Category: Comedy

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I Hate Fairyland volume 2: Fluff My Life


By Skottie Young, Jean-Francois Beaulieu & various (Image Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63215-887-1

Fairy tales are so ubiquitous that you could – inaccurately (Go, Pedants!!) – describe them as part of our DNA. Some people claim to have grown out of them whilst others take them to heart and make them an intrinsic aspect of their lives, but we can all feel them (the stories, not the readers) lurking in our subconscious, sharpening axes, heating up steel dancing shoes or honing Great Big Teeth…

Well, maybe some of the readers…

There’s this guy… Skottie Young?

He’s someone with feet firmly planted in all camps and well able to alternatively embrace the enchantment of imagination and give it a hilariously iconoclastic, mean-spirited boot in the backside at the same time.

Surely, you’ll have seen his glorious, multi-award winning interpretation of Baum’s Oz books produced for Marvel, his spectacular run on Rocket Raccoon (and Groot) or at least chuckled over his outrageous funny baby superhero covers…

Maybe you’re aware of his collaboration with Neal Gaiman on Fortunately the Milk.

If not, there’s so much more in store for you after enjoying this second collected slice of mirthful mythic malevolence and mayhem…

I Hate Fairyland is a truly cathartic little gem: a mind-buttering romp of deliciously wicked simplicity and one I heartily recommend as a palate-cleanser for anyone overdosing on Princess Parties, cotton candy and glitter…

Once upon a time little Gertrude wished she could visit the wonderful world of magic and joyous laughter and her wish was inexplicably granted. There she met happy shiny people, fairies, elves, giants, talking animals and animated trees, rocks, stars, suns and moons and just loved them all.

Resplendent Queen Cloudia made her an Official Guest of Fairyland and invited her to play a game. When she wanted to go back to her own world the six-year-old simply had to find a magic key and open the door to the realm of reality. The fabulous Fairy Queen even bestowed upon Gertrude a quaint talking bug as guide and helpmeet. Oh, and a magic map of all the Known Lands…

That was nearly thirty years ago and although Gert’s body didn’t age a day her mind certainly did. In fact, it got pretty damned pissed-off at the interminable, insufferable chore that looked like never ending…

As an Official Guest of Fairyland, Gert was not allowed to die and took to expressing her monumental frustration in acts of staggering violence and excess as she hunted for that fluffer-hugging key…

With no other choice, Gert and dissolute death-craving intellectual insect Larrigon Wentsworth III toiled ever onward in search of the way home, enduring horrific – but never permanently fatal – injuries and venting their annoyance (and other creatures’ vital fluids) on whoever got in the way.

Eventually even Queen Cloudia had enough but could do nothing whilst Gert maintained her Official Guest of Fairyland status… a privilege that could not be revoked…

Covertly commissioned barbarians, assassins and evil witches all filed to remedy the situation. Between the protection spell and Gert’s own ingrained propensity for spectacular bloodletting, nothing in the incredible kingdoms could stop her…

And then, just when a truly amazing idea got hatched… it got even worse.

Due to circumstances beyond anybody’s control Cloudia’s rule ended and Gert was stuck ruling the saccharine-sweet hellhole she so despised…

As we resume cartoon communication Queen Gertrude has been in charge quite long enough. Even wanton slaughter in her personal gladiatorial games and random acts of magic-fuelled drive-by exterminations cannot offset the unending tedium of the paperwork necessary to run the Realm and ‘Gert of Thrones’ is desperately looking for a way out of the endless responsibilities of rule. And then, for the first time in decades, fate falls her way and Gert is offered a way out…

It doesn’t end well for her subjects, though…

On the loose again, Gert returned to her former anti-social ways unaware that destiny was shaping a really big metaphysical cowpat for her to step in. It begins sometime in the real world she so wants to rejoin where a little kid in a dragon costume finds himself in dire need of a pitstop. Tragically for Duncan and Fairyland, that rush to the outhouse results in a little unwanted trans-dimensional tourism. Gert meanwhile has put out feelers (and many other strange critters) to locate a way back to earth. The most likely method involves the urine of mighty flying saurians but as that is the rarest thing in the Realm, it pretty fortunate that Duncan still frantically trying to unzip his costume materialises just then and learns the downside of ‘How to Drain your Dragon’…

Desperate enough to consult a soothsayer, Gert later learns of a possible escape route but glazes over the bit where the future-reader says Duncan will be the greatest monster the Realm ever saw. Eager for release – any form of release – the ex-queen finds herself fighting a chilling army of videogame foes in the oddly electronic ‘Tower of Battle’ and handed the drubbing of her unending life. The victorious games-master gives her high heave-ho but keeps little Duncan…

After losing a high stakes card game Gert then has to enter her own infinitely capacious magical Hat of Holding in search of an item to pay off her debts. Unfortunately, thanks to her slovenly habits, that means dealing with the infestation of marauding Lynts which has built up amidst the decades of “acquired” artefacts, treasures and people who have annoyed her resulting in a pretty messy case of ‘Splat in the Hat’…

Closing up shop for the nonce is a tale of salutary warning as Gert and Larry enter a mystic manse to be confronted by a choice of two portals, one leading to her heart’s desire and the other to an outcome of horrific consequences. Never big on thinking things through, Gert is stymied…

You’d think she might listen to her shattered and battered future-self, suddenly come back from a apocalyptically hell-shocked dystopian tomorrow with a message of warning and explicit instructions. You would? Then you really haven’t grasped the gist of this savagely surreal saga, have you?

And yet… somehow… To Be Continued…

Collecting issues #6-10 of I Hate Fairyland, (from March-October 2016) the sublimely subversive saga continues courtesy of Young, colourist Jean-Francois Beaulieu and letterer Nate Piekos of Blambot®: a cornucopia of cartoon ultra-violence and side-splitting mythic irreverence hilariously utilising the most imaginative and inspired use of faux-profanity ever seen in comics. There’s even a bunch of variant covers to drool over, if your nerves and stomach can stand it…

This is an unmissable wakeup call for everybody whose kids want to be little princesses and proves once and for all that sweet little girls (and probably comics artists) harbour hidden depths of depravity and barely-suppressed aggression…
© 2016 Skottie Young. All rights reserved.

