Category: Comic Strip Classics

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Batman Chronicles volumes 1 & 2

New, Revised Review

By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0445-7 & 978-1-4012-0790-8

For anyone who’s read more than a few of these posts, my tastes should be fairly apparent, but in case you’re in any doubt, here’s a flat-out confession: I’m that shabby, crazy old geezer muttering at the bus stop about how things were better before, and all new things are crap and not the same and…

You get the picture. Now, ignore all that. It’s true but not relevant.

Batman Chronicles is one of many formats re-presenting the earliest Batman stories. The series does so in original, chronological order, foregoing glossy and expensive high-definition paper and reproduction techniques in favour of newsprint-like paper, and the same flat, bright-yet-muted colour palette which graced the originals.

There’s no fuss, fiddle or Foreword, and the book steams straight into the meat of the matter with Volume 1 re-presenting the stunning covers and all Dark Knight material from Detective Comics #27 through #38, (which introduced Robin, The Boy Wonder), and then the landmark Batman #1 covering May 1939-April 1940.

Detective Comics #27 introduced “The Bat-Man” and playboy/dilettante criminologist in ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ by Bob Kane & collaborator Bill Finger, wherein a cabal of sinister industrialists were successively murdered until an eerie human bat intruded on Police Commissioner Gordon‘s stalled investigation and ruthlessly dealt with the hidden killer.

Issue #28 saw the fugitive vigilante return to crush ‘Frenchy Blake’s Jewel Gang’ before encountering his very first psychopathic killer. ‘The Batman Meets Doctor Death’ was a deadly duel of wits with deranged, greedy General Practitioner Karl Hellfern and his assorted instruments of murder…

Confident of their new character’s potential, Kane & Finger revived the mad medic for the very next instalment and ‘The Return of Doctor Death’, before Gardner Fox scripted a 2-part shocker which introduced the first bat-plane, Bruce’s girlfriend Julie Madison and undead horror The Monk for an expansive spooky saga ‘Batman Versus The Vampire‘. The gripping yarn then concluded in an epic chase across Eastern Europe and a spectacular climax in a monster-filled castle in issue #32.

Detective Comics #33 featured ‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’: a blockbusting disaster thriller which just casually slipped in the secret origin of the Gotham Guardian, as prelude to the air-pirate action, after which Euro-trash dastard Duc D’Orterre found his uncanny science and unsavoury appetites no match for the mighty Batman in ‘Peril in Paris’.

Scripter Bill Finger returned in issue #35, pitting the Cowled Crusader against crazed cultists murdering everyone who had seen their sacred jewel in ‘The Case of the Ruby Idol’, although the many deaths were caused by a far more prosaic villainy, after which grotesque criminal genius ‘Professor Hugo Strange’ (inked by new kid Jerry Robinson) debuted with his murderous man-made fog and lightning machine in #36, and all-pervasive ‘The Spies’ ultimately proved no match for the vengeful masked Manhunter in #37.

Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) changed the landscape of comicbooks forever with the introduction of ‘Robin, The Boy Wonder’: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice, by bringing to justice mobster Boss Zucco…

After the Flying Grayson‘s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ by Fox, Kane & Moldoff offered in two perfect pages what is still the best ever origin of the character, after which ‘The Joker’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson – who produced all the remaining tales in this astonishing premiere issue) introduced the greatest villain in DC’s entire rogues’ gallery via a stunning tale of extortion and wilful wanton murder.

‘Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters’ followed as the old adversary returned with laboratory-grown hyperthyroid horrors to rampage through the terrified city, and ‘The Cat’ – who later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion – plied her felonious trade of jewel theft aboard the wrong cruise-liner and fell foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo.

The initial issue and the first Chronicles edition ended with the ‘The Joker Returns’ as the sinister clown broke jail and resumed his terrifying campaign of murder for fun and profit before “dying” in mortal combat with the Gotham Guardian.

 

Volume 2 featured more masterpieces from the dawn of comic-book time, re-presenting Detective Comics #39 through to #45, a story from New York World’s Fair Comics 1940, and Batman #2-3, covering May to November 1940 in original publishing order. Following a superb pin-up of the Dynamic Duo by Kane, the tense suspense and all-out action opens with The Horde of the Green Dragon” – oriental Tong killers in Chinatown – from Detective #39 by Finger, Kane & Robinson, before ‘Beware of Clayface!’ found the Dynamic Duo solving a string of murders on a film set which almost saw Julie Madison become the latest victim of a monstrous movie maniac…

Batman and Robin solved the baffling mystery of a kidnapped boy in Detective #41’s ‘A Master Murderer’ before enjoying their second solo outing in four comics classics from Batman #2 (Summer 1940).

It all began with ‘Joker Meets Cat-Woman‘ (by Finger, Kane, Robinson & extremely impressive new find George Roussos) wherein svelte thief, homicidal jester and a crime syndicate all tussled for the same treasure with the Caped Crusaders caught in the middle.

‘Wolf, the Crime Master’ was a fascinating take on the classic Jekyll and Hyde tragedy after which an insidious  and ingenious murder-mystery ensued in ‘The Case of the Clubfoot Murderers’ before Batman and Robin faced uncanny savages and ruthless showbiz promoters in a poignant monster story ‘The Case of the Missing Link’.

‘Batman and Robin Visit the New York World’s Fair’ from New York World’s Fair Comics which vintage wonderment – by Finger, Kane & Roussos – then followed the vacationing Dynamic Duo as they tracked down a maniac mastermind with a metal-dissolving ray, after which Detective Comics #42 again found the heroes ending another murder maniac’s rampage in ‘The Case of the Prophetic Pictures!’ before clashing with a corrupt mayor in #43’s ‘The Case of the City of Terror!’

An unparallelled hit, the stories perforce expanded their parameters in #44 with the dreamy fantasy of giants and goblins ‘The Land Behind the Light!’, after which Batman #3 (Fall 1940) saw Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos rise to even greater heights, beginning with ‘The Strange Case of the Diabolical Puppet Master’: an eerie episode of uncanny mesmerism and infamous espionage…

Next up was a grisly scheme wherein innocent citizens were mysteriously transformed into specimens of horror and artworks destroyed by the spiteful commands of ‘The Ugliest Man in the World’ before ‘The Crime School For Boys!!’ saw Robin infiltrate a gang who had a cruel and cunning recruitment plan for dead-end kids…

‘The Batman vs. The Cat-Woman’ found the larcenous burglar in well over her head when she stole for – and from – the wrong people, and the issue also included a magical Special Feature as ‘The Batman Says’ presented an illustrated prose Law & Order pep-talk crafted by Whitney Ellsworth and Robinson.

This second terrific tome then concludes with a magnificent and horrific Joker jape from Detective Comics #45 with ‘The Case of the Laughing Death’ wherein the Harlequin of Hate devised a campaign of macabre murder against everyone who had defied or offended him…

Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried the Batman feature well beyond its allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s reading… and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but writers like Finger and Fox refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter. Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do. They taught bad people the lesson they deserved.

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comic book heroics simply don’t come any better.

The history of the American comicbook industry in almost every major aspect stems from the raw, vital and still powerfully compelling tales of twin icons published by DC/National Comics: Superman and Batman. It’s only fair and fitting that both those characters are still going strong and that their earliest adventures can be relived in chronological order in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks to stunning, deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions.

One final thing: I’m still that guy in paragraph one, right? I’ve read these stories many, many times, in every format imaginable, and I’d like to thank whoever decided that they should also be available in as close a facsimile to the originals as we can get these days.

