Comedy – Page 55 – Now Read This!

March 10, 2015March 9, 2015

Jesse James: Lucky Luke volume 4

By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Frederick W. Nolan (CineBook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-14-4

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

Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

His continued exploits over nearly seventy years have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (81 collected books and more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and even a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de BÃ©vÃ¨re (â€œMorrisâ€) for 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’ActualitiÃ©s) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo, and worked for 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 â€œla Bande des quatreâ€ – The Gang of Four – which comprised creators JijÃ©, Will and his old comrade Franquin: the leading proponents of the loose and free-wheeling artistic style known as the â€œMarcinelle Schoolâ€ which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the â€œLigne Claireâ€ style used by HergÃ©, EP Jacobs and other artists on Tintin Magazine.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller RenÃ© Goscinny, scoring some work from the newly-formed EC sensation Mad whilst 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 parody before reuniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25^th 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 death, from whence onwards Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris himself died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus spin-off sagas of Rantanplan (â€œdumbest dog in the Westâ€ and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with AchdÃ©, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean LÃ©turgie, Jacques Pessis and others all taking a crack at the evergreen franchiseâ€¦

Moreover, apart from that very first adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico TV classic Alias Smith and Jones) â€œin all that timeâ€¦ never shot or killed anyoneâ€â€¦

Lucky Luke first appeared in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun in 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 from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of â€œpolitical correctness gone madâ€, substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent 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 coversâ€¦) and Jesse James was the fourth of 50 albums (and counting) currently available both on paper and as e-book editions.

On the continent it was the 35^th comic cowboy chronicle and Goscinny’s 26^th collaboration with Morris, originally appearing in 1969 and featuring an engaging overlapping of real world history and fantastic fiction. You have been warnedâ€¦

After an informative and funny graphic reintroduction to our splendid stars and their impressive capabilities, the saga commences as a recuperating gentleman named Jesse reads a book about Robin Hood and decides that he too is going to rob from the rich and give to the poor.

His first foray as a gun-toting social worker goes well except for the moral quandary resulting from giving a poor man all the money he’s just liberated and making him a rich one. Shakespeare-quoting brother Frank has a clever solution: if they keep the money, but keep passing it back and forth to each other, they can take from the rich and give to the poor at the same time and keep it in the family tooâ€¦

To make sure nobody stays rich for too long they bring hulking practical joking cousin Cole Younger into the pact and set about making themselves the most feared and unwelcome bandits in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. After robbing banks and derailing trains throughout the region the gang heads for Texas where events are already unfolding to their eventual detriment.

In sleepy, prosperous Nothing Gulch two of the least undercover detectives ever employed by the Pinkerton Agency approach lean, laconic Luke. Agents Smith and Jones (not their real names) want his aid in apprehending the most wanted men in America, but our hero can only promise that since they’ve committed no crimes in Texas he will watch them and act accordingly if they doâ€¦

Satisfied with the compromise, the very Public Eyes retire to their camp outside town whilst Lucky proceeds to warn the locals of their impending guests. He is greeted with a wave of Texan bombast and bravado but realises the people are not-so-secretly terrified by the prospect of the James Boysâ€¦

The subjects of all that apprehension have just crossed the border into Texas and, after much pleading, foolishly allowed Cole to try his hand at derailing a train. The big lunk simply doesn’t have the knack for it however and soon Main Street is torn up as a runaway locomotive and still-attached carriages – having careened across county without benefit of rails – plough to a halt outside the saloonâ€¦

The spectacular event is the trigger for every citizen to pull their cash out of the town bank before the bandits do and spurs Luke into riding off and intercepting Jesse and Co to deliver a friendly warning.

Unfortunately Jesse is too proud to be told and the gang hit town only to discover the residents have taken even more extreme measures, donating enough cash to the town drunk to make him – comparatively – the richest man in Nothing Gulchâ€¦

With Lucky Luke watching and pickings slim, the James Boys begin a sly charm offensive to put everybody at ease but once the townsfolk calm down enough to put their money back in the bank all bets are off. Luring Luke away Jesse goes to work, raiding the Bank whilst Cole has another go at derailing, unaware that Lucky has second-guessed him and turned the gold-carry train into a trapâ€¦

However, on dragging the owlhoot back to town he finds the citizens so cowed that they organise a quick sham trial just so they can clear Younger of all charges and get him out of the district. Utterly disgusted, our hero and Jolly Jumper abandon the yellow Texans and Cole rides off to tell his cousins that the town is wide open for another raidâ€¦

In the shameful night time the citizens gather and something strange happens. Disgusted with themselves the ordinary folk talk themselves into a froth of righteous indignation and seek out Lucky. They need to redeem themselves and humbly beg the disgusted hero to join them as they prepare for Jesse James’ inevitable returnâ€¦

Fast-paced, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour colour this splendidly mad ride, making it another grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff (perhaps Paint Your Wagon, Evil Roy Slade or Cat Ballou are more your style?), superbly executed by master storytellers and 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 wasâ€¦

And in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero chawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of anyone craving a quick snout – especially since Jolly Jumper is acting like a Greek chorus warning of the hazards of the evil weed – but quite a high probability that they’ll be addicted to Lucky Luke Albumsâ€¦
Â© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1969 by Goscinny & Morris. Â© Lucky Comics.
English translation Â© 2006 Cinebook Ltd.

January 11, 2015January 10, 2015

Asterix and the Falling Sky

By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-7528-7548-4

Asterix began life in the last year of the 1950s and is part of the fabric of French life. His adventures have touched billions of people all around the world over the decades. However when this particular tale was released it was like nothing anybody had ever seen before. It fact it is considered to be the most controversial and least well-regarded by purists. Some even hate itâ€¦

They are all welcome to their opinions. I must admit that I too found it a little unsettling when I first read it. So I read it some more and saw the elements that I’d initially had trouble with weren’t lax or lazy or bad but just not what I was expecting. Soon it became one of my favourites just because it was so different.

Uderzo was and is a comics creator par excellence. With Rene Goscinny he created, owned and controlled his intellectual property Asterix and used it to tell the tales he wanted to tell.

It was his right to say and draw whatever he wanted to through his creation and nobody has the right to dictate what he could or could not do with it as long as no laws were broken.