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THRRP!


By Leo Baxendale (Knockabout Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-86166-051-3

Whilst tapping away at my keyboard, I’ve just heard on the radio (I’m real old school, me) that the irrepressible, irreplaceable Leo Baxendale passed away earlier this week. Thus, I’m postponing today’s posting to re-run this old saw. The book is still readily available and if you haven’t seen it you bloody well should.

Leo Baxendale was educated at Preston Catholic College, served in the RAF and was born on 27th October 1930, in Whittle-le-Woods, Lancashire – but not in that order. His first paid artistic efforts were drawing ads and cartoons for The Lancashire Evening Post but his life and the entire British comics scene changed in 1952 when he began freelancing for DC Thomson’s star weekly The Beano.

Leo took over moribund Lord Snooty and his Pals and created anarchically surreal strips Little Plum, Minnie the Minx, The Three Bears and When the Bell Rings – which metamorphosed into the legendary, lurgie-packed Bash Street Kids thereby altering the realities of millions of readers.

Baxendale also contributed heavily to the creation of The Beezer in 1956, after editorial and financial disputes, moved to the London-based Harmsworth conglomerate Odhams/Fleetway/IPC in 1962.

South of the border his humorous creations included Grimly Feendish, Sweeny Toddler, General Nitt and his Barmy Army, Bad Penny and a whole host of other sparkling oiks, yobs and weirdoes who made the “Power Comics” era such a joy to behold.

During the 1970s and 80s he foisted Willy the Kid on the world and created his own publishing imprint – Reaper Books. He also sued DCT for rights to his innovative inky inventions: a seven-year struggle that was eventually settled out of court.

Other notable graphic landmarks include his biography A Very Funny Business: 40 Years of Comics and I Love You, Baby Basil in The Guardian.

Leo was a one-of-a-kind, hugely influential and much-imitated master of pictorial comedy and noxious gross-out escapades whose work deeply affected (some would say warped) generations of British and Commonwealth kids. We’ll not see his like again.

I’ll return to him with a more considered appreciation later in the year, but for now why don’t you think about picking up THRRP!?

Released in 1987 this oversized (292 x 206 mm) softcover monochrome tome is something of a lost classic: a gloriously grotesque, pantomimic splurt-fest of broken winds, oozy organs, drippy bits and broad, basic belly-laughs which depends less on narrative convention than on warped-yet-timeless juvenile invention and forward progression to revel in the most lunatic slapstick ever to grace the music-hall or comic page.

Whilst not as groundbreaking as Plum, Minnie, or The Bash Street Kids nor as subversive as Wham, Smash and Pow creations such as Eagle Eye, Junior Spy, The Swots and the Blots or The Tiddlers, or indeed, as outlandish as George’s Germs or Sam’s Spook, nevertheless our premiering pulsating protagonist Spotty Dick and the stomach-churning, utterly repulsive inhabitants of Planet Urf unforgettably cavort through a cartoon-mire of silent adventures – like mimes made of mucus – in a manner no snotty, grotty school-kid of any age could resist.

An absolute treat from the absolute master of British tomfoolery. Let’s get this back in print now.
© 1987 Leo Baxendale. All rights reserved.

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If You Weren’t a Hedgehog… If I Weren’t a Hemophiliac…


By Andrew Weldon (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-7971-8

Chocolate might be fattening but there’s no conclusive data one way or the other on scoping out hilarious cartoons. Ergo… with all those anti-social sweeties swamping the house during the holiday, why not hedge your bets and balance calorific over-indulgence with a little light reading?

I love cartoons. Not animated films, but short, visual (although most often text-enhanced) stylised drawings which tell a story or potently and pithily express a mood or tone. Most people do. That’s why many historians and sociologists use them as barometers of a defined time or era.

For nearly 200 years gag-panels and cartoon strips were a universal medium to disseminate wit, satire, mirth, criticism and cultural exchange. Sadly, after centuries of pre-eminence and ferocious power, these days the cartoon has been all but erased from printed newspapers – as indeed the physical publications themselves have dwindled in shops and on shelves.

However, thanks to the same internet which is killing print media, many graphic gagsters and drawing dramatists have enjoyed resurgence in an arena that doesn’t begrudge the space necessary to deliver a cartoon in all its fulsome glory…

Humorous cartoons remain an unmissable daily joy to a vast, frequently global readership whose requirements are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers just starting to dip their toes in the sequential narrative pool.

Even those stuck-up, sticky-beak holdouts proudly boasting they have “never read a comic” certainly enjoy strips or panels: a golden bounty of brief amusement demanding no commitment other than a moment’s close attention. Truth be told, it’s probably in our genes…

And because that’s the contrary nature of things, those gags now get collected in spiffy collections (and also in eBook editions) like this mean, mirth-filled monochrome paperback to enjoy over and over again…

The Dutch reputedly discovered Australia in the 17th century (although as the wonderful Sir Terry Pratchett pointedly pointed out, the indigenous natives had been doing so on a daily basis for thousands of years prior to the white chaps sailing up), before Captain Cook famously stuck a flag in the place and drew some maps in 1770.

Now it’s a place of amazing contradictions and boasts a sense of humour uniquely its own.

A prime example of that can be seen in this collection of gags from the observationally adrift and slightly warped Andrew Weldon, who sagely abandoned the disciplined world of architecture in Melbourne to apply his astute, irreverent imagination to scrawling wickedly barbed graphic questions and comments on whatever catches his attention for venues as widespread as various greetings cards as well as in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Big Issue, Tango, The New Yorker, The Spectator and Private Eye.

Diversifying into children’s books, Weldon has written and illustrated The Kid with The Amazing Head and Clever Trevor’s Stupendous Inventions, and this book and his other gag compendium – I’m Sorry Little Man, I Thought You Were a Hand Puppet – were published in Britain by Allen & Unwin.

