Melusine volume 5: Tales of the Full Moon


By Clarke & Gilson, coloured by Cerise; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-212-6

Witches – especially cute, sassy and/or teenaged ones – have a splendidly long pedigree in all branches of fiction, and one of the most seductively engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian comics-magazine Spirou in 1992.

Mélusine is actually a sprightly 119-year-old neophyte sorceress diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School. To make ends meet she spends her off-duty moments days working as au pair and general dogsbody to a most shockingly disreputable family of haunts and horrors inhabiting and infesting a vast, monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau at some chronologically adrift, anachronistically awry time in the Middle-ish Ages…

Episodes of the long-running, much-loved feature are presented in every format from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales; all riffing wickedly on supernatural themes and detailing Mélusine’s rather fraught existence. Our magic maid’s life is filled with the daily indignities of skivvying, studying, catering to the appalling and outrageous domestic demands of the master and mistress of the castle and – far too occasionally – schmoozing with a large and ever-growing circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

The strip was devised by writer François Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humorist Frédéric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue… and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and as “Bluttwurst” Les Enquêtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Château Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes. He has obviously been cursed by some sorceress and can no longer enjoy the surcease of sleep…

Collected Mélusine editions began appearing annually or better from 1995 onwards, with the 24th published in 2015 and another due this year. Thus far five of those have shape-shifted into English translations…

Originally released in October 2002, Contes de la pleine lune was Continentally the tenth groovy grimoire of mystic mirth and is again most welcoming: primarily comprised of single and 2-page gags starring the sassy sorceress which delightfully eschew continuity for the sake of new readers’ instant approbation…

When brittle, moody, over-stressed Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, ducking cat-eating monster Winston, dodging frisky vampire The Count or avoiding the unwelcome and often hostile attentions of horny peasants and over-zealous witch-hunting priests, our saucy sorceress can usually be found practising her spells or consoling and coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

Unlike Mel, this sorry enchantress-in-training is a real basket case: her transformation spells go awfully awry, she can’t remember incantations and her broomstick-riding makes her a menace to herself, any unfortunate observers and even the terrain and buildings around her…

As the translated title of this (fifth) Cinebook offering suggests, Tales of the Full Moon dwells on demolishing fairy fables and bedevilling bedtime stories but also gives a proper introduction to Mel’s best friend Krapella: a rowdy, roistering, mischievous and disruptive classmate who is the very image of what boys want in a “bad” witch…

This tantalising tome is filled with narrative nostrums featuring the usual melange of slick sight gags and pun-ishing pranks; highlighting how our legerdemainic lass finds a little heart’s ease by picturing how one day she’ll have her very own Prince Charming.

Sadly, every dream ends – usually because there’s a mess that needs cleaning up – but Melusine absolutely draws the line when Cancrelune and even her own sweetness-&-light Fairy cousin Melisande start hijacking her daydreams…

This fusillade of fanciful forays concludes with eponymously titled, extended episode Tales of the Full Moon wherein Melusine is ordered to read a bedtime story to the Count’s cousin’s son: an obnoxiously rambunctious junior vampire named Globule who insists on twisting her lovely lines about princesses and princes into something warped and Gothic… and that’s before Cancrelune starts chipping in with her own weird, wild suggestions and interjections …

Wacky, wry, sly, infinitely inventive and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a terrific taste of European comics wonderment: a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read well before bedtime – or you’ll be up laughing all night …
Original edition © Dupuis, 2002 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.

Iznogoud’s Fairy Tale


By Goscinny & Tabary, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-260-7

For the greater part of his far-too-short lifetime René Goscinny (1926-1977) was one of the world’s most prolific and widely-read writers of comic strips.

He still is.

Amongst his most popular and enduring comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas, Signor Spaghetti and, of course, Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the despicably dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical domination perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sand…

In the rueful aftermath of the Suez crisis, the French returned Рby way of comics, at least Рto the hotly contested Arabian deserts as Goscinny teamed with hugely gifted Swedish ̩migr̩ Jean Tabary (1930-2011) Рwho numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips Рto deliriously detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah.

However, as is so often the case, it was the strip’s villainous foil – power-hungry vizier Iznogoud – who stole the show… possibly the conniving little blackguard’s only successful coup.

The first kernel of inspiration came as a piece of background shtick in early 1960s kids’ cartoon book Les Vacances du Petit Nicholas (which we all saw as Nicholas on Holiday). A fuller formation and development came with Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah, created for Record: debuting in the January 15th issue of 1962.

A petite hit, the feature subsequently jumped ship to Pilote – a new comic created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the unpleasant little upstart who had been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

The Vile Vizier went from strength to strength. According to the brief introduction in this volume, the unwieldy catchphrase “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!” quickly became part of casual French idiom and, in October 1974, the wee rascal won his own socio-political commentary column in newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Insidious Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to Haroun Al Plassid, the affable, easy-going Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the sneaky little second-in-command has loftier ambitions, or as he is always declaiming “I want to be…”

The retooled rapscallion resurfaced in Pilote in 1968, quickly becoming a massive hit, resulting in 29 albums to date (17 by dream team Goscinny & Tabary), his own solo comic, a computer game, animated film, TV cartoon show and even a live-action movie.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: for youngsters it’s a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a-cropper, whilst older, wiser heads can revel in pun-filled, witty satires and superbly surreal antics.

Following Goscinny’s death in 1977, Tabary began scripting tales, switching to book-length complete adventures rather than the short, snappy vignettes which typified his collaborations. Upon his own passing, Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel and Nicolas took over the franchise.