It’s a lesson the whole world needs to learn, now more than everâ€¦

A son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25^th 1927 in Fismes on the Marne. He dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic but even as a young child watching Walt Disney cartons and reading Mickey Mouse in Le PÃ©tit Parisien he showed artistic flair.

Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at thirteen, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching. He was brought to that pivotal point by his older brother Bruno (to whom this volume is gratefully and lovingly dedicated for starting the ball rolling) but when World War II reached France he moved to Brittany, spending time with farming relatives and joining his father’s furniture-making business.

The region beguiled and fascinated Uderzo and when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, that beautiful countryside was the only possible choiceâ€¦

In the post-war rebuilding of France, Uderzo returned to Paris and became a successful artist in the recovering nation’s burgeoning comics industry. His first published work, a pastiche of Aesop’s Fables, appeared in Junior and in 1945 he was introduced to industry giant Edmond-FranÃ§ois Calvo (whose own comic masterpiece The Beast is Dead is far too long overdue for a commemorative reissueâ€¦).

Tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’InvulnÃ©rable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-RÃ©-Vil’s novel Flamberge, dabbled in animation, worked as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir.

In 1950 he illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the artistic prodigy first met Goscinny in 1951. Soon bosom buddies, they resolved to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first collaboration was published in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes SoirÃ©e, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they resulted in a western starring a â€œRed Indianâ€ who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Ã‰difrance/Ã‰dipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart (also for La Libre Junior), replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

The following year, he made his debut in Tintin, as Oumpah-Pah finally found a home and a rapturous audience. Uderzo also drew Poussin et Poussif, La Famille Moutonet and La Famille Cokalane.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Uderzo was a major creative force for the new enterprise, collaborating with Charlier on Tanguy et Laverdure and devising – with Goscinny – a little something called Asterixâ€¦

Although the gallant Gaul was a monumental hit from the start, Uderzo continued on Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure, but once the first hilarious historical romp was collected in an album as AstÃ©rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time – especially since the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, and in 1974 the partners formed IdÃ©fix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as both writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he gracefully retired.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first published as a complete original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new release was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

More than 325 million copies of 35 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors, and now that torch has been passed and new sagas of the incomparable icon and his bellicose brethren are being created by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conradâ€¦

One of the most popular comics on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with numerous animated and live-action movies, TV series, games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc AstÃ©rix, naturellement)â€¦

Like all the best stories the narrative premise works on more than one level: read it as an action-packed comedic romp of sneaky and bullying baddies coming a-cropper if you want, or as a punfully sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads. English-speakers are further blessed by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to English tongues.

Many of the intoxicating epics are set in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, with the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen reduced to quizzical tourists and bemused commentators in every fantastic land and corner of the civilisations that proliferated in that fabled era. The rest – more than half of the canon – take place in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany, where, circa 50 B.C., a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul.

The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last named just refuses to be pacifiedâ€¦

Whenever the heroes were playing at home, the Romans, unable to defeat the last bastion of Gallic insouciance, futilely resorted to a policy of absolute containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet was permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls couldn’t care less, daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the miraculous magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelixâ€¦

This particular iconoclasm, Uderzo’s eighth solo outing (and originally entitled Le Ciel lui tombe sur la tÃªte) was released in 2005 as the 31^st volume of an ever-unfolding saga. The English language version was released that same year as Asterix and the Falling Sky. Apart from the unlikely thematic content and quicker pacing, the critics’ main problem seemed to stem from a sleeker, slicker, less busy style of illustration – almost a classical animation look – but that’s actually the point of the tale.

The entire book is a self-admitted tribute to the Walt Disney cartoons of the artist’s formative years, as well as a sneakily good-natured critique of modern comics as then currently typified by American superheroes and Japanese mangaâ€¦

The contentious tale opens with the doughty little Gaul and his affable pal Obelix in the midst of a relaxing boar hunt when they notice that their quarry has frozen into petrified solidity.

Perplexed, they head back through the eerily silent forest to the village, only to discover that all their friends have been similarly stupefied and rendered rigidly inertâ€¦

Only faithful canine companion Dogmatix and the old Druid Getafix have any life in them, but only when Obelix admits to giving the pooch the occasional tipple of Magic Potion does Asterix deduce that it’s because they all have the potent brew currently flowing though their systemsâ€¦

With one mystery solved they debate how to cure everybody else – as well as all the woodland creatures and especially the wild boars – but are soon distracted by the arrival of an immense golden sphere floating above and eclipsing the villageâ€¦

Out of if floats a strange but friendly creature who introduces himself as â€œToonâ€ from the distant star Tadsilweny (it’s an anagram, but don’t expect any help from me). He is accompanied by a mightily powered being in a tight-fitting blue-and-red costume with a cape. Toon calls him Supercloneâ€¦

The mighty minion casually insults Obelix and learns that he’s not completely invulnerable, but otherwise the visitors are generally benevolent. The paralysis plague is an accidental effect of Toon’s vessel, but a quick adjustment by the strange visitor soon brings the surroundings back to frenetic life.

That’s when the trouble really starts as the villagers – and especially Chief Vitalstatistix – see the giant globe floating overhead as a portent that at long last the sky is fallingâ€¦

After another good-spirited, strenuously physical debate, things calm down and Toon explains he’s come from the Galactic Council to confiscate an earthly super-weapon and prevent it falling into the hands of belligerent alien conquerors the Nagmas (that’s another anagram) and there’s nothing the baffled Earthlings can do about itâ€¦

At the Roman camp of Compendium Centurion Polyanthus is especially baffled and quite angry. His men have already had a painful encounter with the Superclone but the commander refuses to believe their wild stories about floating balls and strangers even weirder than the Gauls, but he’s soon forced to change his mind when a gigantic metal totem pole lands in blaze of flame right in his courtyard.

Out of it flies an incredible, bizarre, insectoid, oriental-seeming warrior demanding the whereabouts of a powerful wonder-weapon. Extremely cowed and slightly charred, Polyanthus tells him about the Magic Potion the Gauls always use to make his life miserableâ€¦

The Nagma immediately hurries off and encounters Obelix, but the rotund terrestrial is immune to all the invader’s armaments and martial arts attacks and responds by demonstrating with devastating efficacy how Gauls fightâ€¦

After zapping Dogmatix the Nagma retreats and when Obelix dashes back to the village follows him. No sooner has Toon cured the wonder mutt than the colossal Nagma robot-ship arrives, forcing the friendly alien to fly off and intercept it in his golden globeâ€¦

The Nagma tries to trade high-tech ordnance for the Gauls’ â€œsecret weaponâ€ but Asterix is having none of it, instead treating the invader to a dose of potion-infused punishment.