More than anything else, this serves to perfectly recapture the mood and impact of that revolutionary masked avenger and, of course, delights my heavily concealed inner child no end.
© 1939, 1940, 2005 DC Comics and © 1940, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Asterix and the Roman Agent


By Goscinny & Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Brockhampton/Knight Books)
ISBN: 0-340-20285-8

This is another one purely for driven nostalgics, consumed collectors and historical aficionados, highlighting the marvellous variety of formats and methods used to elevate and disseminate brilliant comics from the gutters of prejudice by turning them into proper books…

One of the most-read series in the world, 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, if you’re planning a trip…) spinning off from his hilarious 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 hero was created as the transformative 1960s began by two of the art-form’s greatest masters, René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, and even though their perfect partnership ended in 1977 the creative wonderment still continues – albeit at a slightly reduced rate of rapidity.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Asterix was a massive hit from the very start. At first Uderzo continued working with Charlier on Michel Tanguy, (Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure), but soon after the first epic escapade was collected as Astérix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time – especially as the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas (after the writer’s death the publication rate dropped from two books per year to one volume every three to five).

By 1967 the strip occupied all Uderzo’s attention. In 1974 the partners formed Idéfix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation and 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 thereafter.

Like all great literary classics the premise works on two levels: for younger readers as an action-packed comedic romp of sneaky, bullying baddies always getting their just deserts and as a pun-filled, sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads, enhanced here by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable Gaul so very palatable to the English tongue. (Me, I still admire a divinely delivered “Paff!” to the snoot as much as any painfully potent pun or dry cutting jibe…)

The feature debuted in Pilote #1 (29th October 1959, with the first page actually appearing a week earlier in a promotional issue #0, June 1st 1959). The stories were set on the tip of Uderzo’s beloved Brittany coast where a small village of redoubtable warriors and their families resisted every effort of the all-conquering Roman Empire to complete their conquest of Gaul. Alternately and alternatively the tales took the heroes anywhere in the Ancient World, circa 50BC, as the Gallic Gentlemen wandered the fantastic lands of the Empire and beyond…

Unable to defeat or even contain these Horatian hold-outs, the Empire resorted to a desperate policy of containment with the seaside hamlet perpetually 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, their gradual rise to prominence this side of the pond was tentative but as unstoppable as Obelix’s pursuit of roast boar or Roman playmates…

The translated albums are available in a wealth of differing formats and earlier editions going all the way back to the first 1969 Brockhampton editions (still readily available from a variety of retail and internet vendors – or even your local charity shop and jumble sale).

Asterix and the Roman Agent premiered in 1970 in Pilote #531-552, simultaneously making the jump to a French album and English translated editions in 1972 – from when this delightful digest-sized (212 x 150mm), kid-friendly collectors’ item originates, and highlighted homeland insecurity as Caesar, under attack by the Roman Senate over the indomitable, unconquerable Gauls, deploys his greatest weapon: a double-edged sword named Tortuous Convolvulus, whose every word and gesture seems to stir ill-feeling and conflict in all who meet him.

Where Force of Arms has failed the wily despot hopes this living weapon of mass of dissension might forever fracture the Gauls’ unshakable comradeship and solidarity with a dose of Roman entente dis-cordiale…

On the crossing, just two minutes with the conniving Convolvulus has a sworn brotherhood of pirates at each other’s throats, and even while discussing the plan with Aquarium’s commander Felix Platypus, the agent’s unique gift sows discord and violence, so when he finally enters the village it’s not long before the high-spirited and fractious Gauls are at war with each other…

The women are cattily sniping at each other, the traders are trading blows and even Asterix and Obelix are on the outs. But that’s not the worst of it: somehow the idea has gotten around that their sharp little champion has sold out to the Romans…

With discord rife, the Romans soon have the secret of the magic potion too – or do they? The cunningly ingenious Convolvulus hasn’t reckoned on two things: the sheer dimness of Imperial troops and the invaluable power of true friendship, leaving Asterix and Obelix a way to overcome their differences, turn the tables and once more save the day.

At last, the agent provocateur is forced to realise that sometimes one can be too smart for one’s own good…

Brittle, barbed and devilishly sharp, this yarn was reputedly based on lingering ill-feeling following an internal power-struggle at Pilote which almost cost editor Goscinny his job. The original title for the tale was La Zizanie – “The Ill-feeling” or “The Dissension”. Seen through the lens of forty years of distance, however, all that can be seen now is stinging, clever, witty observational comedy and magnificently engaging adventure, and surely that’s what matters most?

Asterix sagas are always stuffed with captivating historical titbits, soupcons of healthy cynicism, singularly surreal situations and amazingly addictive action, illustrated in a magically enticing manner. These are perfect comics that everyone should read over and over again.

Surely you don’t disagree?
Text © 1970 Dargaud Editeur. English language text Text © Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd.

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Casey Ruggles: The Pearl Galleon


By Warren Tufts (Western Winds Productions)
No ISBN

Warren Tufts was a phenomenally talented illustrator and storyteller born too late. He is best remembered now – if at all – for creating two of the most beautiful western comics strips of all time: this one and the elegiac, iconic Lance.

Sadly the artist began his career at a time when the glory days of newspaper syndicated strips were gradually giving way to the television age and an era of ostensibly free family home entertainment. Had he been working scant years earlier in adventure’s Golden Age he would undoubtedly be a household name – at least in the dusty, book- stacked shacks and basements of comics fans…

Born in Fresno, California on Christmas Day 1925, Tufts was a superb, meticulous draughtsman with an uncanny grasp of character, a wicked sense of storytelling and a great ear for dialogue whose art was effective and grandiose in the representational manner, favourably compared to both Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant and the best of Alex Raymond. On May 22nd 1949 he began Casey Ruggles – a Saga of the West as a full-colour Sunday page, supplementing it with a black and white daily strip on September 19th of that year.

Tufts worked for United Features Syndicate, owners of such popular strips as Fritzi Ritz and L’il Abner, and his lavish, expansive tales were crisply told and highly engaging, but – since he was a compulsive perfectionist – he regularly worked 80-hour weeks at the drawing board and often missed deadlines. This led him to often use assistants such as Al Plastino, Rueben Moreira and Edmund Good. Established veterans Nick Cardy and Alex Toth also spent time working as “ghosts” on the series.

Due to a falling-out over rights and property exploitation, Tufts left United Features and his first wonderful Western creation in 1954. Thereafter Al Carreño continued the feature until its inevitable demise in October 1955. The departure came because TV producers wanted to turn the strip into a weekly television show but the syndicate demurred, suggesting the “free” show would harm the popularity of the strip.

At that time most cartoonists and syndicates feared the new medium (correctly as it turned out), convinced it would cause the destruction of their particular form of mass entertainment…

During a year spent creating the political satire feature ‘Lone Spaceman’, Tufts formed his own syndicate for his next and greatest project, Lance (probably the last great full page Sunday strip in American newspapers, and another series crying out for a high-quality collection) before moving peripherally into comic-books, working extensively for West Coast outfit Dell/Gold Key, where he drew various westerns and cowboy TV show tie-ins like Wagon Train, Korak son of Tarzan, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan and a long run on the Pink Panther comic. Eventually he quit drawing completely, working instead as an actor, voice-actor and eventually moved into animation on such shows as Challenge of the Super Friends.

Tufts also had a lifelong passion for flying, even to the point of designing and building his own planes. In 1982 whilst piloting one, he crashed and was killed.

The Pacific Comics Club collected many “lost strip classics” during the 1980s, including six volumes (to my knowledge) of Casey Ruggles adventures. This fifth stupendous black and white compilation (approximately 15 inches x 10 inches), edited as ever by Dr. Henry Yeo, contains stories that highlighted Tufts’ splendid grip on taut plots, passion for bold adventure, grasp of irony and love of comedy; showing the author at the height of his creativity from early 1953 to January 1954. Although nobody knew it, the wonderful series’ days were numbered…

Casey Ruggles – a Saga of the West used authentic Western motifs and scenarios to tell a broad range of stories stretching from shoot-’em-up dramas to comedy yarns and even the occasional horror story. It debuted as a centenary tribute to the California Gold Rush and its ever-capable hero was a dynamic ex-cavalry sergeant and sometime US Marshal making his way to that promised land to find his fortune (this was the narrative engine of both features until 1950 where daily and Sunday strips divided into separate tales), meeting historical personages like Millard Fillmore, William Fargo, Jean Lafitte and Kit Carson in realistically gripping two-fisted action-adventures and devastatingly wry and sharp light comedy episodes.

