ‘Mall Be Home for Christmas’ (Archie & Friends #13, February 1995, by Parent, Rudy Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman), as Ronnie’s up-to-the-wire shopping spree coincides with a freak storm, trapping the entire class in a plush arcade on Christmas: Happily, money solves all problems…

Archie’s Christmas Stocking #1 (January 1995, by Frank Doyle, Dan DeCarlo, Alison Flood, Yoshida & Grossman) delivered ‘A Jingle for Justice’ as the elf’s seasonal sojourn uncovers an embezzler attempting to impoverish Veronica’s dad, after which Little Archie learns how poor people survive the season. Thanks to impoverished Sue Stringly, the kind-hearted but naïve little lad learns some hard truths and grows into a better boy in ‘Shine a Little Light’ (Archie Giant Series Magazine #607, January 1990 by Bolling, Mike Esposito, Yoshida & Grossman).

The 1980s offers pictures of Christmas pasts in ‘Archie’s Christmas Photo Album’ by George Gladir, Parent & Jim DeCarlo as first seen in Archie… Archie Andrews, Where Are You? Comics Digest Magazine #54, February 1988), before Joe Edwards & Dan DeCarlo, explore ‘Christmas Past, Present and Future’ when Ronnie mistakenly thinks Daddy is selling up and moving them out. Archie and Me #161 (February 1987, by Gladir, Chic Stone, Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman) sees Archie accidentally prevent school being closed with his lucky ‘Goof Spoof’, after which teen witch Sabrina learns how her aunts are crucial to Santa’s big night in ‘With a Little Help From His Friends’ (Archie Giant Series Magazine #515, January 1982 by Gladir, Goldberg & Jon D’Agostino). Issue #512 (December 1981) then details Archie’s rejection of faux yule logs and subsequent calamity in search of the real deal in ‘Christmas List’ by Gladir, Goldberg, Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman…

Little Archie #163 (February 1981 by Bolling & Grossman) then saw Little Veronica learn some hard truths of her own when Sue Stringly recruited her to help save ‘The Christmas Ducks’ before the decade closed with silly but satisfying sight gag ‘Carry Tarry’ courtesy of Archie’s Jokebook Magazine #265, February 1980…

The 1970s opens with ‘Christmas Togetherness’ by Doyle, Dan DeCarlo Jr. with Jimmy DeCarlo & Yoshida from Archie Giant Series Magazine #488 (December 1979), as the red-headed fool ponders the perfect gift for mom and dad, after which Sabrina and her family cleverly divert Head Witch Della’s plan to sabotage the Season in ‘And a Zappy New Year’ (AGSM #479, January 1979, by Gladir, Dan DeCarlo, Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman). The previous issue, released the same month, offered a traditional comedy of errors as the easily-distracted Andrews boy got his parcels mixed up in ‘Wisecracker’ by Dick Malmgren, D’Agostino & Grossman, before January 1975 unwraps Doyle, DeCarlo & Lapick’s ‘Plastic Santa’ (AGSM #230) as Mr Lodge is bombarded by the kids’ polemic about the meaning of the Season and still finds a way to make a profit…

AGSM #192 (January 1972) explored ‘Past and Present’ in a yarn by Al Hartley, Joe Sinnott & Yoshida wherein shopping-traumatised Archie hallucinates about the good old, pre-industrial days, coincidentally heralding the jump to The 1960s…

Hartley went solo on gag strip ‘Make Their Christmas Wish’ from AGSM #150 (January 1968), followed by Doyle, Goldberg, Vince DeCarlo, Yoshida & Grossman’s ‘Party Pooper’ from the same issue as Archie suffers greatly to organise a surprise soiree for his parents, and Gladir, John Rosenberger & Victor Gorelick’s ‘Gift Tift’ (AGSM #144, January 1967) wherein conniving Reggie outsmarts himself in the cold war to win Ronnie away from Archie…

AGSM #31 (January 1965) offers a ‘Betty Pin Up’ by assorted DeCarlo’s & Lapick before #20 (January 1963) sees everyone trying to get at Archie’s ‘Black Book Bonanza’ in a wild romp by Doyle, DeCarlo’s & Lapick, after which the same team in the same title see Reggie ‘Go For Broke’ after ruining Archie’s flashy perfume gift and reaping a whirlwind of pungent regret.

Staying with AGSM #20, Doyle, Bill Vigoda, Terry Szenics & Grossman continue Reggie’s agonising learning curve as ‘Not Even a Moose’ finds him playing foolish pranks on the naïve, short-tempered giant. The prankster discovers the dangers of telling innocent people there is such a man as Santa…

Veronica’s ‘Pin Up Page’ by Dan DeCarlo from AGSM #15 (January 1962) then segues into gag page ‘Gift Rapped’ (Archie’s Jokebook Magazine #52, February 1961), detouring to AGSM #10 (January 1961, by Vigoda & Mario Acquaviva) where the red menace fumbles a ‘Gift Collection’ and trashes Christmas for the entire school. The period closes with Tom Moore’s gag page from the same issue proving rival Reg and Arch have ‘More Pull Than Talent!’

Heading rapidly for the opening stretch, we explore the feature’s golden age of The 1950s beginning with a wily witticism by slapstick genius Harry Lucey who reveals ‘Santa’s Surplus’ in a certified classic from Archie’s Jokebook Magazine #39 (March 1959), whilst Archie #98 (February 1959) shares Vigoda’s take on Shopping with Veronica in ‘Package Deal’ and Doyle, Lucey & Grossman’s skating themed fiasco ‘Deep Freeze’…

Vigoda, Acquaviva & Grossman crafted party panic in ‘Tree to Get Ready’ (Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #40, January 1959) before the age of optimism ends with ‘Dis-Missile’ by Doyle, Dan and Vince DeCarlo & Lapick from AGSM #4 (1957) as our helpful B&V coordinate school letters to Santa and trigger a clerical crisis…

We end as it all began in The 1940s where Harry Sahle crafted ‘Mush, Oscar!, Mush!’ for Archie #12 (Winter 1944). Starring Archie’s Dog Oscar it again proved that – although well-intentioned – even the pets in the Andrews home were disaster magnets – especially if there was snow on the ground and ice on the pond…

We close with ‘The Case of the Missing Mistletoe!’ from Winter 1942 by Bob Montana. It featured in Archie #1, and found Archie and Jughead more baffled than ever and at loggerheads after unknowingly taking identical twins to a Christmas party…

These are joyously effective and entertaining tales for young and old alike, crafted by some of Santa’s most talented Helpers, epitomising the magic of the Season and celebrating the perfect wonder of timeless all-ages storytelling. What kind of Grinch could not want this book in their kids’ stocking (from where it can most easily be borrowed)?
© 2021 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks volume 11: Christmas For Shacktown


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, growing up in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you crave detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With studio partner Jack Hannah (another animator turned occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for a cartoon short into Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published in October of that year as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 and – although not his first published comics work – was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, he worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters, including Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952) and Magica De Spell (1961) to supplement Disney’s stable of illustrated actors.

His greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: world’s wealthiest septuagenarian waterfowl and the harassed, hard-pressed, scene-swiping co-star of this tome.

Whilst producing all that landmark material, Barks was just a working guy, crafting covers, drawing other people’s scripts and contributing his stories to a burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Only in the 1980s – after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his work and other Disney strips – did Barks discover the devoted appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output, even though his brilliant comics were produced for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the Disney studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his Scrooge comics output.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comedy blockbuster: blending wit, history, science, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life, Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts – uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s strip and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabidly discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, Barks’ belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books started collecting his Duck materials in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing the output approximately year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library…

The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and showcasing works from 1947. Today we’re revisiting 1951-1952, with volume 11 offering another landmark Seasonal tale that critically reshaped the supposedly throwaway, 2-dimensional miser into the richly rounded character beloved by billions…

It begins eponymously with Bark’s most enduring creation in top form. The elder McDuck had debuted in ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Color #178, December 1947): a handy comedy foil stemming from a Yuletide tale of woe and joy. He was a miserly relative who seethed in opulent isolation, hating everybody and meanly opting to share the gloom by tormenting his nephew Donald and his junior houseguests Huey, Louie and Dewey – by gifting them his mountain cabin for the Holidays. Scrooge schemed, intent on terrorising them in a bear costume, but fate had other ideas…

After the tale ended Barks realised that although the old coot was creepy, menacing and money-mad, he was also energetic and oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Further appearances proved that he was right and his expedient maguffin was undoubtedly his greatest cartoon creation. The Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often, eventually expanding to fill all available space in tales set in the scenic metropolis of Duckburg.

Here. shifted slightly out of publishing chronology – because McDuck is not about wasting time or money – we open eponymously with the lead tale from Four Color #367. Cover-dated January 1952, ‘A Christmas For Shacktown’ begins as Donald’s nephews take a detour through the bad side of town and realise they cannot allow all the poverty-stricken children they see endure a festive season without food or toys…

Their discussion also inspires Daisy Duck, who resolves to organise a solution, and before long her women’s club is tapping Duckburg’s citizens for contributions. Daisy herself asks Donald – who’s experiencing a personal cashflow crisis and can’t afford his own Yule celebrations – who might make up her final $50 shortfall. When the nephews suggest Scrooge McDuck, Donald is reluctantly despatched to beg a donation, and does not relish the conversation…

That last 50 bucks is to buy turkeys and provide the joyless waifs with a train set, but after a titanic tussle, Donald can only get the skinflint to agree to $25… and that’s only for the food, not silly fripperies like toys…

Rapidly regrouping, Donald and Daisy are overwhelmed when the nephews hand over their savings and tell their “Unca Donald” to similarly donate the money put aside for their presents, but it’s still not enough and the trio then head off to shovel snow from sidewalks to make up the difference.

Ashamed and emboldened, Donald resolves to get what’s needed from Scrooge, embarking upon a series of increasingly wild stunts – including recruiting despicable rival Gladstone Gander – that culminates in disaster when Scrooge’s overloaded money vault collapses under the weight of its own reserves, plunging his entire fortune into the bowels of the Earth.

Confronted with penury, the despondent tycoon is saved by Donald and the boys who devise a means of retrieving the loot which gives the miser a new perspective on the value of toys: a view that rightly translates into Shacktown enjoying the best Christmas ever…

A month prior to that yarn, anthological Walt Disney Comics & Stories #135 (cover-dated December 1951) featured The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill’ wherein the old money magnate debuted his monolithic money bin, and invites Donald and the boys to inspect it… if they can get past all his baroque and byzantine security measures. Sadly, the visit also inspires the dastardly Beagle Boys to try to empty it…

WDC&S #136 (January 1952) then finds Donald suffering a braggart’s boasts again as his despised super-lucky rival recounts ‘Gladstone’s Usual Good Year’. Driven to distraction, Donald resorts to cheating just to raise his own spirits and something very unlikely occurs…

For #137, Donald and the nephews head to the mountains after he sells a song. Sadly, ‘The Screaming Cowboy’ is a particularly annoying tune that Donald smugly plays on every juke box in the region: the ominously named Avalanche Valley…

Scrooge returned in (WDC&S #138 March 1952), acting in a most uncharacteristic manner as ‘Statuesque Spendthrifts’ revealed him locked in financial combat with the proudly philanthropic Maharajah of Howduyustan to prove who was truly “the richest man in the world”. The battle revolved around who could donate the most ornate, ostentatious and gaudy monument of Duckburg’s founder…

When Huey, Dewey & Louie’s latest hobby – racing pigeons – inspires Donald’s disdain, the mean Unca attempts to sabotage and gaslight them, but learns his lesson when ‘Rocket Wing Saves the Day’ (WDC&S #139, April) after he has an accident…

The family – and even outrageous inventor Gyro Gearloose – are united in WDC&S #140, working to uncover annoying wastrel ‘Gladstone’s Terrible Secret’, and the chaos-creating boffin is back in #141, much to Donald’s dismay and the nephews’ delight: upsetting the natural order with machines giving beasts human attributes in ‘The Think Box Bollix’…

Four Color #408 (July/August 1952) was an All-Donald/All Barks affair and opens with a brace of single page gags, starting with ‘Full-Service Windows’ as the wily retailer finds a cheap and easy way to clean his shop front and compounding interest with ‘Rigged-Up Roller’ (alternately called ‘Rigged Up Lawn’) wherein the nephews must find a new way to keep the yard maintained…

The main event was extended action adventure ‘The Golden Helmet’ wherein bored museum guard Donald stops a suspicious individual poking about in a Viking longship and uncovers a hidden deerskin map. It reveals how explorer Olaf the Blue discovered America in 901 AD, and left a golden helmet which confirms when and how the nation was born.