The deliciously malicious whimsy is resplendent in its manic absurdity, cleverly contemporary cultural critiques, brilliantly delivered creative anachronisms and fourth-wall busting outrages which serve to keep the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and hilariously inventive.

Le conte de fée d’Iznogoud (Iznogoud’s Fairy Tale) was originally released in 1976; wracking up an even dozen deliciously daft album compilations, and proffering a potent remarkable quartet of trend-setting tales with our ambitious autocrat as ever scheming to seize power from his good but gullible Lord and Master.

Following the aforementioned Introduction and a preface page reintroducing our constant cast, the merry madness kicks off with ‘Fairy Tale’ as extremely inept Fairy Godmother Blunderbell – in search of an impoverished princess to assist – lands instead in the truculent toad’s lap.

Once she’s convinced him that even if her spells don’t go exactly to plan, the recipient of her magic experiences astounding transformations, it’s not long before she’s gulled into making him the Caliph instead of the Caliph.

…At least that was the plan: have we mentioned that Blunderbell’s not the most accurate spell-caster in the world?

Mystic mayhem also abounds in ‘Mirror Image’ as, on the eve of the ten-yearly vote to reaffirm the Caliph as supreme ruler, Iznogoud is accosted by Al Hiss the Genie from the other side of his looking glass. The fantastic land is completely the same as but exactly reversed from home, and Iznogoud’s shenanigans actually succeed in fixing this election. However although the little schemer actually ousts the Caliph, he has forgotten one crucial factor…

Newly arrive tradesman Tremolo has a strong line in enchanted furnishings. After an astonishingly annoying bout of window shopping the Vizier and his foolish flunky Wa’at Alahf take possession of a fearsomely final divan of despatch dubbed ‘The Send-Away Bed’…

Whoever lies in it vanishes forever, but thanks to visiting dignitaries and the world’s worst case of coffee-nerves, the machinations needed to get the normally sleep-loving Caliph to try it out are doomed to failure… as is Iznogoud…

All the rules and much of the internal logic are thrown away for the closing, epic length saga of ‘The Magic Minarets’ as the strips disgruntled fans rise up in revolt, demanding a proper resolution to the Vizier’s schemes.

What they actually get is a madcap metaphysical odyssey as Iznogoud is sucked into a fantastic realm where he must competitively quest for ten wizardly ideals whilst his moral fibre is tested. The prize for success is the granting of his greatest desire…

However, even after cheating his way to victory, fate has a way of upsetting his game…

Such convoluted witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is also common parlance for a certain kind of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and frequently insufficient in inches (or should that be centimetres?).

Desiring to become “Caliph in the Caliph’s place” is a popular condemnation in French, targeting those perceived as overly-ambitious, and, since 1992 the Prix Iznogoud is awarded annually to “a personality who failed to take the Caliph’s place”.

Nominees are chosen from prominent French figures who have endured spectacular defeats in any one year and been given to the likes of Édouard Balladur (1995) and Nicolas Sarkozy (1999). The jury panel is headed by politician André Santini, who gave himself one after failing to become president of Île-de-France in regional elections in 2004.

When first released in Britain during the late 1970s and 1980s (and latterly in 1996 as a periodical comicbook) these tales made little impression on British audiences, but at last this wonderfully beguiling strip has deservedly found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy connoisseurs…
Original edition © 2012 IMAV éditions by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved. English translation © 2015 Cinebook Ltd.

Clifton volume 2: The Laughing Thief


By De Groot & Turk, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-07-4

For some inexplicable reason most of Europe’s comics cognoscenti – most especially the French and Belgians – seem fascinated with us Brits. Maybe it’s our shared heritage of Empires lost and cultures in transition? An earlier age would have claimed it’s simply a case of “Know your Enemy”…

Whether we look at Anglo air ace Biggles, indomitable adventurers Blake and Mortimer, the Machiavellian machinations of Green Manor or even the further travails of Long John Silver, the serried stalwarts of our Scepter’d Isles cut a dashing swathe through the pages of the Continent’s assorted magazines and albums.

And then there’s Clifton…

Originally devised by child-friendly strip genius Raymond Macherot (Chaminou, Les croquillards, Chlorophylle, Sibylline) for iconic Tintin Magazine, the doughty True Brit troubleshooter first appeared in December 1959. After three albums worth of material Рcompiled and released between 1959 and 1960 РMacherot left Tintin for arch-rival Spirou and his eccentric comedy crime-fighter sadly floundered until Tintin brought him back at the height of the Swinging London scene, courtesy of Jo-El Azaza & Greg (Michel R̩gnier).

These strips were subsequently collected as Les lutins diaboliques in French and De duivelse dwergen for Dutch-speakers in 1969.

Then it was back into retirement until the early 1970s when writer Bob De Groot and illustrator Philippe “Turk” Liegeois revived Clifton for the long haul, producing ten tales of which this – Le voleur qui rit – Clifton from 1973 – was their second collaboration.

Thereafter, from 1984 on, artist Bernard Dumont – AKA Bédu – limned De Groot’s scripts before eventually assuming the writing chores as well, until the series ended in 1995. In keeping with its rather haphazard nature and typically undying nature, the Clifton experience resumed once again in 2003, crafted by De Groot and Michel Rodrigue in four further adventures; a grand total of 25 to date.