Here, however, the drama opens with an enthralling and timely conspiracy thriller as our hero, freshly sacked as a US Marshal, takes a job ferrying hides from Mexico for slick businessman Cal Naglee. Although deeply suspicious, the hero can’t find anything amiss in the scheme until he is arrested for causing the deaths of a dozen miners.

Whilst in jail he discovers that an unknown mastermind has been selling the packing material protecting the worthless animal skins – something called “coca leaves” – as a health supplement labelled “Ruggles Patented Leaves of Strength”…

The wonder herb, when chewed, enables workers to endure arduous 18-hour shifts and many unscrupulous mine owners have been forcing their underpaid wage-slaves to consume the stuff in their greedy efforts to increase productivity.

However when men and women started dying all the blame somehow settled on Casey’s broad shoulders. Nobody but the sheriff believes the hero when he uncovers the true villain behind the plot, somebody with a deep and abiding grudge against the former Marshal, and as damning “evidence” continues to pile up around him, Ruggles is indicted and held for trial.

With due process utterly thwarted and his hidden nemesis trying to stir up a lynch mob, Casey has no choice but to break jail and take matters into his own capable hands before justice is done and the true villains exposed…

‘Leaves of Strength’ originally ran from May 25th to August 22nd 1953, and was promptly followed by a delightful high-adventure romp as Tufts seamlessly switched tone and timbre to craft a yarn as imaginatively fanciful as any conceived by H. Rider Haggard or Rudyard Kipling.

‘The Spanish Pearl Galleon’ ran from August 24th to December 5th and introduced a new twist on the concept of romantic interest as the still-itinerant and unemployed Casey hauls food to a ship moored at the San Francisco pier and discovers the good ship Dolphin conceals a woman held captive.

The gallant soon frees desperate aristocrat Julalee from her perilous situation and is promptly embroiled in her impossible quest for a fabled treasure ship which somehow foundered in the Colorado Desert. The wreck was carrying a huge consignment of pearls and men have hunted it for centuries, but she and her brother had a map – at least until the scurvy Captain Angel killed her sibling and took it…

With the ruthlessly persistent rogue hard on their heels, the new partners resume her mission and head into the deep desert, encountering and overcoming incredible threats as they continually clash with the pursuing Angel and the worst the elements can offer before, in true adventurers’ fashion, they win less than what they wanted whilst the villains get all that they deserve…

With the epic trek over, however, Julalee is reluctant to head home…

The final tale in this stupendous monochrome collection, originally running from December 7th 1953 to January 2nd 1954, is a marvellously sentimental and devilishly funny crime-caper with a gloriously rough-and-ready seasonal twist as ‘Santy Claus’ came to town and robbed the brand new bank where Julalee had stored the few pearls she had salvaged from her recent quest. He also took all the ready cash his big sack could hold.

As Julie and Casey trail the old reprobate and his ill-gotten gains to the Indian orphanage he tirelessly struggled to keep open, the Sheriff didn’t fret much. After all, that sweetly cantankerous old coot did it every year and no one ever got hurt…

Human intrigue and fallibility, bombastic action and a taste for the ludicrous reminiscent of John Ford or Raoul Walsh movies made Casey Ruggles the ideal western strip for the discerning post-war audience and all of its brilliance and charm remains, happily undiminished by time or today’s post-modern sensibilities.

Westerns are a uniquely perfect vehicle for action, drama and humour and Casey Ruggles is one of the very best produced in America: easily a match for the generally superior European material like Tex or Lieutenant Blueberry.

Surely the beautiful clean-cut lines, chiaroscuric flourishes, sheer artistic ingenuity and easy veracity of Warren Tufts can never be truly out of vogue? These great tales are desperately deserving of a wider following, and at a time when so many great strips are finally being revisited, I’m praying some canny publisher knows another good thing when he sees it…
© 1949, 1950, 1953 United Features Syndicate, Inc. Collection © 1981 Western Winds Productions. All Rights Reserved.

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Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1953


By Milton Caniff with Dick Rockwell (Checker Books)
ISBN: 978-1-93316-057-3

Steve Canyon began on 13th January 1947, after a canny campaign to boost public anticipation following creator Milton Caniff’s very conspicuous resignation from his previous and world-famous comic strip masterpiece Terry and the Pirates.

Caniff, a true master of suspense and expert in the dark art of forcing reader attention, didn’t show his new hero until four days into the first adventure – and then only in a ‘file photograph’. The primed-and-ready readership first met Stevenson Burton Canyon, bomber pilot, medal-winning war-hero, Air-Force flight instructor and, latterly, independent airline charter operator in the first Sunday colour page, on January 19th 1947.

Almost instantly Caniff was working at the top of his game, producing material exotically familiar and – as ever – bang on the money in terms of the public zeitgeist and taste.

Dropping his hero into the exotic climes he had made his own on Terry, Caniff modified that world based on real-world events, but this time the brooding, unspoken menace was Communism not Fascism. Banditry and duplicity, of course, never changed, no matter who was nominally running the show…

Caniff was simply being marketably contemporary, but he was savvy enough to realise that with the Cold War “hotting up”, Yankees were going to be seen as spies in many countries, so he made that an intrinsic part of the narrative. When Canyon officially re-enlisted, the strip became to all intents and purposes a contemporary War feature…

Over the decades the Steve Canyon strip honestly embraced the philosophy of America as the World’s policeman, becoming a bastion of US militarism and remaining true to its ideals even as the years rolled by and national tastes and readership changed…

Steve foiled plots and chased his true love Summer Olsen around the globe for thirty years: continually frustrated that fate and his many antagonists cruelly kept them unhappily apart until they finally wed in 1970. Canyon had remained a far-ranging agent of Air Force Military Intelligence, even though by this time the Vietnam War had made the Armed Forces an extremely hot potato…

This seventh volume covers the period May 15th 1953 to August 5th 1954 and shows how, as the Korean conflict stuttered to a weary impasse, Caniff smoothly changed tack but not gears reinstating characters, plots and situations he had shelved when the fighting began. Now, his charismatic cast were edging into another post-war world…

Steve Canyon stories seldom had a recognisable beginning or end and the narrative continually flowed and followed upon itself, but for convenience the publishers have broken the saga into generally discrete tales which begin here with ‘The Princess and the Doctor’ which ran from May 15th to September 12th 1953 and saw the veteran adventurer “requested” by his USAF superiors to ferry a doctor into the heart of Red China.

The tale started with a clever code message readers were invited to solve – with a $100 prize offered by the magnificent showman and publicist Caniff – before Steve and Chinese American medic Dr. Louis Shu sneak through Indian passes behind the Bamboo Curtain to save anti-communist rebel Princess Snowflower from a mystery malady that even her psychotically devoted American mentor and former shiftless Soldier-of-Fortune Dogie Hogan can’t handle (for full details of these incredible characters a thorough re-reading of Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1949 is advised and much recommended…).

The Princess and her fanatically loyal forces have been holding out against the Chi-Com for years from an impregnable mountain fastness but her weakened condition is causing her devoted warriors to doubt their cause and Steve is needed to shore up the resistance movement within the new totalitarian monolith…

However Canyon and Hogan are old rivals who have butted heads since the fall of Imperial China and the grizzled veteran sees no reason to welcome the flashy air force know-it-all. He’d have been better advised to keep the good-looking surgeon away from the lonely, impressionable young girl…

And of course, to cap matters the Chinese have a new wonder general who thinks he can finally break the years-long impasse of the infernal royalist modern Masada…

Packed with tension, blistering action, love, anger, betrayal, smouldering sex and withering comedy, this epic saga also features the welcome return of one of the strip’s most unique supporting characters before Steve leaves with his mission more or less accomplished, but with enough dangling plot threads to guarantee another tempestuous visit in the years to come…

The soap opera shufflings and Cold War shenanigans were briefly sidelined in ‘The Halls’ (13th September – December 30th) wherein Canyon, travelling incognito through the contentious region, is mistaken for a Russian spy by overzealous border guards and wrongfully imprisoned in a small non-aligned nation between India and the USSR. Happily even that postage-stamp state has a US Consulate.