If You Weren’t a Hedgehog… If I Weren’t a Hemophiliac… first surfaced in 2009 but is still fresh, strange and engagingly twisted enough to have you clutching your sides in approved cartoon manner…

The 232 deranged doodles explore not just the peculiarly inclusive arena of looking for love in all the wrong places but also includes fervent peeks and prognostications on perils of growing old disgracefully, the foibles of fashion and dieting, tattoo troubles and – because it’s Australia – observations of criminal conduct and the consumption of alcohol…

There are many mind-bending interactions with telephones, technological innovations and examinations to Tung Shui and other oral aids, visits to the horrific inner world of children and animals and a great line in ads for stuff that should exist but mercifully doesn’t yet…

You can gain new appreciation for the contributions to society of teachers, cops, doctors housewives – of either gender – and soldiers, experience a different view of drugs, bugs, music and goldfish, reconsider the pros and cons of beards, work and sport and learn far more than you’ll ever need to about genetic engineering…

Bringing up babies plays hard and heavy here, as does the satirical side of toilet paper, pets, tax claims and Christmas. And then there’s sex, religion, disease and death…

Outrageous, outspoken and uproarious, this is a tome to tickle the funny-bone and giggle glands of anyone prepared to plunge down under and view the world from a southern prospect…
© 2009 Andrew Weldon. All rights reserved.

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Cedric volume 4: Hot and Cold


By Laudec & Cauvin with colours by Leonardo and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-158-7

Raoul Cauvin is one of Europe’s most successful comics scripters. Born in Antoing, Belgium in 1938, by 1960 he was working in the animation department of publishing giant Dupuis after studying the dying – and much-missed – print production technique of Lithography.

Happily, he quickly discovered his true calling was writing funny stories and began a glittering, prolific career at Spirou.

While there he devised (with Salvérius) the astoundingly successful Comedy-Western Bluecoats as well as dozens of other long-running, award-winning series such as Sammy, Les Femmes en Blanc, Boulouloum et Guiliguili, Cupidon, Pauvre Lampil and Agent 212: cumulatively shifting more than 240 separate albums.

Bluecoats alone has achieved sales well north of 15 million copies thus far…

His collaborator on the superbly sharp and witty kid-friendly family strip Cédric is Italian born, Belgium-raised Tony de Luca, who studied electro-mechanics and toiled as an industrial draughtsman until he could make his own break into bandes dessinée.

Following a few fanzine efforts in the late 1970s, Laudec landed soap-style series Les Contes de Curé-la-Fl’ûte at Spirou in 1979. He built that into a brace of extended war-time serials (L’an 40 in 1983 and Marché Noir et Bottes à Clous in 1985) whilst working his way around many of the comic’s other regular strips.

In 1987 he united with Cauvin on the first Cédric shorts and from then on it was all child’s play…

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

Collected albums (29 so far) of the variable-length strips – ranging from a ½ page to half a dozen – began appearing in 1989 and are always amongst the most popular and best-selling on the Continent, as is the animated TV show spun off from the strip.

Be Warned: this is not a strip afraid to suspend the yoks in favour of a little suspense or near-heartbreak. Cedric is almost-fatally smitten with Chen: a Chinese girl in his class yet so very far out of his league, leading to frequent and painful confrontations and miscommunications.

Whilst the advice given by his lonely widowed grandpa is seldom of any practical use it can pick open scabs from the elder’s long, happy and now ended marriage which might reduce any normal human to tears…

This fourth Cinebook translation – from 2011 and first continentally released in 1993 as Cédric 6: Chaud et Froid – opens with ‘Skateboarding Champ…‘ as the scamp finds Chen watching an older boy show off his prowess on wheels and is utterly unable to steer clear of a humiliating confrontation and revoltingly precipitate action…

‘Lightning to Thunder’ sees Grandpa attempting to teach Cedric how to time the interval between the two awesome natural events when Dad interrupts with an unnatural one both painful and impressive, after which Christmas brings ‘Little Presents’ from the lad to his family that causes outrage, terror and – eventually – much mirth…

When Grandpa borrows the boy’s ‘Badges Galore’, his long-suffering daughter is quick to spot his ulterior motives after which, to everyone’s chagrin, Cedric’s spoiled, smug and shamelessly social-climbing ‘Horrible Cousin’ Yeti visits.

She is brought down a peg or ten after trying to cosy up to aristocratic twit The Right Honourable Alphonse Andre Jones-Tarrington-Dupree – with deliciously gratifying results for the eagerly-watching oik in jeans and trainers – before ‘Back in My Day…’ finds a family meal derailed by the boy asking when his parents will make him a little sister. The resultant three-way adult – and hilarious – argument about modern sex education allows Cedric to successfully bury bad news about his grades…

Jealousy again causes a clash between Cedric and long-suffering Chen in ‘Ice Love You’ before Grandpa brilliantly outsmarts his lazy, study-shy grandson with a spot of ‘Blackmail’: threatening to show Chen’s mother the kid suitor’s latest appalling report card and prove the ardent boy is not good enough for her darling daughter…

When Dad impetuously tries out a skateboard, he finds the experience ‘No Bed of Roses’ even as Cedric’s rapscallion inclination to go scrumping is dreadfully scuppered in ‘How About Them Apples?’