The museum authorities are exultant… but only until the meddler returns with his lawyer Sharky. Azure Blue claims to be the descendant of Olaf and invokes the ancient “code of discovery” law. It dictates that as proof of the event, the helmet also confers ownership of the continent on the heirs… but only if Azure finds it first…

Almost resenting his earlier dreams of adventure, Donald recruits his nephews and dashes off with the museum curator to Labrador. They are all intent on saving Americans from becoming Blue’s slaves: battling deadly weather, constant misfortune and the machinations of Azure and Sharky in a superb action romp anticipating, Dan Brown, The Librarian and the National Treasure screen franchise…

The fun finishes with Donald’s Nephews ‘Awash in Success’ beside a faulty drinking fountain, counterbalanced by a Donald and Scrooge single from Four Color #422, (cover-dated September/October 1952) with the money-wise miser benefitting from bulk buying in ‘Stable Prices’.

Back on track and sampling Walt Disney Comics & Stories (#142, July 1952) sees Donald drag the kids on a ‘Houseboat Holiday’ to keep their summer vacation pranks and hijinks at a manageable level. Instead, he finds himself at the centre of a storm of freak calamities and life-threatening disasters. Its only marginally less fraught one month later when he takes them to the desert as ‘Gemstone Hunters’ and is bamboozled by cunning fraudsters and again humiliated by Gladstone…

The remainder of Four Color #422 follows, opening with a follow-up action excursion. In ‘The Gilded Man’ avid stamp collector Donald believes he’s tracked down a hugely valuable item and heads for British Guiana, with the nephews in tow and Gladstone hot on his trail.

The quest is for fabled El Dorado, and the jungle trek ultimately leads them to victory of a sort after exposing the secrets of the ancient golden god…

Two more one-pagers wrap up the issue: detailing correct precautions for saving a cat in ‘Armored Rescue’ before adapting an old idea to avoid social commitments in ‘Crafty Corner’…

Scrooge stole the spotlight again in WDC&S #144 (September) as another storage crisis in his vault compelled the old bird to try and learn a new trick. In an effort to make room, he hires insanely profligate Donald to share the secret of ‘Spending Money’ but is far from satisfied with what he learns…

The story portion of this tome terminates with the remainder of Four Color #367, with ‘Treeing Off’ showing how the nephews brighten up the Christmas decorating, after which Donald pays the price for presumption with mistletoe in ‘Christmas Kiss’ and the boys have the last word when adapting modern science to list writing in ‘Projecting Desires’ (AKA ‘Stamp-Sized Christmas List’).

The comics are augmented by a sublime Cover Gallery proving the Master’s gift for visual one-liners in Four Color (volume II) 367, 408 & 422, and Walt Disney Comics & Stories#135-144 which intercut context, commentary and validation in ‘Story Notes’ for each Duck tale gathered here. Following Donald Ault’s essay ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’, ‘Biographies’ then introduces commentators Ault, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone and Matthias Wivel and why they’re saying all those nice and informative things. We close as ever with an examination of provenance in ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, with almost all his work featuring Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold billions across the world. You might be late to the party but don’t be scared: it’s never too late to climb aboard the Barks Express.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “A Christmas For Shacktown” © 2012 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

 

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Sixty Years: The Beano and The Dandy – Focus on the Fifties


By Many & various (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-0-851-16846-3 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Scotland’s Finest Fun Factory Fancies… 9/10

Whenever we’ve faced our worst moments, humans tend to seek out old familiarities and wallow in the nostalgia of better days. Let’s see how this particular foray feels, especially as it’s still unreachable by that there newmfangled electro retrieval widgetry, but still remarkably cheap in assorted emporia and on them there interwebs… 

Released in 2004 as part of the DC Thomson Sixtieth Anniversary celebrations for their children’s periodicals division – which has more than any other shaped the psyche of generations of British kids – this splendidly oversized (299 x 205mm) 144 page hardback compilation rightly glories in the incredible explosion of ebullient creativity that paraded through the flimsy colourful pages of The Beano and The Dandy during a particularly bleak and fraught period in British history. Tragically, neither it nor its companion volumes are available digitally yet, but hope springs ever eternal…

Admittedly this book goes through some rather elaborate editing, design and paste-up permutations to editorial explaining for modern readers the vast changes to the once-commonplace that’s happened in the intervening years. Naturally the process has quietly dodged the more egregious terms and scenarios that wouldn’t sit well with 21st century sensibilities, although to my enlightened sensibilities the concentration on whacking children on the bottom does occur with disturbing frequency – the Bash Street Kids even had their fearfully expectant upraised bums as the strip’s logo for a few years!

However, viewed as a cultural and historical memoire, this is a superb comic commemoration of one of our greatest communal formative forces, with a vast number of strips and stories carefully curated from a hugely transformative period in national history.

They’re also superbly timeless examples of cartoon storytelling at its best…

Until it folded and was briefly reborn as a digital publication on 4th December 2012, The Dandy was the third-longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino which launched in 1924 and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937). The Dandy premiered on December 4th 1937: breaking the mould of traditional British predecessors by using word balloons and captions on some strips, rather than just the narrative blocks of text under the sequential picture frames that had been the industry standard.

A huge success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano – and in concert they revolutionised the way children’s publications looked and, most importantly, how they were read.

Over the decades the “terrible twins” spawned so many unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted countless avid and devoted readers, and their unmissable end of year celebrations were graced with bumper bonanzas of the comics’ weekly stars in extended stories in magnificent hardback annuals.

During WWII, rationing of paper and ink forced the “children’s papers” into an alternating fortnightly schedule: on September 6th 1941, only The Dandy was published. A week later just The Beano appeared. The rascally rapscallions only returned to normal weekly editions on 30th July 1949, but the restrictions had not hurt sales. In fact, in December 1945, The Beano #272 became the first British comic to sell a million copies, and the post-war period saw more landmarks as the children’s division of DC Thomson blossomed over the next decade, with innovative characters and a profusion of talented cartoonists who would carry it to publishing prominence, even as the story papers died back in advance of more strip anthologies like The Topper (1953) and The Beezer (1956)…

This compilation primarily concentrates via random extracts and selected strips on the development of established 1940s stars – like Biffo the Bear (1948), Lord Snooty (1938), The Smasher (1938, but completely reinvented in 1957), Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan (both 1937), who all survived the winds of change to grow into beloved and long-lived favourites in the new era. They’re highlighted beside the most successful new characters of the fifties, including Dennis the Menace (1951), Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger & Little Plum (all 1953) and the Bash Street Kids (1956 or 1954 if you count prototype When the Bell Rings! as the same).

