Category: Comic Strip Classics

Posted on

Footrot Flats book 5


By Murray Ball (Orin Books)
ISSN: 0156-6172

For one of the most successfully syndicated strips in the world, Footrot Flats seems to have passed from public consciousness with painful alacrity. Created in 1975 by cartoonist and comics artist Murray Ball after returning to his New Zealand homeland, the fantastical farm feature ran for a quarter of a century, with the first of a multitude of strip compendia, calendars and special editions released in 1978.

It appeared in newspapers on four continents until 1994 when Ball retired it, citing reasons as varied as the death of his own dog and the state of New Zealand politics.

Thereafter books of new material were released until 2000, resulting in 27 daily strip collections, 8 volumes of Sunday pages known as “Weekenders”, 5 pocket books and ancillary publications such as “school kits” and the aforementioned, all-new, annual calendars.

There was a stage musical, a theme park and a truly superb animated film Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tail Tale.

The well travelled and extremely gifted Mr. Ball had originally moved to England in the early 1960s, becoming a cartoonist for Punch (producing Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero and All the King’s Comrades) as well as drawing numerous strips for DC Thompson and Fleetway and concocting a regular political satire strip in Labour Weekly.

After marrying he returned to the Old Country and resettled in 1974 – but not to retire…

Ball was busier than ever once he’d bought a small-holding on the North Island to farm in his “spare time”. This inevitably led to the strip under review. Taking the adage “write what you know” to startling and occasionally stomach-churning heights, the peripatetic pencil-pusher promptly gave up sleeping altogether to limn these wickedly funny escapades concerning the highs and lows – and most definitely “wildests” – of the agricultural life as experience by the earthily metaphoric Wallace Footrot Cadwallader: an oaf in search of the plot…

Wal is a big, bluff farmer. He’s a regular bloke: likes his food; loves his sport – Rugby, Football (the Antipodean kind, not the girl’s game the Yanks call Soccer) and Cricket; each in its proper season and at no other time…

He owns a small sheep farm (the eponymous Footrot Flats) best described as “400 acres of swamp between Ureweras and the Sea”.

With his chief – and only – hand Cooch Windgrass (a latter-day Francis of Assisi), and a sheepdog who calls himself “Dog”, Wal scrapes a living – and one too many bolshie beasts – but is, at least, his own boss.

Dog is the star (and narrator) of the strip: a cool, if imaginative and overly sentimental know-all and blowhard, utterly devoted to his, for want of a better term, Master – unless there’s food about, or Jess (the sheepdog bitch from down the road) is in heat again.

Dry, surreal and wonderfully self-deprecating, the humour comes from the perfectly realised characters, human and otherwise, the tough life of a bachelor farmer and especially the country itself.

Other notable regular’s include Wal’s fierce and prickly little niece Janice – known to all as Pongo, the sternly staunch and starched Dolores Monrovia Godwit Footrot, AKA Aunt Dolly, wise guy local lad Rangi Wiremu Waka Jones, Dolly’s spoiled Corgi Prince Charles, and Pew, a sadistic, inventive, obsessed and vengeful magpie who bears an unremitting grudge against Farmer Cadwallader …

The biggest and most terrifying scene-stealer is Horse, a monstrous and invulnerable tomcat who lords it over every living thing in the district …

The comedy is as always, absolutely top-rate and Ball is one of those gifted few who can actually imbue a few lines on paper with the power of Shakespeare’s tragedy and the manic hilarity of manic geniuses like the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy. When combined with his sharp, incisive writing the result is pure irresistible magic.

In the UK Titan Books published three volumes in the early 1990s and foreign editions were released in German, Japanese, Chinese and American, but the same material is readily available from a number of publishers and retailers; here more than ever the internet is your friend.

The dry dramas and funny old businesses generally accrue via the laconic raconteuring of “The Dog”, a great lazy canine softie, eking out his daily crusts (and oysters and biscuits and cake and lamb’s tails and scraps and chips and…), alternately getting on with or annoying the sheep, cows, bull, goat, hogs, ducks, bugs, cats, horses, geese, all the resolutely undomesticated wildlife and the decidedly odd humans his owner knows or is related to.

Dog – his given name is an embarrassing, closely and violently guarded secret – loves Wal but always tries to thwart him if the big bloke is trying to do unnecessarily necessary farm chores such as chopping down trees, burning out patches of scrub, culling livestock, or trying to mate with the pooch’s main rival Darlene “Cheeky” Hobson, hairdresser-in-residence of the nearest town.

This extra-large (262x166mm) landscape monochrome fifth volume again comes from the Australian editions series and started the tradition of dividing the strips into approximately seasonal sequences, as well as beginning to show another near unique facet of the series with the ever-expanding cast visibly aging in what approximates real-time in the world of periodical publishing.

After a rather reluctant biography from the artist’s then teenaged son Mason, an appreciation from the canine star’s occasional paramour Jess the sheep-bitch and an introduction from The Dog himself, a selection of spot gags and cartoons describing anti-Cheeky tactics precedes the strip sensations of ‘Spring’ as Wal and the Dog prepare for the grimy, smelly profusion of life which follows the far from gentle rainy season.

When not living in terror of the farm cat Horse, teasing the corpulent Corgi Prince Charles or dreading the competition with noble hunting hound Major, the Dog runs continually afoul of the deer which infest the spread. A hilarious sequence of the humans trying to take Horse to the Vet easily segues into a plethora of close encounters as the livestock all experience the stirrings of love in their prodigious loins…

With ‘Summer’ comes cricket, baby animals, sea fishing, and Pongo for the school holidays: all offering new ways to add to Wal’s blood pressure and Dog’s embarrassment. This year’s particular novelties include water shortages, hang-gliding and using a helicopter to herd deer – and why that’s such a good idea…

‘Autumn’ brings harvests and rugby and more rain and sheep well into the pregnancies that make Wal’s life so rewarding (yeah, more sarcasm, mate) whilst ‘Winter’ offers floods, lambing season – always at night and always in rain or snow – plus, mud, footy, mud, river-fishing for whitebait and mud, although this year the old oaf does try his hefty hand at golf and gets talked into coaching the school rugby team with results any idiot could predict; especially as The Dog is on the team too…

Footrot Flats, whether singly or in collections such as this, always marries sarcasm, satire, slapstick and surreality in a perfect union of pathos and down to earth (and up to your elbows) humour that is utterly captivating; expansive, efficient, exciting and just plain brilliant.

If you feel the need to fill your lungs with country air, your boots with squelchiness and your brain with breathtaking belly-laughs why not give the Dog a go? Let your preferred search engine be your guide…

Go on. Fetch!
© 1981 Murray Ball. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Asterix and the Soothsayer, Asterix in Corsica & Asterix and Caesar’s Gift


By Goscinny & Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBNs: 978-075286-628-4, 978-0-75286-630-7 and 978-0-75286-632-1

One of the most popular comics features on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut in 1959, with animated and live-action movies, TV series, assorted games, toys and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc Astérix, unsurprisingly…) all stemming from his glorious exploits.

More than 325 million copies of 34 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s bestselling international authors.