The setup is deliciously simple: pompous and irascible Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton, ex-RAF, former Metropolitan police Constabulary and recently retired from MI5, has a great deal of difficulty dealing with being put out to pasture in rural Puddington. He thus takes every opportunity to get back in the saddle, occasionally assisting the Government or needy individuals as an amateur sleuth.

Sadly for Clifton – as with that other much-underappreciated national treasure Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army – he is too keenly aware that he is usually the only truly competent man in a world full of blithering idiots…

In this second translated album – first seen in 2005 – the Gentleman Detective is embroiled in not one but two uncanny incidences, beginning with eponymous epic ‘The Laughing Thief’ wherein the still much-missed lawman rather forcefully inserts himself into a current case baffling Scotland Yard.

London is being wracked by devilishly clever crimes executed with infallible precision by a crack crew of blaggers, but the profits of each caper seem far below what such expert criminals should be bothering with. Moreover, each perfectly executed heist is preceded by a telephone warning from a braying braggart with the most annoying and distinctive laugh imaginable…

The crooks are incredibly bold and arrogant. Even after Clifton intervenes in the second robbery, the scoundrels easily outwit him, leave the dapper sleuth unconscious with dozens of other peculiarly proud and strangely supportive victims…

Moreover, although police “higher-ups” welcome Clifton’s help, officer-in-charge Lieutenant Hardfeeling doesn’t want the show-stealer around and is doing all he can to impede the Colonel’s investigations, despite the protests of his senior colleagues and the bobbies on the beat…

Nevertheless, persistence is its own reward, and when Clifton finally deduces the true reasons for the publicity-seeking crime-spree the resultant confrontation is both spectacularly satisfying and hilariously rewarding…

Being British and an ex-spy, Clifton has hung on to the odd gadget or two, such as an amazingly tricked out umbrella which plays a major part in this volume’s second tale ‘The Mystery of the Running Voice’. A suspenseful spooky yarn, it begins when the unhappy retiree meets old comrade Donald McDonald Muckyduck, who appears to have worn out every vestige of verve and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown…

Close consultation reveals that the former police Inspector is being haunted by a robber ghost; one that has already claimed six victims. However upon viewing the crime scene photos Clifton gains an inkling into how the trick is done and temporarily moves to bucolic village Flatfish-on-Apron, setting himself up as bait for a diabolical genius with a penchant for clever gimmicks…

Visually spoofing Swinging Sixties London and staidly stuffy English Manners with wicked effect, these gentle thrillers are big on laughs but also pack a lot of consequence-free action into their eclectic mix. Delightfully surreal, instantly accessible and doused with daft slapstick à la Jacques Tati and intrigue like Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, this brace of romps rattle along in the grand old tradition of Will Hay, Terry-Thomas and Alistair Sim – or Wallace and Gromit if you’re a callow yoof – offering readers a splendid treat and loads of timeless laughs.
Original edition © 1973 Le Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 1988 by De Groot & Turk. English translation © 2005 Cinebook Ltd.

Monster on the Hill


By Rob Harrell (Top Shelf Productions)
ISBN: 978-1-60309-075-9

Once upon a time in England – but not our England – decent, hardworking folk went about their lives in every county-town, their hearts swollen with well-earned civic pride. Content and progressive Victorians one and all, they congratulated themselves upon their achievements and most especially upon the terrifying merits of their local monsters.

By the year of Our Lord 1867 each minor metropolis had for simply ages been twinned with a ferocious giant creature who would occasionally rampage through the municipality, wrecking shops, houses and public works; thereby doing wonders for the local building professions and tourist trade.

Thriving communities would vie with each other for the distinction of being most periodically and ritually terrorised by their assigned Brobdingnagian beast, with the most fearsome of the creatures even being celebrated with local souvenirs and their images engraved on collectible cigarette cards and albums…

Not so the poor, benighted citizens of Stoker-on-Avon. Their monster was something of a disappointment. In fact he was a bit rubbish…

One morning, soon after a properly petrified family returned from a truly frightful encounter with Tentaculor in neighbouring conurbation Billingwood, plucky ragamuffin, town-crier and newsboy Timothy is peddling his papers. The headline is very similar to many previous ones, declaring that it has been 536 days since their monster last appeared…

Thus he’s on hand to overhear firsthand that disgraced mad scientist Dr. Charles Nathaniel Wilkie has been summoned to meet the town fathers. They have bravely offered to reinstate his license and even let him back into his laboratory – despite past embarrassments and misdemeanours – if he can cure, pep up or somehow put some vim back into their monster…

After struggling up the so-very-steep hill from which the formerly ferocious force of nature surveys his neglected domain, the baffled physician discovers his gimcracks and implements have been jettisoned by the stowed-away Timothy, but that’s not really important. Nothing he has bought or built could possibly have helped the colossal winged-but-flightless non-terror known as Rayburn.

The scourge of Stoker-on-Avon is depressed and doesn’t want to perform. He’s lost all confidence and believes he is a failure…

And thus begins a deliciously funny romp – with a generous plenitude of surreal diversions and divertissements – following the classic lines of a coming-of-age road-trip buddy-movie redemption scenario, as the unlikely human team find a perilously peripatetic way to restore Rayburn’s Mojo, which involves getting too close to another town’s terror, humiliating lessons in stomping, smashing and smooshing and the horrifying, shocking and not at all funny revelation of why every town actually has its own monster…

Crafted with verve and supreme slapstick deftness by strip cartoonist Rob Harrell (Big Top, Life of Zarf) this wondrous cartoon fable is joy for fun and fantasy lovers of every stripe and vintage.
Monster on the Hill ™ & © 2013 Rob Harrell. All Rights Reserved.