Stalemated the Nagma then unleashes an army of automatons dubbed Cyberats and Toon responds by deploying a legion of Superclones. The battle is short and pointless and a truce finds both visitors deciding to share the weaponâ€¦

Vitalstatistix is outraged but Getafix is surprisingly sanguine, opting to let both Toon and Nagma sample the heady brew for themselves. The effects are not what the visitors could have hoped for and the enraged alien oriental unleashes more Cyberats in a sneak attack.

Responding quickly, Asterix and Obelix employ two Superclones to fly them up to the marauding robots, dealing with them in time-honoured Gaulish fashion.

The distraction has unfortunately allowed the Nagma to kidnap Getafix and Toon returns to his globe-ship to engage his robotic foe in a deadly game of brinksmanship whilst a Superclone liberates the incensed Druid. None too soon the furious, frustrated Nagma decides enough is enough and blasts off, determined never to come back to this crazy planetâ€¦

Down below Polyanthus has meanwhile taken advantage of the chaos and confusion to rally his legions for a surprise attack, arriving just as the Gauls are enjoying a victory feast with their new alien ally. The assault goes extremely badly for the Romans, particularly after a delayed effect of the potion transforms affable Toon into something monstrous and uncannyâ€¦

Eventually all ends well and, thanks to technological wizardry, all the earthly participants are returned to their safely uncomplicated lives, once again oblivious to the dangers and wonders of a greater universeâ€¦

Fast, funny, stuffed with action and hilarious, tongue-in-cheek hi-jinks, this is a joyous rocket-paced rollercoaster for lovers of laughs and all open-minded devotees of comics. This still-controversial award-winning(Eagle 2006 winner for Best European Comic) yarn only confirmed Uderzo’s reputation as a storyteller willing to take risks and change things up, whilst his stunning ability to pace a tale was never better demonstrated. Asterix and the Falling Sky proves that the potion-powered paragons of Gallic Pride will never lose their potent punch.
Â© 2005 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny-Uderzo. English translation: Â© 2005 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny/Uderzo. All rights reserved.

December 22, 2014December 21, 2014

Asterix and the Actress

By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-75284-658-8

A son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25th 1927 in Fismes on the Marne. He dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic but even as a young child reading Mickey Mouse in Le PÃ©tit Parisien he showed artistic flair. Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at thirteen, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching.

When World War II came he spent time with farming relatives in Brittany and joined his father’s furniture-making business. Brittany beguiled and fascinated Uderzo and when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, that beautiful countryside was the only choice…

Tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’InvulnÃ©rable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-RÃ©-Vil’s novel Flamberge, dabbled in animation, worked as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir.

In 1950 he illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the artistic prodigy met Rene Goscinny in 1951. Soon bosom buddies, they resolved to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first published collaboration was in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes SoirÃ©e, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they resulted in a western starring a â€œRed Indianâ€ who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Ã‰difrance/Ã‰dipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart for La Libre Junior, replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

Although the gallant Gaul was a massive hit from the start, Uderzo continued illustrating Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure, but once the first hilarious historical romp was collected in an album as AstÃ©rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the hit series would demand most of his time – especially since the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, and in 1974 the partners formed IdÃ©fix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he retired.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first published as a complete original album before serialisation. Thereafter each new release was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

One of the most popular comics on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with twelve animated and live-action movies, TV series, assorted games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc AstÃ©rix, naturellement)â€¦

The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last named just refuses to be pacifiedâ€¦

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export from the mid-1960s onwards, Asterix the Gaul continues to grow in quality as new creators toil ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas and building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling goldâ€¦

Uderzo’s seventh session as sole auteur was AstÃ¨rix et Latraviata released in 2001 as the 30^th volume of the ever-unfolding saga. The English language version was released that same year as Asterix and the Actress.

The revelatory epic opens with romance in the air as Obelix and his lifelong pal return to the village laden down with boars and more battered keepsakes of the ongoing battle with the woefully outmatched Romans.

They amiably amble into a huge surprise party. The heroes share the same birthday and their friends have arranged the event to commemorate the occasion. Even their mothers have come down for a visit from fashionable regional capital Condatumâ€¦

Soon a feast is in full swing but after handing over their spectacular gifts – a fabulous jewelled sword for Asterix and an equally splendid Roman helmet for Obelix to add to his huge collection – culled from the parents’ fashionable souvenir shop, the mothers begin a battle of their own with their sons.

Fed up with waiting for their hardworking husbands to arrive from the Big City, the impatient matrons start in on the birthday boys with lectures about settling down and providing some grandchildrenâ€¦

Overruling Asterix and Obelix’s complaints, the insistent Sarsaparilla and Vanilla conduct acutely embarrassing interviews with the village’s contingent of eligible females – and their potential mothers-in-law – and even organise a formal dance to show off their sons’ matrimonial potential, but the matchmaking is a succession of fiascos since the oafish louts just don’t want to play ballâ€¦

Fathers Astronomix and Obeliscoidix are now long overdue. Unknown to all they have been arrested by Prefect Bogus Genius. The wily official has a problem which needs some clever and extremely delicate handling…

Already in custody is dipsomaniac former legionary Tremensdelirious (see Asterix and Caesar’s Gift), who sold the aforementioned sword and helmet to the Gaulish souvenir traders. Sadly the items’ true owner is Caesar’s greatest enemy Pompey and thus proof positive that the usurping former tribune is back in Europe. The items must be quietly recovered before Rome realisesâ€¦

Well aware of the ferocious reputation of the sons of his Gaulish captives, the Prefect enacts a devious scheme suggested by his spies. Mighty Obelix turns to jelly whenever he sees the beautiful Panacea (another village Ã©migrÃ© now living in Condatum with her husband Tragicomix – as first seen in Asterix the Legionary) so the devilish conspirator has hired the Empire’s greatest actress Latraviata to impersonate her and steal back the incriminating evidenceâ€¦

As the despondent dads tire of waiting for rescue by their doughty boys and strike a deal with their cellmate Tremensdelirious, Decurion Fastandfurius is pretending to be a merchant escorting â€œPanaceaâ€ back to her home village. The poor thing has a very selective case of amnesiaâ€¦