A little later when slow-witted Manu gets hold of a disposable camera (ask your dad), Cedric goes to superhuman extremes to be in a perfect picture with his unobtainable inamorata despite the constant invocations to ‘Say Cheese!’ seemingly inspiring the universe to play its most mean tricks on the little Lothario…

Another devilish demonstration of devious designs occurs after Cedric demands of his family ‘Wanna See My School Report?’ but they’re probably all too preoccupied anticipating the result and cost of ‘Grandpa’s Cooking’: the aftermath of which is a life-threatening bout of depression for the fragile old geezer which can only be cured by the youngster saying something truly stupid in ‘Some Days Are Like That…’

Late night viewing of unsuitable movies and a change in Cedric’s behaviour leads Mum to make her own ‘French Connection’ before we learn that little boys’ egos – and trousers – are fragile things. However, if the unimaginable does happen in front of your intended true love, as long as your mates are around one can always depend on a ‘Conga Line’ to get you home with a minimum of blushes…

More elderly health concerns manifest in ‘A Bit Tired…’ but once again the boy knows just the wrong thing to say to banish Grandpa’s doldrums before this sparkling friends-&-family saga pause with ‘Makes You Deaf’ as Cedric devises a wild Walkman (ask your granddad) based scheme to get Chen to marry him one day…

Rocket-paced, warmly witty and not afraid to explore sentiment or loss, the exploits of this painfully keen, beguilingly besotted young rascal are a charming example of how all little boys are just the same and infinitely unique. Cedric is a superb family strip perfect for youngsters and old folk alike…
© Dupuis 1993 by Cauvin & Laudec. All rights reserved. English translation © 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Lucky Luke


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-49-6

It’s hard to think of one of Europe’s most beloved and evergreen comics characters being in any way controversial, but when changing times caught up with the fastest gun in the West (“so fast he can outdraw his own shadow”) and the planet’s most laconic cowboy moved with them, the news made headlines all over the world.

Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures. His continued exploits over nearly seventy years have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (68 individual adventures totalling more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with the usual spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first seen the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, before launching into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American tourist Rene Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25th 1955.

In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris soldiered on both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris himself died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus some spin-off sagas crafted with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and others, all taking a crack at the venerable franchise…

Moreover, apart from that very first adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico TV classic Alias Smith and Jones) “in all that time… never shot or killed anyone…”

Lucky Luke was first spotted in the UK syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun during the late 1950s and again in 1967 in Giggle, where he was renamed Buck Bingo.

In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums – Luke sported a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip. However, in 1983 Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” – deftly substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent and successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages, if not the covers…), and it’s clearly no big deal for today’s readership as we’re well past sixty translated books and still going strong.

Tortillas for the Daltons was the tenth of their 63 albums, now available both on paper and as e-books. As Tortillas pour les Daltons it was first published in Europe 1967: the charming cowboy’s 31st sagebrush foray and Goscinny’s 22nd collaboration with Morris, offering a beguilingly exotic and action-packed visit across the fabled Rio Grande in search of justice and good times…

It all begins in jail as vile owlhoots Averell, Jack, William and their slyly psychotic, overly-bossy shorter brother Joe Dalton are roused from their cosy comfort zone with the shocking news that they’re all being moved to a less crowded penitentiary – one situated near the Mexican border…

The infamous Dalton Gang are incorrigible criminals and no effort is spared to make sure they arrive at their destination. The warden even assigns faithful prison hound Rin Tin Can to the large escort but has apparently forgotten that the vain, friendly and exceedingly dim pooch is utterly loyal to absolutely everybody and no use at all in any kind of crisis…

Parking up for the night by the mighty border, the soldiers and security are sadly unaware that a gang of banditos are eyeing up the iron-studded coach and wondering just what manner of gringo valuables it might contain…

Despite striking with typical dash, verve and flamboyance, the gaudy thieves are ultimately quite disappointed with their haul, but in America the public breathes a huge communal sigh of relief that the Daltons are no longer a menace to their property. Sadly, the Mexican government kicks up such a fuss at the unwelcome additions to their population that the US authorities summon Lucky Luke to Washington DC and beg him to retrieve the contentious criminal tourists…

Not that the Daltons have actually broken any laws yet. They’ve been spending all their time trying to convince bandit supremo Emilio Espuelas that they are as good at being bad as any Mexican.

Whilst he may not accept that, the sinister sombrero-wearer is pretty certain that the odd quartet will be an unnecessary and costly burden. It takes all Joe’s efforts to convince him not to kill them outright. Eventually however, the burly brigand agrees to accept them as apprentice thieves. That tenuous situation almost ends when the assembled scoundrels scout the sleepy village of Xochitecotzingo and Joe a has a fit. The little loon has seen Lucky Luke riding into town with dumb mutt Rin Tin Can in tow.

After his introduction in 1962’s Sur la piste des Dalton, (On the Daltons’ Trail) Rantanplan – “dumbest dog in the West” and a wicked parody of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin – became an irregular feature in Luke’s adventures before eventually landing his own spin-off series title. The moronic mutt is in top form here, spreading confusion and mirth far and wide especially after meeting his cross-border counterpart – a clever chihuahua named Rodriguez…

Joe Dalton’s devious mind goes into inventive overdrive after spotting his laconic nemesis: determined that Emilio must not learn of the hero’s presence, else he sell the brother back to the emissary of America for a tidy profit…

As Luke avails himself of the local hospitality and acquaints himself with the friendly foreigners’ funny customs, Joe leads the multinational miscreants in a good old US bank raid but has failed to take into account the hamlet’s lack of a proper venue to store money…

As international relations go into a steep decline, the extremely suspicious Espuelas is ready to cut his losses. In town, Lucky is experiencing similar difficulties lost in translation. The local law enforcers have a long tradition of keeping the peace by not asking for trouble by chasing outlaws…

Eventually, however, the canny cowboy drums up a little support, just as Joe convinces Emilio to rob the lavish ranchero of the region’s richest man. Sadly for them, that’s exactly where Lucky and Rin Tin Can are staying…

When noble Don Doroteo announces a grand party, the villains are tempted beyond their ability to resist. Emilio even finds a way for the Daltons to be useful at last. Disguised as a Mariachi band, the gringos can move about the event in preparation for a classic Mexican raid – but only if nobody asks them to play or sing…

Sensibly devolving into total farce and a ferocious gunfight, Tortillas for the Daltons is a wild and woolly comedy romp, offering fast-paced, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour in another delicious yarn in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Evil Roy Slade, superbly executed by master storytellers and providing a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for today’s kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation: © 2008 Cinebook Ltd.