The diminutive, doughty, potion-powered paragon of Gallic Pride was created by two of the industry’s greatest masters, René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo. Although their inspirational collaborations ended in 1977 with the death of the prolific scripter, the creative wonderment continued until relatively recently from Uderzo and assistants – albeit at a slightly reduced rate.

The wonderment works on multiple levels: ostensibly, younger readers revel in the action-packed, lavishly illustrated comedic romps where sneaky, bullying baddies get their just deserts, whilst we more worldly readers enthuse over the dry, pun-filled, sly satire, especially as enhanced for English speakers by the brilliantly light touch of translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge, who played no small part in making the indomitable Gaul and his gallant companions so palatable to the Anglo-Saxon world. (Moi, I still rejoice in a perfectly produced “Paf!” to the snoot as much as any painfully potent procession of puns or sardonic satirical sideswipe…)

The stories were set on Uderzo’s beloved Brittany coast, where a small village of warriors and their families resisted every effort of the Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul, or alternately, anywhere in the Ancient World, circa 50BC, as the Gallic Gentlemen visited the fantastic lands and civilisations of the era…

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

The Gauls don’t care: they daily defy the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the rather diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friend…

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export by the mid-1960s, Asterix the Gaul continued to grow in quality as Goscinny & Uderzo toiled ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas; building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling gold. Moreover, following the civil unrest and nigh-revolution in French society following the Paris riots of 1968, the tales began to increasingly show signs of trenchant satire and more directed social commentary…

Asterix and the Soothsayer was the 19th serialised epic, originally running in Pilote #652-673 throughout 1972, first translated into an English album in 1975, and begins ominously whilst the village’s venerable mystic protector Getafix is away at his annual Druiding conference. During a torrential storm nefarious Soothsayer named Prolix turns up seeking shelter. His dark predictions instantly spread disharmony amongst the hospitable, hot-headed, painfully superstitious and credulous Gaulish stalwarts… except for level headed and canny little Asterix.

As Prolix leaves the Chief’s wife Impedimenta sneaks after him, keen on a personal prediction and the crafty charlatan soon discovers he’s on to a good thing and profitably cushy number…

Before long the entire village is under the soothsayer’s grimy thumb, but when he vanishes the ladies of the village accuse Asterix of driving him off.

In actuality the unsavoury sage has been arrested by the Romans who have standing orders to deal harshly with all non-Roman prognosticators and troublemakers. The wily Prolix barters for his life with Centurion Arteriosclerosus, who sees a way to end his Indomitable Gaul problems by using the obviously fraudulent fortune-teller as a wedge to drive out the obstreperous resistors…

Prolix returns to the village and utters a doom-laden pronouncement: the place has been cursed by the Gods and a pestilential stench will precede plague. Inevitable death will be their fate if they remain…

Panicked, the gullible Gauls head for the beach and take refuge on an off-shore island – all that is, except for Asterix, Obelix and chivalrous canine companion Dogmatix…

With the Romans at last in possession of the village – and all Gaul finally conquered – the bold last rebels make their plans until Getafix returns. On his arrival the three men and a dog embark on an elaborate scheme to take back their home and teach their foolish fellows a much needed lesson.

Concocting a stunningly malodorous vapour which drives the occupiers from the village, the druid convinces the Romans that Prolix is a real soothsayer and ambitious Arteriosclerosus sees a chance to become the next Caesar. Even baffled conman Prolix begins to believe his predictions are real…

After dressing down the refugee Gauls, Getafix leads them back to their beloved homes where the incensed and wiser villagers top up on magic potion and rush off to teach the invaders – and Prolix – a much needed lesson. On this occasion, Impedimenta and the village women accompany their men, determined to expiate their embarrassing gullibility with a little cathartic violence of their own…

This delightfully arch and acerbic attack on gullibility and superstition is a splendid chance to see the minor characters play to their strengths and weaknesses with Asterix and Obelix almost relegated to walk-on parts…

First translated two years earlier in England but chronologically following on from The Soothsayer in the original French serialisations Asterix in Corsica (Pilote #687-708, in 1973) was the 20th adventure and the best-selling French language album of the series.

Another globe-trotting yarn, it begins with the Romans of the four occupying garrisons “deploying for manoeuvres” to avoid having to deal with Gauls’ painfully exuberant celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Gergovia. Unfortunately for Centurion Hippotamus and his men they are delayed by the arrival of a party from Praetor Perfidius, Governor of Corsica, escorting a dangerous prisoner into exile. They are still in Totorum when the high-spirited villagers (and many guest-star friends from previous adventures) arrive keen for a punch-up and a little annoyed that all the other Roman camps are deserted…

When the dust settles and the groans of pain subside, Asterix discovers the prisoner Boneywasawarriorwayayix and invites him back to the village for a slap-up feed. Over boar and beer the Gauls hear how Perfidius had the popular Corsican leader exiled to prevent him revealing how the Praetor has been over-taxing the people and embezzling the gold for himself instead of sending to Caesar in Rome. Corsica is officially the most troublesome spot in the Empire and the exile is determined to return and expose the hated Governor, so the proud and haughty Boneywasawarriorwayayix is delighted when Asterix and Obelix – with the faithful Dogmatix – determine to help him sneak back to his fiercely over-fortified and contained island (most volumes of this album have a map of Corsica instead of the traditional Gaulish village, and the tiny nation contains four towns and forty-six Roman camps)…

Hilariously obtaining passage on the pirate ship of Redbeard the voyagers soon find themselves on the island – but not unnoticed…

Soon the dissolute and lazy soldiery are hunting the heroes as they make their way inland to the exile’s home village to rally the populace whilst in the city of Aleria Perfidius suspects the jig is up and prepares to flee with his ill-gotten gains…

Trying to rally the natives Boneywasawarriorwayayix comes up against the age-old dilemma: most Corsicans are involved in centuries long vendettas and would much rather fight each other – at least when they’re not taking a siesta – than unite to attack the invaders. However at last, a determined band of warriors marches on Aleria but almost too late. Perfidius has been secretly loading his loot onto a ship but when his soldiers discover it they realise their leader is planning to abandon then to the fierce and furious Corsicans – at least if diplomatic Asterix can manage to stop the natives killing each other first…

Asterix travel epics are always packed with captivating historical titbits, soupcons of healthy cynicism, singularly surreal situations and amazingly addictive but generally consequence-free action, always illustrated in a magically enticing manner.

Stuffed with sly pokes and good-natured trans-national teasing of perceived nationalist characteristics and celebrating the terrifying power of Corsican cheeses and liberally served up with raucous hi-jinks and fast-paced action, this is another magical titbit of all-ages entertainment.

In 1974 Asterix and Caesar’s Gift was the first tale to be published as a complete album before being serialised, with a British translation appearing in 1977. It begins in Rome where two 20-year veteran legionaries drunkenly celebrate being honourably discharged. Tremensdelirious and Egganlettus eagerly look forward to being given their service reward: a parcel of land each.