In that certain Gaulish village on the coast of Armorica the actress is readily accepted with only Druid Getafix in the least suspicious. Soon her fawning attention to besotted Obelix wins her the helmet but Asterix is not so easily wooed. That changes when a spat with his now-jealous bosom buddy results in a mighty blow to the head which deprives him of his usually superior witsâ€¦

If not for overprotective mother Vanilla the plot would have succeeded then and there, but she stops the ingÃ©nue making off with the sword and calls in Getafix to cure her addled son. Unfortunately the magic potion has a bizarre effect on the little zombie and Asterix goes wild, acting like an animal and scrapping with Obelix before hurtling out to sea like a torpedoâ€¦

He regains his senses on a rock in the middle of nowhere just as a massive storm erupts about him and only survives due to the intervention of old frenemies The Pirates and a particularly accommodating dolphinâ€¦

In the meantime Latraviata and Fastandfurius have secretly secured the sword and started back for Condatum. Still unaware of their true nature, the freshly reconciled Asterix and Obelix – who are heading in the same direction to find out what has delayed their dads – cadge a lift on the infiltrators’ cart.

Elsewhere, other agents are coming into play. A certain spy has already informed Caesar of trouble brewing and the real Panacea, having seen Astronomix and Obeliscoidix’s wrecked shop, has rushed off with Tragicomix to warn the villageâ€¦

As the heroes head for the city, they are baffled to see Romans so busy fighting each other that they don’t even notice their Gaulish nemeses, and everything comes to a startling head when Panacea apparently meets herself on the roadâ€¦

After explanations, apologies and a surprising change of heart on behalf of one of the conspirators, Asterix and Obelix dash on to Condatum to rescue their fathers, only to stride straight into a major melee as Caesar and Pompey’s forces furiously clashâ€¦

Of course it all works out in the end and cartoon dog-lovers everywhere will rejoice in the last moment arrival of the missing wonder mutt Dogmatixâ€¦and the introduction of his new â€œwifeâ€ and family. Apparently some heroes can successfully combine romance and dutyâ€¦

Packed with outrageous action, good-natured joshing, clever targeted raucous family humour, bombastic spectacle and a torrent of punishing puns to astound and bemuse youngsters of all ages, this rollicking affirmation of life’s eternal verities further confirmed Uderzo’s reputation as a storyteller whilst his stunning illustrative ability affords glimpses of sheer magic to lovers of cartoon art. Asterix and the Actress proves that the potion-powered paragons of Gallic Pride will never lose their potent punch.
Â© 2001 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny-Uderzo. English translation: Â© 2001 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny/Uderzo. All rights reserved.

December 18, 2014December 17, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Essential Kurtzman volume One

By Harvey Kurtzman (Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-61655-563-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Buy It Now, Love It Foreverâ€¦ 10/10

Well this is embarrassingâ€¦

About a month ago, after literally years of waiting impatiently, I finally reviewed one of the earliest classics of our art form, impetuously deciding that at least some of you might find and delight in Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book through second-hand and pre-owned suppliers.

Apparently, even as I was whining about the thing not being in print, superbly crafted copies of a wonderful new deluxe hardcover edition were winging their way around the planet thanks to the perspicacity of those fine people at Dark Horse and Kitchen Sink.

That will teach me to actually read some of the online reports and press releases we’re bombarded with here at Grumpy Old Luddite Centralâ€¦

Still my humiliation is your good fortune as this magnificently oversized (297x184mm) masterpiece is ready to buy and just in time to make this Holiday Season a time of wickedly barbed merrimentâ€¦

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with â€œThe Great 1960s Satire Boomâ€ producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writs – there’s a Christmas Annual out even as we speakâ€¦).

Sadly our American cousins were not so magnanimously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty rib-tickling intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it is a very large country of excitable citizens, with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and outright lunaticsâ€¦

Creative genius Harvey Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the last century – even more so than Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was also a force in newspaper strips (Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social critic who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art or sharing his conclusionsâ€¦

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour comicbook Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

He pursued comedy and social satire further with the magazines Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while creating challenging and powerfully effective humour strips such as Little Annie Fanny (for Playboy), Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon, far too young in 1993.

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug cruelly defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material. That company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s phenomenally best-selling paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenable to a gambleâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with far less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books packing bookshop shelves and newsstand spinners were always designed with one eye on the kids’ market.

This new stuff was strictly for adults who would happily follow newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a whole book of them. Duly enlightened, Kurtzman instead returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the aforementioned Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in many fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1986 when cartoonist, publisher and comics advocate Denis Kitchen released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

Adjudged by The Comics Journal as #26 in the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20^th Centuryâ€, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and this latest edition brilliantly gilds the graphic lily with a host of extra features and treats.

Augmented by a wealth of candid photos, covers and sketches from other works, this new chronicle of craziness offers an effusive Introduction by Gilbert Shelton and a fascinating and informative essay by Kitchen entitled ‘It’s a Jungle Out There!’ which reveals the tone of the times and discloses the background behind the novel novel’s creation.

Also included is the 1986 Kitchen Sink edition’s ‘Intro’ by rabidly devoted fan Art Spiegelman and, after the words and picture-fest concludes, a captivating ‘Epilogue’ ensues in the form of a scholarly ‘Conversation between Peter Poplaski and R. Crumb’â€¦

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent, probing questions about the world rapidly changing all around him.

Each tale in the quartet is prefaced by Kurtzman’s own commentary as shared with comics historian Dave Schriener for the 1986 Editionâ€¦

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving, hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece (barely) contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

In creating ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for low-rent publishers and bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc.

The quasi-autobiographical, impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative average business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The title comes from a trio of contemporary bestsellers on the subject of men in business: Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley (1952), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson in 1955 and William H. Whyte’s 1956 drama The Organization Man.