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Plastic Man Archives volume 6


By Jack Cole & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0154-8

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American comics’ Golden Age. Before moving into mature magazine and gag markets he originated landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero comicbooks, and his incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. It was a glittering career of distinction which Cole was clearly embarrassed by and unhappy with.

In 1954 Cole quit comics for the lucrative and prestigious field of magazine cartooning, swiftly becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began regularly running in Playboy from the fifth issue.

Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.

On August 13th 1958, at the peak of his greatest success, he took his own life. The reasons remain unknown.

Without doubt – and despite his other triumphal comicbook innovations such as Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker, The Comet and a uniquely twisted and phenomenally popular take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation and contribution was the zany Malleable Marvel who quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the era.

“Plas” was the wondrously perfect fantastic embodiment of the sheer energy, verve and creativity of an era when anything went and comics-makers were prepared to try out every outlandish idea…

Eel O’Brian was a brilliant career criminal wounded during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of spilled acid and callously abandoned by his thieving buddies. Left for dead, he was saved by a monk who nursed him back to health and proved to the hardened thug that the world was not just filled with brutes and vicious chisellers after a fast buck.

His entire outlook altered and now blessed with incredible elasticity, Eel resolved to put his new powers to good use: cleaning up the scum he used to run with.

Creating a costumed alter ego, he began a stormy association with the New York City cops before being recruited as a most special agent of the FBI…

He soon reluctantly adopted the most unforgettable comedy sidekick in comics history. Woozy Winks was a dopey, indolent slob and utterly amoral pickpocket who accidentally saved a wizard’s life and was blessed in return with a gift of invulnerability: all the forces of nature would henceforth protect him from injury or death – if said forces felt like it.

After failing to halt the unlikely superman’s determined crime spree, Plas appealed to the scoundrel’s sentimentality and, once Woozy tearfully repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again. The oaf was slavishly loyal but perpetually back-sliding into pernicious old habits…

Equal parts Artful Dodger and Mr Micawber, with the verbal skills and intellect of Lou Costello’s screen persona or the over-filled potato sack he resembled, Winks was the perfect foil for Plastic Man: a lazy, greedy, morally bankrupt reprobate with perennially sticky fingers who got all the best lines, possessed an inexplicable charm and had a habit of finding trouble. It was the ideal marriage of inconvenience…

This sublimely sturdy sixth full-colour hardback exposes more eccentrically exaggerated exploits of the elastic eidolon from Plastic Man #5 and 6 and his regular monthly beat in Police Comics #59-65, covering October 1946 to April 1947. Before the hilarious action kicks off, Michael T. Gilbert offers an appreciation of Cole and his gift for concocting uniquely memorable characters in the Foreword after which the power-packed contents of his fifth solo-starring vehicle commences with ‘They Call Him Weapons’ as a seemingly innocuous gunsmith graduates from selling his ordnance innovations to criminals to becoming a bandit himself. His bloody trail leads Plas and Woozy to a house the tinkerer has tricked up into an inescapable death trap…

Cole’s constant and ever-growing pressure to fill pages led to his hiring artists to assist in the illustration of his madcap scripts. Alex Kotzky pitched in for ‘The Mysterious Being Called Hate’ as our chameleonic crime-crusher faces sorcerous neophyte Mr. Giglamp after the infernally inquisitive fool finds himself a satanic sponsor and becomes a demonic danger to society.

Woozy had his own back-up solo feature in Plastic Man and here the Stalwart Simpleton inspires a down-at-heel gangster to modify a heroic legend to his own unscrupulous ends in ‘Robin Hood Returns’ (drawn by Bart Toomey), after which prose puzzler ‘Snig River’ sees a simple fishing trip prank land a basket full of fugitive crooks. A baffling mystery then confounds the populace in ‘The Evil of Moneybags’. When millionaire Aloysius P. Japers starts giving away all his money only the stretchable sleuth notices that all the beneficiaries start turning up dead and penniless…

In Police Comics #59 Woozy and Plas are helpless before ‘The Menace of Mr. Happiness’ (Cole & Andre LeBlanc) as a drug store clerk accidentally invents a serum which paralyses victims with joy whilst #60 invoked the author’s fascination with mad scientists in ‘The Man Who Built Himself a Body’ (Cole & LeBlanc) as weedy Professor Spindrift constructs a series of robot suits so that he can muscle his way to the top of the underworld…

A million-dollar bounty on Plastic Man leads to ‘A Bundle of Trouble’ (Cole & LeBlanc) in Police #61, culminating in a baby-sized assassin infiltrating the hero’s home as a heavily armed foundling, before Plastic Man #6 opens with criminal genius Scientific Sherman stealing the astronomical discoveries of ‘The Moon Wizard’ and seemingly stranding Plas and Woozy on the distant lunar orb.

‘The Crimes of Mother Goose’ features a crook committing fairy tale-inspired thefts to bewilder the Ductile Detective and his partner after which Woozy hunts alone for ‘The Zwili Cat’ (Cole & Kotzky) obsessing crooks and bad-men all over town, before text tale ‘Scarlett Goes Straight’ finds our hero helping an ex-con capture his former unrepentant associates.

To close the issue, a common jewel thief gains incredible leaping powers and becomes costumed crook ‘The Grasshopper’ (Cole & Kotzky) but is ultimately unable to escape the relentless and remarkable reach of his pliable pursuer.

Police Comics #62 finds flashy socialite Leda Van Doom interviewing prospective husbands only to lose one in suspicious circumstances in ‘The Cupid’s Bow Murder’.

After solving that thorny mystery Plas and Woozy combat a macabre gambling boss moonlighting as a marine marauder dubbed ‘The Crab’ in #63 and paint a ‘Bulls-Eye on Crime’ a month later as they expose a candy factory operating as a clearing house for stolen gems before wrapping up this compendium of comedic crime-busting by helping homeless newlyweds find a place to live.