Unfortunately Tremensdelirious is overheard disparaging Caesar but the sardonically cruel leader does not punish the old soldier or even withhold his pension. In fact he gives Tremensdelirious a lovely portion of the Gaulish coast in Armorica: all he has to do is shift a few recalcitrant Gauls from their village on his new small holding…

A drunk but not a fool the old soldier knows his fate is sealed and soon trades his dispensation to Lutetian inn-keeper Orthopaedix to settle his bar-bill…

The first that the Indomitable Gauls know of this is when Orthopaedix, his wife Angina and daughter Influenza roll up in their cart and try to take possession. After some hilarity the villagers go back about their business and the inn-keeper is left to suffer the fury of his wife at the uprooting of the family to a barbaric hovel where nobody acknowledges their claim.

No stranger to such a tongue-lashing, Chief Vitalstatistix takes pity on Orthopaedix and offers to let them stay and open an inn in the hamlet, but the standoffish villagers are angered by Angina’s superior airs and a riot breaks out on opening night…

The world-weary publican is ready to quit but now the humiliated Angina is in a status duel with Impedimenta and, determined to stay, makes Orthopaedix challenge Vitalstatistix for the post of village Chief. As the campaign to win the support of the always argumentative villagers intensifies, all manner of shoddy tactics, dubious lobbying and outright bribery takes place with each party frantically trying to curry political favour from the fickle but extremely astute potential voters who know the value of their own support…

Simple, gentle oafish Obelix has fallen under the spell of the lovely Influenza, who leads him on cruelly to help out her mother’s naked ambition, leading to fight with his best friend. Only Asterix seems aware that the discord could well be the death of the village and lead to Caesar’s ultimate triumph and soon the waters are further muddied when elderly Lothario Geriatrix declares himself a third party and splits the potential vote even further.

The political crisis reaches boiling point when Tremensdelirious turns up and demands his land-grant back: after all it’s illegal to sell them to Gauls, and Orthopaedix has no say in the matter…

When the ex-legionary turns violent Asterix steps in to save the day and the old sot is driven off at sword-point. He doesn’t go far – only to the garrison of Laudanum where old comrade Egganlettus has re-enlisted – and together they blackmail Centurion Tonsillitus into attacking the Gauls to uphold Roman law and get back that “official” pension land which is every soldier’s right…

That kind of military intervention usually ends disastrously, but this time the village is hopelessly divided by political intrigue and backstabbing and even Asterix cannot unite them against their real and common foe. It seems that the Gauls must lose everything until Orthopaedix makes a supreme sacrifice to save the day…

Brittle, barbed and devilishly sharp, this outrageous political thriller and satire on modern electioneering is as pertinent and punchy as it ever was, proving once again that these Gallic graphic masterpieces are perfect comics which everyone should read over and over again.
© 1972-1974 Goscinny/Uderzo. Revised English translation © 2004 Hachette. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Footrot Flats book 4


By Murray Ball (Orin Books)
ISSN: 0156-6172

You may or may not have heard of Footrot Flats. For one of the most successfully syndicated strips in the world, it seems to have passed from memory with staggering rapidity. Created by Murray Ball on his return to his homeland of New Zealand, it ran from 1975 to 1994, with the first strip compendium released in 1978.

The feature ran in newspapers on four continents until 1994 when Ball retired it, citing reasons as varied as the death of his own dog and the state of New Zealand politics. Thereafter books of new material were released until 2000, resulting in 27 daily strip collections, 8 volumes of Sunday pages known as “Weekenders”, and 5 pocket books, plus ancillary publications such as “school kit”. There was a stage musical, a theme park and a truly superb animated film Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tail Tale.

The well travelled and extremely gifted Mr. Ball had moved to England in the early 1960s, becoming a cartoonist for Punch as well as drawing strips for DC Thompson and Fleetway and producing a regular strip in Labour Weekly. After marrying he returned to the Old Country and resettled in 1974 – but not to retire.

Ball was busier than ever after he bought a small-holding on the North Island and farmed in his spare time (for anyone not brought up in the countryside that last bit was called “Sarcasm”). This inevitably led to the strip under review. Taking the adage “write what you know” to startling heights, the peripatetic artist promptly gave up sleeping altogether to craft these wickedly funny episodes about the highs and lows and especially “weirds” of the agricultural life as experience by the earthily metaphoric Wallace Footrot Cadwallader: one oaf and his dog.

Wal is a big, bluff farmer. He’s a regular bloke, likes his food; loves his sport – Rugby, Football and Cricket; each in its proper season. He owns a small sheep farm (the eponymous Footrot Flats) best described as “400 acres of swamp between Ureweras and the Sea”.

With his chief – and only – hand Cooch Windgrass (a latter-day Francis of Assisi), and a sheepdog who calls himself “Dog” Wal makes a living and is his own boss. Dog is the star (and narrator) of most of the strips: a cool know-all and blowhard, he’s utterly devoted to his, for want of a better term, Master – unless there’s food about or Jess (the sheepdog bitch from down the road) is in heat again.

Dry, surreal and wonderfully self-deprecating, the humour comes from the perfectly realised characters, human and otherwise, the tough life of a bachelor farmer and especially the country itself.

The cartooning is absolutely top-rate. Ball is one of those gifted few who can actually draw funnily. When combined with his sharp, incisive writing the result is pure magic. In the UK Titan Books published three volumes in the early 1990s and foreign editions have been released in German, Japanese, Chinese and American, but the same material is readily available from a number of publishers and retailers; here more than ever the internet is your friend.

The dry dramas and funny old businesses generally unfold as big lazy softie Dog, eking out his daily crusts (and oysters and biscuits and cake and sheep tails and scraps and chips and…) interacts with the sheep, cows, a bull, goats, hogs, ducks, bugs, cats, horses, geese and the occasional visiting relative) just trying to get by. He loves Wal but will always try to thwart him if the big bloke is trying to do unnecessarily necessary chores such as chopping down trees, culling livestock, or trying to mate with the pooch’s main rival Darlene “Cheeky” Hobson, the local town hairdresser.

This extra-large (262x166mm) landscape monochrome fourth volume covering strips from 1978-1979 comes from the Australian editions series and introduces still more unique characters with Ball hitting a creative peak and new heights of manic zaniness. There’s also a lovely section of new material created especially for this edition.

Wal’s prickly little niece Janice – known to all as Pongo – was now a regular as was the formidable and unflappable Dolores Monrovia Godwit Footrot, AKA Aunt Dolly, but new characters here include wise guy kid Rangi Wiremu Waka Jones, Dolly’s spoiled Corgi Prince Charles, and Pew, a sadistic and inventive magpie obsessed with revenge after Wal cut down his favourite tree.

Of course the big scene stealer is as ever Horse, a monstrous and invulnerable farm tomcat who terrifies every carbon-based life-form for miles around…

As well as a splendid selection of pieces which include Wal’s problems with Clydesdales (like horses but much bigger), calving season, the weather, Dog at the circus, possum trapping, the art of being manly, the horror of fencing posts and the Dog’s campaign against bloodsports, this tome also includes some too-rare huge single-panel gags showing the artist’s facility with zany, action-packed comedy set-pieces and his sheer cartoon inventiveness.

This collection is utterly captivating; expansive, efficient, exciting and just plain funny.