Nevertheless there’s also a wonderful selection of less well known features on view…

This superb celebration of Celtic creativity is packed literally cover-to-cover with brilliant, breakthrough strips with the mirth starting on the inside front with an outrageous 2-colour Frontispiece tableau by Leo Baxendale of When the Bell Rings!

It’s mirrored at the back of the book by a similarly hilarious spread starring Biffo by indisputable cartoonist Dudley D. Watkins …

The main event begins with Focus on the 50’s, as a full-colour Roger the Dodger page by Ken Reid and a Baxendale 2-tone Bash Street Kids strip heralds an editorial introduction, context on soapbox cart building and casting call ‘Fifties Fun-Folk’ before seguing into a tale of Tin Lizzie: a pioneering comedy strip in block-text & pic format about a mechanical housemaid and robot butler Brassribs. Starting in 1953 as a prose serial, it was remodelled as a comic drawn by Jack Prout and  Charles Grigg which presaged later mega-hit Brassneck…

With all these pages playing with the theme of “carties”, snatches of Watkins’ Lord Snooty and the 1957 iteration of The Smasher by Hugh Morren lead to an episode of ‘Charlie the Chimp’.

Limned by Charles Grigg, the feature was another comedy drama in block & pic format starring a smart but strictly realistic simian working as a porter in a boarding house…

A full-colour Korky strip by James Crighton, with the cat using his cart as a taxi, ends this section before ‘A Day in the Life of Dennis’ offers an extended collection of strips and features starring the magnificent Menace, rendered by creator Davey Law. The Bad Boy debuted in The Beano #452 (in shops from March 12th 1951) and begins with prose piece ‘Nursery Crimes – or Dennis Growing Up by Dennis’s Dad’ taken from the first Dennis the Menace Book. Its backed up by 15 strips from the era, including ‘News Boy’, ‘Doctor’s Orders’, ‘Top of the Class’ and ‘Dad in Disgrace’ before literally and figuratively shifting gear to see Korky and Biffo as “Teddy Boys” in individual full-colour fashion yarns…

Assorted snapshot strips from venerable fantasy serial ‘The Iron Fish’, illustrated by Jack Glass, lead to a Watkins moment in ‘50’s Medicine the Desperate Dan Way!’ before Baxendale’s ‘Little Plum’ enjoys his own time in the spotlight via 22 strips culled from both comics and Annuals.

Desperate Dan crops up again in episodes from 1952-1954 before “Strongman’s Daughter” Pansy Potter (by James Clark) outwits a wicked wizard whilst Paddy Brennan exults in full-colour in the debut chapter of fantasy thriller ‘Fighting Forkbeard (The Sea Wolf from Long Ago)’ wherein a dragonship full of Vikings washes up and attacks a modern fishing village…

A Baxendale Bash Street strip guest-starring Minnie the Minx opens a selection of crossovers with Biffo and others, after which Hungry Horace and Shaggy Doggy offer a glimpse at the work of Allan Morley, an old school cartoonist who had been with The Beano since #1 but was now giving way to new style and content…

Created by Ken Reid, Jonah was an accursed sailor who sank every vessel he touched and the splendid sampling of strips here leads to Watkins’ introduction of Desperate Dan’s nephew Danny and niece Katey from February 1957, and is followed by a Biffo strip showing a number of things totally banned from modern comics…

‘Guess the Date!’ and ‘50’s Housing – the Desperate Dan Way!’ plus a Korky clash with his arch enemies – The Mice – lead to examples of strips that didn’t work out with a page each for Jenny Penny (Jimmy Thompson) and Little Angel Face (by Ken Reid) before a Lord Snooty vignette from 1954 opens a section starring a certified superstar – Roger the Dodger…

Realised by Reid, the consummate con artist struts his stuff and takes his retributive punishments in a dozen strips, after which the modern medium of home entertainment is tackled in a colour Korky tale and ‘50’s Tele-Watching – the Desperate Dan Way!’ before a Morley Charlie Chutney cookery classic from 1954 acts as palate cleanser for what follows…

All that spanking endured by wayward kids is especially prevalent in a selection of manic material starring Minnie the Minx: in 28 episodes of conniving, chicanery and clobbering courtesy of Baxendale…

A brilliant blast of Biffo in colour brings us to the Bash Street Kids in all their grubby glory. Accompanied by another mini-editorial providing historical context, a slap-happy selection combines double-page tableaux of When the Bell Rings! with a surfeit of Bash Street strips and reveals how the feature evolved. The Baxendale cover to story paper Wizard #1547 (October 1955) accompanies prose tale ‘Bash Street School’ from the June 4th edition, and discloses how the tableau feature inspired comedic school stories which in turn informed a stripped-down strip version with the 16+ kid cast pared down to the 9 we know today…

The process was applied to a few DCT characters, as seen in text story ‘The Boyhood of Desperate Dan’, preceded by the cover for Wizard #1492 (September 18th 1954) and a page of prose thriller ‘Red Rory of the Eagle’ (September 1951) ranged beside the strip it became with a Jack Glass rendered episode from September 1958…

Bill Holroyd provides a 1954 tale of voracious be-kilted ‘Plum MacDuff – The Highlander Who Never Gets Enough’ and the animal antics of ‘Kat and Kanary’ – created by Grigg but probably illustrated here by Baxendale – introduces ‘50’s Tele-Watching – the Desperate Dan Way!’ and follows up with a Biffo strip from November 1956 that might just be the UK’s first infomercial; a Grigg royal rarity featuring Prince Whoopee and a Reid Roger the Dodger lark that eschews the punitive slipper for a more targeted retribution…

A sampling of fantasy drama series follows: name – and picture – checking ‘The Horse That Jack Built’, Brennan’s ‘The Shipwrecked Circus’ and Glass’ ‘The Bird Boy’ before we hit the final stretch, starting with a 1959 Smasher saga about boots, a quick appearance for ‘Cocky Sue, the Cockatoo – She’s the Brains of the Pirate Crew’ by an artist I should recognise, but don’t, and ‘50’s Transport – the Desperate Dan Way!’