Small Press Sunday

I started out in this game when marks on paper were considered Cutting Edge, making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow weirdoes, outcasts and comics addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets still gets me going in ways that threatens my tired old heart…

With that in mind here’s a selection of tantalising treats that have landed in my review tray recently…

I’ve been collecting comics for more than fifty years now and my biggest regret is that for all the magnificent things I’ve read and enjoyed, only a pitifully fraction of the superb Alternative/Small Press/Self Published stuff I’ve seen has ever been collected in the online or graphic novel boom of this century.

I don’t know how to fix that problem – maybe a communal site where old stuff can be posted for readers to enjoy – but that means finding shy, lost or embarrassed creators and securing permissions and, most distressingly, so many of the creative folk I loved most are dead, vanished or cured now…

I’m not going to let such great material pass un-eulogized though, so whenever I feel like it I’m going to review something ancient, handmade and wonderful, and if the paper gods permit, perhaps you’ll find copies lurking in back-issue bins (do they still exist?) or at conventions or maybe the forgotten ones will re-emerge to take their long-deserved bows.

I’m going to start with a glorious prototype graphic novel compilation far ahead of its time, solely because creator Bob Lynch has already preserved it – and all of his other work – online. Skip my babblings and go right to his site if you wish.

Behold the Hamster

By Bob Lynch (Bob Comics)
No ISBN:

Most British comics devotees first noticed the self-effacing Bob Lynch through his contributions to the wonderfully eclectic self-publishing phenomenon Fast Fiction. From 1981 through 1990 Paul Gravett, Phil Elliott and Ed Pinsent’s Little Creative Co-operative That Could made conventions, comic-marts and monthly meetings of the Society of Strip Illustrators and Comics Creators Guild distractingly fun and bemusingly intoxicating with hand-crafted magazines of tiny print-runs yet immeasurably vast and broad comics entertainment.

Bob’s work first featured in the middle teens of the run (my memory is even more worn out than I am) and Behold the Hamster ran in #19, 20 and 22 – amongst other Bob bits such as Sav Sadness and rhymic slug Samantha – before being collected by your man himself in the book under discussion here and The Whirlpool of Disaster and Sadness in Space.

Lynch’s artwork is deceptively simple and astoundingly stylish, with puckish characterisations rendered in strong, bold black lines (sheer self-defence in an era where paper printing plates and public photocopiers were the acme of affordable reproduction technology for most of us). He was – hopefully still is – also one of the most surreal and simultaneously inviting story-men in the business; incorporating shared cultural icons from all vistas of the TV-watching, pub-going, comics-reading UK public into whacky whimsies and gently barbed observations on the human condition. You know: all the usual stuff…

This little A-5 64-page pamphlet has brightened my day on many occasions since I bought it in 1991, with its mad mash-up of time-travel, Frankensteinian science, detective mystery, true love and daft humour starring a star-crossed hamster named Behold who was brought back from beyond the grave to achieve an incredible destiny and save something or other…

Don’t take my word for it: check out –
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8424687@N08/sets/72157618049179283/

If I’ve piqued your interest you can catch a different flavour of Bob’s fantastic life at http://savsadness.blogspot.co.uk/

Archie vs. Predator


By Alex de Campi, Fernando Ruiz, Rich Koslowski, Jason Millet & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-805-5

For nearly three-quarters of a century Archie Andrews has epitomised good, safe, wholesome fun, but inside the staid and stable company which shepherds his adventures there has always hidden an ingenious and deviously subversive element of mischief.

Family-friendly iterations of superheroes, spooky chills, sci-fi thrills and genre yarns have always been as much a part of the publisher’s varied portfolio as the romantic comedy capers of America’s cleanest-cut teens since they launched as MLJ publications in the Golden Age’s dawning.

As you probably know by now, Archie has been around since 1941, spending most of those seven-plus decades chasing both the gloriously attainable Betty Cooper and wildly out-of-his-league debutante Veronica Lodge whilst best friend Jughead Jones alternately mocked and abetted his romantic endeavours and rival Reggie Mantle sought to scuttle his every move…

As crafted over the decades by a legion of writers and artists who’ve skilfully logged innumerable stories of teenage antics in and around the idyllic, utopian small-town Riverdale, these timeless tales of decent, upstanding, fun-loving kids have captivated successive generations of readers and entertained millions worldwide.

To keep all that accumulated attention riveted, the company has always looked to modern trends with which to expand upon their archetypal brief. In times past they have strengthened and cross-fertilised their stable of stars through a variety of team-ups such as Archie Meets the Punisher, Archie Meets Glee, Archie Meets Vampirella and Archie Meets Kiss, whilst every type of fashion-fad and youth-culture sensation have invariably been accommodated into and explored within the pages of the regular titles.