If I’ve convinced you to give the Dog a go, your favourite search engine will be all the help you need… Go on. Fetch!
© 1981 Murray Ball. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Batman: the World’s Finest Comics Archives volume 2


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Don Cameron, Joe Samachson, Norman Fallon, Dick Sprang, Win Mortimer, Ray Burnley, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0163-6

The creation of Superman propelled National Comics to the forefront of their fledgling industry and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the start of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow prominently featured among the four-colour stars of the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics.

A year later, following the birth of Batman and Robin, National combined Dark Knight, Boy Wonder and Man of Steel on the cover of the follow-up New York World’s Fair 1940. The spectacular 96 page anthology was a huge hit and the format was retained as the Spring 1941 World’s Best Comics #1, before finally settling on the now legendary title World’s Finest Comics from #2, beginning a stellar 45-year run which only ended as part of the massive clear-out and de-cluttering exercise that was Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Until 1954 and the swingeing axe-blows of rising print costs, the only place Superman and Batman ever met was on the stunning covers by the likes of Jack Burnley, Fred Ray and others. Between those sturdy card covers, the heroes maintained a strict non-collaboration policy…

This second glorious deluxe hardback dedicated to the Gotham Gangbusters’ early appearances reprints the Batman tales from World’s Finest Comics #17-32 (Spring 1945 – January/February 1948), in gleaming, glossy full-colour and also includes a fascinating Foreword by author and fan Bill Schelly and concludes with brief biographies of all the creators involved in these early masterpieces.

In between those text titbits there is unbridled graphic enchantment beginning with ‘Crime Goes to College’ by Bill Finger, Norman Fallon & Dick Sprang, wherein the Dynamic Duo tracked down a cracked academic determined to prove that he could make crime pay whilst ‘Specialists in Crime’ scripted by Don Cameron, pitted the heroes against a wily team who seemed to have the right man for every job they pulled…

In #19 the Joker organised ‘The League for Larceny’ (Joe Samachson, Bob Kane & Ray Burnley) to promote the finer points of criminality until Batman and Robin stepped in whilst in #20 (Winter 1946, and the last quarterly edition: from the next issue the comicbook would appear every two months) benign numismatist Mark Medalion turned out to have a very sinister other face as ‘The King of Coins’, a clever and exotic thriller from Cameron & Win Mortimer.

WF #21 (March/April 1946, illustrated by Mortimer and the uncredited writer is probably Cameron) introduced ‘Crime’s Cameraman’ Sam Garth, a keen shutterbug whose unwitting enthusiasm masked a deadly secret, whilst ‘A Tree Grows in Gotham City’ (written by Alvin Schwartz?) spoofed the infamous novel by pitting the Dynamic Duo against a gang of thugs determined to dig up an elderly oak belonging to an equally elderly gent… but why?

‘Champions Don’t Brag’ (William Woolfolk & Mortimer) focussed on Dick Grayson’s understandable desire to excel at sports: a wish constantly thwarted by the need to keep his Robin alter ego secret. When his school’s best athlete was kidnapped the fear proved justified since the abductors then tried to ransom the “Boy Wonder” they sincerely believed they had captured…!

The unknown writer of ‘The Case of the Valuable Orphans’ told a powerful tale of cruel criminality as thugs exploited carefully placed adopted children to case potential burglary jobs, whilst ‘The Famous First Crimes’ by Cameron, Mortimer & Howard Sherman in #25, found Batman and Robin helping an enterprising inventor whilst battling bandits determined to steal historical scientific breakthroughs and ‘His Highness, Prince Robin’ (by anonymous & Mortimer) saw the Boy Wonder pinch-hitting for a wayward royal absconder in a clever twist on the classic Prince and the Pauper plot.

In WF #27 ‘Me, Outlaw’ revealed the big mistake of car thief and murderer Wheels Mitchum in a tense and salutary courtroom drama by Finger & Jim Mooney, whilst ‘Crime Under Glass’ depicted the horrific and grisly murder spree of the chilling Glass Man in a taut mystery illustrated by Sprang by Fallon and #29 offered ‘The Second Chance’ to freshly released convict Joel Benson who increasingly found life out of prison temptation beyond endurance in a classy human drama by Cameron & Mortimer.

Most later Batman tales feature a giant coin in the Batcave and World’s Finest #30 is where that spectacular prop first appeared; spoils of a successful battle between the Caped Crusaders and the vicious gang of Joe Coyne and ‘The Penny Plunderers!’ (Finger, Kane & Burnley), after which ‘The Man with the X-Ray Eyes!’ (scripted by Cameron) saw the heroes struggling to save from unscrupulous thugs a tragic artist cursed with the ability to see through anything – including their masks…

This superb collection of Dark Knight Dramas ends with ‘The Man Who Could Not Die’ (Finger, Kane & Burnley from #32) a deliciously fearsome fable wherein petty gunman Joe “Lucky” Starr got a twisted horoscope reading and believed that he knew the day he would be killed. Of course, until then, he could commit any crime without possibility of harm – even if Batman and Robin interfered…

These spectacular yarns provide a perfect snapshot of the Batman’s amazing development from bleak moody avenger and vigilante agent of revenge to dedicated, sophisticated Devil-may-care Detective in timeless tales which have never lost their edge or their power to enthral and beguile, and this superbly sturdy Archive Edition is indubitably the most luxurious and satisfying of ways to enjoy them over and over again.

So why don’t you…
© 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in The Idiots Abroad


By Gilbert Shelton & Paul Mavrides, colour by Guy Colwell (Knockabout)
ISBN: 0-86166-053-6

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, and in Underground newspapers before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969.

That effective collective continued to maximise the reefer madness and the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folk) quickly captured the imaginations of the more open-minded portions of America and the world (not to mention their kids)…

In 1971 they published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times and Playboy (and numerous foreign periodicals) in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (and his cat): siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Always written by Shelton and, from 1974 illustrated by Dave Sheridan (until his death in 1982) and Paul Mavrides, the disjointed strips (sorry; bad puns are my opiate of choice) combined canny satire, worldly cynicism, surreal situations, drug-based scatological sauciness and an astounding grasp of human nature in brilliantly comedic episodes that cannot fail to amuse anyone with a mature sense of humour.

All the strips have been collected in various formats (in Britain by the fabulous folks of Knockabout Comics) and have been happily absorbed by vast generations of fans – most of whom wouldn’t read any other comic.

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is irrefutably a consummate professional. His ideas are always enchantingly fresh, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page fillers, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet narrative-appropriate – climaxes.

Franklin is the tough, street-savvy one who can pull the chicks best, Phineas is a wildly romantic, educated and dangerous (to himself) intellectual whilst Fat Freddy is us; weak-willed, greedy, not so smart, vastly put upon by an uncaring universe but oddly charming (you wish…)

One last point: despite the vast panoply of drugs ingested, imbibed and otherwise absorbed, both real and invented, the Freaks don’t ever do heroin – which should tell you something…

‘The Idiots Abroad’ was first published in issues #8-10 of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comicbook, beginning in 1982, by Shelton & Paul Mavrides with colour separations by fellow controversial Underground cartoonist Guy Colwell (see Doll). This compilation first appeared in 1988.