Homer Hall, his capable, beautiful and blind wife Gil and their imaginative daughter Hollister never expected much trouble, but when Holly and her pal Lise from the French Embassy discover an American in the city dungeons the romance-starved girls contrive his escape, even as the city’s inevitable cabal of true communist agents engineer a riot to spring their “Soviet Comrade”.

With Mr. Hall trapped outside the capital and riot in the streets, the girls free Steve and he valiantly returns the favour by saving Mrs. Hall from death in her own blazing Consulate building…

With a measure of order restored and Steve cleared of spying charges, his major difficulty is letting down Holly who has conceived the notion that Steve loves and wants to marry her. Mrs. Hall too harbours feeling for the rugged he-man…

The situation is swiftly exacerbated when the Hall Women are evacuated by train to safety in Indiaand the Consul asks Steve to escort them, only to have all three valuable Americans kidnapped by bandits eager for ransom. However the village of thieves panic when they see that Gil Hall is blind, as such women are bad luck, but their attempts to kill her are foiled by their charismatic chieftain Cobra Johnny, a lover of all things American – especially guns and money…

The robber king’s hold on his men soon slips however when smallpox breaks out in the village. With the men clamouring for the head of the “no-see woman”, Gil begins treating the ailing mothers and children: after all the disease took her sight years ago and she has nothing left to lose…

As events escalate Steve and Holly manage to signal the Indian forces searching for them but not before Johnny discovers their ploy and decides to cut his losses…

After extricating himself from that menace the rescued aviator escapes mother and daughter’s unwanted attentions by faking a telegram from his long-lost love Summer Olsen and heads for points west but doesn’t get far. Called into the local Air Force office he is “invited” to help with a little contraband problem.

‘Heroin Smuggler’ ran from December 31st 1953 to April 30th 1954 and saw Lieutenant Colonel Canyon go undercover to catch a diabolical murderer and expose a clever scheme wherein an old acquaintance was somehow running Chinese drugs into the West, past every trap and safeguard the British and Americans could devise…

In a brilliant mystery thriller by the utterly on-form Caniff, Steve’s problem was not discovering how independent airline magnate Herself Muldoon had managed to become the East’s first and foremost drug trafficker, but how to stop his old foe when every agency in the area seemed to work for her. The horrific answer came when one of her ex-service-man pilots finally lost control of the monkey on his back…

The subsequent tale of tragedy was one of the earliest and still most harrowing depictions of the nature and consequences of narcotics addiction ever seen in comics, and the far-from-clean but coldly plausible resolution a moving reminder of the insidious power of the medium to inform and affect…

The worldly, war-weary, Canyon was a mature adventurer who could be sent literally anywhere and would appeal to the older, wiser readers of Red-Menaced, Atom-Age America, now a fully active player on the world stage. Canyon also reflects a more mature creator who has seen so much more of human nature and frailty than even the mysterious Orient could provide. A young Shakespeare could write “Romeo and Juliet” but maturity & experience were needed more than passion to produce “the Tempest” or “King Lear”, but in the final tale in this marvellous monochrome collection the author blends classic drama with sophisticate modern romance by finally allowing another bittersweet, ultimately frustrating reunion of his own star-crossed lovers…

Widow and proud single parent Summer has been forced to take a high-powered, well-paying job with Steve’s industrialist nemesis Copper Calhoun, unaware that the sadistic millionairess was also obsessed – or perhaps infatuated – with Canyon; the one man she could not buy.

Now in ‘Triangle’ (May 1st – August 5th 1954) a long simmering plot boiled over as Canyon finally returned toAmerica and sought out Summer. Neither frustrated lover was aware that Calhoun had been using her vast resources to keep tabs on the pair and even intercept their communications; determined to keep them both separate and miserable…

As the Colonel hit USsoil, Copper despatched Summer and her son Oley on a long-overdue vacation to a fabulousFlorida resort.

Naturally with the pressure off, plenty of time and money on her hands, convivial company and the ardent attentions of dashing playboy Clarke Netherland, Summer’s head was turned – and that’s when the indomitable ingenious Steve burst in, having spent almost all his furlough tracking down his intended…

After battering his way through all of Calhoun’s many obfuscations the last thing the Colonel expected was to have to fight a wooing campaign, but as the tale evolved into a delicious take on the sparkling, glamorous sophisticated Philadelphia Story/High Society movie comedies of the time, no one was aware of the dark secret the enigmatic Mr. Netherland harboured nor just what his conscience would eventually force him to do…

…And as a bitter Steve again buried himself in another dangerous Air Force mission Summer, once more abandoned and bereft, at last discovered some brutal truths and had a final showdown with her boss the Copperhead…

Resulting in some of the most impressive and mature storytelling of his undeniably stellar career, Caniff seamlessly moved from hot combat to Cold War and from exotic locations to homespun soap opera at this time: his skilful passion-play perfectly showing a sublime ability to delineate character and mood.

The art here is some of the most subtly refined of his career and the brilliantly enacted storylines firmly put the series back on the original narrative tracks suspended by the Korean conflict …and there was even better still to follow…

Steve Canyon is comic storytelling at its best. Beautifully illustrated, mesmerising black and white sagas of war, espionage, romance, terror, justice and cynical reality: a masterpiece of graphic narrative every serious fan and story-lover should experience. …And that’s not to in any way disparage the astounding artistic contributions of Dick Rockwell who began assisting with the artwork in 1952, pencilling the scripts which Caniff authored and then inked.

As the Master’s health gradually failed over the years, Rockwell invisibly assumed more and more of the strip’s visual aspect. When Caniff passed away in 1988, Rockwell continued and concluded the final adventure ‘The Snow Princess’ before the series was finally retired with honour on Sunday, June 5th 1988.

Most cartoonists – or workers in any field of artistic endeavour – go to their graves never attaining the giddy heights of being universally associated with a signature piece of unequivocally supreme work. How incredible then when a guy achieves that perfect act of creation, not once but twice – and does so seven days a week for 64 years? Enticing, enthralling, action-packed and emotionally overwhelming, Steve Canyon is an unequivocal high-point of graphic narrative: a full-immersion thrill and a passport to the halcyon glory of another age.

Comics just don’t get better than this.
© Checker Book Publishing Group 2006, an authorized collection of works © Ester Parsons Caniff Estate 1953. All characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of the Ester Parsons Caniff Estate. All rights reserved.

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Pogo: the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips volume 2: Bona Fide Balderdash


By Walt Kelly, edited by Carolyn Kelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-584-6

Tragically this review copy didn’t reach me in time for a Christmas recommendation, but that’s okay as books of this calibre are worth buying and reading at every moment of every day, and rather than waste your valuable time with my purely extraneous blather, you should just hit the shops or the online emporia of your choice and grab this terrific tome now…

If you still need more though, and aren’t put off by me yet, I’m happy to elucidate at some length…

Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. was born in 1913 and started his cartooning career whilst still in High School, as artist and reporter for the Bridgeport Post. In 1935, he moved to California and joined the Disney Studio, working on short cartoon films and such features as Dumbo, Fantasia and Pinocchio until the infamous animator’s strike in 1941.

Refusing to take sides, Kelly moved back East and into comicbooks – primarily for Dell who held the Disney funnybook license amongst others at that time.

Despite his glorious work on such popular people-based classics as the Our Gang movie spin-off, Kelly preferred and particularly excelled with anthropomorphic animal and children’s fantasy material. For the December 1942-released Animal Comics #1 he created Albert the Alligator and Pogo Possum, wisely retaining the copyrights in the ongoing saga of two affable Bayou critters and their young African-American pal Bumbazine. Although the black kid soon disappeared, the animal actors stayed on as stars until 1948 when Kelly moved into journalism, becoming art editor and cartoonist for hard hitting, left-leaning liberal newspaper The New York Star.

On October 4th 1948, Pogo, Albert and an ever-expanding cast of gloriously addictive characters began their funny pages careers, appearing in the paper six days a week until the periodical folded in January 1949.