With past and future in mind Lord Snooty then pre-empts the microwave oven in a wild yarn from 1954, whilst ‘Wee Davie and King Willie’ strike an early and unexpected blow for animal rights in a strip from 1957 by Ken Hunter, who also ends our comic capers with a wild & woolly double page bonanza tableau set in ‘Wee Davie’s Zoo’…

Sadly, none of the writers are named and precious few of the artists, but I’ve offered a best guess as to whom we should thank, and of course I would be so very happy if anybody could confirm or deny my supposition…

A marvel of nostalgia and timeless comics wonder, the addictive magic of this collection is the brilliant art and stories by a host of talents that have literally made Britons who they are today. Bravo to DC Thomson for letting them out for a half-day to run amok once again; can we please have more and in digital edition, too?
© DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2004

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Sugar and Spike Archives volume 1


By Sheldon Mayer (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3112-5 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Entertainment Perfection… 10/10

I actually intended this for a forthcoming week of kid-friendly books in the New Year but on re-reading this gloriously whimsical and hilariously absurdist tome I came to the conclusion that just like its scintillating and ultra-impatient co-star, I am quite impatient and don’t like to share with just anybody, so this is for Right Now …and probably just for the parents, ok?

And just so we’re clear, miss Sugar Plumm predates Miss Piggy by DECADES and is marginally scarier! Okay? Good, now go on, and let the kids see it too if you want…

Sheldon Mayer (April 1, 1917 – December 21, 1991) is arguably the most important man in American comic book history. A writer and cartoonist, he was also the editorial guiding light behinds dozens of major features at All American Publishing, with a hand in the creation of Wonder Woman, The Flash, Hawkman, Green Lantern, Justice Society and many more.

He mentored young creators like Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert and his creative opinions as assistant to Max Gaines and others dictated the way the entire industry unfolded.

Back in 1935, he was a writer, artist and eventually editorial assistant to Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson at embattled and failing outfit National Allied Publications. In 1938, Mayer was credited with rescuing from the trash can a weird strip about a strongman in tights and a cape. He apparently loved the feature – by two kids named Siegel and Shuster – and pushed until Harry Donenfeld put it in his new anthology Action Comics. That worked out pretty well in the end…

Above all else, Mayer was an inveterate and incurable cartoonist. In 1936, at Dell Comics he created semi-autobiographical boy cartoonist Scribbly, and when “Shelly” joined Gaines at AA he brought that comical kid with him. When the superhero craze truly kicked off, Mayer added one to the strip. Ma Hunkel was Scribbly’s fearsome landlady, and when crime and ne’er-do-wells plagued her neighbourhood, she tackled the problem by making a costume from kitchen scraps and pots to patrol her inner city district as the mighty, mysterious Red Tornado…

In 1948, Mayer surrendered his editorial position to devote himself to drawing and storytelling. He had already spearheaded AA/DC’s move into funny animal features four years previously, in new or converted titles Funny Stuff (Summer 1944), Animal Antics (March 1946) and Funny Folks (April 1946). Cover-dated June 1945, Leading Comics (former home of the Seven Soldiers of Victory) was the first to drop superheroes, becoming an anthropomorphic mainstay with #15.

Mayer’s mirth mountain included the return of Scribbly; exploring the burgeoning teen scene in Leave it to Binky and Buzzy, and generating all-ages whimsy and hilarity in dozens of strips like Doodles Duck, Peter Porkchop, Nutsy Squirrel, Dodo and the Frog and The Three Mouseketeers. In 1956, he created the most charming and adorable comics concept ever published… Sugar and Spike.

The series was an all-Mayer affair that ran 98 issues – until his eyesight failed and he stopped drawing. Undaunted, he carried on as a writer: scripting anthological horror tales for Adventure Comics and sundry DC mystery titles like House of Mystery and Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion. He also created Black Orchid, revived DC’s 1950s iteration of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and – following eye surgery – resumed drawing Sugar and Spike for international syndication.

Some of those stories were reprinted in DC digests The Best of DC, and in 1992, a commemorative 99th issue of Sugar and Spike: released as part of the DC Silver Age Classics series. As usual, I’m revelling in nostalgic joys here whilst whining like a baby and opining for DC to commission a full archival revival in print and digitally…

The concept is beautifully simple and evergreen and as a sign of the regard DC held Mayer in, he was allowed to sign his work: an honour only Siegel & Shuster, Bob Kane and Charles Moulton enjoyed at that time.

In in ordinary domestic America, there are two neighbouring families; each with a toddler. Those little kids get up to all sorts of mischief, much of it quite destructive. These kids are like all baby beings – able to clearly communicate with every other infant in creation – but not adults. The premise constantly generates captivating magic as the bright kids daily discover, categorise and classify their world: posit their own soundly rationalistic explanations for the grown-ups’ weird behaviours and fascinating toys and foods (or anything else they can put in their mouths…). Naturally, the adults think the babytalk babble is cute, but surely it’s nothing but charming nonsense?

Preceded by a revelatory Introduction from Comics historian Bill Schelly the wonderment opens right on the cover which introduces Sugar Plumm and Cecil “Spike” Wilson and sets up a regularly recurring gag: although friends and neighbours, the toddlers’ parents have differing approaches to child rearing. Whenever the kids discuss these discrepancies and attempt to capitalise on the parents’ latest tactic (this was the great era of baby advice gurus like Dr. Benjamin Spock), it’s usually Spike who suffers for it…

That premiere issue opens with ‘Sugar and Spike!’ as the Plumm family move in and quickly introduce themselves and their new daughter to the Wilsons. The kids get on like a house on fire, chatting away like old pals, even though it’s the first baby Spike has ever seen and he can’t form proper words yet…

He’s just discovered a universal truth: although everything has to learn its own language, all babies are born able to communicate with each other…

Soon he’s showing the fascinating new creature with the hair tail all the fun places in his house, like daddy’s basement workshop where all the loud fast toys and paint tins are, and despite the resultant chaos triggering the first of many spats between the adults a friendship for the ages is born…

‘Thumbs Up!’ then builds on the front-cover gag as the infants compare notes on how their parents react to thumb-sucking, unaware that there’s more than one baby-care book and varying opinions can produce wildly varying adult responses…

Mayer was well aware that his young readership needed lots of participatory stimulation and worked hard on activity pages such as ‘Write Your Own Comic Page’, wherein kids could fill in blank word balloons of a strip and colour it in afterwards, before ‘Busy Corners’ introduces Sugar’s Uncle Charley. He’s a motorcycle cop and her favourite adult, partly because he rides that bizarre “put-put” thing and partly because he always brings fun (for which read “inappropriate”) toys, but mostly because Uncle Charley never really grew up. Spike is initially jealous but soon warms to the big guy… just before his antics result in both babies and Charley being sent to stand in the corner again…