Sadly, that task entails evicting and arresting a house full of deadly spies and clearing all the death traps out of ‘The Apartment of Dr. Phobia’…

Augmented by all the astoundingly ingenious covers, this is another unmissable masterclass of funnybook virtuosity: still exciting, breathtakingly original, thrilling, witty, scary, visually outrageous and pictorially intoxicating more than seventy years after Jack Cole first put pen to paper.

Plastic Man is a unique creation and this is a magical experience comics fans would be crazy to avoid.
© 1946, 1947, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Billy and Buddy volume 4: It’s a Dog’s Life


By Jean Roba & various translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-171-6

Known as Boule et Bill on the Continent (at least in the French speaking bits, that is; the Dutch and Flemish call them Bollie en Billie), this evergreen, immensely popular cartoon saga of a dog and his boy debuted in the Christmas 1959 edition of Spirou.

The perennial fan-favourite resulted from Belgian writer-artist Jean Roba (Spirou et Fantasio, La Ribambelle) putting his head together with Maurice Rosy – the magazine’s Artistic Director and Ideas Man who had also ghosted art and/or scripts on Jerry Spring, Tif et Tondu, Bobo and Attila during a decades-long, astoundingly productive career at the legendary periodical.

Intended as a European answer to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Boule et Bill quickly went its own way and developed a unique style and personality, becoming Rosa’s main occupation for the next 45 years.

He crafted more than a thousand pages of gag-strips in a beguiling, idealised domestic comedy setting, all about a little lad and his exceedingly smart Cocker Spaniel before eventually surrendering the art-chores to his long-term assistant Laurent Verron in 2003.

The successor subsequently took over the scripting too, after Roba’s death in 2006.

Jean Roba was born in Schaerbeek, Belgium on July 28th 1930 and grew up reading a lot of American newspaper strip translations and reprints. He was particularly fond of Rudolph Dirks and Harold H. Knerr’s Katzenjammer Kids and after the War began working as a jobbing illustrator before adopting the loose, free-wheeling cartooning style known as the “Marcinelle School” and joining the Spirou crew.

He followed Uderzo on Sa majesté mon mari and perfected his craft under Franquin on Spirou et Fantasio before launching Boule et Bill as a mini-récit (a 32-page, half-sized freebie insert) in the December 24th 1959 Spirou.

Like Dennis the Menace in The Beano, the strip was a big hit from the start and for 25 years held the coveted and prestigious back-cover spot. Older British fans might also recognise the art as early episodes – (coincidentally) retitled It’s a Dog’s Life – ran in Fleetway’s legendary anthology weekly Valiant from 1961 to 1965…

A cornerstone of European life, the strip has generated a live-action movie, animated TV series, computer games, permanent art exhibitions, sculptures and even postage stamps. Like some select immortal Belgian comics stars, Bollie en Billie have been awarded a commemorative plaque and have a street named after them in Brussels….

Large format album editions began immediately, totalling 21 volumes throughout the 1960s and 1970s. These were completely redesigned and re-released in the 1980s, supplemented by a range of early-reader books for toddlers. Collections are available in 14 languages, selling in excess of 25 million copies of the 32 albums to date.

As Billy and Buddy, the strip returned to British eyes in enticing Cinebook compilations from 2009 onwards: introducing to 21st century readers an endearingly bucolic late 20th century, sitcom-styled nuclear family set-up consisting of one bemused, long-suffering and short-tempered dad, a warmly compassionate but painfully flighty mum, a smart, mischievous son and a genius dog who has a penchant for finding bones, puddles and trouble…

Originally released in 1974, Une vie de chien was the 9th European collection, and here simply serves to further explore the timeless and evergreen relationship of a dog and his boy (and tortoise) for our delight and delectation. This time however, we’re left in no doubt as to who is running the show…

Delivered as a series of stand-alone rapid-fire gags, quips and jests, the progress and behaviour of seven-year old Billy is measured by carefree romps with four-footed friend Buddy: indulging in spats with pals, dodging baths, hunting and hoarding bones, outwitting butchers, putting cats and school friends in their place, misunderstanding adults, causing accidents and costing money; with both kid and mutt equally adept at all of the above.

Buddy is the perfect pet for an imaginative and playful boy, although the Machiavellian mutt is overly fond of purloined food and ferociously protective of boy and bones and his ball. The pesky pooch also cannot understand why everyone wants to constantly plunge him into foul-tasting soapy water, but it’s just a sacrifice he’s prepared to make to be with Billy…

Buddy also has a fondly platonic relationship with tortoise Caroline (although this autumnal and winter-themed compilation finds her again largely absent through hibernation pressures) and a suspicious knack for clearing off whenever Dad has one of his explosive emotional meltdowns over the cost of canine treats, repair bills or the Boss’ latest impositions.

Taking pride of place in this tome are numerous close escapes from kids intent on involving the dog in their crazy games of cowboys, hunting encounters, pranks and practical jokes, strange romantic encounters (with cats and other lower life forms) …

Unwise intrusions onto film sets abound this time and there are more brushes with belligerent birds, adoring girls, impertinent mannequins and voracious fleas (or at least so the humans think), as well as hitchhiking hilarity and an embarrassing almost-accident involving ancient automobiles and crusty dowagers.

The onset of snow season brings fresh confrontations with the neighbour’s cat Corporal and, humiliating ice-capades, skid patches and sliding competitions, snowball wars, indoor blizzards and the unique experience of romantically-inclined sleepwalking tortoises as well as Buddy’s debut as a soccer referee for schoolboy games and more displays of the dog’s social pulling power and food-procuring acumen.

Gently-paced and filled with wry wit and potent sentiment, these captivating funny pages run the gamut from heart-warming to hilarious, silly to surreal and slapstick to satire: a charming tribute to and lasting argument for a child for every pet and vice versa.