Although ostensibly a gently humorous kids feature, by the end of its run (reprinted in full at the back of Pogo: the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips volume 1) the first glimmers of the increasingly barbed, boldly satirical masterpiece of velvet-pawed social commentary began to emerge…

When The Star closed Pogo was picked up for mass distribution by the Post-Hall Syndicate and launched on May 16th 1949 in selected outlets. A colour Sunday page debuted January 29th 1950 and both were produced simultaneously by Kelly until his death in 1973 (and even beyond, courtesy of his talented wife and family).

At its height the strip appeared in 500 papers throughout 14 countries and the book collections – which began in 1951 – eventually numbered nearly 50, collectively selling over 30 million copies, and all that before this Fantagraphics series began…

In this second of a proposed full dozen volumes reprinting the entire canon of the Okefenokee Swamp citizenry, possibly the main aspect of interest is the personable Possum’s first innocently adorable attempts to run for Public Office – a ritual which inevitably and coincidentally reoccurred every four years whenever the merely human inhabitants of America got together for raucous caucuses and exuberant electioneering – but it’s also remarkable to note that by the close of this two-year period Kelly had increased his count of uniquely Vaudevillian returning characters to over one hundred. The likes of Solid MacHogany, Tammanany Tiger, Willow McWisper, Goldie Lox, Sarcophagus MacAbre, the sloganeering P.T. Bridgeport, bull moose Uncle Antler and a trio of brilliantly scene-stealing bats named Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred, amongst so many others would pop up with varying frequency and impact over the next twenty years…

This colossal and comfortingly sturdy landscape compilation (three-hundred-and fifty-six 184x267mm pages) includes the monochrome Dailies from January 1st 1951 to December 31st 1952, and the Sundays – in their own full-colour section – from January 7th 1951 to December 28th 1952 – all faithfully annotated and listed in a copious, expansive and informative Table of Contents. Supplemental features comprise a Foreword from pioneering comedy legend Stan Freberg, delightful unpublished illustrations and working drawings by Kelly, more invaluable context and historical notes in the amazing R.C. Harvey’s ‘Swamp Talk’ by and a biographical feature ‘About Walt Kelly’ by Mark Evanier.

In his time the satirical mastermind unleashed his bestial spokes-cast on such innocent, innocuous sweethearts as Senator Joe McCarthy, J.Edgar Hoover, the John Birch Society, Richard Nixon and the Ku Klux Clan, as well as the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon B. Johnson and – with eerie perspicacity – George W. Romney, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Governor of Michigan and Pa of some guy named Mitt…

This particular monument to madcap mirth and sublime drollery of course includes the usual cast: gently bemused Pogo, boisterous, happily ignorant alligator Albert, dolorous Porkypine, obnoxious turtle Churchy La Femme, lugubrious hound Beauregard Bugleboy, carpet-bagging Seminole Sam Fox, pompous (doesn’t) know-it-all Howland Owl and all the rest, covering not only day to day topics and travails like love, marriage, weather, fishing, the problem with kids, the innocent joys of sport, making a living and why neighbours shouldn’t eat each other, but also includes epic sagas: the stress of Poetry Contests, hunting – from a variety of  points of view – Christmas and other Public Holidays, incipient invasion, war and even cross-dressing to name but a few…

As Kelly spent a good deal of 1952 spoofing the electoral race, this tome offers a magical, magnificent treatment of all the problems associated with grass (and moss) roots politics: dubious campaign tactics, loony lobbying, fun with photo ops, impractical tactical alliances, glad-handing, a proliferation of political promos and ephemera, how to build clockwork voters – and candidates – and of course, life after a failed run for the Presidency…

As the delicious Miz Ma’m’selle Hepzibah would no doubt say: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

Kelly’s uncontested genius lay in his seemingly effortless ability to lyrically, vivaciously portray through anthropomorphic affectation comedic, tragic, pompous, infinitely sympathetic characters of any shape or breed, all whilst making them undeniably human, and he used that gift to blend hard-hitting observation of our crimes, foibles and peccadilloes with rampaging whimsy, poesy and sheer exuberant joie de vivre.

The hairy, scaly, feathered slimy folk of the surreal swamp lands are, of course, inescapably us, elevated by burlesque, slapstick, absurdism and all the glorious joys of wordplay from puns to malapropisms to raucous accent humour into a multi-layered hodgepodge of all-ages delight – and we’ve never looked or behaved better…

This stuff will certainly make you laugh; it will probably provoke a sentimental tear or ten and will certainly satisfy your every entertainment requirement. Timeless and magical, Pogo is a giant not simply of comics, but of world literature and this magnificent second edition should be the pride of every home’s bookshelf, right beside the first one.

…Or, in the popular campaign parlance of the critters involved: “I Go Pogo!” and so should you.

POGO Bona Fide Balderdash and all POGO images, including Walt Kelly’s signature © 2012 Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc. All other material © 2012 the respective creator and owner. All rights reserved.

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Superman Archives volume 6


By Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Don Cameron, Jack Burnley, Fred Ray, Ed Dobrotka, John Sikela, Leo Nowak, George Roussos, Pete Riss, Sam Citron & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-602-8

I sometimes think – like many others I know – that superhero comics were never more apt or effective than when they were whole-heartedly combating fascism with explosive, improbable excitement and mysterious masked marvel men. All the most evocative visceral moments of the genre seem to come when gaudy gladiators soundly thrashed – and please forgive the offensive contemporary colloquialism – “Nips and Nazis”.  However, even in those long-ago dark days, comics creators were wise enough to augment their tales of espionage and imminent invasion with a barrage of gentler and more whimsical four-colour fare…

This sixth classic hardcover Superman compendium – collecting #21-24 (March/April to September/October 1943) of the World’s Premier Superhero own solo title – revisits the height of those war years with the indomitable Man of Tomorrow a thrilling, vibrant, vital role model whose sensational exploits spawned a host of imitators, a genre and an industry. His startling abilities and take-charge, can-do attitude had won the hearts of the public at home and he was embraced as a patriotic tonic for the troops across the war-torn world.

Behind stunning, morale-boosting covers by Fred Ray and Jack Burnley depicting Superman thrashing scurrilous Axis War-mongers, reminding readers what we were all fighting for and even having a gentle, stress-relieving laugh with us, scripter Jerry Siegel was producing some of the best stories of his career, showing the Man of Steel in all his ebullient glory, thrashing thugs, spies and masters of bad science whilst America kicked the fascists in the pants…

However at this time of this collection the call of armed duty caught up with the writer and Don Cameron was hired to fill the authorial void. Co-creator Joe Shuster however, exempt from military service due to his rapidly failing eyesight, was still fully involved in the creative process, despite being plagued by crushing deadlines on the syndicated newspaper strip iteration. In the comicbooks he could only manage the occasional story and was forced to merely oversee the illustration production line: drawing character faces whenever possible, but leaving the lion’s share to the burgeoning talent pool of the “Superman Studio”…

Following the fulsome Foreword ‘A Short Flight and a Long Journey’ by distribution and retail guru Stephen A. Geppi, the all-star, full-colour action begins with the splendid, all-Siegel contents of Superman #21 starting with ‘X-Alloy’, drawn by Ed Dobrotka & John Sikela, wherein a virtual secret army of Nazi infiltrators and fifth columnists stole American industrial secrets and would have conquered the nation from within if not for the ever vigilant Man of Steel.