‘Free Wheeling’ then sees the tots work out the best – but not correct – way to use a wheelbarrow and invent an indoor sport based on golf that has immense destructive potential in ‘The Big Question’, after which their discovery of ‘The Yak-Yak Box’ leads to telephonic disaster. The debut issue then closes with a back-up starring older kid ‘Littul Snoony’, whose dabbling with a junior chemistry set leads to manic misunderstanding…

Sugar and Spike #2 (cover-dated June/July 1956) opens with mystery yarn ‘Photo Finish’ as the plucky lad attacks another baby photographer hired to snap little miss Plumm. The parents can’t understand why cameras terrify Sugar or why Spike always gallantly attacks the lens-jockeys, but that’s because they can’t understand the little lady’s tale of woe about a snake-ejecting trick box during an earlier photoshoot…

Understandable frustration at big people’s inability to understand baby talk boils over during ‘The Return of Uncle Charley’ who comes bearing a water-spurting fire truck and gets them stuck in the corner again, after which ‘Spike at Home’ and ‘Sugar at Home’ prove that the cooperative kids can cause chaos all on their own, before ‘The Big Toy Mystery’ details their discovery of vehicular fun – and folly – after Spike gets a tricycle…

Mayer was always aware that the newspaper comic strip was a powerful and ubiquitous tool used to raise circulation and promote customer loyalty in the 20th century, and as well as laughs, thrills and escapism creators often added games, cut-out collectibles and paper toys to their output. The common belief was that youngsters – especially girls – loved this kind of “dress-up” play, but I suspect many young men also joined in. One of the most popular and perennially effective was beloved characters in their underwear, plus assorted outfits to clothe them in. Many features took the process further by inviting readers to contribute designs.

This practise graduated from the strips to comic books, and Sugar and Spike employed paper-doll pages for its entire run, beginning with a set of cut-out ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ (the kids in diapers and six readers’ ensembles from summer dresses to a Davy Crockett suit), after which the kids go to a swish department store where Sugar teaches her “doll-boy” ‘How to Play Loozum’. This issue closes with a ‘Do It Yourself Comic Page!’ where all the characters are faceless and readers can either draw their own or cut and paste from a selection of expressions graciously provided…

For #3, Spike is given a marble by some older kids, but his love for it triggers calamity when it’s eaten by a vacuum cleaner and Sugar makes the monster give back ‘The Shiny Round Roller’, after which ‘Spike Discovers the Ocean!’ and is quickly convinced that it hates him…

More ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ lead to a minor masterpiece as the boy is taken to his first restaurant and befriends the main course in ‘Lobsters Away!’ His screams lead to the Wilsons taking the baby crustacean home, where Spike and Sugar resolve to return “Alice” to her home in the ocean…

Activity page ‘You Be the Editor!!’ presents a scrambled strip to put in order – and colour in – before the issue closes with a “kootchy-coo!” monster invading the Wilson home. Happily, Sugar has encountered a “Nanty” before and her ‘Anti-Aunty’ tactics include roping in Uncle Charley to drive the beast away…

Cover-dated October/November, S&S #4 introduced another major theme and recurring gag: the babies’ gradual capitulation to nature and maturation, as epitomised by learning – to say, if not understand – new grown-up words. ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’ sees Spike in the corner when Sugar teaches him a term that makes adults forgive everything. However, when they hear someone apparently abusing the magic term, their vengeance is both fearsome and bizarre…

The tots’ discovery of a ‘New Gadget’ results in utter chaos and necessary redecoration before ‘One Sunday Afternoon’ finds Pa Wilson failing to self-assemble a new garden hammock thanks to their assistance. Staying with recreation, the ‘Water Babies’ are dumped on their dads, and enjoy a fishing trip that borders on the surreal and uncanny…

Sugar and Spike #5 (December 1956-January 1957) opens with the infants attending ‘The Birthday Party’ of an older kid, and utterly misunderstanding the notion of GIVING OTHER PEOPLE presents. This hilarious romp introduced mean bully Clarence: a spoiled older boy continually outwitted by the toddlers over the years.

Insomnia informs ‘The Early Birds’ as the tiny tots go walkabout whilst the parents enjoy the sleep of the exhausted, and Spike ponders ‘Grampa’s Problem’ – a sly observation on the indignities of old age – before more ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ anticipate ‘The Mystery of the Funny Runner’ with our curious kids questioning how older kids have wheels on their feet…

They seek to imitate firefighters in ‘To the Rescue’ with unwelcome results before the copy closes with a backyard clean-up that reveals ‘A Place for Everything’ isn’t literal when looking for somewhere to put fallen leaves…

Charm manifests in almost lethal amounts in #6 as the veteran infants meet and bring up to speed a newborn in ‘The New Baby’, and another developmental milestone is reached on ‘The Trip’ as both tots stay with Spike’s grandparents for their first Christmas. That witty wonderment is augmented by a ‘How To Make Sugar and Spike Dancing Dolls’ and more gloriously adorable ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’, before ‘Winter Sunday’ sees the downside of shovelling snow off sidewalks with curious toddlers joining in and ‘Cats? Meowch!’ explores the hazards of finger painting with anchovy paste. This issue then folds with Spike and Sugar addressing consumerism in combat with all the mod cons (that was “Modern Conveniences” if you’re post Millennial) in ‘Baby vs. Machine’…

By #7 (April/May 1957) Mayer was regularly using fashions contributed by readers, as here in opening yarn ‘Mud Mud Mud!’ when the moms try to split up the kids and Mrs Wilson bribes the local older boys to include Spike in their war games. When their messy roughness provokes a tantrum, Sugar comes to his rescue with shocking consequences but not as much as what happens when the misbehaving tots catch their moms consulting ‘The Magic Book’ that seems to dictate what punishments they get…

The mayhem of Spike’s ‘First Haircut’ came from a plot sent in by two readers, one of whom also designed outfits for another ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ section, whilst Mayer can claim full credit for Spike’s close encounter with ‘The Don’t-Touch Thing’ and almost sending his dad to jail from the passenger seat in motorcar moment ‘Three-Wheel Driver’…

Issue #8’s mixes crockery carnage and childish misdemeanours with high concept as the kids give the adults ‘Speech Lessons’ in an attempt to make their moms properly communicate in clearcut babytalk and ‘Uncle Charley Strikes Again’ with another magnificently inappropriate toy for Sugar before a double helping of ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ leads to another failed experiment when Sugar ensures that ‘The Tick-Tock Won’t Tick-Tock Now!’