That willingness to dip traditional toes in unlikely waters led in 2015 to the publishers taking a bold and potentially controversial step which paid huge dividends and created another monster sales sensation…

The genesis of this most unlikely cross-fertilisation of franchises is explained in great detail and with a tremendous sense of “how did we get away with it?” in Roberto Aguirre Sacasa’s ‘Introduction’, but just in case you’re new to the other participant in all this…

Predators are an ancient alien species of trophy-taking sporting types who have visited the hotter parts of Earth for centuries, if not millennia. They are lone hunters who can turn invisible and resort to a terrifying selection of nasty weapons. They particularly like collecting skulls and spinal columns…

Predator was first seen in the eponymous movie from 1987 and started appearing in comic book extensions and continuations published by Dark Horse with the 4-issue miniseries Predator: Concrete Jungle (June 1989 to March 1990). It was followed by 22 further self-contained outings and numerous crossover clashes ranging from Batman and Superman to Judge Dredd and Tarzan, steadily keeping the franchise alive and kicking whilst the movie iteration waxed and waned…

This spectacularly eccentric yarn pulls off the peculiar and miraculous trick of creating a hilarious and scary family-friendly teen-slasher flick which begins ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ as all the young cast regulars head to Costa Rica for Spring Break and are having the time of their lives, until Betty and Veronica have a particularly vicious spat over Archie which leads to a spooky confrontation and a curse uttered over what might be an actual voodoo dagger.

Science-whiz Dilton is occupied with his telescope watching and everybody is blissfully unaware that they’ve piqued the attention of something patient, invisible and completely alien…

When they all head home they have no conception that some of their number are already trophies on a wall…

With the youngsters back in Riverdale Archie and his companions settle back into their routine but soon realise that something has followed them when a beloved adult is decapitated in plain sight. Soon the community is cut off and they are all waiting ‘To Live and Die in a Small Town’…

Convinced their meddling with the occult has brought on the killing-spree, Betty and Veronica testily consult sorcerous expert Sabrina (the Teenage Witch) but that ends in another welter of scarlet and screaming and the first sighting of the thing from the stars…

Thing get grim and crazy as the rapidly depleting posse of teens meet the Government agents tasked with covertly countering the Predators but continue to fall until Dilton rolls out the weird science and Archie dons a ‘Full Metal Varsity Jacket’…

Soon the beloved cast is down to the barest essentials and the last few resistors face their final curtain in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’…

After a surprisingly gripping and gory conclusion that will astonish and delight everyone an ‘Afterword’ by series Editor Brendan Wright gives more insight into the impetus and creative process behind this inspired tale, but there are still plenty of treats in store.

Scripter Alexi de Campi also got to play with others creators’ toys in a series of Bonus Crossovers, which rounded out the comics issues. Here follow quirky, perky little one and two page vignettes such as the eerily satisfying ‘Sabrina Meets Hellboy’ with art and colours by Robert Hack, lettered by Clem Robins, and the fabulously bizarre ‘Li’l Archie and his Pals meet Itty Bitty Mask’ by Art Baltazar.

Philosophical and physical depths are plumbed as ‘Jughead meets Mind MGMT’ (Matt Kindt) and the girls have fun when ‘Josie and the Pussycats meet Finder’ illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil, with colours from Jenn Manley Lee and letters from the ubiquitous de Campi.

By all accounts, when news of this project got out an army of eager professionals clamoured to get involved. The miniseries offered a wealth of covers-&-variants – some scattered about and acting as chapter-breaks by Ruiz, Koslowski, Millet, Dan, Parent, Gisèle, Maria Victoria Robado and Andrew Pepoy. The rest are gathered in a massive Variant Cover Gallery displaying varying degrees of gore, whimsy and humour from Eric Powell, Francesco Francavilla, Colleen Coover, Darick Robertson with Millet, Pepoy with Millet, Dennis Calero, Patrick Spaziante, Robert Hack with Stephen Downer, Dustin Nguyen, Kelley Jones with Michelle Madsen, Paul Pope with Shay Plummer, Faith Erin Hicks with Cris Peter, Joe Quinones, Tim Seeley, Richard P. Clark, Ruiz with Anwar Hanano, Koslowski as full illustrator and even more.

Also on view are samples of ‘Promo Art’ prepared for the comics convention circuit and a large section of Ruiz’s developmental ‘Character Studies’ plus a feature on the ‘Art Process’ from rough pencils through to finished colour pages.

But wait, there’s still more as ‘Unused Covers’ offers eight final tantalising ideas which never made it off the drawing boards of Ruiz, Pepoy, Gisèle and Faith Erin Hicks.

This book is one of those “Pitch hooks” Hollywood producer types thrive by. All you need is the three word title and a graphic acronym to know whether you’ll love this yarn.

Archie Versus Predator….

AVP.

Another Victorious Pairing.

Astounding.
Visual.
Perfection.

Archie vs. Predator © 2015 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Archie™ and © 2015 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Predator™ and © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All guest material ™ and © 2015 its creators or copyright holders. All rights reserved.

The Rugger Boys volume 2: A Snootful of Style and a Ton of Class!


By Béka & Poupard with colour work by Magali Poli Rivière, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-44-1

Human beings – and apparently a huge variety of our pets and animal housemates – seem obsessed with and revel in chasing balls about. So much so that we/they even apply a range of complex rules to the sheer exhilaration of the process, just to make things more difficult and artificially extend proceedings.

We call it sport and when it’s not hugely thrilling and deadly serious it can be hilariously funny…

Comics over the decades and throughout the world have often mined our obsession with assorted games for secondary entertainment value and this Cinebook compilation proffers more stunning strips starring a dedicated amateur team of French gladiators all painfully enamoured of the manly (and British-originated, let’s not forget) oddball-based pastime called Rugby…

Les Rugbymen was created in 2005 by writing partnership Bertrand Escaich & Caroline Roque under their collaborative nom de plume Béka (Studio Danse, Les Fonctionnaires) in conjunction with self-taught illustrator Alexandre Mermin, who generally labours under the pseudonym Poupard (Chez Gaspard, Les Brumes du Miroboland).