The alternative anarchy and high-strung hilarity opens with a cunning monochrome introduction set in the high-tech Bastion of Commerce which is the Rip Off Press High-rise after which the scene switches Oz-like to full-colour as the beardy boys, just chilling in their latest crash-pad, realise that they’re paying too much for their drugs. If they just holidayed in Colombia they could buy the stuff at source and make a killing…

Keen and eager the trio set off for the airport, expecting an easy flight to their Promised Land. Fat Freddy falls in with a drunken bunch of Scottish football fans, Phineas accidentally boards a jet for the Middle East and only Franklin actually gets on a plane for South America: of course it is a package tour of survivalists…

Ever vigilant, the US government quickly dispatches dedicated super-cop Norbert the Nark to follow the Brothers…

As Franklin finds himself in bed with freedom-fighting, drug-dealing Indio eco-warriors and quite sensibly runs for his life, in Scotland Fat Freddy has been mistaken for nuclear terrorist Andre the Hyena and similarly bolts.

Making his way across Europe the corpulent clown unwittingly takes with him a soccer-ball shaped thermonuclear device and stumbles into a global military conspiracy conceived by the Colonels of every nation to seize control of human civilisation…

Phineas meanwhile has landed in Mecca and through his usual incredible good fortune has become a valued member of the government and a major player in OPEC.

Whilst Franklin joins a cruise ship full of millionaires and ends up sold into slavery when the vessel is attacked by pirates, Fat Freddy rampages across Spain and meets the utterly “out there” Anarchist genius Pablos Pegaso before invading the Warsaw Pact countries at the artist’s suggestion, ending up in Moscow at just the wrong moment…

The stupendous saga of outrageous Unrealpolitik ramps up even more when the assembled Colonels take over the world and in a Saudi dungeon Franklin and the now thin Freddy are sold at auction to all-powerful Father Phineas, the Honest Hierophant who has converted his immense wealth into real money by inventing “Fundaligionism” which is now the hottest Faith around and has made him the richest person on the planet…

And that’s when the cartoon craziness really starts to motor…

And they’re so very, very funny.

Without Shelton and the Freaks the whole sub-genre of slacker/stoner movies, from Cheech and Chong‘s assorted escapades to Dude, Where’s My Car? and all the rest – good, bad or indifferent – wouldn’t exist. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you.

Chaotically satirical, poisonously cynical and addictively ludicrous, the madcap slapstick of the Freak Brothers is always an unbelievably potent tonic for the blues and this epic escapade of inspired insanity is among their very best exploits. However, if you’re still worried about the content, which is definitely habit-forming, simply read but don’t inhale…
© 1987 Rip Off Press, Inc., and Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

Posted on

The Best of Fat Freddy’s CAT books 1 & 2


By Gilbert Shelton with Dave Sheridan, Paul Mavrides & Lieuen Adkins (Knockabout)
ISBN: 0-86166-009-9 & 0-86166-014-5   Omnibus 978-0-86166-161-9

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, and in Underground newspapers before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969. This effective collective continued to maximise the madness as the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folk) captured the imagination of the more open-minded portions of America and the world (not to mention their kids)…

In 1971 Rip Off published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times, Playboy and numerous foreign periodicals in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (with his cat): simpatico metaphorical siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Fat Freddy’s Cat quickly became a star in his own right: tiny “topper” strips (separate mini adventures which accompanied the main story) in the newspapers that supplemented the Freaks’ antics became single page gags and eventually bloomed during the 1970s into full-blown extended exploits of the canny, cynical feline reprobate in his own series of digest-sized comicbooks The Adventures of Fat Freddy’s CAT…

Much of the material consisted of untitled quickies and short strips concocted by Shelton (with assistance from Dave Sheridan, Paul Mavrides and Lieuen Adkins) and eventually the little yarns were collected by UK Publisher Knockabout as a brace of oversized – 297x212mm – black and white comic albums and as mass-market b-format paperbacks in their Crack Editions imprint. In 2009 the entire canon was collected as The Fat Freddy’s CAT Omnibus.

These tales are wicked, degenerate, scatologically vulgar, sublimely smutty and brilliantly funny in any format but perhaps their raw anarchic, sly hysteria is best enjoyed in the giant tomes I’m highlighting here.

Book one opens with a dozen or so six panel strips and a single pager produced between 1971 and 1978, before the hilariously whacky epic ‘Chariot of the Globs’ (written by Adkins with art by Shelton & Sheridan) reveals how the imperturbable puss saved alien explorers from a hideous fate, followed by another fifty shorts covering every topic from mating to feeding, talking to humans and especially how cats inflict revenge…

Shelton and Sheridan then disclose the horrors of ‘Animal Camp’ wherein the irrepressible feline was dumped by Fat Freddy in a Boarding Kennel run by Nazi war criminals where pets were converted into clothing and pet food or else used in arcane genetic experiments!

Naturally the brainy beast had to lead a rebellion and break-out…

Amidst the remaining sixty-plus shorts comprising talking cockroaches, drug-fuelled excess, toilet training and drinking, fighting, mating and outsmarting humans, lurks one last lengthy treat from 1980, ‘The Sacred Sands of Pootweet… or the Mayor’s Meower’, a splendidly raucous political satire based on the tale of Dick Whittington.

When a religious hard-liner overthrows the oil-rich nation and former US satellite of Pootweet, Fat Freddy attempts to scam the Supreme Hoochy-Coochy by using the cat to clean up kingdom’s rodent problem. Only trouble is that the pious and poor Pootweet populace have no vermin problem (even after Freddy callously tries to manufacture one), only sacred, unblemished, undesecrated sands which the cat – in dire need of a potty-break – heads straight for…

The second volume is blessed with another seventy-odd scurrilous, scandalous and supremely hilarious short gags ranging from half to two pages, intoxicatingly interlaced with longer comedic classics such as the untitled tirade against modern newspaper strips which “guest-stars” such luminaries as Mary Worth, Doonesbury, Kronk, Andy Capp, Peanuts and a heavenly host of cartoon cats from Garfield to Fritz to Felix…

Also included are the devious and satirical 1973 spy-spoof ‘I Led Nine Lives!’ recounting the days when the fabulous feline worked for the FBI, ‘Fat Freddy’s CAT in the Burning of Hollywood’ from 1978 wherein the sublimely smug and sanguine survivor of a million hairy moments regales his ever-burgeoning brood of impressionable kittens with how he and his imbecilic human spectacularly flamed out in the movie biz and a truly salutary tale for all fans and readers…

Following the innocent – but so enjoyable – shredding of Fat Freddy’s comic collection and the expiration of his ninth life, ‘Paradise Revisited’ (1983 and illustrated by Paul Mavrides) finds the Marvellous Moggy in heaven again: but even though the place is packed with famous felines it’s not all catnip and celebration…

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is always a consummate professional. His ideas are enchantingly fresh yet timeless, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page quickies, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet story-appropriate – climaxes.

