Category: Comedy

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The Beano Book 1974


By various (DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.)
Retroactively awarded ISBN: 978-0-85116-077-1

For many British readers – whether comics fans or not – fans, the Holiday Season can only mean The Beano Book, so I’ve once more highlighted another of the venerable, beloved tomes as particularly representative of the time of year.

Way back when, many annuals were produced in a wonderful “half-colour” which British publishers used to keep costs down. This was done by printing sections or “Signatures” of the books with only two plates, such as Cyan (Blue) and Magenta (Red) or Yellow and Black.

The sheer versatility and colour range provided was simply astounding. Even now this technique inescapably screams “Holiday Extras” for me and my aging contemporaries and none more than in this spectacular example which would have hit shop shelves in September of 1963.

As is so often the case, my knowledge of the creators involved is appallingly sub-standard, but I’ll hazard my usual wild guesses in the hope that someone with more substantial information will correct me when I err …

This anarchically rousing compilation kicks off with a double-page splash of ‘Peculiar Pets’ Picture Gallery’ (by Robert Nixon, I think) displaying a number of comics stars and their companion animals of choice, after which Minnie the Minx (Jim Petrie) and a few chums and latterly Biffo the Bear with human pal Buster (by David Sutherland) introduce this year’s annual before Ron Spencer’s Baby-Face Finlayson (“The Cutest Bandit in the West”) imagines life as a giant and not a pipsqueak…

“Fastest Boy on Earth” Billy Whizz (drawn superbly as ever by Malcolm Judge) then learns to respect the power of traffic signs – in his house – before the crafty campaigns of ‘The Nibblers’ (John Sherwood) wins them a grand Christmas nosh-up and sanctuary from the seasonal snows.

Back then The Beano still had the odd adventure strip and perhaps the greatest of these was boy superhero Billy the Cat. Sutherland next proves his astounding visual versatility in The Bash Street Kids where the pupils plump for pop and resist the calming charms of classical music – leading to a camera-shattering pinup of ugly mug Plug – before switching to action mode as the acrobatic champion – now teamed with his cousin as Billie the Cat and Katie – jointly recapture an escaped convict and preserve their secret identities from curious school chums in a splendid rollercoaster romp.

Petrie’s Minnie the Minx then painfully learns that she’s not cut out for pony riding, after which Nixon panoramically maps out ‘A Funny Look at “Beano-Town”‘ whilst Bob McGrath details the sub-zero antics of The Three Bears as they try to find fuel to heat their chilly cave.

Also ably illustrated by the tireless Sutherland, Biffo and Buster return as rivals clashing in a man-powered flight competition, after his Pin-up Pup! of Dennis the Menace’s perilous pooch Gnasher leads into a custard-coloured clash between his master and simpering swot Walter.

Spencer’s Little Plum experiences a mysterious clean-up whilst sleepwalking before Nixon’s Lord Snooty and his snowballing pals at Bunkerton Castle get some startling help from the estate’s star stag Angus even as elsewhere – and keeping up the Hibernian humour – Haggis hunters The McTickles (by Vic Neill?) fall foul of their canny shaggy prey…

Pup Parade starring the Bash Street Pups (Gordon Bell) finds the mini-mutts (eventually) enjoying an old dinosaur bone before a dedicated and extended niche chapter from Nixon. Here in an expansive section of his own, Roger the Dodger’s Special Mini-Book offers the rollicking tale of the ‘Disappearing Dodger’, a pin-up, his hilarious, historically inaccurate ‘Family Tree’, ‘A Dodger’s Outfit’, and an informative peek at ‘A Dodger’s Den’ before closing with the final pin-up ‘Dreaming of Dodges’…

Biffo’s back – and points south – endure a battering due to the bear’s interest in buttercups (Sutherland) before Nixon reveals how the obstreperous Grandpa still catastrophically refuses to act his age and The Nibblers (Sherwood) again overcome malicious moggy Whiskers to fill their bellies with purloined goodies.

The riddle of Billy Whizz’ footwear replacement is solved in a quick-fire yarn by Judge before Bell’s Pup Parade starring the Bash Street Pups tale discloses the secret of their unlikely alliance with a very big cat…

Heading out West, The Three Bears (McGrath) find – and lose – a mountain of gold, The McTickles lose a skirmish with the wily Stilt-legged McHaggises, and Baby-Face Finlayson rewrites a few favourite nursery rhymes before Teacher and even Head have another go at civilising the Bash Street Kids with music – appended with a stomach-churning pin-up of Cuthbert Cringeworthy in Teacher’s Pet’s Picture Gallery…

Ron Spencer stretches his artistic muscles providing ghastly genealogical ‘Fun with the Finlayson Family’ and illustrating how Little Plum gets into big trouble trying to recapture girlfriend Little Peach‘s pet parrot, before Billy the Cat and Katie swing back into action, turning on the town’s Christmas lights and tracking down a hold-up gang (Sutherland).

Another gloriously funny Lord Snooty strip from Robert Nixon segues into Minnie the Minx’s hilarious crush on an American boy-band – and older readers will cringe with mirth at Jim Petrie’s hilarious spoof of then-sensation Donny Osmond – before Nixon strikes back with a Grandpa yarn involving the old codger’s inability to stay clean…

Beano star Dennis the Menace was only slightly involved in the Annuals of this period as he had his own Christmas Bumper book to run riot in, but he closes this tumultuous tome with an funny educational strip that’s a thinly disguised advert for his solo venture before the merriment closes here with another superb dose of Nixon’s ‘Peculiar Pets’ Picture Gallery’ …

This is supremely entertaining book, and even without legendary contributors Dudley Watkins, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid there’s still an abundance of satisfyingly madcap, infectious insanity. With so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this 40-year old book is still sprightlier and more entertaining than most of my surviving friends and relatives. If ever anything needed to be issued as commemorative collections it’s these fabulous DC Thomson annuals…

Divorcing the sheer quality of this brilliant book from nostalgia may be a healthy exercise – perhaps impossible, but I’m quite happy to luxuriously wallow in the potent emotions this annual still stirs. It’s a fabulous laugh-and-thrill-packed read from a magical time, and turning those stiffened two-colour pages is always an unmatchable Christmas experience, happily still relatively easy to find these days.
© 1973 DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.

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Pow! Annual 1970


By various (Odhams Books)
ASIN: B003VUO2SC

This splendidly intriguing item is one of my favourite childhood delights: addictively captivating at the time and these days a fascinating indicator of the perceived tastes of Britain’s kids. Most importantly it’s still a surprisingly qualitative read with its blend of American adventure strips playing well with a selection of steadfastly English and wickedly surreal comedy material.

With Scotland’s DC Thomson steadily overtaking their London-based competitors throughout the 1960s, the sheer variety of material the southerners unleashed to compete offered incredible vistas in adventure material and – thanks especially to the defection of Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid to monolithic comics publishing giant Amalgamated Press (created by Alfred Harmsworth at the beginning of the twentieth century) – had finally found a wealth of anarchic comedy material to challenge the likes of the Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and their unruly ilk.

During that latter end of the period the Batman TV show sent the entire world superhero crazy and Amalgamated had almost finished absorbing all its rivals such as Eagle‘s Hulton Press to form Fleetway/Odhams/IPC.

Formerly the biggest player in children’s comics, Amalgamated had stayed at the forefront of sales by latching onto every fad: keeping their material contemporary, if not fresh. The all-consuming company had been reprinting the early successes of Marvel comics for a few years; feeding on the growing fashion for US style adventure which had largely supplanted the rather tired True Blue Brit style of Dan Dare or DC Thompson’s Wolf of Kabul.