The resulting flurry of short sharp gags and extra-time yarns have filled an even dozen albums thus far. There’s even a junior league spin-off which began in 2010 entitled Les Petits Rugbymen…

On va gagner avec le lard et la manière was the fifth Continental encounter but the second (and, thus far, last) translated by Cinebook – probably because it features brief sporting excursions to Scotland and New Zealand – and perfectly recapitulates the passion, toil and sheer testosterone-fuelled idiocy which can warp normally rational folk.

The titular stars are some few dedicated souls faithfully enjoying the trials of club rugby (Union rules, right?) as played by the stalwarts of fictional south-western French side Paillar Athletic Club, affectionately known to their frankly obsessive fans as The PAC…

As seen on the introductory page, our bloody but unbowed stars manifest as intellectually compromised Hooker Lightbulb, Herculean Prop Fatneck, precocious ¾ Centre Hugo “The Engineer” Cap, 2nd Row star Freddy “The Anaesthetist” Bones, dashing sex-crazed Back Romeo and Scrumhalf/Captain The Grumpster, all regularly adored and vilified by Bernard FarmerThe Coach – who never lets his barrrrbarous accent get in the way of a good insult or pithy instruction to the dozy slackerrrs…

All you need to know is that these guys are bold, sturdy and love to eat and drink as much as they do trampling each other into the mud every weekend…

The exploits are generally delivered as single page sequences, lavishly, lovingly and outrageously illustrated and jam-packed with snippets of off-kilter slapstick to supplement the main gag and the material. Content is almost everything you’d expect from such a fixture: big beefy blokes in very small towels, lots of booze-fuelled gaffes, eating eccentricities, knob jokes and the mutual sportsmanlike skulduggery which permeates all games Real Men compete in…

This time however equality reigns and there’s a succinct glimpse of the Paillar Athletic Ladies Team too, and you can share the lads’ first turbulent TV appearance too.

Mostly, however, on display is a profusion of smartly-planned running gags and compact comedic gems such as the well-meaning meatheads’ ongoing efforts to help Lightbulb find “love”, Romeo’s constant comeuppances from husbands, boyfriends and employers unhappy with his off-pitch Tries, the woebegone touchline medic’s miserable life and Coach’s eternal battle to whip his band of idiots into a team he can be proud of…

This particular collection kicks off with an extended origin story revealing how the playful imps they once were turned a boring school lesson into a life-changing indoor match and formed sporting bonds that lasted a lifetime…

As previously mentioned, this fixture also includes a brief tour of Scotland, offering a broad belt of new experiences from braw brews to fine foods and bonnie lassies to life-changing injuries, and concludes with a bombastic whistle-stop tour of the Antipodes as The Pac are generously invited to visit the mighty New Zealand All-Blacks at home after the Rugby World Cup concludes…

Mostly though it’s always about mud, mauling, getting stuffed and getting smashed – in every sense of the term…

Fast, furiously funny and splendidly boisterous, these are the kind of cartoon antics that might even inspire dedicated couch-potatoes to get out of the house – unless they order books and dinner online…
© BAMBOO EDITION, 2007 by Béka & Poupard. All rights reserved. English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

Melusine volume 4: Love Potions


By Clarke (Frédéric Seron) & Gilson, coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-005-4

Like most things in life, this ideal keepsake for Love’s Labours’ Ludicrously Lost comes far too late to be the perfect St. Valentine’s Day recommendation, but let’s face it: if you want to read a comic rather than romance a paramour – imagined, potential or otherwise – there’s little hope for you anyway…

And Dark Gods forbid if you think buying one for him/her/it/they counts as a Romantic Gesture. You deserve everything you get…

Witches – especially cute and sassy teenage ones – have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most seductively engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Spirou in 1992.

Mélusine is actually a sprightly 119-year-old diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School. To make ends meet she spends her days – and far too many nights – working as au pair and general dogsbody to a most disgraceful family of haunts and horrors who inhabit/infest a vast, monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau some chronologically adrift, anachronistically awry time in the Middle-ish Ages…

The long-lived, much-loved feature is presented in every format from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales, all riffing wickedly on supernatural themes and detailing Mélusine’s rather fraught existence is filled with the daily indignities day-job, college studies, the appallingly trivial domestic demands of the master and mistress of the castle and even our magic maid’s large circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

The strip was devised by writer François Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humorist Frédéric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue… and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and as Bluttwurst Les Enquêtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Château Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes and apparently is free of the curse of having to sleep…

Collected Mélusine editions began appearing annually or better from 1995 onwards, with the 24th published in 2015 and another due this year. Thus far five of those have shape-shifted into English translations…

Originally released in 1998, Philtres d’amour was Continentally the fifth fantabulous folio of mystic Mélusine mirth and is again most welcoming: primarily comprised of one and two page gags starring the sassy sorceress which delightfully eschew continuity for the sake of new readers’ instant approbation…

As the translated title of this (fourth) Cinebook offering suggests, Love Potions devotes the majority of its content to affairs of the heart – and lower regions – and how to alchemically stack the deck in the game of romance….