Grandpa then finds a way to replace a hobbyhorse in ‘Ride ‘Em Cowboy’, and we close with more animal antics in ‘Trip to the Zoo’…

Sugar and Spike #9 saw the title shift to a monthly frequency: opening with ‘Double Trouble’ as the infants investigate a strangely familiar couple inside the big glass toy, whilst their wear & tear on  toys is tackled by daddy – AKA ‘The Fix-It Machine’, and – after two more ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ – ‘Horse Sense’ traces the troubles caused by their first trip to an amusement park where the nippers naturally “liberate” a baby-talking little pony…

Another ‘Write Your Own Comic Page’ then leads to a breakthrough in counting in ‘Spike Learns Big Business’…

This sublime collection concludes with #10 (cover-dated September 1957) beginning with ‘The Big Word Mystery’ as the troublesome toddler parrots a grown-up sound that makes adults go crazy, after which the kids learn that pulling ‘The Magic String’ makes day-time go away.

One last brace of ‘Pint-Size Pin-ups’ leads to another seaside jaunt where the parents go ‘Beach Nuts’ after the kids go AWOL and – once safely home – ‘More Adventures with the Yak-Yak Box’ when Spike tries in vain to rescue the random toddler who answered whilst he was playing with the very-forbidden telephone…

These are wonderful, whimsical stories from a time when comics were a major entertainment medium and the only mass market accessible to kids. Thanks to the gifts of Sheldon Mayer, these yarns remain some of the most beguiling and hilarious ever crafted – just ask the numerous countries the feature was syndicated to – and absolutely MUST be brought back for kids of every vintage to enjoy.
© 1956, 1957, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Moomin volume 6: The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-042-3 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-553-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Enchanting Entertainment… 9/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen and ink, manipulating slim economical lines and patterns to realise sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols and as this collection shows, so was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Father Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author/cartoonist and art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their strange friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, gently adventurous big-eyed romantic goof began life as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a little clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially starts here…

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many modern artists get their faces on the national currency?

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan twelve years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite.

In 1956, he began co-scripting the Moomin newspaper strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own brand of witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. When her contract with The London Evening News expired in 1959, Lars Jansson officially took over the feature, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s cartooning style. He had done so in secret, with the assistance and tutelage of their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, and from 1961 to the strip’s end in 1974 was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

Lasse was also a man of many parts: his other careers including writer, translator, aerial photographer and professional gold miner. He was the basis and model for cool kid Snufkin…

Lars’ Moomins was subtly sharper than his sister’s version and he was far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour, but his whimsy and wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, he began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed theme park Moomin World) as producers of Japanese anime series The Moomins and – in 1993 with daughter Sophia Jansson – on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: modern bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and most societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable but perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst devoted husband Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

Their son Moomin is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions. He adores their permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially better…

The 6th oversized (310 x 221 mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers serial strip sagas #22-25 and is a particular favourite, and opens with Lars firmly in charge and puckishly re-exploring human frailties and foibles via a beloved old plot after a seaside excursion with the Snorkmaiden unearths ‘Moomin’s Lamp’…

Of course, the ancient artefact comes with its own rather lazy and inept genie, and when the glamour-crazed Snorkmaiden foolishly wishes for a diamond diadem despite her beau’s best advice, it triggers a bold theft and a great deal of difficulties with the local constabulary…

Soon, fugitives from the law and justice – definitely two different things here – the young malefactors have compromised the honour of overprotective Moominpapa and gone off to hide in the leafy wooded “Badlands” of Moomin Valley, enduring privation on the run until scurrilous reprobate Stinky “nobly” takes the offending lamp off their hands…

The perils of unrelenting progress and growth then manifest in ‘Moomin and the Railway’ when a bunch of burly but affable and unflappable workmen begin laying railroad tracks through the unspoiled beauty of Moomin Valley. Enraged and outraged, our young hero begins a campaign of resistance that includes persuasion, intimidation and even sabotage. Sadly, many of his initial allies turn at the prospect of increased ease, newfound affluence and plain old indifference, before incorrigible rebel Snufkin takes a hand and salvation suddenly comes in a strange form with the valley saved yet changed forever…

Contemporary Cold War concerns are then lampooned when the patriarch meets up with old school chum in ‘Moominpapa and the Spies’. Lost in a nostalgic haze with old crony Wimsy and hankering to recapture the wild and free, glory days of youth, the happy fantasist embarks on a misguided spree bound to disappoint and stumbles into an actual spy plot involving the worst operatives in the world. Ultimately Moominpapa is shanghaied and lost at sea before regaining his equilibrium and heading home again…

The weird wonderments conclude for now with another wry retort to fads and fashions as ‘Moomin and the Circus’ sees the Finn Family of trolls forced into vegetarianism when animal conservation captivates the entire valley. When Moominpapa is – most reluctantly – elected leader of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he resolves to lead by example, and his edicts quickly show up the hypocrisy of the fashion-conscious elite who pressganged him. Everybody gets an even more urgent chance to rethink their priorities and intentions after the SPCA forces the closure of a travelling show and then has to deal with the consequences: homing the Lions, horses, elephant, ostrich, monkeys, parrots, and sea-lions who were only really happy in show biz…

This compilation closes with ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ by family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes…

These are truly magical tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – are an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2011 Solo/Bulls. “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

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A Spirou & Fantasio Adventure: Volume 19 – The Visitor from the Mesozoic


By André Franquin with Greg & Jidéhem, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-066-1 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Marvellous Monster Madness… 9/10

Spirou (whose name translates as “squirrel”, “mischievous” and “lively kid” in the language of Walloons) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter – AKA Rob-Vel – for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis. He was a measured response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin at rival outfit Casterman. At first, Spirou (with his pet squirrel Spip) was a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (an in-joke reference to Dupuis’ premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures gradually evolved into astounding and often surreal comedy dramas.

The other red-headed lad debuted on April 21st 1938 in an 8-page, French-language tabloid magazine that bears his name to this day. Fronting a roster of new and licensed foreign strips – Fernand Dineur’s Les Aventures de Tif (latterly Tif et Tondu) and US newspaper imports Red Ryder, Brick Bradford and Superman – Le Journal de Spirou grew exponentially: adding Flemish edition Robbedoes on October 27th 1938, bumping up the page count and adding compelling action, fantasy and comedy features until it was an unassailable, unmissable necessity for Continental kids.

Spirou and chums spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with many impressive creators building on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943, when Dupuis purchased the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over.