“Power Comics” was a sub-brand used by Odhams to differentiate those periodicals which contained reprinted American superhero material from the company’s regular blend of sports, war, western adventure and gag comics – such as Buster, Lion or Tiger. During the Swinging Sixties these ubiquitous weeklies did much to popularise the budding Marvel characters and universe in this country, which was still poorly served by distribution of the actual American imports. Fantastic and its sister paper Terrific were notable for not reformatting or resizing the original artwork whilst in Wham!, Pow! or Smash!, an entire 24-page yarn could be resized and squeezed into 10 or 11 pages over two weeks…

Pow! launched with a cover date of January 31st 1967, combining home-grown funnies such as Mike Higgs’ The Cloak, Baxendale’s The Dolls of St Dominic’s, Reid’s Dare-a-Day Davy, Wee Willie Haggis: The Spy from Skye and many others, British originated thrillers such as Jack Magic and The Python and resized US strips Spider-Man and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

After 53 weekly issues the title merged with Wham!, that combination running until #86 when it was absorbed into Smash! Nevertheless, the title generated a number of annuals, even though, by 1969 when this annual was released, the trend generated by TV Batmania was dying.

Interest in superheroes and fantasy in general were on the wane and British weeklies were diversifying. Some switched back to war, sports and adventure stories whilst with comedy strips on the rise again, others became largely humour outlets.

This was one of the last Odhams Christmas compendia to feature imported Marvel material: from then on the Americans would handle their own Seasonal books rather than franchise out their classics to mingle with the Empire’s motley, anarchic rabble.

The content is eclectic and amazingly broad, beginning with a complete but compacted retelling of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby from January 1964.

The full-colour WWII tale found the doughty warrior ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’; beaten and humiliated in a duel with an Aryan nobleman. Soon filmed footage was used as a Nazi propaganda tool and Fury hero was a broken man – until one of his men realised the nonplussed noncom had fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s playbook. The riotous rematch went rather better…

This was followed by a welter of gag strips beginning with an outing for Graham Allen’s The Nervs (revolting creatures that lived inside and piloted unlovely schoolboy Fatty) after which The Swots and the Blots (probably drawn by Mike Lacey) ushered in the economical 2-colour section with another Darwinian example of schoolboy Good vs. Evil and an unnamed substitute for Mike Higgs rendered the comedy caper The Cloak vs. Cloakwoman…

Next up is a short Marvel sci fi thriller as ‘Escape into Space!’ (from Tales of Suspense #42 June 1963 by Lee, Larry Lieber & Matt Fox) sees a convict escape to freedom into the void – or does he…? – before Wee Willie Haggis – the Spy from Skye scotches a plot to nobble Scotland’s prime (in)edible export and Percy’s Pets finds the obsessed animal enthusiast in deep water after getting hold of a hyena and crocodile…

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 provides a factual page devoted to ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ to restart the full colour fun, which continues with another Swots and the Blots romp ‘n’ riot after which idiot espionage continues with The Cloak vs. Blubberman…

Back then to red-&-black for the not-resized Amazing Spider-Man #36 (May 1966, by Lee and Steve Ditko) as the Wallcrawler faces deranged super strong thief the Looter in ‘When Falls the Meteor!’

The magnificently strange comic villain Grimly Feendish then fails in another bid to get rich nefariously before tiny terror Sammy Shrink restarts a final segment of full-colour wonders with more boyish pranks, after which the reformatted ‘Death of a Hero’ (Fantastic Four #32, November 1964, by Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone) uncovers the secret of Sue and Johnny Storm‘s father: a convict who gains incredible power as the rampaging Invincible Man…

This is a strange and beloved book for me and these are all great little adventures, even though I suspect it’s more nostalgia for a brilliant childhood rather than any intrinsic merit. Feel perfectly free to track this down and contradict me if you like though…
© 1969 The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 4: Valley of the Exiles


By Tome & Janry, colour by Stephane De Becker & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-157-0

For the majority of English-speaking comic fans Spirou might be Europe’s biggest secret. The phenomenally long-lived character is a rough contemporary – and shrewdly calculated commercial response – to Hergé’s iconic Tintin, whilst the comic he has headlined for decades is only beaten in sheer longevity and manic creativity by our own Beano.

Conceived in 1936 at Belgian Printing House Éditions Dupuis by boss-man Jean Dupuis, his proposed new magazine targeted juvenile audiences and launched on April 21st 1938; neatly bracketed in the UK by DC Thomson’s The Dandy (4th December 1937) and The Beano (July 30th 1938). In America a small comicbook publisher was preparing to release a new anthology entitled Action Comics…

Spirou was to be edited by 19 year-old Charles Dupuis and derived its name from the lead feature, which described the improbable adventures of a plucky Bellboy/lift operator employed at the glamorous Moustique Hotel (a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique).

Spirou the hero – whose name translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language – was realised by French cartoonist François Robert Velter under his pen-name Rob-Vel for his Belgian bosses in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s carrot-topped boy reporter Tintin – a guaranteed money-spinning phenomenon for rival publisher Casterman.

The eponymous magazine launched with the plucky Bellboy (and his pet squirrel Spip) as the leads in an anthology weekly which bears his name to this day; featuring fast-paced, improbable cases which gradually evolved into astonishingly addictive high-flying surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his pals have reigned supreme in the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators continuing Velter’s work – beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over, introducing current co-star and foil Fantasio to the mix.

Somewhere along the way Spirou & Fantasio switched to journalism, becoming globe-trotting reporter and photographer, continuing their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory. In 1946 Jijé’s assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins, adding a phenomenally popular magic animal dubbed Marsupilami to the cast (first seen in Spirou et les héritiers in 1952 and now a solo-star of screen, plush toy store, console games and albums all his own), crafting increasingly fantastic tales until 1969.

Franquin was in turn succeeded by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures which tapped into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times with tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

Even so, by the 1980s the boy Spirou seemed outdated and without direction; three different creative teams began alternating on the serial, until it was at last revitalised by the authors of the adventure under review here.

Philippe Vandevelde – writing as Tome – and artist Jean-Richard Geurts, best known to lovers of Bande dessinées as Janry, revisited, adapted and referenced the beloved Franquin era, reviving the feature’s fortunes and resulting in fourteen wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. This one, from 1989 and originally entitled La vallée des bannis – ‘Valley of the Banished’ – was their ninth (and the 41st chronological collection of the evergreen adventurers).

Once their tenure concluded Tome & Janry’s departed and both Lewis Trondheim and the team of Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera took over, bringing the official album tally to fifty (there also are a bunch of specials, spin-offs and one-shots, official and otherwise) before in 2009 Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann (Yoann Chivard) were announced as the new “Keepers of the Flame”…

Valley of the Exiles! concludes the excellent two-part escapade (which began in Running Scared) with the roving reporters retracing the steps and uncovering the whereabouts of two explorers who had vanished in 1938 whilst attempting to climb a mountain and discover a legendary lost valley in the inscrutable, isolated Himalayan nation of Yurmaheesun-shan…

Since 1950 that tiny nation had been subject to repeated invasions by rival super-powers and was currently a hotbed of rebellion, insurgency and civil war, but Spirou and Fantasio were utterly determined to solve the ancient mystery.

Thus they linked up with renowned eccentric Dr. Placebo: world renowned authority on medical condition Spasmodia Maligna and a man convinced that the only cure for the condition – prolonged, sustained and life-threatening synchronous diaphragmatic flutters (hiccups to you and me) – is to be scared out of one’s wits.

He sponsored a “medical” mission to find the lost valley and thus the lads, Spip and five disparate, desperate perpetual hiccup-sufferers crept across the Nepalese border despite the most diligent attentions of military overlord Captain Yi.

That formidable martinet was tasked with keeping all foreigners – especially journalists – out of the occupied country as it underwent enforced pacification and re-education, but thanks to native translator Gorpah (a wily veteran guide who once proved invaluable to another red-headed reporter, his little white dog and a foul mouthed-sea captain!) the daring band were soon deep in-country.