‘Compulsion on the Range’ simultaneously spoofs top-rated western Gunsmoke and the era’s growing fascination with cod psychology and angst-ridden heroes as Marshal Matt Dolin‘s far-reaching obsession with out-shooting infallible outlaw Johnny Ringding which takes him to the ends of the Earthâ€¦

The cartooning wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre or assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

The tale was inspired by the time Kurtzman spent in Paris, Texas during his wartime serviceâ€¦

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us’n sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, sommin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah some snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turns up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon vi’lint passions is furtha aroused and nuthin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth, ambition and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.
Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book (Essential Kurtzman Volume One) Â© 2014 Kitchen, Lind & Associates, LLC. All contents Â© and/or â„¢ their respective creators or rights holders. All artwork and stories Â© the estate of Harvey Kurtzman unless noted. Â All rights reserved.

November 30, 2014

In a Glass Grotesquely – Selected Picture Stories

By Richard Sala (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-797-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pure and Primal Comics Wondermentâ€¦ 9/10

Richard Sala is a lauded and much-deserving darling of the Literary Comics movement (if such a thing exists), blending beloved pop culture artefacts and conventions – particularly cheesy comics and old horror films – with a hypnotically effective ability to tell a graphic tale.

He grew up in Chicago and Arizona before earning a Masters in Fine Arts, and after beginning a career as an illustrator rediscovered his love of comicbooks. The potentially metafictional self-published Night Drive in 1984 led to appearances in legendary 1980s anthologies Raw and Blab! and animated adaptations of the series on Liquid Television.

His work is welcomingly atmospheric, dryly ironic, wittily quirky and mordantly funny; indulgently celebrating childhood terrors, gangsters, bizarre events, monsters and manic mysteries, with girl sleuth Judy Drood and the glorious trenchant storybook investigator Peculia the most well known characters in his gratifyingly large back catalogue.

Sala’s art is a joltingly jolly – if macabre – joy to behold and has also shone on many out-industry projects such as his work with Lemony Snickett, The Residents and even – posthumously – Jack Kerouac; illustrating the author’s outrageous Doctor Sax and The Great World Snake.

In a Glass Grotesquely is his latest irresistible tract of baroque pictorial enchantment, deftly combining his recent 2014 webcomic with a triptych of visceral and saturnine delusions from the end of the last century, all exploring the bleakest corners of the modern world’s communal fantasy landscape and applying his truly skewed raconteur’s gifts to giving us a thrill, a chill and a chortleâ€¦

The majority of this spookily sublime confrontation with the cartoon dark side is taken up with the gripping saga of ultimate enemy of America ‘Super-Enigmatix’, a diabolically inspired super-villain determined to avenge himself upon America for slights both imagined and tragically realâ€¦

Delivered in punchy alternating doses of surreal full-colour splashes and moody monochrome subplots, the story details how the brilliant weird-scientist, served by an army of beautiful female zealots and hidden race of mole people, tries to destroy modern society, only opposed by disenchanted ex-cop Natalie Charms and a dedicated band of â€œconspiracy nutsâ€â€¦

The struggle against a self-created monster hiding behind a smoke screen of urban legend is fast-paced, Byzantine, and insidiously politically charged: a mesmerising chase-caper and delight of post-modern paranoia meeting classic pulp-fiction melodramaâ€¦

Like a bleakly mordant reinvention of the Catholic Church’s Stations of the Cross, ‘It Will All Be Over Before You Know Itâ€¦’ is a sequence from single panel black and white epigrams building to a tableau of modern terrors for women seeking work, after which 1998’s ‘Stranger Street’ silently details the building tension as a psycho-killer haunts the streets of an already scary townâ€¦

The cracked chronicle then concludes with a Kafkaesque shaggy bird story delivered in barrage of grey wash, as an ineffectual nobody receives – and loses – a once-in-a-lifetime honour in ‘The Prestigious Banquet To Be Held In My Honour’â€¦

In a Glass Grotesquely amusingly exposes the seamy, scary underbelly of existence with these enigmatic, clever, compelling and staggeringly engaging yarns blending nostalgic escapism with the childish frisson of children scaring themselves silly under the bedcovers at night and will therefore make an ideal gift for the big kid in your life â€“ whether he/she’s just you, imaginary or even relatively realâ€¦

November 27, 2014November 28, 2014

Redcoats-ish: Jeff Martin’s War of 1812

By Jeff Martin (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-9921-5086-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for Making History Funâ€¦ 8/10

In recent years there seems to have been a glorious renaissance of Canadian mass culture. Being Erica, Rookie Blue, Orphan Black, Republic of Doyle, Murdoch Mysteries and a host of other intriguing TV shows all offer a slightly skewed look at entertainment standbys and standards – and that’s not even counting the hordes of individual Canucks who’ve made their mark in what we provincial Brits lazily consider the American monopoly of populist literature, movies, music, and assorted dramatic artsâ€¦

Comics and strips too have become reinvigorated, with scribes and pen-pushers producing some of the most interesting stuff since the mid-1980s when Cerebus the Aardvark was the undisputed acme of Indie publishing, Puma Blues invented a strikingly different aesthetic sensibility and a different Renegade Press put out such spellbindingly novel fare as Normalman, Neil the Horse, The Spiral Cage and a host of other off-kilter gems to liven up the world of cartoons and funnybooks.

Following on yesterdays review here’s an intriguing sidebar to one of the most badly-handled wars in history, which officially ended in December 1814, courtesy of well-fed diplomats in Ghent, but carried on killing folk and cocking up lives in the New World until somebody finally got around to telling the actual combatants in 1815â€¦

During its bi-centennial those times of trans-border trouble were wittily reassessed by cartoon and illustrator Jeff Martin via a weekly webcomic and are now cunningly compiled here through the auspices of Renegade Arts Entertainment.

In ‘A Note from the Frontline’ author Martin describes his long interest in the source material of this clash of incompetents, after which comics maven – and self-confessed liquor-lover – Jay Bardyla offers some insightful perspective into the creator’s career and process in ‘Forward March!’

Then the raucous rounds of slapstick shot and snark-filled sarcasm bombs are unleashed when a couple of ill-prepared, reluctant and self-preservation-obsessed citizens find themselves somehow marching off to war with the Canadian militiaâ€¦

At least stout and surly baker George is initially keen to serve, rushing off with no thought of danger (reallyâ€¦ none at allâ€¦) but he insists on dragging wisely reluctant trapper and frustrated bread buyer John Pink with him into the woods in search of the front lines.

In truth nobody made them go, nobody really wants them there and, after tramping through the brush for a good long time, they realise that they have no idea what the invading Americans even look like.