It was Clark Kent rather than his flamboyant alter ego who really cracked the Leo Nowak-limned case of ‘The Four Gangleaders’ who had declared war on each other, whilst in ‘The Robber Knight’ (illustrated by Shuster & George Roussos) Lois Lane was accused of shoplifting after an armour-suited Robin Hood began giving pretty women “presents” from the department store he plundered. Once again it took a real steel hero to sort things out before ‘The Ghost of Superman!’ (with Pete Riss art) saw the Action Ace play dead to trick a confession out of a cheap killer defying justice…

Light-hearted yet barbed whimsy led in the Siegel-scripted issue #22 as ‘Meet the Squiffles!’ (Riss) found Adolf Hitler approached by the king of a nefarious band of pixies who offered to sabotage all of America’s mighty weapons. Neither nefarious rogue had factored Superman – or patriotic US gremlins – into their schemes though…

A philanthropic, well-beloved gambler was framed by unscrupulous stockbrokers, but with the Man of Tomorrow’s assistance eventually regained ‘The Luck of O’Grady!’ (Sikela), after which ‘The Great ABC Panic!’ (Dobrotka) featured the return of the perfidious Prankster who almost succeeded in patenting the English language until his greatest enemy intervened, and Riss’ ‘A Modern Robin Hood’ saw the inevitable tragic end to a well-intentioned, altruistic thief who could handle Superman but not actual mobsters and gunsels…

Superman #23 opened with a Don Cameron script illustrated by Sam Citron. ‘America’s Secret Weapon!’ was a rousing paean to American military might as Clark and Lois reported on cadet manoeuvres and the Man of Steel became an inspiration to the demoralised troops in training. Siegel then wrote the rest of the issue beginning with ‘Habitual Homicide’ (Roussos art): a crime-caper worthy of Batman which began when a co-ed rebuffed her tutor’s amorous advances, prompting the unstable scholar to frame her boyfriend for murder. Unfortunately for Superman and the staff of Spurdyke University, once Professor Raymond Lock started killing he found that he really liked it…

Then ‘Fashions in Crime!’ (Riss) found Lois and Clark plunged into the world of Haute Couture and designer knock-offs, accidentally uncovering a lethally lucrative business run by a masked swell dubbed The Dude, whilst the Sikela-illustrated ‘Danger on the Diamond!’ once more combined sports action with gambling skulduggery as Superman saved the career of an on-the-skids Baseball player and cleaned up the game… again.

Cameron wrote all but one tale in issue #24, starting with a surreal Dobrotka fantasy which eschewed rational continuity to relocate the entire Superman cast back to the 1890s, where our hero saved his chaste intended from ‘Perils of Poor Lois!’

Siegel & Riss then revealed ‘The King of Crackpot Lane’ – a Marx Brothers-inspired romp which introduced whacky mute inventor Louie Dolan of the Army’s Department of Constructive Theories whose impossible gadgets made a lot of trouble for both the Man of Tomorrow and America’s enemies…

Cameron, Dobrotka & Roussos close this collection with a couple of stirring adventure yarns; first with ‘Surprise for Superman!’ which saw the Metropolis Marvel plagued by an inventive impostor who even fooled Lois, after which ‘Suicide Voyage!’  ends everything on an exuberant high as Clark – and stowaway Lois – visit the Arctic as part of a mission to rescue downed American aviators. Of course nobody was expecting a secret invasion by combined Nazi and Japanese forces, but Superman and a patriotic polar bear were grateful for the resultant bracing exercise…

Ageless and evergreen, endlessly re-readable, these epic hardback Archive Editions fabulously frame some of the greatest and most influential comics tales ever created, and taken in unison form a perfect permanent record of breathtaking wonder and groundbreaking excitement. How can any dedicated fan resist them?
© 1943, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Prison Pit Book Four


By Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-591-4

Johnny Ryan is a comedian who uses comics as his most liberated medium of expression. Whether in his own Angry Youth Comix, or the many commissions for such varied clients as Nickelodeon, Hustler, Mad, LA Weekly and elsewhere, his job/mission is to create laughter. Depending on your point of view, he is either a filth-obsessed pervo smut-monger or a social iconoclast using the same tactics as Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks to assault the worst and most hidebound aspects of society.

His wild, loose cartoon drawing style is deceptively engrossing, and his seeming pictorial Tourette’s Syndrome of strips and gags involving such grotesque signature characters as Boobs Pooter (world’s most disgusting stand-up comedian), Loady McGee, Sinus O’Gynus and especially the incredible Blecky Yuckeralla (originally weekly from 2003 in The Portland Mercury and Vice Magazine before switching to Ryan’s own on-line site) will, frankly, appal many readers, but as with most questions of censorship in a Free Society, they are completely at liberty to neither buy nor read the stuff.

Ryan dubs his stinging graphic assaults on American culture ‘misanthropic comics’ and one of the most effective and honestly engaging is a simple riff on kids and fighting…

Ryan is a cartoonist with an uncompromising vision and an insatiable desire to shock and revolt whenever he wants to. In his ongoing Prison Pit series he perpetually pushes the graphic narrative envelope and the outer limits of taste with a brutal, primitive cascade of casual violence that has sprung, fangs bared, claws extended and arcanely barbed genitalia fully brandished, from his apparent obsession with casual ultra-violence, social decay and the mythology of masked wrestling. He is also a delighted devotee of the “berserk” manga strips of Kentaro Miura…

In the first volume criminal grappler Cannibal F***face (my asterisks not his) was banished to an extra-dimensional purgatory where the most violent felons from all over creation were dumped to live or die by societies which had outgrown the need for them. This barren hell-scape was littered with grotesque monsters, vile organisms and the worst specimens of humanity ever captured by the forces of civilisation. The masked wrestler was dumped there to fight and die, but his indomitable spirit and brutally battered body became bonded to a ghastly parasite, and together they thrived by killing everyone – and thing – they encountered…

In this fourth fearsome monochrome tome – which opens with the eighth uncanny episode of the unflinching epic – C.F. and his savage, semi-sentient new left arm awake in a crystalline cell and are informed they are imprisoned within the psychic confines of the insidious Caligulon. When the parasite abandons and attacks the wrestler, the result is an even more horrific monster and a temporary alliance which sees the brutal end of the mental wizards who form the ‘Brain Bitch’.

After demolishing, destroying and even consuming their foes and then dealing so-very-harshly with still more perilously paranormal priapic horrors, C.F. and his erstwhile ally turn on each other in ‘Slugstaxx’. After a horrendous clash which sees the unruly parasite devolved and returned to his rightful left arm-stump, the mighty masked wrestler then totally – and literally – screws with the massive computer behind his latest trials and returns to the Hadean wilderness where he then meets a roving band of marauding killers and proves to their juggernaut leader ‘Undigestible Scrotum’ that he was nothing of the kind…

Suddenly a strange flying machine begins to rain down devastating terror from above…

To Be Continued – and you can’t stop it…

In this non-stop welter of exceedingly excessive force, vile excrescences, constant combat challenges, scatological salvoes and sheer unadulterated graphic carnage, the never-ending Darwinian struggle of C.F. – forever beyond the reach of hope or rescue but never, ever contemplating surrender – is a macabre yet beguiling, loathsomely intriguing miracle of cartoon exuberance.

Man’s oldest gynophobic horrors and most simplistic delight in sheer physical dominance are savagely delineated in this primitive, appalling, cathartic and blackly funny campaign of comic horror. Resplendent, triumphant juvenilia has been adroitly shoved beyond all ethical limits into the darkest depths of absurdist comedy. This is another non-stop rollercoaster of brain-blistering action, profound, profanity and pictorial Sturm und Drang at its most gorge-rising and compelling: a never-ending battle delivered in the raw, frenetically primitivist ink-stained stabbings of an impassioned, engrossed child…

Not for kids, the faint-hearted or weak-stomached, here is extreme cartooning at its most visceral and pure.

…And now that we’ve placated the intellectual/moral imperative inside us all, I’ll also confirm that this book is another, all-out, over the top, indisputably hilarious hoot. Buy it and see if you’re broad-minded, fundamentally honest and purely in need of ultra-adult silliness…
© 2012 Johnny Ryan. All rights reserved.

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Johnny Hazard – The Gold of Thal


By Frank Robbins (Pacific Comics Publications)
No ISBN

Johnny Hazard was a newspaper strip created in the style and manner of Terry and the Pirates, but in many ways the steely-eyed hero most resembles – and indeed presages – Milton Caniff’s second magnum opus Steve Canyon.

Unbelievably, until 2011 this stunningly impressive and enthralling adventure strip was never comprehensively collected in graphic novels – at least in English – although selected highlights had appeared in nostalgia magazines such as Pioneer Comics and Dragon Lady Press Presents.