Only minutes behind were Yi’s troops in tanks, armoured cars and attack helicopters – which naturally provided plenty of opportunities for the annoyingly obnoxious singultus flutterers to be satisfactorily terrified – but there was still little evidence of a breakthrough cure…

Just as the fugitives found their first clue as to the site of the lost valley they were taken captive by native rebels. With still no hiccup cure found the beleaguered explorers attempted a daring later escape, but even as they all piled into a lorry a monumental storm broke out…

When one of their pursuer’s vehicles plunged over a cliff, the valiant escapees formed a human chain to rescue the driver but Spirou and Fantasio were washed away and lost in the raging flash flood …

In The Valley of the Exiles! the story resumes with the battered, weary duo entombed deep within a Himalayan mountain. Slowly, blindly they grope their way towards a faint light and emerge through ancient, barbaric idol’s head into the very place they’ve been seeking…

Utterly enclosed by peaks the Valley is an idyllic paradise, but its very isolation has led to the development of a number of truly unique species of flora and fauna. There are colossal carnivorous water lily-pads, ferociously determined man-eating turtles, electric geckoes, the seductive Hammock Flytrap and many more bizarre and potentially lethal creatures.

The one that most imperils the lost boys however is the diminutive Manic Midgie – a mosquito-like bug that carries the disease “raging hostiliasis”. Not long after one bites Fantasio, poor Spirou realises that his best friend has become a homicidal maniac determined to kill him and everything else in range…

The deranged lad soon goes completely off the deep end, and only luck and a handy itching-powder boxing glove plant prevents the reporter’s gory demise…

Wounded, hunted by his best friend and perhaps the only human in the apparently inescapable enclosed wilderness, near-despondent Spirou and Spip begin to explore their incredible prison and find a rough shack: proof that at some time other humans had been there.

Further investigation reveals it to be the last resting place of the lost explorers Siegfried and Maginot. The mystery of the 1938 expedition is solved – even though Spirou has no way of filing this scoop!

More worryingly, Maginot’s copious notes on the creatures of the valley offer some grim hypotheses as to the nature of the nature in this fantastic hidden gorge: creatures inimical to both the body and mind of man. Plants that cast illusions, murderous mammals that mimic harmless life, bugs whose bite produces madness…

Crazed beyond imagining – and burbling hilarious, fourth-wall breaking nonsense – Fantasio is determinedly hunting his old friend and the frantic chase drives the limping hero deep into a hidden temple where he uncovers the secret of a fantastic lost civilisation of Backik: a race banished by Mongol conquerors /to this distant valley. The reluctant settlers lived just enough for the manic-midgies to bring their unlucky lives crashing down into doom and disaster…

As Spirou lurches through the eerie tombs of the fallen Backiks Fantasio ambushes him and is ready to finish off his former friend when a mysterious figure attacks…

Some time later Spirou awakens in the warming sunlight of the valley, with deranged Fantasio securely bound beside him. Resolved to escape this fantastic trap and get his crazy pal back to civilisation and medical assistance, our red-headed hero begins to explore his best options only to feel the terrifying sting of a mosquito…

Packed with oodles of action and a host of incredible surprises and revelations, Valley of the Exiles is a truly splendid escapade, with thrills, chills, spills, a mountain of choice comedy moments and eccentric, surreal mysteries to keep readers spellbound.

This refreshingly engaging, lightly-barbed, action-adventure is a breath of fresh air in a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, sordid cheesecake titillation, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters and cloying barbarian fantasy. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductively enticing élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Bluecoats and Iznogoud so compelling, this is another cracking read every bit as deserving of household name-hood as those series… yes, even that other red-headed kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1989 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translation 2013 © Cinebook Ltd.

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The Complete Crumb Comics volume 8: The Death of Fritz the Cat – New Edition


By R. Crumb & guests (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-0-56097-076-7

This book contains really clever and outrageously dirty pictures, rude words, non-condemnatory drug references and allusions, apparent racism, definite sexism, godless questioning of authority and brilliantly illustrated, highly moving personal accounts and opinions. It also painfully displays a genius grappling with his inner demons in a most excruciatingly honest and uncomfortable manner.

If you – or those legally responsible for you – have a problem with that, please skip this review and don’t buy the book.

Really.

I mean it…

Robert Crumb is a truly unique creative force in comics and cartooning, with as many detractors as devotees. From the first moments of the rise of America’s counterculture, his uncompromising, forensically neurotic introspections, pictorial rants and invectives unceasingly picked away at societal scabs, measuring his own feelings and motives whilst ferociously ripping way civilisation’s concealing curtains for his own benefit. However, he always happily shared his unwholesome discoveries with anybody who would take the time to look…

In 1987 Fantagraphics Books began the Herculean task of collating, collecting and publishing the chronological totality of the artist’s vast output, and those critically important volumes are being currently reissued for another, more liberated generation.

The son of a career soldier, Robert Dennis Crumb was born in Philadelphia in 1943 into a dysfunctional, broken family. He was one of five kids who all found different ways to escape their parents’ highly volatile problems, and comic strips were paramount among them.

Like his older brother Charles, Robert immersed himself in the comics and cartoons of the day; not just reading but creating his own. Harvey Kurtzman, Carl Barks and John Stanley were particularly influential, but also comic strip legends such as E.C. Segar, Gene Ahern, Rube Goldberg, Bud (Mutt and Jeff) Fisher, Billy (Barney Google) De Beck, George (Sad Sack) Baker and Sidney (The Gumps) Smith, as well as classical illustrators like C.E. Brock and the wildly imaginative and surreal 1930’s Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts.

Defensive, introspective, frustrated, increasingly horny and always compulsively driven, young Robert pursued art and self-control through religion with equal desperation. His early spiritual repression and flagrant, hubristic celibacy warred with his body’s growing needs. …

To escape his stormy early life, he married young and began working in-house at the American Greeting Cards Company. He discovered like minds in the growing counterculture movement and discovered LSD. By 1967 Crumb had moved to California and became an early star of Underground Commix. As such he found plenty of willing hippie chicks to assuage his fevered mind and hormonal body whilst reinventing the very nature of cartooning with such creations as Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, Devil Girl and a host of others. He worked on in what was essentially a creative utopia throughout the early 1970’s but the alternative lifestyle of the Underground was already dying. Soon it would disappear: dissipated, disillusioned, dropped back “in” or demised.

A few dedicated publishers and artists stayed the course, evolving on a far more businesslike footing as Crumb carried on creating, splitting his time between personal material and commercial art projects whilst incessantly probing deeper into his turbulent inner world.

This eighth volume mostly covers – in chronological order – material created and published in 1971 (with the merest tantalising smidgen of stuff from 1972), when the perpetually self-tormented artist first began to experience creative dissatisfaction with his newfound status as alternative cultural icon: a period when the no-longer insular or isolated artist was at his most flamboyantly creative, generating a constant stream of new characters, gags, commercial art jobs, short strips and with longer material popping up seemingly everywhere.

It was also the moment when he began to realise the parasitic, exploitative nature of many of the hangers-on exploiting his work for profits which he never saw himself – particularly filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, whose phenomenally successful movie of Fritz the Cat prompted Crumb to kill the cunning kitty character off…

That and more are all faithfully reproduced in this compilation – which makes for another rather dry listing here, I’m afraid – but (as always) the pictorial material itself is both engrossing and astoundingly rewarding. But please don’t take my word for it: buy the book and see for yourselves…

After a passionate if meandering photo-packed Introduction from wife and collaborator Aline Kominsky-Crumb – whom he first met in 1971 – the stream of cartoon consciousness and literary freewheeling begins with the salutary tale of ‘Stinko the Clown in Stinko’s New Car’ from Hytone, rapidly followed by the strange romance of ‘Maryjane’ originally seen in Home Grown Funnies, which also provided the (now) racially controversial and unpalatable ‘Angelfood McDevilsfood in Backwater Blues’ – with that horrific homunculus The Snoid – and twisted “love” story of ‘Whiteman Meets Big Foot’…

The underground Commix scene was awash with artistic collaborations and a selection of jam sessions kicks off here with ‘Let’s Be Realistic’ from Hungry Chuck Biscuits wherein Crumb, Jay Lynch, Jay Kinney & Bruce Walthers surreally free-associated, whilst in Mom’s Homemade Comics Denis Kitchen, Don Glassford, Dale Kuipers, Jim Mitchell, Pete Poplaski, Wendel Pugh, Jay Lynch, Dave Dozier, Bruce Walthers & Dennis Brul joined forces with the bespectacled outsider to make some ‘Kumquat Jam’…

From ProJunior, ‘Perdido Part One’ and ‘ProJunior in Perdido Part Two’ saw the Dagwood-esque everyman experience the growth in social violence courtesy of Crumb and fellow legend S. Clay Wilson.