When brittle, moody Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, ducking cat-eating monster Winston, dodging frisky vampire The Count or avoiding the unwelcome and often hostile attentions of horny peasants and over-zealous witch-hunting priests, our saucy sorceress can usually be found practising her spells or consoling and coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

Unlike Mel, this sorry enchantress-in-training is a real basket case: her transformation spells go awfully awry, she can’t remember incantations and her broomstick-riding makes her a menace to herself, any unfortunate observers and even the terrain and buildings around her…

This tantalising tome features the usual melange of slick sight gags and pun-ishing pranks; highlighting how every bug, beast, brute and blundering mortal suffers the pangs of longing and occasionally needs a little Covenly charisma to kick romance into action…

Whether that means changing looks, attitudes or minds already firmly made up, poor harassed student Mel is bombarded with requests to give Eros a hand…

Her admittedly impatiently administered and often rather tetchy aid is pretty hit-or-miss, whether working for peasants, rabbits, tortoises or even other witches, and helping poor Cancrelune is an endless, thankless and frequently risky venture.

Moreover the master and mistress of the castle have obviously never had an ounce of romance in them, even when they were alive…

At least daunting dowager Aunt Adrezelle‘s is always around to supply the novice with advice, a wrinkly shoulder to cry on and, when necessary, a few real remedies…

This turbulent tome also includes a longer jocular jaunt exploring the dull verities of housework, anti-aging elixirs and the selfish ingratitude of property-speculators…

Wrapping up the thaumaturgical hearts-&-flowers is eponymous extended epic ‘Love Potions’ which sees Melusine’s patience pushed to the limits after another attempt by the local priest to “burn the witch” ends up with her helping the locale’s latest scourging saurian marauder find the dragon of his fiery dreams…

Wry, sly, fast-paced and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a great taste of the magic of European comics and a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read before bedtime and share with your loved ones – but only after asking politely first…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1998 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2009 © Cinebook Ltd.

Lucky Luke volume 7: Barbed Wire on the Prairie


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-24-3

Lucky Luke is a good-natured, lightning-fast gunslinger who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper, interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures. His continued exploits over seven decades have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (over 80 collected books and 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 was 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.

Prior to that, while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics superstars Franquin and Peyo, and joined weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist – which is probably why (to my eyes at least) his lone star hero looks uncannily like the young Robert Mitchum who graced so many memorable mid-1940s B-movie Westerns.

Morris quickly became one of la Bande des quatre or “The Gang of Four” comprising Jijé, Will and his old comrade Franquin: the leading proponents of the loose, free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which predominated in Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists on Tintin magazine.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited the USA, meeting American comics creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, linking up with fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring some work from the newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before reuniting with Goscinny, who became the hero’s 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 eventually produced 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris continued 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”…

He was first seen in Britain syndicated to weekly comic 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 had 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-mauled 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 Ma Dalton was the seventh of their 58 (and counting) albums, now available both on paper and as e-books.

Chronologically the album Des barbelés sur la prairie, first appeared in 1967: Luke’s 29th chronicle and Goscinny’s 20th collaboration with Morris, offering an engagingly classic confrontation and deviously diabolically bloodless solution wherein all the laconic lawman’s legendary speed proved as nothing when battling bad men with numbers, tradition and intransigence on their side…

It all begins with a suitably mock-heroic paean to western mythology, eulogizing the role of cattle and birth of cowboys before introducing overfed, self-satisfied cattle baron Cass Casey, casually chowing down on cow meat in boisterous cow-town Cow Gulch.

The big man is blissfully unaware that salad-farmers Vernon and Annabelle Felps are currently building a home and planting their crops on the small parcel of the prairie they recently purchased. That means nothing to Casey’s men as they indifferently guide a mooing massive herd through house and garden alike…

When the vegetable man heads into town to remonstrate with the cattle king, Vernon would have killed for his impertinence but for the quiet yet lethally loaded intervention of a wanderer trying to eat his steak in peace…

Casey thinks he’s powerful enough to do whatever he wants, but within seconds he’s the only man drawing down on the legendary Lucky Luke. A little whilst the burly boss’ hand is healing, the Lone Rider is accompanying Vernon back to a home-cooked meal of tasty greens. He’s still there when vengeful Casey sends his thundering herd back to trample everything.

Not long after, Cass’ men are all trussed up, those steers are stampeding though Cow Gulch and Vernon has done the unthinkable…

As the authors brilliantly detail, back then the battle between settlers and ranchers reached obsessive fever pitch after barbed wire was invented. Despite being used to fence off legally owed property, the stuff was so contentious to free ranging cattlemen that shops stocking it would be destroyed and cowboys reacted with unimaginable fury when it was used…

The very mention of it causes local stores to shut for business but Vernon is implacable and mail-orders a few bales. In response, the coach carrying it to him is robbed and vandalised and the Felps’ house is razed to the ground… again.

Hating bullies, Luke adopts a cunning disguise and sneaks a shipment past the ever-vigilant vigilantes and before long the wide open prairie has its first enclosure…

Casey reacts in the expected manner and before long a full-fledged war is brewing.

When Luke organises and trains all the other crop-growing Settlers, Casey increases his night raids and shattering cattle stampedes.

Once Luke decides to get personally involved and bring in more wire, the Cow King calls in all the other cattle barons who congregate in town for a big dinner before taking decisive final action. The prognosis looks bleak for everybody…

And then the Western Wonder has a most intriguing notion which seems certain to end the mounting crisis in a bloodless manner and give all parties concerned an appetite for conciliation…

Fast-paced, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour beef up this splendidly trope-heavy tribute to classic westerns: another grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Cat Ballou, superbly executed by sublime 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 © 2007, Cinebook Ltd.