This is another splendidly enticing and engaging family-oriented compendium of cool and clever comics no one keen on introducing youngsters to the medium should be without.
Original edition © Studio Boule & Bill 2010 by Roba. English translation © 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Stark Plug Book.com


By Chap (Rolling Tire Productions)
ISBN: 978-0-329-9759318-3-7 (PB)              eISBN: 978-0-329-9759318-2-0

One of my greatest joys is reading work by creators who clearly get off on the sheer joy of cartooning and that is definitely the case in this outrageously addictive tome offering “A Nice Alternative to Television”…

Obviously and enticingly inspired by the graphic absurdity of Gilbert Shelton and his Fabulous Furry partners Dave Sheridan and Paul Mavrides, Wisconsin-based printmaker and illustrator Steven C. Chappell has concocted a delicious dose of warmly witty strips combining keen observational humour and slapstick shenanigans with splendidly surreal visual hijinks and capers featuring life-battered wage-slave everyman Stark Plug.

The artist then generously gathered them all in a wonderfully engaging softcover album – mainly black and white, but with judiciously and mischievously applied spot and full-colour sections – and self-deprecatingly allowed the material to do its job… to the delight of anyone savvy enough to read it.

Following a handy pictorial introduction to ‘The Primary Cast of Characters’, all manner of wry and supremely engaging jollity commences with ‘Another Day… at the Job’ as overstretched screen-monkey Stark is informed by his bullying boss that he now has to do the work of three for the same wage and resoundingly assured yet again “no raise for you!”.

Inundated with tedious repetitive keyboard-tapping, Mr. Plug’s mind starts to wander into realms both bizarrely graphical and enticingly metaphysical…

Another day brings oversleeping, fresh anxiety and a mad dash through Madison’s snowbound streets – past local ambulatory busking landmark Bernie the Banjo Bum – and culminates in a close shave with icy death, before the tedious toil resumes. At least Stark can enjoy official breaks with co-worker Stacy whilst expounding on the joys of the “Fry It Diet”…

He may consume copiously and unhealthily, but our man keeps fit, as seen in the purely visual, rainbow-hued and wildly experimental peregrination ‘Stark Walks’, after which ‘Power Outage!’ sees office and city plunged into stygian gloom, giving the workers license to get a bit daring with their habits and clothing…

Whilst out with his dog Dioji, Stark’s mind is set to wandering after overhearing ‘Jump Rope Jabber with Those Crazy Kids!’ before taking in an extensive tour of life’s finer things during ‘A Day at the City Gallery’. After enjoying the colour-enhanced delights of an entrancing Wood Block Print Show he consequently descends into a ‘Mid-Life Crisis…’ which entails quitting his doleful, penurious job to become a cartoon character in newspaper strip Memphis and Harry, playing straight man to a weirdly-drawn cat…

When the strip is cancelled due to catnip-fuelled excess, it’s back to the terminal grind of his old job where the pressure can only be relieved by frenetic dancing in ‘Stark Raving Mad’…

A much needed ‘Coffee Break’ leads to Stark learning more than he ever wanted to about Stacy and her friend Rita so he indulges himself by devising ‘The Most Hilarious Comic Strip Ever!’ – a potentially lethal stunt involving fake moustaches, male nudity, bicycles, flying, the dome of the Wisconsin State Capitol and an army of gun-happy cops – which can only be balanced by a moment of ‘Stark Meditation ‘ before the madcap buffoonery concludes in mellow contemplative manner as Stark Plug and Dioji indulge in a gentle nocturnal ‘Moon Walk’…

The entire experience is then topped off with quirky Ads for ‘Stark Plug Schwag’ (I got a cool bunch of stuff with my review copy – yay! – so I can thoroughly recommend this bit) bringing to a close the funniest book I’ve read this year… and it’s already March…
© 2017 Steven C. Chappell (Chap). All rights reserved.

For further information check out the book’s title, or if that’s too much work type this – starkplugbook.com – into a computer.

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The Bluecoats volume 6: Bronco Benny


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-146-4

The glamour of the American Experience has fascinated Europeans virtually since the actual days of owlhoots and gunfighters. Hergé was an absolute devotee, and the spectrum of memorable comics ranges from Italy’s Tex Willer to such Franco-Belgian classics as Blueberry and Lucky Luke, and even to colonial dramas such as Pioneers of the New World or Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt’s Indian Summer.

Les Tuniques Bleues began at the end of the 1960s, created by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Colvin – who has solo-written every best-selling volume since. The strip was created to replace Lucky Luke when the laconic gunslinger defected from weekly anthology Spirou to rival comic Pilote, and his rapidly-rendered replacement swiftly became one of the most popular bande dessinée series on the Continent.

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour style, and when he died suddenly in 1972 his replacement, Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte slowly introduced a more realistic – although still broadly comedic – illustrative manner. Lambil is Belgian-born (in 1936) and – after studying Fine Art in college – joined publishing giant Dupuis as a letterer in 1952.

Born in 1938, scripter Raoul Cauvin is also Belgian and before joining Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling as a comedy writer and began a glittering and prolific career at Spirou.

In addition to Bluecoats he has written dozens of other long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. The Bluecoats alone has sold more than 15 million copies.

The sorry protagonists of the series are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch: a pair of worthy fools in the manner of Laurel and Hardy, hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen posted to the wild frontier and various key points of mythic America.

The original format was single-page gags about an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but with the second volume ‘Du Nord au Sud’ (North and South) the sad-sack soldiers went back East to fight in the American Civil War (this tale was rewritten in the 18th album ‘Blue rétro’ to describe how the chumps were drafted into the military during the war). All subsequent adventures, despite ranging far beyond the traditional environs of America and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history, are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your average whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and especially critical of the army and its inept commanders. Ducking, diving, even deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except sometimes he’s quite smart and heroic if no other easier option is available.