All on his own again Crumb captured the appalling nature of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash!’ (from Thrilling Murder) and crafted a lovely ‘Nostalgic Books catalog cover’ for their Summer/Fall 1971 issue, after which a tranche of material from Big Ass #2 (August 1971) starts with a paranoiac perusal of ‘The Truth!’, before another obnoxious jerk resurfaces to dominate sexy bird creatures in ‘Eggs Ackley in Eggs Escapes’ even as the intimately contemplative domestic explorations of  ‘A Gurl’ dissolve into the raucous, earthy humour of ‘Anal Antics’ to end the first black and white section of this challenging chronicle.

A vividly vivacious Color Section celebrates a wealth of covers, opening with ‘The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog’(March 1971), followed by ‘Home Grown Funnies’ and its angsty back cover strip ‘The Desperate Character Writhes Again!’. Moving on, ‘Big Ass #2’, ‘Mr. Natural #2’ – front and back covers – leads to ‘Bijou Funnies #6′ and the rainbows end on the sublimely subversive front for ‘The People’s Comics’.

A return to monochrome provides two more strips from Big Ass #2 beginning with the savagely ironic ‘A Word to you Feminist Women’ and the cruelly hilarious ‘Sally Blubberbutt’ after which the contents of Mr. Natural #2 (October 1971) unfold with ‘Mr. Natural “Does the Dishes”’, before ruminating and sharing more timeless wisdom with resident curious “Straight” Flakey Foont in ‘A Gurl in Hotpants’.

This leads to ‘Sittin’ Around the Kitchen Table’ and meeting ‘The Girlfriend’, after which two untitled Mr. Natural graphic perambulations result in a cult war with the adherents of the aforementioned Snoid and everything ends with the sage and his buddy The Big Baby being released from jail to go ‘On the Bum Again’…

From Bijou Funnies #6 comes another taste of ‘ProJunior’ as the poor shmuck seeks employment to keep his girlfriend quiet, whilst the jam feature ‘Hef’s Pad’ (by Crumb, Lynch & Skip Williamson) exposes the darker side of selling out for cash and fame…

A strip from Surfer Magazine vol. 12, #6 trenchantly heralds the advent of work from 1972 when ‘Salty Dog Sam “Goes Surfin’!”’, whilst the cover of Zap 7 (Spring issue) and the Nostalgia Press Book Service Catalog cover neatly segues into three superb landmark strips from The People’s Comics beginning with a deeply disturbing glimpse inside the befuddled head of the “Great Man” in ‘The Confessions of R. Crumb’.

That poignantly outrageous graphic outburst leads to a cruelly sardonic polemic in ‘The R. Crumb $uck$e$$ Story’ which merely serves as a sound narrative investment for the shockingly self-satisfied, liberating cartoon catharsis achieved by killing off his now-unwelcome signature character in ‘Fritz the Cat “Superstar”’…

If Crumb had been able to suppress his creative questing, he could easily have settled for a lucrative career in any one of a number of graphic disciplines from illustrator to animator to jobbing comic book hack, but as this pivotal collection readily proves, the artist was haunted by the dream of something else – he just didn’t yet know what that was…

Crumb’s subtle mastery of his art-form and obsessive need to reveal his every hidden depth and perceived defect – in himself and the world around him – has always resulted in an unquenchable fire of challenging comedy and untamed self-analysis, and this terrific tome shows him at last mastering – or at least usefully channelling – that creative energy for the benefit of us all.

This superb series charting the perplexing pen-and-ink pilgrim’s progress is the perfect vehicle to introduce any (over 18) newcomers to the world of grown up comics. And if you need a way in yourself, seek out this book and the other sixteen as soon as conceivably possible…

Let’s Be Realistic © 1971, 1992, 1997, 2013 Crumb, Jay Lynch, Jay Kinney, Bruce Walthers & R. Crumb. Kumquat Jam © 1971, 1992, 1997, 2013 Denis Kitchen, Don Glassford, Dale Kuipers, Jim Mitchell, Pete Poplaski, Wendel Pugh, Jay Lynch, Dave Dozier, Bruce Walthers, Dennis Brul & R. Crumb. All other material © 1971, 1972, 1992, 1997, 2013 Robert Crumb. All contributory art material and content © the respective creators/copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Sinemania!


By Sophie Cossette with Phil Liberbaum & Ryan Lalande (ECW Press)
ISBN: 978-1-77041-112-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because you’re you… 8/10

Filmmaking was the pre-eminent art form of the 20th century, capable of marrying the aesthetic strictures of humanity’s unfailing urge to create with the common herd’s insatiable desire to be distracted with stories. Cinema always aspired to educate, elucidate and entertain, but so often merely pandered, titillated and, if moralists and cultural blamestormers are to be believed, corrupted.

It’s apparently still going strong in the post-literate, increasingly online 21st century…

Practically all people everywhere love “The Movies” and controversial Canadian adults-only cartoonist Sophie Cossette (Mendacity, scripted by Tamara Faith Berger), her husband Phil Liberbaum and their close friend Ryan Lalande are amongst the most avid and erudite of aficionados.

Being proper grown-ups, however, they can readily accept that only a certain kind of person could envision, steer, wrangle and accomplish such an immense collaborative concoction and – like most of us – revel in the rewarding, gossipy indulgence that comes from debating, deconstructing, deriding and just plain mocking such auteurs’ inescapable sexual foibles and indisputably embarrassing kinky quirks.

Thus, Sinemania! – a bawdily baroque collection of graphic skits, sketches, articles, reviews, recommendations, games, featurettes and interpretations of behaviours favoured by Tinseltown’s most infamous denizens past and present, delivered in outrageously addictive cartoon narratives very much in the iconoclastic vein of Kenneth Anger’s notorious Hollywood Babylon.

Of course, famously fair and scrupulously polite, the Canuck contingent don’t stint in turning their all-seeing eyes on the worst excesses of British, European and their own Dominion’s savants as well.

Moreover, the project – financially supported by the prestigious Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Book Fund – is adamant that “this book is a work of satire. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons – living or dead, (celebrity or extra, clothed or naked) – business establishments, events or locales is either satirical or entirely coincidental.”

So there.

Subtitled ‘A satirical exposé of the lives of the most outlandish movie directors! Welles, Hitchcock, Taratino, and more!’ the cartoon calumnies commence, after Opening Shots and Introductory Thoughts from the team, with a 2-part biography of ‘Mondo Tarantino’ before taking a few well-aimed shots at ‘Alfred Hitchcock – The Hitch Who Lusted Too Much’.

A series of comparative reviews separating each entry begins with Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street (1954) analysed by Lalande and his 1953 Noir epic The Big Heat similarly examined by Liberbaum, after which ‘William Castle – the King of Gimmicks!’ tells of B-Movie excesses in excoriating fashion.

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) undergo the Ryan & Phil treatment before Roman Polanski gets a metaphorical thrashing in ‘Polanski! In the Corner! Now!’, and judgement of Tod Browning’s The Unknown (1927, by Ryan) and Freaks (1932, Phil) segues into ‘Diary of a Surrealist Madman’ with the shocking low-down on Luis Buñuel…

R & P assess David Lynch’s Elephant Man (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986) as Sophie plays ‘Tim Burton’s Dice Game’ whilst ‘Orson Welles – It’s All True!’ examines a stellar fall in what could so easily have been his own words.

Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Baby Doll (1956) precede the imaginary testimony of ‘Otto Preminger – The Man with the Iron Fist’ after which Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956) and A Clockwork Orange get a solid thumbs up from the panel.

The antics of ‘Ken Russell – The Mad Hatter of British Cinema!’ are followed by Fargo (1996) and The Big Lebowski (1998) courtesy of The Coen Brothers via Phil & Ryan, and then there’s a sense of genuine outrage in Cossette’s dissection of ‘Russ Meyer – and the Immortal Mrs. Tease!’