However, sporadic compendiums of full-colour Sunday pages have popped up over the years, such as this gloriously huge (340 x 245mm) landscape tabloid produced by re-translating a collected Italian edition back into English, courtesy of the Pacific Comic Club.

Frank Robbins was a brilliant all-around cartoonist whose unique artistic and lettering style lent itself equally to adventure, comedy and superhero tales, whilst his expansive raconteur’s gifts made him one of the best writers of three generations of comics.

He first came to fame in 1939 when he took over newspaper strip Scorchy Smith (from the astounding Noel Sickles), creating a Sunday page for the feature in 1940. Robbins was then offered the high-profile Secret Agent X-9 but instead created his own lantern jawed, steely-eyed man of action.

A tireless and prolific worker, even whilst producing a daily and Sunday Hazard (usually a separate storyline for each), Robbins freelanced as an illustrator for The Saturday Evening Post, Look, Life and a host of other mainstream magazines.

In the 1960s and 1970s he moved into comicbooks, becoming a key contributor to Batman, Batgirl, Detective Comics (where he created Man-Bat with Neal Adams) and The Flash, followed Michael Kaluta on The Shadow and contributed to humour mag Plop! as well as DC’s mystery anthologies. Moving to Marvel in the early 1970s, Robbins concentrated on drawing a variety of titles including Captain America, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Morbius, Human Fly, Man from Atlantis, Power Man and The Invaders, which he co-created with Roy Thomas.

When Johnny Hazard launched on Monday June 5th 1944, its star was an aviator in the United States Army Air Corps who, when hostilities ceased, became for a while a freelance charter pilot and secret agent before settling into the bombastic life of a globe-girdling trouble-shooter, mystery-solver and modern day Knight Errant babe-magnet.

The strip ended in 1977: another victim of diminishing panel-sizes and the move towards simplified, thrill-free, family-friendly gag-a-day graphic fodder to wrap around small-ads.

With the release at long last of a dedicated collection of the black and white Daily strips, I thought I’d spotlight a few of those fabulous landscape tomes which kept the Amazing Aviator alive in fans’ hearts in the years since it ceased publication.

In a previous review remarkably similar to this one, we saw the Rangoon-based World-Wide Airline head-honcho handle a madly muddled movie crew in Mammoth Marches On, battle a Japanese war-criminal with atomic aspirations in ‘The Hunted’ and bring to book a gang of highly sophisticated plane-wrecking ‘Scavengers’ in the jungles between Vietnam and Cambodia, before heading off on his next incredible adventure which barely began before that particular collection concluded. This particular tome re-presents sequences which first appeared in American Sunday Supplements between April 19th 1953 and July 4th 1954, and depict a time of wild globetrotting exploits and increasingly exhilarating fantasy frolics…

‘Ceiling Zero-Minus’ found Johnny and trusty pals Don and Cutout hired to take a new type of helicopter down into the deepest, widest hole on Earth in search of missing miners, and this sensational storyline continues with an astounding discovery as their vertical vehicle is trapped in a net nine thousand feet below the surface…

The unbelievable follow-up is even more amazing as the trio are taken prisoner by a Herculean giant and introduced to a fantastic subterranean civilisation built over eons by cavemen fleeing Earth’s last Ice Age.

Moreover the ambitious super-scientific overlords of the sub-city state of Namron are in the final stages of a complex and long-planned invasion of the surface world. They already have spies and fifth columnists placed in the most unsuspected places…

With the upper lands exhausted by recent wars and divided by ideology the crucial day is fast approaching, especially as wicked dictator Nallor has captured the beautiful Princess Alba…

It transpires that the rival city of Justus has long held the subterranean tyrant’s insane ambitions in check, but with their ruler’s daughter now a hostage Nallor feels confidant enough to start his campaign, but hasn’t reckoned on the capable Hazard’s ability to make trouble. Soon the escaped surface-men are dashing the rescued Alba back to Justus through the underworld with all the unimaginably resources of the invaders at their heels, but they have not reckoned on the fact that one of them is a Namronian double-agent…

Fantastic and eerily spectacular, the fantasy epic ends with the heroes triumphant and Upper Earth saved, so seven days later it was back to rip-roaring adventure in a traditional vein with ‘Deadly Game!’ (August 30th 1953-January 24th 1954) as Johnny is chartered to ferry a chess master to a bizarre competition in the heart of the Burmese jungle. Little do the plucky pilot or Señor Professor Eduardo Estaban realise just how seriously enigmatic plantation owner Mr. Basil takes his games…

The first hint comes when the tea-farmer’s lovely young wife starts passing terrified notes, but the clincher is when Johnny discovers the bodies of previous players in the Room of Death…

Things come to a head when the pilot then finds out what Basil is really cultivating in his vast, isolated fields and leads to a deadly duel of wits …and bombs and bullets…

The furious finale finds Hazard, Estaban and Valerie Basil fleeing a scene of deadly devastation on the packet boat of corpulent rogue Captain Shark as ‘Monkey See…Monkey Do!’ (running from January 31st to May 9th 1954) draws the stunned survivors into an ancient feud. Whilst torturously returning to civilisation along the sluggishIrrawaddy, Hazard finds a stuffed monkey in the captain’s cabin – one bedecked with thousands of dollars worth of ancient jewellery…

Years ago Shark and his thieving colleague Peter “Three-Eyes” Lynch had fought over a treasure map which led to a lost city deep in the jungle. Ever since Three-Eyes went overboard with half the map and a bullet-hole in him, Shark has travelled the river as an itinerant courier searching in vain for his prize, but now the battle at Basil’s plantation has uncovered a hidden tributary and the unlucky passengers have no choice but to go along with the obsessed Captain…

Things take a terrifying turn when the boat is invaded by gun-toting monkeys who take them all captive and bring the vessel to that much-sought lost city…

Three-Eyes didn’t die that night. Instead he drifted to the ancient ruin and spent long months training the anthropoids to do his bidding. All this time he’s been waiting for somebody to find the desolated ruins and provide him with a means of transporting back to civilisation the tons of gold and gems he’s been impatiently sitting on…

Things are tense enough with the wanderers as simple captives of the crazy monkey- man, but when Three-Eyes realises just how long it’s been since he touched a human woman, the situation escalates…

Although the chivalrous pilot successfully defends Valerie, they and Estaban can only watch in horror as Shark and Lynch finally take their long-deferred dispute to its ultimate, foregone conclusion…

This volume – like its predecessor – then carries on into the next saga and ends on a tantalising cliffhanger as, after dragging his charges back to Rangoon and safety, Hazard is then hired by a climber who claims to have been the first person to actually scale Mount Everest. Surprisingly, Virgil Dale isn’t too fussed about not getting the credit for such an incredible achievement: he’s since hooked up with returning villainess/entrepreneur Baroness Flame who wants to fund an expedition to the High Himalayas and capture the beast he discovered there – ‘The Abominable Snowman!’

To be continued…

These exotic action-romances perfectly captured the mood and magic of a distant but so incredibly familiar time; with cool heroes, hot dames and exceedingly intemperate bad-guys encountering exotic locales and stunning scenarios, all peppered with blistering tension, slyly mature humour and vivid, visceral excitement.

Johnny Hazard is a brilliant two-fisted thriller-strip and even if you can’t easily locate these fantastic full-colour chronicles, at least the prospect of an eventual new Sunday strip collection is a little closer at last…
© 1953-1954 King Features Syndicate. © 1980 Pacific C.C.

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Superman: the Action Comics Archives volume 5


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Don Cameron, Ed Dobrotka, Sam Citron, Ira Yarbrough, John Sikela & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1188-2

It’s almost incontrovertible: the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would be an utterly unrecognisable thing without the invention of Superman. His unprecedented adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East embroiled America, patriotic relevance.

In comicbook terms at least Superman was master of the world, and had already utterly changed the shape of the fledgling industry. There was the phenomenally popular newspaper strip, a thrice-weekly radio serial, games, toys, as much global syndication as the war would allow and the perennially re-run Fleischer studio’s astounding animated cartoons.