Anarchically sardonic and splendidly ludicrous, the madcap slapstick and sly satire of Gilbert Shelton is always an irresistible, riotously innocent tonic for the blues and these tales should be a compulsory experience for any fan of the comics medium.
© 1983, 1984, 2009 Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Batman: the Dark Knight Archives volume 5


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Jack Burnley, Dick Sprang & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0778-6

War always seems to stimulate creativity and advancement and these sublime adventures of Batman and Robin more than prove that axiom as the growing band of creators responsible for producing the bi-monthly adventures of the Dark Knight hit an artistic peak which only stellar stable-mate Superman and Fawcett’s Captain Marvel were able to equal or even approach…

Following an introduction by newspaper journalist and fan Michelle Nolan, this fantastic fifth edition (collecting Batman #17-20 and spanning June/July 1943 to December 1943/January 1944) opens with the gloriously human story of B. Boswell Brown, a lonely and self-important old man who claimed to be ‘The Batman’s Biographer!’ Unfortunately ruthless robber The Conjurer gave the claim far more credence than most in a this tense thriller by Don Cameron, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson & George Roussos…

This was counterbalanced by ‘The Penguin Goes A-Hunting’ (Cameron again with art by Jack & Ray Burnley), a wild romp wherein the Perfidious Popinjay went on a hubris-fuelled crime-spree after being left off a “Batman’s Most Dangerous Foes” list.

The same creative team concocted ‘Rogues Pageant!’ when murderous thieves in Western city Santo Pablo inexplicably disrupt the towns historical Anniversary celebrations after which Joe Greene, Kane & Robinson detail the Dynamic Duo’s brutal battle with a deadly gang of maritime marauders in the unique ‘Adventure of the Vitamin Vandals!’

Batman #18 opened with a spectacular and visually stunning crime-caper as the Gotham Gangbusters clashed again with dastardly bandits Tweedledum and Tweedledee whilst solving ‘The Secret of Hunter’s Inn!’ by Joe Samachson & Robinson, after which ‘Robin Studies his Lessons!’ (Samachson, Kane & Robinson) saw the Boy Wonder grounded from all crime-busting duties until his school work improved – even if it meant Batman dying for want of his astounding assistance!

Bill Finger and Burnley brothers crafted ‘The Good Samaritan Cops’; another brilliant human interest drama focused on the tense but unglamorous work of the Police Emergency Squad and this issue concluded with a shocking and powerful return engagement for manic physician and felonious mastermind ‘The Crime Surgeon!’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson),

The writers of the first and third stories in Batman #19 are sadly unknown to us (perhaps William Woolfolk?) but there’s no doubting the magnificent artwork of rising star Dick Sprang who pencilled every tale in this blockbusting issue, beginning with ‘Batman Makes a Deadline!’ wherein the Dark Knight investigated skulduggery and attempted murder at the City’s biggest newspaper after which Don Cameron authored the breathtaking fantasy masterpiece ‘Atlantis Goes to War!’ with the Dynamic Duo rescuing that fabled submerged city from Nazi assault.

The Joker reared his garish head again in the anonymously penned thriller ‘The Case of the Timid Lion!’ with the Clown Prince enraged and lethal whilst tracking down an impostor committing crime capers in his name before Samachson, Sprang and inker Norman Fallon unmasked the ‘Collector of Millionaires’ with Dick Grayson investigating his wealthy mentor’s bewildering replacement by a cunning doppelganger…

Batman #20 featured the Mountebank of Mirth in ‘The Centuries of Crime!’ (Cameron & the Burnleys) with The Joker claiming to have discovered a nefariously profitable method of time-travelling, whilst ‘The Trial of Titus Keyes!’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson) offered a masterful courtroom drama of injustice amended, focussing on the inefficacy of witness statements…

‘The Lawmen of the Sea!’ by Finger & the Burnleys found the Dynamic Duo again working with a lesser known Police Division as they joined the Harbor Patrol in their daily duties and uncovered a modern day piracy ring before the volume ends on a dramatic high with ‘Bruce Wayne Loses Guardianship of Dick Grayson!’ wherein a couple of fraudsters claiming to be the boy’s last remaining relatives petition to adopt him.

A melodramatic triumph by Finger, Kane & Robinson, there’s still plenty of action, especially after the grifters try to sell Dick back to Bruce Wayne…

With an expansive biographies section and glorious covers from Robinson, Ed Kressy and Sprang this gloriously indulgent deluxe hardback compendium is another irresistible box of classic delights that no fan of the medium can afford to miss.

© 1943, 1944, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Star Hawks & Star Hawks II


By Ron Goulart & Gil Kane (Ace/Tempo Books)
ISBNs: 0-448-17311-5 & 0-448-17272-0

Although comicbook publishers worked long and hard to import their colourful wares to the more popular and commercially viable shelves of bookshops, newspaper strips (and episodic humour magazines like Mad) had been regular visitors since the 1950s.

By dint of more accessible themes and subjects, simpler page layouts and just plain bigger core-readerships, comedy and action periodical serials were easy to translate to digest-sized book formats and sell to a broad base of consumers. Because of this the likes of Peanuts, B.C., Wizard of Id, Broom Hilda, Rick O’Shay, Flash Gordon, Mandrake and many others were an entertainment staple of cartoon-loving, fun-hunting kids – and adults – from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Comedies and gag books far outweighed dramas however: by the 1970s the era of the grand adventure strip in newspapers was all but over, although there were still a few dynamic holdouts and even some few new gems still to come.

One such was this unbelievably addictive space opera/cop procedural which debuted on October 3rd 1977. Created by novelist, comics scripter and strip historian Ron Goulart on the back of the revival in Science Fiction following the release of Star Wars (and later continued by the legendary Archie Goodwin who all-but sewed up the sci-fi strip genre at the time by also authoring the Star Wars newspaper serial which premiered in 1979)… Star Hawks was graced by the dazzlingly dynamic art of Gil Kane and blessed with an innovative format for such strips: a daily double-tier layout that allowed far bigger, bolder graphics than the traditional single bank of three or four frames.

The core premise was also magically simple: in our future, man has spread throughout the galaxy and now inhabits many worlds, moons and satellites. And wherever man goes there’s a need for policemen and peacekeepers…

Goulart began with the working title “Space Cops” but that was eventually superseded with the more dashingly euphonious and commercially vibrant Star Hawks.

In the late 1980s four comicbook-sized collections were published by Blackthorne, followed by a wonderful collectors volume from Hermes Press in 2004, but these are all now out-of-print and hard to acquire, so I’m concentrating here on the much more accessible brace of mass-market digest paperbacks released whilst the strip was still running…

Both these stirring tomes are printed in landscape format with each instalment fitting neatly onto a page: thus the black and white art (almost original publication size) is clean, crisp and tight as Book 1 steams straight in by introducing the villainous Raker and his sultry, sinister boss Ilka, hunting through the slums and ruins of alien world Esmeralda for a desperate girl plagued by dark, dangerous visions…

Enter Rex Jaxan and the ladykiller Latino Chavez, two-fisted law-enforcing Star Hawks on the lookout for trouble, who promptly save the lass from slavers only to become embroiled in a dastardly plot to overthrow the local Emperor by scurrilous arms merchants. Also debuting in that initial tale is the cops’ sexy boss Alice K. Benyon (far more than just a romantic foil for He-Hunk Jaxan), the awesome space station “Hoosegow” and Sniffer, the snarkiest, sulkiest, snappiest robo-dog in the galaxy. The mechanical mutt gets all the best lines…

Barely pausing for breath the star-born Starsky and Hutch (that’s Goulart’s take on them, not mine) are in pursuit of an appalling new weapons system developed to topple the military dictatorship of Empire 13 – the “Dustman” process. Before long however the search for the illegal WMD develops into a full-on involvement in what should have stayed a local matter – civil war…

Book 2 opens with the pair investigating the stupendous resort satellite Hotel Maximus, with Alice K. along to bolster their undercover image. On Maximus every floor holds a different daring delight – from dancing to dinosaur wrangling to Alpine adventure – but the return of the malevolent Raker heralds a whole new type of trouble as he is revealed to be an agent of the pan-galactic cartel of criminals known only as The Brotherhood.