Brian De Palma is represented by and lauded for Carrie (1976) and Carlito’s Way (1993), after which ‘Love at First Bark’ weighs the relative demerits of two directors dominated by the women in their lives in ‘Joseph von Sternberg vs. Guy Ritchie’ before Paul Thomas Anderson answers to Ryan & Phil for Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999)…

‘Sam Peckinpah vs. Rainer Werner Fassbinder – Duel of the Hellraisers!’ is another comparison (sour) taste test, including ‘The Prolific Rainer Werner Fassbinder Kraut Paper Doll’ complete with fetish outfits for you to cut out and enjoy, followed by reviews of Robert Wise’s Born to Kill (1947) and I Want to Live! (1956) and Cossette’s astounding, mindboggling ‘Pier Paolo Pasolini – The Jeremiad of a Modern Martyr’ totally steals the show in a blistering graphic panorama.

Phil & Ryan then dissect Federico Fellini’s The White Sheik (1952) and La Strada (1954) before a glimpse at a scrapbook divulges ‘Fritz Lang: The Secret Behind the Door’ and Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955) lead to stylishly open warfare in ‘Woody Allen and Spike Lee – Woody Spikes Things Up at Cannes!’

The magnificent Billy Wilder fares well under Ryan & Phil’s scrutiny of Sunset Blvd. (1950) and Ace in the Hole (1951) whereas the reputation of Erich von Stroheim takes a bit of a bashing in Sophie’s ‘La Grande Delusion of Count von Stroheim’ and ‘Kenneth Anger’s Snakes and Ladders Game’ reveals even more of Hollywood’s seamier side.

The debased behaviour of Werner Herzog in ‘The Wild, Wild Adventures of a Shoe Eater!’ is balanced by reviews of Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight (1973) and Showgirls (1995) before the industry somewhat eats itself in ‘Timothy Carey – And the Razzie Goes To…’

After Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1964) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), the unflinching artist takes a glimpse closer to home through the works of Bruce McDonald and others in ‘Blame Canada!’

No cinematic catalogue of shame could be complete without ‘Dennis Hopper: A Man Under the Influence’ and his impossible life and dreams wrap up the main feature here after one last Ryan & Phil fest, examining Lindsay Anderson’s unique contributions in This Sporting Life (1963) and If…(1968), but please wait: there’s more…

This grotesquely compelling trawl through tacky times and turgidly lowered tone still holds a few Short Stories to titillate and thrill, beginning with witty eulogies to John Waters and Buster Keaton in ‘Tacky Trashy’ and ‘Shattered Silent Dreams’ before offering up a ‘Requiem for a Real Femme Fatale’ in the form of troubled, doomed-from-the-get-go Barbara Payton.

A trenchant comparison of ‘Slashers vs. Blockbusters’ segues neatly into a nightmare trip with Paul Schrader in ‘Confessions of a Taxi Driver’ and the curtain finally falls with an examination of Donald Cammell’s infamous psycho-sexual “Swinging Sixties” drama in ‘The Performance that Achieved Madness!’

Savage satire, scandalous extrapolation and scurrilous cartoon reportage from people who certainly love their movies – if not the shallow, flawed, nasty and just barmy army of self-appointed geniuses who shot them – make this a book not everyone can enjoy, but for those adults who are sincerely seduced by Silver Screen gems and love their comics, this might well be the most enjoyable book of the year.

© 2013 Sophie Cossette. All rights reserved.
For further movie madness and even more sordid pictorial portraits check out http://sophiecossette.blogspot.ca/

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Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics


By Gahan Wilson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-612-6

According to Gary Groth’s Afterword here, legendary cartoonist Gahan Wilson was born in 1930 and grew up reading comic strips.

It shows.

The mordantly macabre, acerbically wry and surreal draughtsman has been tickling funnybones and twanging nerves with his darkly dry graphic confections since the 1960s; contributing superb spoofs, sparklingly horrific and satirically suspenseful drawings and strips and panels as a celebrated regular contributor in such major magazines as Playboy, Collier’s, The New Yorker and others.

He also wrote science fiction, criticism, book and film reviews for Again Dangerous Visions, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Twilight Zone Magazine and Realms of Fantasy.

In an extremely broad and long career he has worn dozens of creative hats, and even embraced that modern electrickery stuff by creating – with Byron Preiss – his own supernatural computer game, Gahan Wilson’s the Ultimate Haunted House.

When National Lampoon first began its devastatingly satirical all-out attack on the American Dream, Wilson was invited to contribute a regular strip to their comics section. His sublimely semi-autobiographical, darkly hilarious paean to lost childhood ran from 1972 and until 1981 and was recently collected as Nuts.

Few people– me included – knew that during that period he also, apparently more for fun and relaxation than profit, produced his own syndicated Sunday strip feature.

For two years beginning on March 3rd 1974, Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics appeared in a small cross-section of newspapers from Boston to Los Angeles and, as with all his work, it bucked a trend.

At a time when most cartoonists were seeking a daily continuity strip, building a readership and eking jokes out with sensible parsimony, Wilson let himself go hog-wild, generating a half-dozen or so single-shot gags every Sabbath, blending his signature weird, wild monsters, uncanny aliens and unsavoury scenes with straight family humour, animal crackers, topical themes and cynically socio-politically astute observations.

Looking at them here it’s clear to me that his intent was to have fun and make himself laugh as much as his readers; capturing those moments when an idea or notion gave him pause to giggle whilst going about his day job…

I’m not going to waste time describing the cartoons: there are too many and despite being a fascinating snapshot of life in the 1970s they’re almost all still outrageously funny in the way and manner that Gary Larson’s Far Side was a scant six years later.

I will say that even whilst generating a storm of humorous, apparently unconnected one-offs, consummate professional Wilson couldn’t help himself and eventually the jokes achieved an underlying shape and tone with recurring motifs (clocks, beasts, wallpaper, etc), guest appearances by “The Kid” (from Nuts) and features-within-the-feature such as The Creep and Future Funnies…

Collected in a gloriously expansive (176 pages, 309x162mm) full-colour, landscape hardback, this complete re-presentation of a lost cartooning classic offers a freewheeling, absurdist, esoterically banal, intensely, trenchantly funny slice of nostalgia. These fabulous joke page compendiums range from satire to slapstick to agonising irony and again prove Wilson to be one of the world’s greatest visual humourists.

This is book no fan of fun should miss and, with Christmas bearing down on us, could be a crucial solution to the perennial “what to get him/her” question…

All comic strips © 2013 Gahan Wilson. This Edition © Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics will be published September 26th 2013.

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Zombillenium: Volume 1: Gretchen


By Arthur de Pins (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-734-8

I’m feeling a zeitgeist coming on: seditiously mature and subversively ironic takes on classical movie monster madness presented as horror-comedies in the manner of the Addams Family (or assorted Tim Burton features in the vein of Corpse Bride) to be enjoyed by older kids as well as imaginative grown-ups.

Latest candidate for the swift-swelling category is a superb and deliciously arch Franco-Belgian cross between films like Hotel Transylvania and Igor and such graphic narrative masterpieces as Boneyard, Rip M.D. and especially The Littlest Pirate King which combine pop-cultural archetypes with smart and sassy contemporary insouciance.

Arthur de Pins is a British-born French filmmaker, commercial artist and Bande Dessin̩es creator whose strips Рsuch as the adult comedy Peccadilloes (AKA Cute Sins) and On the Crab Рhave appeared in Fluide Glacial and Max.

Zombill̩nium began serialisation in Spirou #3698 (2009) and has filled three albums to date courtesy of Dupuis Рthe first of which has just been released in English thanks to Canadian publisher NBM.