Iznogoud and the Jigsaw Turk


By Goscinny & Tabary, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-209-6

For the greater part of his far-too-short lifetime René Goscinny (1926-1977) was one of the most prolific and widely-read writers of comic strips in history.

He still is.

Amongst his most popular and enduring comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas, Signor Spaghetti and, of course, Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the despicably dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical skulduggery perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sand…

In the wake of the Suez crisis, the French returned Рby way of comics, at least Рto the hotly contested Arabian deserts after Goscinny teamed with hugely gifted Swedish ̩migr̩ Jean Tabary (1930-2011) Рwho numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips Рto detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah.

However, as is so often the case, it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud, who stole the show… possibly the conniving little blackguard’s only successful insurrection.

Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created for Record; the first episode appearing in the January 15th issue of 1962. A petite hit, the feature subsequently jumped ship to Pilote – a new comics magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little Tuareg toe-rag who had been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Insidious Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to Haroun Al Plassid, the affable, easy-going Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the sneaky little second-in-command has loftier ambitions, or as he is always declaiming “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”…

The retooled rapscallion resurfaced in Pilote in 1968, quickly becoming a massive hit, resulting in 29 albums to date, his own solo comic, a computer game, animated film, TV cartoon show and even a live-action movie.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: for youngsters it’s a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a-cropper, whilst older, wiser heads can revel in pun-filled, witty satires and superbly surreal antics.

Following Goscinny’s death in 1977, Tabary began scripting his own tales, switching to book-length complete adventures rather than the short, snappy vignettes which typified his collaborations. Upon his own passing, Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel and Nicolas took over the franchise.

The deliciously malicious whimsy is always heavily dosed with manic absurdity, cleverly contemporary cultural critiques, brilliantly delivered creative anachronisms and fourth-wall busting episodes which serve to keep the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and hilariously inventive.

La tete de turc d’Iznogoud (The Turkish Head of Iznogoud) was originally released in 1975, the 11th mirthfully malignant album compilation, offering a rather remarkable quartet of trend-setting tales with our ambitious autocrat as ever scheming to seize power from his good but gullible Lord and Master. Following the traditional preface page introducing our tawdry star and other regulars, the devious deceptions resume with the epic length saga of ‘The Jigsaw Turk’.

With Baghdad gripped in a strike by refuse collectors, a fuming Vizier visits the freshly-opened magical accessories shop of Dokodah Bey in search of something to solve his promotion-impeding problem. The proprietor is an annoyingly jolly japester who typically meets his intellectual equal in the Vizier’s foolish flunky Wa’at Alahf, but finds time between pranks to sell the surly insurgent a magic puzzle of a Turk’s head.

All one has to do is complete the 10,000 piece jigsaw, but just before adding the final tile, think of the thing you want to get rid of: he/she/it will crumble into as many fragments as the puzzle with the addition of that last component…

And thus begins a catalogue of chaos, with every moment of the weeks that follow finding the Vizier intolerably interrupted. Eventually however he finally finishes the infernal pasteboard pastime only to discover the last piece is missing. Now he has to endure an epic voyage to the faraway factory to replace the missing trigger to all his dreams coming true, but even after he secures it, Iznogoud has no idea his problems are only just beginning…

A commotion in the harbour at Basra is the opening movement in the next cacophonous composition of calamity as the Vizier and his hulking henchman buy a most unlovely mermaid trawled up by Crawdad the Sailor. The deaf, daft seadog needs to get rid of the Siren in his bathtub because ‘The Freezing Song’ she shrieks paralyzes all who hear it…

Smelling opportunity, the ambitious autocrat buys the garrulous nymph and sneaks her into the palace, but as usual there’s hitch after hitch and in the end it’s the Vizier’s stinking scheme which ends up going flat…

Next up is a tantalising oddment. ‘The Adventures of Caliph Haroun Al Plassid: The Sheik’s Potion’ looks to me like an earlier yarn of Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah from Record, recycled and remastered for the contemporary series. In it a much altered Iznogoud attempts to administer a shrinking potion to his Lordly Master but, after a furore of frantic attempts meet with ever-diminishing success, only succeeds in making himself look small…

This sublime selection ends on a superbly surreal note as the Vile Vizier consults a chronally adrift Gypsy seer and buys ‘The Magic Calendar’ which will allow its careful owner to move about in time. With such an arcane addition to his arsenal, surely his ambitions must be realised?

Of course the most important word here is “careful” and before/after/between long the impatient impotentate is lost many somewheres in time and ends up annoying a most confused cartoonist who only wants a little time to finish his latest script about that obnoxious oaf who wants to be Caliph instead of the Caliph…

Such convoluted witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is common parlance for a certain kind of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and frequently insufficient in inches (or should that be centimetres?).

Desiring to become “Caliph in the Caliph’s place” is a popular condemnation in French, targeting those perceived as overly-ambitious, and since 1992 the Prix Iznogoud is awarded annually to “a personality who failed to take the Caliph’s place”.

Nominees are chosen from prominent French figures who have endured spectacular failures in any one year and been given to the likes of Édouard Balladur (1995) and Nicolas Sarkozy (1999). The jury panel is headed by politician André Santini, who gave himself one after failing to become president of Île-de-France in regional elections in 2004.

When first released in Britain during the late 1970s and 1980s (and again in 1996 as a periodical comicbook) these tales made little impression, but at last this wonderfully beguiling strip has deservedly found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy connoisseurs…
Original edition © 2012 IMAV éditions by Goscinny – Tabary. All rights reserved. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.