When they finally encounter some strangers by a river George and John spend so much time arguing what to do that their targets walk up and attack them firstâ€¦

And so it goes as folk on both sides – none of whom have ever been trained to fight – shamble through the dense countryside, missing each other and only inflicting harm accidentally, whilst simultaneously wishing they’d never started the affairâ€¦

As our hapless halfwits stumble into more and more trouble, not particularly participating in the all-but forgotten Battle of Maguaga and being on hand but no help at all during the daft-but-true exploit of the fall of unconquerable American stronghold Fort Detroit, other incongruous characters are introduced such as the dryly laconic native Joseph and a barking mad-alcoholic serving British Sergeant, all contributing greatly to the aura to the fiasco.

However the real delights and most incisive jabs are reserved for actual personalities of the conflict: Indian messiah Tecumseh, charismatic Canadian Major-General Isaac Brock, staggeringly inept American commander General William Hull and venal Washington war hawk Henry Clayâ€¦

Fast, funny and surprisingly informative, Redcoats-ish provides smart laughs, sharp observation and stylishly splendid cartoon comedy capers that no lover of history or hilarity will want to miss.
Redcoats-ish: Jeff Martin’s War of 1812 Â© 2014 Renegade Arts Entertainment.

November 19, 2014November 18, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book

By Harvey Kurtzman (Ballantine/Kitchen Sink)
ISBNs: 978-0-87816-033-4 (Kitchen Sink HB),Â Â Â Â Â 338-K (Ballantine original PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Hard To Find – but absolutely worth itâ€¦ 10/10

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with The Great 1960s Wit Scare producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writsâ€¦).

Somehow our American cousins were not so copiously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it a very large country with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and lunatics alikeâ€¦

Creative genius Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century – even more so than Will Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art to share his findingsâ€¦

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour funny book Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material.

The company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenableâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books always had one eye to the kids’ market.

This stuff was strictly for adults who would happily read newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a book of them. Duly enlightened Kurtzman returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1987 when Denis Kitchen (that much-missed crusading champion of all things grand, esoteric, nostalgic and/or naughty in comics), released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized (214 x 149 x 19mm) collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

It’s still one of the funniest, most marvellous examples of wit and creativity comics have ever produced, as well as Kurtzman’s longest single work and is long overdue for another go-round.

Large sized paperback editions were also released at the time, but are now just as hard to findâ€¦

Deemed one of the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20th Centuryâ€ by The Comics Journal, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and the Kitchen Sink edition augments its reproduction with an effusive and captivating ‘Intro’ from devoted fan Art Spiegelman plus an information-packed ‘Outro’ by editor and comics historian Dave Schriener.

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent probing questions about the world changing around him.

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece barely contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

For ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc. The quasi-autobiographical impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative typical business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The volume wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre and assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, somethin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah a snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turn up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon violent passions is furtha aroused and nothin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.

November 15, 2014November 14, 2014

The Crazy World of Rugby

By Bill Stott (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-770-0

We are apparently a nation of avid armchair sportsmen here in Britain, so I’ve taken this opportunity to re-examine the so-very-English obsession with chasing balls and incurring life-changing injury through the far gentler medium of cartoon books and in particular a collection of dry, droll and often painfully accurate observations by one of my favourite unsung gagsters.

Another prolific but criminally near-forgotten staple of British gag graphics, Bill Stott’s manically loose line, stunningly evocative drawing and mordantly acerbic conceptions (which basically boil down to â€œno matter how strange, if it can happen it will happen to you, but only if somebody is watchingâ€¦â€) were a mainstay of Punch, Private Eye, The Times and many other papers and publications from 1976 onwards.

In his other life he was – and probably still is – a degree-level college painting and drawing tutor. Moreover he’s still in the game – such as it is in these days of magazine and newspaper cartoon paucity – and you can check out his latest stuff or even commission an original simply by visiting billstott.co.uk.

There might even be copies of this superb little rib-tickler on sale thereâ€¦

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly poking (and here actually bending) our funny bones whilst pricking our pomposities and fascinations, and nothing says more about us than our crazy compulsion to thrash about in mud, smiting perfectly civil strangers in the name of fun and exerciseâ€¦

Within the pages of the Crazy World of Rugby (released in both English and American editions as a hardcover and paperback) the wary watcher from the safety of the sidelines will learn the horrors and joys of Scrum and Ruck, the utter inefficacy of referees, the amusing things you can do with upright poles and the agonising dangers of tradition whilst developing a fascination for odd-shaped ballsâ€¦

The role of parental support and the sweet angelic singing of burly men in shorts, the wonders of a robust appetite and attendant health benefits of a little regular fresh air are emphasised and the girl-pulling attractions of broken noses and mouths uncluttered by teeth are counterbalanced with observations on international rule interpretation.

Moreover, the idiosyncrasies of training regimens and the terrific indifference of the rules of physics and Laws of Momentum are redefined, all filtered through the hazy bonhomie of the friendly post-match booze-upâ€¦

One of a splendid range of themed collections issued by transatlantic publishing outfit Exley in both English and American editions, this fabulous full colour landscape tome is guaranteed to wring a wry smile from retired competitors whilst confirming for the rest of us what we’ve always assumed about this most manly of sports and most sporting of menâ€¦

These kinds of cartoon collection are perennial library/charity shop and jumble sale fare and if you ever see a Stott collections (others in this particular series include The Crazy World of Cats, Cricket, Hospitals, Housework, Marriage and Gardening) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a brilliant laugh with another true master of mirth.

As for me and my armchairâ€¦ Books yes, Rugby not so muchâ€¦

November 12, 2014November 11, 2014

Spirou and Fantasio in Moscow

By Tome & Janry, colour by Stephane De Becker & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-193-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a Wild Ride for Cold Winter Nightsâ€¦ 8/10

For the majority of English-speaking comics readers Spirou might be Europe’s biggest secret. The phenomenally long-lived character was a rough contemporary – and shrewdly calculated commercial response – to HergÃ©’s iconic Tintin, whilst the fun-filled periodical 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 Ã‰ditions Dupuis by boss-man Jean Dupuis, the proposed new magazine homed in on juvenile audiences and launched on April 21^st 1938; debuting neatly between DC Thomson’s The Dandy (4^th December 1937) and The Beano (July 30^th 1938) in the UK.