Chesterfield is a big burly man; a career soldier who has passionately bought into all the patriotism and esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirks his duty and wants to be a hero. He also loves his cynical little pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in…

Bronco Benny is the sixth translated Cinebook album (chronologically the 16th French volume) and opens with our surly stalwarts waiting at a rail depot for much-needed fresh materiel…

As usual the war has stalled due to lack of crucial resources. This time the dearth is horses to ride, but when the train carrying the replacement mounts unloads, what Chesterfield and Blutch find is a shambles which makes them want to laugh and cry…

The smugly-isolated General Staff quickly retire to their comfortable residence and are soon back in high-level conference. Callously obnoxious Young Turk Captain Stillman posits a most practical – if appallingly unethical – solution to the equine stalemate: don’t pay the soldiers until after the forthcoming battle and use the money to purchase mounts from horse traders beyond the western mountains. To make sure the sale and transport goes according to plan the Captain intends sending the smallest military detail possible, but they will be accompanied by Bronco Benny, the greatest horse-breaker in the world…

Next day, luckless Blutch and Chesterfield set out on the suicide mission they have been volunteered for with strong, silent Benny in attendance. They are astounded by how easily they pass through Confederate pickets and defences. They also have no idea that the enemy is well aware of the plan and is allowing them expedited passage…

Travelling the arid rocky region to the traders’ ranch our heroes are surprised when a band of Indians attack. The Bluecoats only escape through sheer dumb luck and after rendezvousing with the mustang-hunters discover the natives are in uproar because the horsemen have captured a magnificent white stallion the Indians revere as a god…

It’s love at first sight for Benny. He is utterly smitten with the mustang dubbed “Traveller” and the next few days fade to a bruised blur as he strives to break the mighty wonder horse. Sadly, after he does, the true nature of the horse-traders is exposed and Blutch and Chesterfield realise they’ve been suckered yet again…

However, even after being deprived of cash, horses and dignity and left to die at the hands of the furious Indians, Sarge has a plan to fix things and, whilst it doesn’t exactly work as expected, it does get him and his pals back to Union lines in time to witness one more horrific, pointlessly stupid battle and subsequent slaughter with no apparent winner…

This is another hugely amusing savagely anti-war saga targeting young and less cynical audiences. Historically authentic, always in good taste despite its uncompromising portrayal of violence, the attitudes expressed by the down-to-earth pair never make battle anything but arrant folly and, like the hilarious yet insanely tragic war-memoirs of Spike Milligan, these are comedic tales whose very humour makes the occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting.

Fun, informative, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the sort of war-story that appeals to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1980 by Lambil & Cauvin. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Man, I Hate Cursive – Cartoons for People and Advanced Bears


By Jim Benton (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-1-4494-7889-6                  eISBN: 978-1-4494-8414-9

I love cartoons. Not animated films, but short, visual (although most often text-enhanced) stylised drawings which tell a story or potently and pithily express a mood or tone. In fact most people do. That’s why many historians and sociologists use them as barometers of a defined time or era.

For nearly 200 years gag-panels and cartoon strips were the universal medium to disseminate wit, satire, mirth, criticism and cultural exchange. Sadly, after centuries of pre-eminence and ferocious power, these days the cartoon has been all but erased from printed newspapers – as indeed the physical publications themselves have dwindled in shops and on shelves.

However, thanks to the same internet which is killing print media, many graphic gagsters and drawing dramatists have enjoyed resurgence in an arena that doesn’t begrudge the space necessary to deliver a cartoon in all its fulsome glory…

Cartooning remains an unmissable daily joy to a vast, frequently global readership whose requirements are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers just starting to dip their toes in the sequential narrative pool.

Even those stuck-up holdouts proudly boasting they have “never read a comic” certainly enjoy strips or panels: a golden bounty of brief amusement demanding no commitment other than a moment’s close attention. Truth be told, it’s probably in our genes…

And because that’s the contrary nature of things, those gags now get collected in spiffy collections like this one (and also in eBook editions) to enjoy over and over again…

Jim Benton began his illustration work making up crazy characters in a T-Shirt shop and designing greetings cards. Born in 1960, he’d grown up in Birmingham, Michigan before studying Fine Arts at Western Michigan University.

Now tirelessly earning a living exercising his creativity, he started self-promoting those weird funny things he’d dreamed up and soon was raking in the dosh from properties such as Dear Dumb Diary, Dog of Glee, Franny K. Stein, Just Jimmy, Just Plain Mean, Sweetypuss, The Misters, Meany Doodles, Vampy Doodles, Kissy Doodles, jOkObo and It’s Happy Bunny in a variety of magazines and other venues…

His gags, jests and japes can most accessibly be enjoyed on Reddit and are delivered in a huge variety of styles and manners: each perfectly in accord with whatever sick, sweet, clever, sentimental, whimsical or just plain strange content each idea demanded.

This particular collection was released at the end of last year and is still fresh, strange and irreverent enough to have you clutching your sides in approved cartoon manner…

Here you will explore the innocently horrific inner world of children and monsters, learn to appreciate anew the contributions to society of teachers and experience Benton’s satirical side as bigots and racists are convicted out of their own mouths.

There are heaping helpings of animal antics – both wryly sardonic and barbarously slapstick – and wicked observations on the dating scene, plus true love pictured in all its infamy, how robots need a little tenderness too as well as the inside track on what it means to be Death…

You’ll see some of the strangest and most disquietingly surreal gags ever penned – such as the dysfunctional band made of animate body parts or the bizarrely extrovert characters comprising ‘The Sideshow’ and even a truly unique take on historical personages and superheroes of the screen and comics pages…

As ever, there are trenchant swipes at the worlds of Art and Big business as well as incisive explorations of the relationship between us and our pets, the perils of inventing stuff and a pants-wetting section on the downside of air travel…

And best of all, the artist sets aside time and space to share with us God’s Plan and proves that the Almighty’s sense of humour is both wicked and petty…

You might discover Not-Facts that will change your life after gleaning Benton’s take on loneliness, fast food, binge eating, farting, periods, disabilities, growing up, Big Pharma, and the business of medicine in single page giggle-bombs ranging from strident solo panels to extended strips; silent shockers to poetically florid and verbose tracts.

There are also loads of jokes about bears….

Another uproarious compilation to make the sourest persimmon laugh as sweetly as pie (there are no joke about pies in this volume)…
© 2016 Jim Benton. All rights reserved.