In 1946, Jijé’s assistant André Franquin inherited the strip. Gradually, he retired traditional short gag-like vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials; introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars. He ultimately devised a phenomenally popular nigh-magical animal dubbed Marsupilami, who debuted in 1952’s Spirou et les héritiers.

Jean-Claude Fournier succeeded Franquin in 1969 and working for a decade: beginning a succession of reinventions by creator teams that included Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca; Yves Chaland; and Philippe Vandevelde – writing as “Tome” – & artist Jean-Richard Geurts – AKA Janry.

These last reverently referenced the beloved, revered Franquin era: reviving the feature’s fortunes in 14 albums between 1984-1998. After their departure the strip diversified into parallel strands: Spirou’s Childhood/Little Spirou and guest-creator specials A Spirou Story By… before Lewis Trondheim and the teams of Jean-Davide Morvan/Jose-Luis Munuera and Fabien Vehlmann/Yoann stepped up.

By my count – which includes specials, spin-offs series and one-shots – they cumulatively bring the album count to upwards of 90, but for many of us the Franquin sagas are the epitome and acme of the Spirou experience…

Cinebook have been publishing Spirou & Fantasio’s exploits since October 2009, initially concentrating on translating Tome & Janry’s superb pastiche/homages of Franquin, but for this manic marvel (available in paperback and digitally) they reached back all the way to 1960 for some true Franquin-formulated furore.

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

In 1945 all but Culliford signed on with Dupuis, and Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist/illustrator, crafting covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. Throughout those days, Franquin and Morris were being trained by Jijé – at that time main illustrator at Le Journal de Spirou. He turned the youngsters and fellow neophyte Willy Maltaite – AKA Will (Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a perfect creative bullpen known as the La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They would revolutionise 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, (LJdS #427, June 20th 1946. He ran with it for two decades, enlarging the scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters like comrade/rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac. Along the way Spirou & Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, endlessly expanding their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory.

The heroes travelled to exotic places, uncovering crimes, finding the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies like Zorglub and Zantafio, as well as one of the first strong female characters in European comics, rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in the current English translation).

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), Jidéhem (Sophie, Ginger, Starter, Uhu-Man, Gaston Lagaffe) and Greg author of Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince, Achille Talon, and Zig et Puce who all worked with him on Spirou et Fantasio.

In 1955, a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign with rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin, collaborating with René Goscinny and Peyo whilst creating the raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. Within weeks Franquin patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Spirou, subsequently co-creating Gaston Lagaffe (known in Britain as Gomer Goof), but was obliged to carry on his Casterman commitments too…

From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin, but by 1969 the artist had reached his Spirou limit. He quit, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

His later creations include fantasy series Isabelle, illustration sequence Monsters and bleak adult conceptual series Idées Noires, but his greatest creation – and one he retained all rights to on his departure – is Marsupilami, which, in addition to comics tales, has become a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums.

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.

Originally entitled Le voyageur du Mésozoïque and brought to you here as The Visitor from the Mesozoic this album combines a long tail (sorry couldn’t resist!) plus another, shorter adventure by the master crafted in collaboration with co-writer Greg (alias Michel Régnier) and artist Jidéhem – AKA Jean De Mesmaeker. The lead romp comes from 1957 having originated as a serial in Le Journal de Spirou #992-1018 and clearly and cleverly channelling that time’s penchant for rampaging, city-stomping giant monsters…

It begins in the Antarctic as the mushroom-mad Count de Champignac is rescued – much against his will – from his own experiments and frozen doom and brought back to France. He has with him a dinosaur egg that has been frozen for millions of years…

Getting the fragile, precious miracle back to his lab in bucolic Champignac-on-the-Sticks takes all the ingenuity and determination his pals Spirou and Fantasio can muster, but after much fuss and fluster the primordial ovum is stashed in the genius’ workshop and slowly thawing under the gimlet eyes of a handpicked team of fellow mad scientists including Doctors Nero, Schwartz, atomic pariah Sprtschk and Alexandre Specimen – “the Biologist”…

Their bumbling patience is tested to its limits when the mischievous Marsupilami becomes obsessed with the new ball toy and perhaps it’s his terrifying antics that finally force it to hatch…

Everyone is delighted when the mega-million-year-old herbivore pops out, but science is never patient and the bonkers boffins imprudently goose along its development with a little growth formula and aging extracts. Sadly, so does the Marsupilami and when everybody wakes up in the morning they’re greeted by a genial skyscraper saurian with a huge empty belly and a very bad cold…

Soon the big daft brute is shambling through the hamlet looking for browse and causing quite a commotion. The villagers might be used to weird happenings but the government respond with predictable hostility: sending in a tank column and a flight of warplanes…

They prove inefficient and quite ineffective, but the story also generates a wave of controversy. Stridently vocal, violently different pressure groups form: some wanting to save the poor endangered creature and others seeking to preserve the precious landmarks and monuments the beast is trampling. There’s even one guy who wants to make the dinosaur the latest taste sensation in his canned meat factory…

With chaos rampant Spirou looks for a solution to help the creature and finds one, but it depends on manoeuvring the monster to a certain isolated promontory. Thankfully, the Marsupilami has lost patience with his old toy and is ready to step in and step up…

Manic and wildly slapstick in tone and delivery, the story of the big beast is both charming and wickedly satirical and offers a happy ending films like Godzilla, Konga and Gorgo could never have imagined…

The rampaging silliness is counterbalanced by an equally funny but far more sinister pastiche also set in the wild world of the Merlin of Mushrooms. Back-up yarn ‘Fear on the Line’ stems from 1959, serialised as ‘La Peur au bout du fil’ in LJS #1086-1092. Notable for the first crossover appearance of comedy sluggard Gaston Lagaffe, the story details how Champignac distils the chemical essence of evil and accidentally drinks it instead of his coffee. Warned too late, Spirou and Fantasio must chase the now wicked prankster as he wreaks havoc in the village and plants bombs filled with his chemical concoctions. Happily, The Biologist is on hand to offer advice as the clock counts down to doom and our heroes give chase, but in the end it’s the Marsupilami who solves the crisis in his own bombastic manner…

The Visitor from the Mesozoic is the kind of lightly-barbed comedy-thriller that delights readers fed up with a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly-sweet fantasy.

Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive yet wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Iznogoud so compelling, this is a truly enduring landmark tale from a long line of superb exploits, and deserves to be a household name as much as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1960 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.