In America at that time a small comicbook publisher was preparing to release a new anthology entitled Action Comics. Ah, good timesâ€¦

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

Spirou the hero – whose name translates as both â€œsquirrelâ€ and â€œmischievousâ€ in the Walloon language – was first realised by French cartoonist FranÃ§ois Robert Velter under his pen-name Rob-Vel for his Belgian bosses in response to the phenomenal success of HergÃ©’s carrot-topped boy reporter, who had become a guaranteed money-spinning phenomenon for rival publisher Casterman since his own launch on January 10^th 1929 in Le Petit VingtiÃ¨me, the kids’ supplement to Belgian newspaper Le VingtiÃ¨me SiÃ¨cle.

Spirou magazine premiered with the plucky bellboy – and pet squirrel Spip – as the leads in an anthology weekly which bears his name to this day; featuring fast-paced, improbable cases which gradually eventually evolved into high-flying surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his pals have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators carrying on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche â€œDavineâ€ Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939.

In 1946 JijÃ©‘s assistant AndrÃ© Franquin assumed the reins, slowly sidelining the shorter, gag-like vignettes in favour of longer adventure serials whilst introducing a wide and engaging cast of regulars.

Eventually he created a phenomenally popular magic animal dubbed Marsupilami to the mix (first seen in Spirou et les hÃ©ritiers in 1952 and now a spin-off star of screen, plush toy store, console games and albums all his own), crafting increasingly fantastic tales until he resigned in 1969.

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

By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and without direction and three different creative teams were commissioned to alternate on the serial, until it was at last revitalised by Philippe Vandevelde writing as Tome and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry.

Their winning approach was to carefully adapt, reference and, in many ways, return to the beloved Franquin era. Their sterling efforts consequently revived the floundering feature’s fortunes and resulted in fourteen wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998.

This one, originally entitled ‘Spirou & Fantasio Ã Moscou’ from 1990, was their tenth collaboration and the 42^nd collected exploit of the tireless wanderers.

Set just after the fall of the Berlin Wall – and effective end of Soviet socialism – there’s a lot of editorial footnoting gong on to maintain understanding and sustain context but it’s all done in a witty and amusing manner, so there’s no loss of narrative tractionâ€¦

The drama begins with Spirou, Fantasio and Spip heading for a much deserved vacation in the sweltering heat of Tahiti when they are suddenly abducted by a gang of spooks. As the lads groggily recover from cruelly applied chemical coshes, their assailants offer a (hilariously shaded) review of Russian character and recent history since the end of the Communist State, paying especial attention to the fact that even in the newly capitalist country the KGB are still in chargeâ€¦

Russia is in trouble. The fall of the Iron Curtain has resulted in an influx of gangsterism, with the Mafia paramount in seeking out new territory for their nasty old rackets. Lacking experience in this kind of struggle, the security forces have requested the assistance of experts, and the French government – for it is they who have shanghaied our heroes – are happy to serve up Spirou and Co in return for the return of a couple of well-connected teenagers who got themselves arrested for protesting in the Kremlinâ€¦

By the time the press-ganged press-men are conscious enough to refuse they are already on the chilly tarmac of Moscow Airport and being handed badges as fully-accredited – if temporary – members of the KGBâ€¦

As they drive – via a torturous and convoluted secret route – into the city under the care of rowdily boisterous Colonel Dubyoutyev, they are briefed on the untenable situation.

It is not only the newcomers’ past record of success against the Mob which has brought them, albeit unwillingly, to this sorry state of affairs, but also the fact that they aren’t Russian.

When the Mafia first started operating, they were quickly infiltrated by KGB operatives, whilst the gangsters did exactly the same thing to the state police. Now nobody can trust anybody else and the authorities are forced to outsource credible and dependable assistanceâ€¦

Just as they are pulling up at the Kremlin the Colonel shows them a fuzzy photo of a strangely familiar face: suspected top mobster and fellow outsider Ivan Ivanovich Tanaziof. Then a shot rings out and the chauffeur slumps down. With the out-of-control car crashing onto the frozen river, in an office of the ministry, Count Nikita Bloyuredov places a call to his boss to claim â€œmission accomplishedâ€â€¦

Crawling from the wreckage, our battered but still intrepid lads opt to use their freshly-minted credentials to get to the French Embassy. En route in a commandeered taxi, Spirou shares his suspicions. Perhaps the ruthless westerner Tanaziof has some previous connection to them? Perhaps he’s Fantasio’s insane and merciless cousin Zantafio, back with another murderous scheme to grab power and wealth no matter who has to suffer?

They arrive just as a grand Fancy Dress Ball commences and the security guards refuse to let them enter. They do however let them see the Embassy Chief of Protocol and Count Bloyuredov is absolutely delighted to meet themâ€¦ until he sees his master Prince Tanaziof crash the party with a gang of armed heaviesâ€¦

Happily Spirou and Fantasio also spot the intrusion and take cover whilst the mobsters boldly rob the gathering and the jumped-up aristocrat arrogantly boasts that his next move to reclaim Russia for his family will be to steal the sacred relic of Lenin’s embalmed body from its utterly secure tomb in Red Squareâ€¦

As the gangsters gleefully exit, agents â€œSpirovâ€ and â€œFantasievâ€ are contacted by the miraculously alive and rather wisely deep, deep, deep undercover Dubyoutyev who has also survived the crashâ€¦

Trading information, they all agree that Tanaziof/Zantafio is fraudulently proclaiming himself â€œWhite Prince of the Russian Mafiaâ€ whilst attempting to pass himself off as the next Tsar. The KGB Colonel is horrified to hear of the sacrilegious plot to desecrate Lenin’s mausoleum and dashes off to implement the appropriate security measures but his reluctant agents know it won’t be enoughâ€¦

Returning to the now quiet Embassy the rightly suspicious visitors finally meet the Ambassador, who merely tells them it’s a Russian matter. On their way out the disgruntled pair receive an anonymous note promising the whereabouts of Tanaziof. Despite the certain knowledge that it’s a trap the neophyte spies later rendezvous at the spectacular outdoor spa known as the Moskva Poolâ€¦

After a horrific â€œaccidentâ€ once again kills the wrong people, delighted and oblivious Bloyuredov heads straight for Tanaziof’s palatial hideout to share the good news, utterly unaware of the two men and a squirrel on his tailâ€¦

The plan to steal Lenin is about to commence and without a moment’s pause Spirou and Fantasio disguise themselves and join the raiding partyâ€¦

Cannily blending wry humour, broad slapstick, light-hearted action and rollicking adventure with a swift-paced espionage caper, all topped-off with the so-satisfying return of a world-class arch villain to sweeten the deal, this rollercoaster romp builds to a brilliantly madcap conclusion as funny as it is breathtaking and all lavishly smothered in oodles of wicked ironyâ€¦

Since Tome & Janry’s departure both Lewis Trondheim and the team of Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera have brought the official album count to over fifty as well as a bunch of specials, spin-offs and one-shots (official and otherwise), creating a vast pool of superb comedy-adventure romps that simply cannot be translated fast enough for my liking.