Rendered in a beguiling animated cartoon style, the saga opens with a morose hitchhiker in a hoodie, having no luck at all getting a ride. Eventually Aton is picked up by a vampire and skeleton who offer to take the dejected 5000-year old mummy back to the unique theme park which employs – and in fact owns – them all…

Zombillenium is a magical entertainment experience celebrating all aspects of horror and the supernatural, where families can enjoy a happy day out rubbing shoulders with werewolves and witches and all manner of bogeymen. Of course, they wouldn’t laugh so much if they knew all those monsters were real…

Bloodsucking Francis  and bony Sirius are still heatedly trying to talk the deceased Egyptian -who walked because he was fed up working the cotton-candy concession for what seemed like eternity – out of thumbing all the way back to Cairo when a moment’s inattention leads to their car mowing down a distracted pedestrian.

The mortal is a goner, and without a moment’s hesitation Park Director Francis Von Bloodt takes a bite and finds his new confectionery seller…

The reasons Aurelian Zahner wasn’t paying attention were many. His wife was cheating on him, and took their child away. He had just tried to rob a bar in broad daylight. His gun had somehow turned into a banana. Worst of all, the odd young British woman with the enigmatic smile had told him to grow up before glowing blue and making everybody in the bar forget him…

Later he saw her at Zombillenium, after the giant werewolf bit him too, saying the place had enough vampires already. Things got a bit hazy after that, what with Francis disagreeing and biting him some more.

Her name was Gretchen and she was a witch and she had finally stopped the wolf and the bat biting him in some bizarre game of tit-for-tat…

With nobody quite sure what kind of monster he now was, Aurelian signed his contract, was given the induction tour by Aton – who considered himself a bit of a joker – and set to work selling the sticky stuff to the oblivious punters…

At least they were oblivious until a little old lady smuggled in her little doggie and triggered a bizarre and barely concealable transformation in the terrified Zahner that took even the most venerable and jaded monsters by surprise…

Despite the incredible power of the Zombie trade union, the only way out of a Zombillenium contract is the True Death, and Francis is actually in the process of terminating Aurelian when a call from the park’s enigmatic owner inexplicably gives the hapless fool another chance…

Slowly Zahner adapts to his new indentured (un)life, with Gretchen – who is “only” an intern at the park – finding time to show him the ropes and bring him up to speed in this most inhospitable working environment. Moreover the conditions are about to get much worse: Zombillenium is one of the least profitable theme-parks in the world and the Board are threatening to make some draconian changes…

For some reason the Zombie shop stewards blame Aurelian and are determined to drive him out. A slim ray of hope lights up the mixed-up monster newbie’s life however, when Gretchen tells him her life-story, reveals what he has become and explains what she is really doing at the Park.

The big boob has no idea what and how much she still hasn’t told him…

Sly, smart, sexy and hilarious, Zombillenium achieves that spectacular trick of marrying slapstick with satire in a manner reminiscent of Asterix and Cerebus the Aardvark, whilst easily treading its own path. This is going to a big breakout comics series and you’ll curse yourself for missing out.

So don’t…
© Dupuis 2010.

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Usagi Yojimbo Book 5: Lone Goat and Kid


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-088-0

The wandering rabbit bodyguard Miyamoto Usagi began as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper before indomitably carving his own unique path to graphic glory.

Creative mastermind Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family moved to Hawaii two years later. After graduating from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, he pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California and started in comics as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer.

Eventually the cartoonist within resurfaced: blending his storytelling drive with a love of Japanese history and legend, and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The addictive period epic is set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) but scrupulously mirrors the Feudal Edo Period of Japan – (the 17th century by our reckoning), simultaneously referencing classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla, whilst specifically recounting the life of a peripatetic masterless Samurai eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire).

As such, his fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – brave, noble, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering, conscientious and devoted to the tenets of Bushido, the heroic everyman bunny simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This fantastically funny fifth monochrome masterwork gathers tales from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #19-24 and offers a selection of complete adventures culminating in an unbelievably welcome and long-awaited spoof of Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima’s legendary samurai manga Kozure ÅŒkami, best known in the West as Lone Wolf and Cub…

Following a fulsome Introduction from Stan Lee, the restless Ronin takes on a paying gig with very little honour attached in ‘Frost and Fire’. On the recommendation of friend and occasional patron Lord Noriyuki, Usagi contracts with the cold and snobbish Lady Koriko to recover the priceless antique swords – but not the body – of her husband; recently expired in a distant village.

On arrival however Usagi finds a thorny dilemma: fallen and shamed samurai Nagao broke all class stricture and protocol by consorting with a peasant girl. Grief-stricken Atsuko wants to keep his family’s blades as the only reminder of the man she loved and who loved her in return…

This impossible impasse is only broken when Atsuko’s greedy brother intervenes, more concerned with the blades’ monetary value than their sentimental worth…

‘A Kite Story’ is an enchanting agglomeration of connected vignettes divided into four visual epigrams beginning with ‘The Kite Maker’s Tale’ in which master craftsman Tatsusaburo describes his process and motivation in building the largest Odako ever to challenge the clouds…

Next comes disreputable Hatsu who in ‘The Gambler’s Tale’ discloses how a long-eared Ronin exposed his cheating and ruined his business. Now, Yojimbo has returned and the games-man sees a way to pay him back, but fails in his scurrilous scheme due to the warrior’s ingenuity and the giant kite in ‘The Ronin’s Tale’ after which the elegant micro-saga comes full circle with ‘The Kite Maker’s Tale II’…

Although telling short stories here, everything is a fragment of a greater mosaic. Sakai is gradually constructing a massive overarching history and in the 2-part ‘Blood Wings’ the wanderer stumbles upon a man cut to ribbons by a flying killer. He soon discovers a village plagued by Komori ninja – a clan of bats trained in all the deadly tactics of Chi no Tsubasa – killing silently from above on “wings of blood”…

Although Usagi succeeds in helping the desperate villagers he has no way of knowing how the sky killers will affect his future, as the Komori are actually striving to prove themselves worthy replacements for the decimated Neko ninjas who have fallen from the good graces of scheming Lord Hebi since the end of the Dragon Bellows Conspiracy…

In the next tale the Yojimbo meets martial legend General Oyaneko but is distressed to learn the aged warrior is dying of a wasting disease. He’s even more upset when the General attempts to kill him, wanting to earn a clean end in ‘The Way of the Samurai’…

This volume concludes with ‘Lone Goat and Kid’ wherein former imperial official Yagi – who became an assassin after being framed by underlings of Lord Hirone – is tricked into fighting a certain rabbit Ronin who has no idea he is the latest pawn in a Machiavellian scheme to destroy the noble goat and his capable kid Gorogoro…

However, even though Usagi is tricked into fighting the doom-laden duo, the guilty impatience of the plotters soon reveals the true state of affairs…

Despite changing publishers a few times, Usagi Yojimbo has been in continuous publication since 1987, resulting in dozens of graphic novel collections and books to date. The Legendary Lepus has guest-starred in many other series and nearly had his own TV show – there’s still time yet, and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out…

As well as generating a horde of high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi series and lots of toys to promote popularity, Sakai and his creation have deservedly won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny and scary, always moving, astoundingly visceral, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a cartoon masterpiece of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories and comics.
Text and illustrations © 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ® Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1992, 2005 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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The Complete Crumb Comics volume 5: Happy Hippy Comix – New Edition


By R. Crumb & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-0-930193-92-8

This book contains really clever and outrageously dirty pictures, rude words, non-condemnatory drug references and allusions, apparent racism, definite sexism, godless questioning of authority and brilliantly illustrated, highly moving personal accounts and opinions.

If you – or those legally responsible for you – have a problem with that, please skip this review and don’t buy the book.

Really. I’m not kidding…

Robert Crumb is a unique creative force in comics and cartooning, with as many detractors as devotees. His uncompromising, excoriating, neurotic introspections, his pictorial rants and invectives, unceasingly picked away at societal scabs and peeked behind forbidden curtains for his own benefit, but he has always happily shared his unwholesome discoveries with anybody who takes the time to look…

In 1987 Fantagraphics Books began the nigh-impossible task of collating, collecting and publishing the chronological totality of the artist’s vast output and those critically important volumes are now being reissued.