Moreover, the Maximus is the site of their greatest coup – a plot to mind-control the universe’s richest and most powerful citizens. So pernicious are these villains that the Brotherhood can even infiltrate and assault Hoosegow itself…

Foiling the raiders Jaxan and Chavez quickly go on the offensive, hunting the organisation to the pesthole planet Selva, a degraded world of warring tribes and monstrous mutations, where new recruit Kass distinguishes himself, but the Brotherhood is deadly and persistent and new leader Master Jigsaw has a plan to destroy the Star Hawks from within…

Star Hawks ran until 1981, garnering a huge and devoted audience, critical acclaim and a National Cartoonists Society Award for Kane (Story Comic Strip Award for 1977). It is, quite simply one of the most visually exciting, rip-roaring and all-out fabulous sci-fi sagas in comics history and should be part of every action fan’s permanent collection. In whatever format you can find, these tales are a “must-have” item.
© 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Batman: the Dark Knight Archives volume 4


By Bob Kane, Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Jack Schiff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Jack & Ray Burnley (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-983-3

This fourth captivating deluxe hardback chronicle of yarns from the dawn of his career encompasses Batman #13-16 (October/November 1942- April/May 1943) and again features adventures produced during the scariest days of World War II which helped to the gladden the young hearts of overseas and home-front heroes alike.

The feature had grown into a media sensation and pocket industry and just as with predecessor and trendsetter Superman had necessitated an expansion of dedicated creative staff.

It’s certainly no coincidence that many of these Golden Age treasures are also some of the best beloved tales in the Batman canon, as co-creator and lead writer Bill Finger was increasingly supplemented by the talents of Don Cameron, Jack Schiff and others as the Dynamic Duo became a hugely successful franchise. The war seemed to stimulate a peak of creativity and production, with everybody on the Home Front keen to do their bit – even if that was simply making kids of all ages forget their troubles for a brief while…

After a comprehensive overview in the Foreword from professional fan and historian Bill Schelly the contents of Batman #13 opened with ‘The Batman Plays a Lone Hand’ (Cameron, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson & George Roussos) tugging heartstrings as the Dark Knight fired Robin, kicked out Dick Grayson and returned to his anti-crime campaign as a solo act. Of course there was a perfectly logical reason…

They were back together again and on more traditional ground when the Joker caught the acting bug and organised a ‘Comedy of Tears’ (Schiff, Kane, Robinson & Roussos), after which ‘The Story of the Seventeen Stones!’ (scripted by Finger, drawn by Jack Burnley & inked by brother Ray) presented a deliciously experimental murder-mystery and the  heroes slipped into more comfortable Agatha Christie – or perhaps Alfred Hitchcock – territory when they tackled a portmanteau of crimes on a train in ‘Destination: Unknown!’ by Cameron, Kane, Robinson & Roussos.

Cameron wrote all four stories in Batman #14 beginning with ‘The Case Batman Failed to Solve’, (illustrated by Jerry Robinson) – a superb example of the sheer decency of the Caped Crusader as he fudged a mystery for the best possible reason, whilst ‘Prescription for Happiness’ (with art from Kane, Robinson & Roussos) is a classic example of the human interest drama that used to typify Batman tales as a poor doctor discovered his own true worth, and ‘Swastika Over the White House!’ (Jack & Ray Burnley) was typical of the blistering spy-busting action yarns readers were lapping up at the time. The final story ‘Bargains in Banditry!’ – also by the Burnley boys – was another canny crime caper featuring the Penguin wherein the Wily Old Bird stopped committing crimes and began selling the plans for his convoluted capers to other crooks…

Batman #15 led with Schiff, Kane, Robinson & Roussos’s Catwoman romp ‘Your Face is your Fortune!’ with the Feline Fury taking on a job at a swanky Beauty Parlour to gain info for her crimes and inadvertently falling for Society Batchelor Bruce Wayne, whilst Cameron and those Burnley boys introduced plucky homeless boy Bobby Deen ‘The Boy Who Wanted to be Robin!’ and proved he had what it takes to do the job.

The same team created the powerful propaganda tale ‘The Two Futures’, which examined what America would be like under Nazi subjugation and ‘The Loneliest Men in the World’ (Cameron, Kane, Robinson & Roussos) was – and still is – one of the very best Seasonal Batman tales ever created; full of pathos, drama, fellow-feeling and action as the Dynamic Duo brought Christmas to a selection of dedicated but overlooked workers and public servants …

The landmark Batman #16 (April/May 1943) opened with one of three tales by Cameron ‘The Joker Reforms!’ (Kane, Robinson & Roussos) wherein the Clown Prince suffers a blow to the head and a complete personality shift, but not for long – after which Ruth “Bunny Lyons” Kaufman scripted a bold and fascinating black market milk caper in ‘The Grade A Crimes!’ for Ray & Jack Burney to dynamically delineate.

‘The Adventure of the Branded Tree’ (Cameron and the Burnleys) saw the Gotham Gangbusters head to lumberjack country for a vacation and become embroiled in big city banditry before the issue and the action conclude with the hilarious thriller-comedy ‘Here Comes Alfred!’ (Cameron, Kane, Robinson & Roussos) which foisted a rotund, unwelcome and staggeringly faux-English manservant upon the Masked Manhunters to finally complete the classic core cast of the series in a brilliantly fast-paced spy-drama with loads of laughs and buckets of tension.

These torrid tales from creators at their absolute peak and heroes at their most primal are even more readable now that I don’t have to worry about damaging an historical treasure simply by turning a page. This is perhaps the only way to truly savour these Golden Age greats and perhaps one day all ancient comics will be preserved this way…
© 1942, 1943, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Krazy + Ignatz: The Komplete Kat Komics volume 1, 1916 and volume 2: 1917 The Other-Side to the Shore of Here


By George Herriman (Eclipse Books/Turtle island)
ISBNs: 0-913035-48-3 and 0-913035-75-0

I must admit to feeling like a fool and a fraud reviewing George Herriman’s winningly surreal masterpiece of eternal unrequited love. Although Krazy Kat is unquestionably a pinnacle of graphic innovation, a hugely influential body of work which shaped the early days of the comics industry and an undisputed treasure of world literature, some readers – from the strip’s earliest antecedents in 1913 right up to five minutes ago – just cannot “get it”.

All those with the right sequence of genes (K, T, Z and A, I suspect) are instantly fans within seconds of exposure whilst those sorry few who are oblivious to the strip’s inimitable charms are beyond anybody’s meagre capacity to help.