This kind of lightly-barbed, keenly-conceived, fun thriller is a sheer joy in an arena far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly sweet fantasy. Readily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductively wholesome Ã©lan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Bluecoats and Iznogoud so compelling, this is another cracking read from a long line of superb exploits, certain to be as much a household name as those series â€“ and even that other pesky kid with the white dogâ€¦
Original edition Â© Dupuis, 1990 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 Â© Cinebook Ltd.

October 15, 2014October 14, 2014

HÃ¤gar the Horrible: The Epic Chronicles – Dailies 1980-1981

By Dik Browne (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-715-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a perfect package of traditional funâ€¦ 9/10

Although very much in decline these days, for nearly 200 years cartoon strips and gag-panels were the universal medium of wit, satire mirth and cultural exchange. Latterly we purveyors of primarily sequential narrative have exhibited an unhappy tendency to become protective and parochial about our own particular specialism within the greater art form.

How many times have we heard an artist or writer working on a hot new comicbook property revelling in sales of sixty-to-seventy thousand monthly copies, almost simultaneously disparage strips such as Dilbert, Dick Tracy or Garfield whose daily readership can be numbered in millions, if not billions?

Let’s all just try to remember that tastes differ, and that we’re all just making lines on a surface here, and most especially that TV and Computer Games are the real enemy of our industry, shall we?

OK, rant over.

Mainstream cartooning is a huge daily joy to a vast and often global readership whose needs are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers dipping their toes in the sequential narrative pool. Even those stuck-up stickybeaks who have pointedly â€œnever read a comicâ€ have read and enjoyed strips or panels, and in this arena Britain has seen not only a golden bounty of home produced material but also imported some of the very best the rest of the world has to offer.

Dik (AKA Richard Arthur Allan) Browne was a native New Yorker born in 1917 who studied at Cooper Union and apprenticed as a copy boy and art-bod for the New York Journal America before joining the US Army.

His wartime duties in the Engineering Corps included strategic map-making, but whilst in service he also created the comic strip Jinny Jeep about the Women’s Army Corps, which set the tone for his peacetime career.

A professional cartoonist and illustrator, he worked for Newsweek and in advertising after mustering out, gaining a reputation as a superb logo designer (The Campbell Soup Kids, Chiquita Banana and the Birdseye Bird number amongst his most memorable creations).

He also dabbled with comicbooks – a few Classics Illustrated Junior issues – and produced some children’s books, before teaming up with Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker to draw the hugely successful spin-off strip Hi and Lois in 1954.

Whilst illustrating that family comedy – and deviously training his sons Chance and Chris to take eventually over his cartooning duties – Dik devised another strip that he would write as well as render.

HÃ¤gar the Horrible debuted through the King Features Syndicate on February 4^th 1973 and quickly became a world-wide hit. The strip is still a fixture in 1900 newspapers in 58 countries in thirteen languages and the iconic characters have migrated to books, comic albums, games, animated movies, toys and moreâ€¦

Dik Browne retired from cartooning in 1988 and tragically died from cancer on June 4^th 1989. Chance now continues Hi and Lois whilst Chris continues to wield pen, wave sword and wear the chief’s horned helmet on HÃ¤garâ€¦

A certified classic of World Cartooning, HÃ¤gar the Horrible is the ongoing subject of a comprehensive collectors series and this latest (sixth) monolithic hardback compendium covers 7^th July 1980 to January 2^nd 1982, with the hard-drinking, voracious sea-roving Viking and his scurvy crew constantly trekking out to far climes before perennially staggering home to their quirky families in a never-ending stream of sight gags, painful puns and surreal situations.

This volume opens with a passionate reverie from a close associate and fellow star cartoonist in the Foreword by Lynn Johnston before Chris Browne shares memories of one his dad’s most imaginative and appealing children’s books (The Land of Lost Things co-created with Mort Walker) in ‘The Lost World of Dik Browne’.

Then, before the cavalcade of comic calamity commences, readers old and new are regaled with a handy chart of the HÃ¤gar Family Tree, reintroducing the great man and his doughty dependents: Helga the long-suffering wife, studious son Hamlet and troublesome teenaged daughter Honi.

Also making an appearance are faithful canine Snert, stroppy house-duck Kvack and the hero’s faithful if intellectually challenged sidekick Lucky Eddieâ€¦

The magic of these daily strips is the constant stream of japes and capers constantly revisiting established themes and hot-button topics. Over the hundreds of pages that follow you can see HÃ¤gar’s perpetual struggle to bring home the bacon (and wine and gold and textiles andâ€¦), spar with Helga as she fruitlessly struggles to civilise her barbaric oaf of a man, and Honi’s torment as she pines equally for seedy musician Lute and noble knight Sir Philip Courtright whilst testing out other matrimonial options and alternatively considers a career as a axe-swinging Valkyrieâ€¦

Bookish Hamlet is always there to disappoint and delight his gregarious, bellicose dad; Snert and Kvack frequently outwit and appal the humans who share their home whilst Lucky Eddie and the mismatched crew of incompetent sea-reavers follow the red-bearded rascal into battle against foreign armies, daunting dragons, a coterie of assorted clergy and the unwelcoming elements, content in the knowledge that somehow, somewhere they will find more boozeâ€¦

Enticing, irrepressible, hilarious and deeply satisfying, HÃ¤gar the Horrible is a masterpiece of the strip cartoonists’ unique art form and one guaranteed to deliver delight over and over again to young and old alike.

HÃ¤gar the Horrible is Â© 2014 King Features Syndicate and â„¢ Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. All strips Â© 1980 & 1981 King Features Syndicate. All rights reserved. All other material Â© 2014 their respective authors.

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