The son of a career soldier, Robert Dennis Crumb was born in Philadelphia in 1943 into a functionally broken family. He was one of five kids who all found different ways to escape their parents’ highly volatile problems, and comic strips were paramount among them.

As had his older brother Charles, Robert immersed himself in the comics and cartoons of the day; not just reading but creating his own. Harvey Kurtzman, Carl Barks and John Stanley were particularly influential, but also comic strip masters such as E.C. Segar, Gene Ahern, Rube Goldberg, Bud (Mutt and Jeff) Fisher, Billy (Barney Google), De Beck, George (Sad Sack) Baker and Sidney (The Gumps) Smith, as well as illustrators like C.E. Brock and the wildly imaginative and surreal 1930’s Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts.

Defensive, introspective and always compulsively driven, young Robert pursued art and self-control through religion with equal desperation. His early spiritual repression and flagrant, hubristic celibacy warred with his body’s growing needs…

From this point onwards, the varied and exponentially impressive breadth of Crumb’s output becomes increasingly riddled with his often hard-to-embrace themes and declamatory, potentially offensive visual vocabulary as his strips grope towards the creator’s long-sought personal artistic apotheosis, and this third volume covers material created and published between 1960-1966 as the self-tormented artist began to find a popular following in a strangely changing world.

Escaping his stormy early life, he married young and began working in-house at the American Greeting Cards Company. He discovered like minds in the growing counterculture movement and discovered LSD. By 1967 Crumb had moved to California and became an early star of Underground Commix. As such he found plenty of willing hippie chicks to assuage his fevered mind and hormonal body whilst reinventing the very nature of cartooning with such creations as Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, Devil Girl and a host of others. It is from this period that the engrossing, amazing and still shocking strips in this book stem…

He worked on in what was essentially a creative utopia throughout the early 1970’s but the alternative lifestyle of the Underground was already dying. Soon it would disappear: dissipated, disillusioned, dropped back “in” or demised. A few truly dedicated publishers and artists stayed the course, publishing on a far more businesslike footing as Crumb carried on creating, splitting his time between personal material and commercial art projects whilst incessantly probing deeper into his turbulent inner world.

This particular collection covers the period when the insular, isolated Crumb first began to make a name for himself with a flood of gags, posters, commercial art jobs, short strips and longer material popping up seemingly everywhere. All are faithfully reproduced in this compilation – which makes for a rather dry listing here, I’m afraid – but (trust me) the pictorial output is both engrossing and legendary.

Actually, don’t trust me: buy the book and see for yourselves…

After a photo and cartoon-stuffed (from 1968 sketchbooks) Introduction from the old scallywag himself, praising the effects of mind-altering chemicals and recalling the first heady days of Counter-Culture celebrity, the wave of visual excess and literary freewheeling begins with ‘The Old Pooperoo Pauses to Ponder’: a baroque procession of his fun-loving characters rounded off with a micro strip at the bottom, revealing Eggs Ackley’s opinion that ‘This Kid’s a Scream!’, after which Mr. Natural, Angelfood McSpade and all the rest are reassured that ‘You’re Gonna Get There Anyway’ (all from East Village Other December 1-16, 1967).

Next ‘Mr. Natural, the Man from Affiganistan’ shares more timeless wisdom with resident curious “Straight” Flakey Foont (EVO December 15-30 1968), after which a rush of shorts from EVO January 12-17 begins.

‘Sky-Hi Comics’, ‘Then on the Other Hand…’ are followed by ‘Nuttin’ but Nuttin’, ‘Here She Comes! It’s Hippy!’ and ‘Junior High & his Sidekick Judy Holiday’ from the January 19-25 edition whilst ‘Those Cute Little Bearzy Wearzies/George Gwaltny’ (EVO January 26-February 1 1968) precedes Natural’s inevitable return to act as guru to ‘Schuman the Human’ from EVO February 9-15th.

The Wise one continues in revelatory style when ‘Mr. Natural Meets God’ (supplemented by) ‘Gail Snail and The Walkie Talkies’ from EVO February 16-22, whilst the next weekly issue described how ‘Mr. Natural Gets the Bum’s Rush’, and Schuman declared ‘Let’s Be Honest’ before Crumb confronted the period’s racism head on with customary shocking frankness in ‘Mr. Natural Repents’, ‘Hey, Mom!’ and attendant strip ‘Let’s Have Nigger Hearts For Lunch’ (EVO March 1-7 1968).

Zap #2 June 1968, then provided wry ‘Hamburger Hi-Jinx’ with Cheezis K. Reist and shockingly introduced iconic Bête Noir ‘Angelfood McSpade’ before closing with a warning to avoid cheap imitations from ‘Mr. Natural’.

Bijou #1, from Summer 1968, then supplies a wealth of intriguing, astonishing fare leading with ‘Neato Keano Time!’ before ‘The Big Little Boy’ and ‘Bo Bo Bolinski, He’s a Clown!’ went through their paces. Following that ‘Mr. Spiff’ makes a call and ‘Here They Are! Puppets of your favourite cartoon characters!’ provides paper-dolls of Angelfood and Mr. Natural. The harsh, ironic hilarity all ends with a laidback Bijou Funnies Ad…

The inescapably controversial Ms. McSpade and friends then cropped up in ‘All Asshole Comics’ (Chicago Seed, July 1968), after which covers for ‘Nope #6’ and ‘Nope #7’ (both 1968) are followed here by ‘The Zap Show’ – a captivating art jam with Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso & S. Clay Wilson.

A ‘Fritz the Cat title page’ then acts as prologue to an outrageous tale of student terrorism and teen licentiousness in ‘Fritz the No-Good’ (taken from Cavalier, September/October 1968), after which you’ll need to rotate the book to be shocked by the interiors of digest-sized Snatch #1 (October 1968): rude and raunchy spoofs such as ‘The Adventures of Andy Hard-on’, ‘Krude Cut-Ups’ and ‘The Fight’ plus assorted gags like ‘Jailbait of the Month’, ‘Hi, Swingers’ and much more…

A rather lovely ‘Janis Joplin: original cover for Cheap Thrills‘ (1968) is followed by

‘The Phonus Balonus Blues’ and ‘Where the Action Isn’t’ (EVO September 27 1968) as well as the cover of that issue – ‘Can the Mind Know it?’

From the October 11 issue of East Village Other comes a barrage of strips: ‘Sleezy Snot Comics’, ‘Mr. Natural’, ‘Booger Buddies’ and more plus an ‘Ad for Head Comix’ whilst the October 18th edition provided both ‘Angelfood McSpade’ and ‘Cum Comix’, and October 25th a ‘Mr. Natural, disguised as a vacuum cleaner salesman, talks to the Housewives of America’ cover.

‘Edgar and Maryjane Crump’ and ‘Crime in the Streets’ both originated in EVO November 1) after which an ‘alternate cover for Zap #3′ segues into the infamous ‘Dirty Dog’ strip from Zap #3 (December 1968).

That underground classic also premiered ‘Mr. Goodbar “Off his Rocker”’, an astounding

‘Atomic Comics Jam’ with S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso & Rick Griffin, grotesque shorts ‘Let’s Eat’ and ‘Mr. Natural’, ‘Hairy’ and ‘Street Corner Daze.’

Another digest-sized landscape section next reproduces the XXX-rated contents of ‘Snatch #2′ (January 1969) including ‘Look Out Girls!! The Grabbies are Coming’, ‘Down on the Farm’, ‘The Family that Lays Together Stays Together’ and far more before an ‘ad for San Francisco Comic Book Company’ from Bogeyman #2, 1969, leads seamlessly into ‘Don’t Gag On It… Goof On It!’ (Gothic Blimp Works, Ltd. #1, March 1969).

The April 1969 ‘cover for Creem #2′ precedes a stunning spoof of Romance comics with ‘The Bleeding Heart Syndrome’ (Tales from the Ozone #1, 1969) before ‘Shoo Shoo Baby’ and ‘The Pricksters’ (GBW #2, 1969) suspends the black and white barrage to briefly usher in a spectacular ‘Color Section’…

The polychromatic madness begins with ‘Head Comix covers’ (front and back and 1968), keeping up the pressure with the ‘Zap Comix #2 covers’ from December, as well as a ‘Fritz the Cat cover’, the ‘Cheap Thrills’ record cover for Big Brother and the Holding Company and the December 1968 ‘Snatch #1 covers’.