Still, since everyday there’s newcomers to the wonderful world of comics I’ll assume my inelegant missionary position once more and hope to catch and convert some fresh soul – or, as I like to think of it, save some more “lil Ainjils”…

The Krazy & Ignatz softcover series of collected Sunday pages was contrived by Eclipse Comics and the Turtle Island Foundation and taken over by Fantagraphics when the publisher succumbed to the predatory market conditions of the 1990s. It is not and never has been a strip for dull, slow or unimaginative people who simply won’t or can’t appreciate the complex multilayered verbal and pictorial whimsy, absurdist philosophy or seamless blending of sardonic slapstick with arcane joshing. It is the closest thing to pure poesy that narrative art has ever produced.

Think of it as Dylan Thomas and Edward Lear playing “I Spy” with James Joyce amongst beautifully harsh and barren cactus fields whilst Gabriel García Márquez types up the shorthand notes and keeps score…

Herriman was already a successful cartoonist and journalist in 1913 when a cat and mouse who had been cropping up in the corners and backgrounds of his outrageous domestic comedy strip The Dingbat Family/The Family Upstairs finally graduated to their own feature. “Krazy Kat” debuted in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal on October 28, 1913 and, mainly by dint of the publishing magnate’s overpowering direct influence, spread throughout his vast stable of papers.

Although Hearst and a host of the period’s artistic and literary intelligentsia (which included e.e. Cummings, Frank Capra, John Alden Carpenter, Gilbert Seldes, Willem de Kooning, H.L. Mencken and Jack Kerouac) utterly adored the strip, many local editors -ever cautious of the opinions of the hoi-polloi who actually bought the papers – did not and took every career-risking opportunity to drop it from the comics section.

Eventually the feature found a home in the Arts and Drama section of Hearst’s vast empire of papers. Protected by the publisher’s patronage the strip flourished unharmed by editorial interference and fashion and ran until Herriman’s death in April 1944.

The basic premise is simple: Krazy is an effeminate, dreamy, sensitive and romantic feline of indeterminate gender in love with Ignatz Mouse: rude crude, brutal, mendacious and thoroughly scurrilous.

Ignatz is a real Man’s Muridae; drinking, stealing, cheating, carousing, neglectful of his spouse and children. He revels in spurning Krazy’s genteel advances by regularly and repeatedly belting the cat with a well-aimed and mightily thrown brick (obtained singly or in bulk and generally legitimately from noted local brickmaker Kolin Kelly).

The third member of the classic eternal triangle is lawman Offissa Bull Pupp, hopelessly in love with Krazy, well aware of the Mouse’s true nature, but bound by his own timidity and sense of honour from removing his rival for the cat’s affections. Krazy is, of course, blithely oblivious of Pupp’s true feelings and dilemma…

Also populated with a stunning supporting cast of inspired anthropomorphic bit players such as Joe Stork, (deliverer of babies), the hobo Bum Bill Bee, Don Kiyoti, busybody Pauline Parrot, Walter Cephus Austridge, the Chinese mallard Mock Duck, Joe Turtil and a host of other audacious characters – all capable of stealing the limelight and even supporting their own features – the episodes occur in and around the Painted Desert environs of Coconino (based of the artist’s vacation retreat Coconino County, Arizona) and the surreal playfulness and fluid ambiguity of the flora and landscape are perhaps the most important member of the cast.

The strips are a masterful mélange of wickedly barbed contemporary social satire, folksy yarn-telling, unique experimental art, strongly referencing Navajo art forms and sheer unbridled imagination and delightfully expressive language: alliterative, phonetically and even onomatopoeically joyous and compellingly musical (“He’s simpfilly wondafil”, “A fowl konspirissy – is it pussible?” or “I nevva seen such a great power to kookoo”), yet for all that the adventures are timely, timeless, bittersweet, self-referential, fourth-wall bending, eerie, idiosyncratic and utterly hilarious escapades encompassing every aspect of humour from painfully punning shaggy dog stories to riotous slapstick.

The eponymous first monochrome volume opens with ‘The Kat’s Kreation’ by Bill Blackbeard; a fulsome, fascinating and heavily illustrated history of the development of the frankly freakish feline as briefly outlined above, after which this slim, tall tome shuffles into the first cautious but full-bodied escapades from 1916 delivered every seven days from April 23rd to December 31st.

Within that first year, as war raged in Europe and with America edging inexorably closer to the Global Armageddon, the residents of Coconino sported and wiled away their days in careless abandon but totally embroiled within their own – and their neighbours’ – personal dramas.

Big hearted Krazy adopts orphan kitties, accidentally goes boating and ballooning, saves baby birds from predatory mice and rats, survives pirate attacks, constantly endures assault and affectionate attempted murder and does lots of nothing in an utterly addictive, idyllic and eccentric way…

The volume ends with ‘The Kat Maker’ a copiously illustrated biography of Herriman.

 

Volume 2: 1917 The Other-Side to the Shore of Here begins with ‘Kat in Nine Bags – a Twenty Year Quest for a Phantom’ a trenchant introductory article by Bill Blackbeard which describes Publisher Hearst’s unceasing battle with his own editors to keep the strip in print and on the Comics pages – everything short of kidnap and assassination apparently – before the artistic tour de force (covering January 7th to 30th December) commences in perfect harmony with its eclectic and embattled environment.

Within this second magical atlas of another land and time the formative tone and textures of the eternal game play out as usual, but with some intriguing diversions such as recurring explorations of terrifying trees, grim ghosts and obnoxious Ouija Boards, tributes to Kipling as we discover why the snake rattles, meet Ignatz’s aquatic cousin, observe the invasion of Mexican Jumping Beans and a plague of measles, discover the maritime value of “glowerms”, discover who was behind a brilliant brick-stealing campaign of crime and at last see Krazy become the Bricker and not Brickee…

To complete the illustrious experience and explore the ever-shifting sense of reality amidst the constant display of visual virtuosity and verbal verve this big, big book (305x230mm) ends with ‘The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Pages’ providing pertinent facts, snippets of contextual history and necessary notes for the young and potentially perplexed…

There has been a wealth of Krazy Kat collections since the late 1970s when the strip was generally rediscovered by a far more accepting audience and these particular compendiums were picked up by Fantagraphics when Eclipse ceased trading in 1992. The current publisher’s avowed intent is to complete the collection and then keep the works in print and more power to them for that.

Herriman’s epochal classic is a genuine Treasure of World Art and Literature and these comic strips shaped our industry, galvanised comics creators, inspired auteurs in fields as disparate as prose fiction, film, sculpture, dance, animation and jazz music whilst always delivering delight and delectation to generations of devoted wonder-starved fans.

If however, you are one of Them and not Us, or if you actually haven’t experienced the gleeful graphic assault on the sensorium, mental equilibrium and emotional lexicon carefully thrown together by George Herriman from the dawn of the 20th century until the dog days of World War II, this glorious brace of cartoon masterpieces are among the most accessible…

Just remember: not everybody gets it and some of them aren’t even stupid or soulless – they’re just unfortunate… “There Is A Heppy Lend Furfur A-Waay”…
© 1989/1990 Eclipse Books/Turtle Island Foundation. All rights reserved.