The ribald rainbows end with ‘Snatch #2 covers’ (January 1969) before ‘Flower Children on Broadway’ from Bijou #2 (1969) return us to monochrome merriment, ‘Nutsboy’ (Bogeyman #2, 1969) presages today’s teen obsession with “Slasher-flicks” and ‘Mr. Know-It-All and his pal Diz in What the Fuck’ (with S. Clay Wilson from GBW #3, 1969) continues the dark and bloody mood.

This landmark compilation concludes with Crumb’s contributions to Motor City #1 (April 1969) starting with ultra-independent femme fatal ‘Lenore Goldberg and her Girl Commandos’, after which cool dude ‘The Inimitable Boingy Baxter’ turns Detroit on its head, and mini-mystic Savannah Foomo explores reality with ordinary folk and ‘The Desperate Character’ in ‘Deep Meaning Comics’ and ‘More Deep Meaning Gommigs’, leaving good old Eggs Ackley to wrap thing up in macabre style with ‘Eyeball Kicks’…

If Crumb had been able to suppress his creative questing, he could easily have settled for a lucrative career in any one of a number of graphic disciplines from illustrator to animator to jobbing comic book hack, but as this pivotal collection readily proves, the artist was haunted by the dream of something else – he just didn’t yet know what that was…

Crumb’s subtle mastery of his art-form and obsessive need to reveal his most hidden depths and every perceived defect – in himself and the world around him – has always resulted in an unquenchable fire of challenging comedy and riotous rumination, and this chronicle begins to show his growing awareness of where to look.

This superb series charting the perplexing pen-and-ink pilgrim’s progress is the perfect vehicle to introduce any (over 18) newcomers to the world of grown up comics. And if you need a way in yourself, seek out this book and the other sixteen as soon as conceivably possible…
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1989, 2004, 2013 Robert Crumb. All contributory art material and content © the respective creators/copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Usagi Yojimbo Book 4: The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-063-7

Usagi Yojimbo (literally “rabbit bodyguard”) premiered as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper before indomitably carving his own unique path to graphic glory.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family moved to Hawaii two years later. After graduating the University of Hawaii, with a BA in Fine Arts, he pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California and started in comics as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer.

Eventually the cartoonist within resurfaced: blending his storytelling drive with a love of Japanese history and legend and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The intoxicating period epic is set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) but scrupulously mirrors the Edo Period of Feudal Japan – the early 17th century by our reckoning, simultaneously sampling classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla, whilst specifically recounting the life of Miyamoto Usagi, a peripatetic masterless Samurai, eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire).

As such, his fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – brave, noble, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering, conscientious and devoted to the tenets of Bushido, the heroic everyman bunny simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This fabulous fourth black and white blockbuster gathers tales which originally appeared in Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo volume 1, #13-18 from 1988-1991, and temporarily sacrifices short stories and vignettes for another grand multi-chapter saga of blood and steel and cloak and dagger.

The drama begins after an illuminating Introduction from the legendary multi-media imagineer Alejandro Jodorowsky before the epic and slowly-brewing Dragon Bellows Conspiracy flares into fulgent fury in a grandiose epic where weather and environment are as much major players as the wide cast of regulars brought together by fate and a brewing tempest…

In recent days young Lord Noriyuki – new and still politically insecure leader of the prestigious Geishu Clan – had been targeted by various schemes to destabilise his position, and in ‘The Clouds Gather’ his devoted bodyguard Tomoe Ame is despatched to make diplomatic overtures and undertake covert inquiries at the castle of neighbouring Lord Tamakuro, an elder noble of undisclosed loyalties.

What she finds is an abomination: Tamakuro is stockpiling Teppo – forbidden western matchlock muskets and black powder weapons…

When she is discovered, her loyal entourage sacrifice themselves, allowing Tomoe time to escape and alert Noriyuki, but in her pell-mell flight she is relentlessly pursued…

Elsewhere, blind outlaw swords-pig Zato-Ino is still searching for peace and finding nothing but mercenaries and thugs hungry for the price on his head, with fate inevitably drawing him closer to a clash with money-mad bounty-hunter Gennosuké.

As the rains begin to fall, a wandering long-eared Ronin is forced off the road by a party of Samurai dragging the captured Tomoe towards the fortress of Lord Tamakuro…

The players begin to converge in ‘The Winds Howl’ when sinister imperial plotter Lord Hebi despatches Neko ninja chief Shingen to take command of an operation already underway in Tamakuro’s lands.

That paranoid rebel is keenly aware of official eyes upon him. Hurrying after Tomoe, Usagi wanders into a village laid waste by Tamakuro’s forces and finds himself blamed by Shingen for the slaughter of the inhabitants – every one an undercover Neko…

Barely surviving a savage protracted duel with the ninja chief, the weary Yojimbo at last reaches the gates of Tamakuro’s citadel in ‘Downpour’ and defeats many of the rebel warlord’s warriors to win an officer’s post in his new, musket-equipped army.

Even as, in the sodden lands beyond the gates, Gen closes in on Ino, within the fortress Usagi rashly breaks the brutally abused Tomoe free and the pair flee into the tumultuous night with hordes of troops hard on their heels.

At least that’s what the pursuing soldiers believe. In truth the Ronin has fled alone to draw the rebels away and warn Lord Noriyuki, but his rash ride brings him crashing right into another clash with the vengeance-crazed Shingen…

Awakening from horrific nightmares to ‘Thunder and Lightning’, Usagi realises that the ninja has been ministering to the rabbit’s many wounds. Shingen has realised the truth and now wants to work together to destroy Tamakuro and to that end has marshalled more Neko to attack the fortress.

Tamakuro, meanwhile, is restless. His plans have come undone and he has just learned that the diabolical Tomoe is hiding somewhere in his house, waiting for the right moment to strike…

As Usagi and the ninjas move on the castle, the Ronin finds an old friend on the road. Spot is a Tokagé lizard (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles that populate this world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem) and was once his faithful companion in his wanderings.

However the pet long ago switched his devotion to Blind Ino. If Spot is here, the blood-spilling porcine brigand – whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes – cannot be far away…

He isn’t – but Usagi finds him engaged in a furious fight to the death with Gennosuké under skies ablaze with electric fire and shattered by booming clamour…

Grimly determined, the rabbit convinces both of them to join his band in an assault on the castle in ‘The Heart of the Storm’ even as many miles distant a Neko ninja infiltrates Noriyuki’s private chambers with a message from Usagi.

Her deed done, she vanishes, leaving the Boy Lord to rouse the families loyal to the Shogun. It is not the last time we shall see the beautiful, deadly sister of Shingen…

By the time dawn breaks, however, it is all over and the ferocious bloodletting has ended with the deaths of many comrades and valiant souls as well as the explosive destruction of all Tamakuro’s dreams…

With the grand design concluded, the Dragon Bellows Conspiracy wraps up with two gentler episodes as, in ‘Storm Clouds Part’, Noriyuki formally offers the wandering Yojimbo the friendship of the Geishu Clan, whilst rough-handed Gen resumes his far more fraternal rivalry with Usagi.

Then ‘The Fate of the Blind Swordspig’ reveals one secret the bounty hunter refused to share with even his greatest friend as, far away, another major player is plagued with a tantalising, impossible choice…

Despite changing publishers a few times, Usagi Yojimbo has been in continuous publication since 1987, resulting in dozens of graphic novel collections and books to date. He has guest-starred in many other series and even nearly made it into his own TV show – there’s still time yet, and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out…

As well as generating a horde of high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi series and lots of toys to promote popularity, Sakai and his creation have deservedly won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny and scary, always moving, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a cartoon masterpiece of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories and comics.
Text and illustrations © 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ® Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1990, 1991, 1998 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.