The Golden Age greats herein reprinted from issues #69-85 of the groundbreaking anthology Action Comics begin their mind-warping wonderment after a fond Foreword reminiscence from Silver Age scribe and comicbook International Treasure Roy Thomas

Co-creator Jerry Siegel was finally called up in 1943 and his prodigious script output was curtailed, necessitating greater contributions from the ingenious and multi-faceted Don Cameron and others, whilst Joe Shuster – increasingly debilitated by failing eyesight and tied up producing the far more prestigious newspaper strip – had to leave the bulk of the artwork in the hands of the trusty, ever-changing stalwarts of the Superman Studio who were drawing most of the comicbook output at this time.

By this time though the quality of the source material began to suffer slightly as Siegel & Shuster’s rotating band of artistic stand-ins were themselves continually called away to serve in the armed forces, but the three magazines supplying the Metropolis Marvel’s core readership (Action Comics, Superman and World’s Finest Comics) always adapted and always came through with more and greater spectacular thrills, spills and chills to cope with the relentless demands of the growing legion of fans.

Superman was definitely every kid’s hero, as confirmed yet again in this classic compendium which saw the Man of Tomorrow and the avid audiences through the last weary days of World War II.

Due to the exigencies of periodical publishing, although the terrific tales collected in this fabulous fifth hardback tome putatively take the Man of Steel from February 1944 to June 1945, since cover-dates described return-by, not on-sale dates they were all prepared well in advance, and real-world events and reactions took a little time to filter through to the furious four-colour pages, so some of the stories have a tinge of uncertainty and foreboding that was swiftly fading from the minds of the public as the far more immediate movie-newsreels showed an inexorable turning of the tide in the Allies’ favour.

As the months rolled by however, mention of the conflict declined as the characters got on with the business of battling for Truth, Justice and the American Way, unencumbered by the dwindling threat of real-world monsters and tyrants…

There’s no greater evidence of that fact than the simple realisation that only one of the stunning covers included in this compilation (#76, by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye) has a war theme – and that’s directly pertinent to the tale within – whilst the rest by Boring, Kaye, Jack Burnley, Joe Shuster & John Sikela, all feature more general themes of calamity, comedy and criminality, augmented by the then-new notion of using the first image seen by readers to actually highlight the Superman story inside…

Action Comics #69 offered ‘The Lost-and-Found Mystery!’ (credited here to Sam Citron but more likely Ed Dobrotka illustrating a Siegel script) wherein pernicious plunderer The Prankster returned with a wily wrangle that involved using bogus small ads to extort money from prominent people with something to hide.

Issue #70 saw ‘Superman Takes a Holiday!’ (Cameron & Citron) when a criminal spree by the brilliantly insidious Thinker proved the villain had the Action Ace’s number. However the Gangster Genius couldn’t outwit merely mortal crimebuster Clark Kent, whilst a calamitous comedy of errors in #71’s ‘Valentine Villainy!’ (Cameron & Ira Yarbrough) saw Kent, Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and a bold jewel thief all collide and inadvertently trade their lovers’ lagniappes with heartbreaking, hilarious, catastrophic and near catastrophic results.

Although Action #72 saw the Man of Steel uncover Nazi spies in ‘Superman and the Super-Movers!’ by Siegel, Shuster & George Roussos, they were merely a throwaway sidebar to the gripping tale of a construction company performing big jobs for a clandestine criminal purpose, after which ‘The Hobby Robbers!’ (#73 by Siegel, Citron & Roussos) predicted today’s modern-day collector mania in an astute tale about the lengths enthusiasts will go to if their treasured possessions are pilfered. Oddly comicbooks were not one of the collections under threat…

Even today the authors of many early tales are still unknown to us, as with the delightfully daft romance illustrated by Yarbrough in #74. ‘The Courtship of Adelbert Dribble!’ saw a Jack Benny look-alike wimp lure the Man of Tomorrow into an ingenious trap simply so the sap could play Superman for a day and woo his far-from fair maid. Of course it all went awry but the Metropolis Marvel was eventually there to save the day and see true love victorious.

Also anonymous are the Yarbrough-limned ‘Aesop’s Modern Fables’ which pitted the Man of Steel against a cunning gangster who planned his capers along classical Greek lines, and the unconventional Dobrotka chiller ‘A Voyage to Destiny!’ wherein Superman’s early days were revisited as a spoiled trust-fund brat became a reluctant sailor in 1939, shipping out solely to secure his inheritance. However, after battling thugs and confronting Japanese soldiers – with the covert assistance of a Kryptonian Guardian Angel – wastrel Roger Carson had become a man Superman could be proud of, and a credit to the US Navy…

Action #77 – credited to Cameron & Dobrotka but possibly scripted by Siegel – saw the Prankster on his uppers until the rotund reprobate began scamming greedy but technically honest citizens with ‘The Headline Hoax!’ Happily Superman showed everybody the error of their ways before aiding ‘The Chef of Bohemia!’ (by Alvin Schwartz & Yarbrough in #78) whose simple diner supported many starving artists but stood in the way of murderous property speculators…

Micawber-like conman Wilbur J. Wolfingham reared his unscrupulous head in #79’s ‘The Golden Fleece!’ by Cameron & Yarbrough, attempting to con sheep-farmers into re-purchasing their own gold-salted properties until Lois and Superman again proved honesty was his best policy, after which zany pixy and madcap mystical gadfly ‘Mr. Mxyztplk Returns!’ found the aggravating elf driving Superman batty in a brilliantly bonkers yarn from Cameron & Yarbrough.

Action #81’s seasonal thriller ‘Fairyland Isle!’ (the first of two anonymous tales drawn by Yarbrough) saw Superman and a millionaire Santa Claus join forces to give deprived kids a free holiday, despite the worst efforts of two of the rich man’s greedy nephews, whilst a small town with big plans was plagued by a seemingly supernatural killer called ‘The Water Sprite!’ determined to scotch plans for an artificial lake until Lois and Clark did a little digging of their own in issue #82.

Siegel & Shuster reunited in #83 to introduce a team they clearly had high hopes for. ‘Hocus and Pocus… Magicians by Accident!’ saw affable chumps Doc and Flannelhead, mistakenly believing themselves to have gained magical powers, threatened into committing miraculous crimes: luckily an ever-vigilant Man of Tomorrow was invisibly at their sides to set things right… Hocus and Pocus – and their indomitable bunny pal Moiton – set themselves up as consulting detectives at the end and would return to complicate Superman’s life again and again…

Joe Greene & John Sikela concocted the crafty crime tale ‘Tommy Gets a Zero!’ wherein a lovelorn little boy writes a report on gangsters for school and accidentally becomes Superman’s sidekick. Of course his teacher didn’t believe him but Tommy had a higher authority to appeal to…

This stellar collection concludes with the reappearance of another lethal old lag as the mercilessly murderous Toyman resurfaced, attacking apparently poor targets whilst secretly attempting to solve ‘The Puzzle in Jade!’ (by Cameron & Dobrotka). Happily Superman was there to keep casualties to a minimum and put the Ghastly Gamesman back in his prison box…

These vintage vignettes offer irresistible and priceless enjoyment at an affordable price and this superbly robust and colourful format has inestimably advanced the prestige and social standing of the medium itself as well as preserving a vital part of American popular culture.

Still some of the very best action adventures any fan could ever find, these tales belong on your bookshelf in a place of easily accessible honour you can reach for over and over again…
© 1944, 1945, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Steve Canyon


By Milton Caniff & Dick Rockwell (Tempo Books/Grosset & Dunlap)
ISBN: 0-448-17058-2-150

Here’s another early attempt to catapult comics off the spinner racks and onto proper bookshelves; this time from 1979, part of populist publisher Grosset and Dunlap’s attempt to carve themselves a slice of the burgeoning cartoon and comic strip mass market paperback boom. Other company sorties had included Krazy Kat, Broom Hilda and a host of DC character collections ranging from Superman to Swamp Thing and Wonder Woman to the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Steve Canyon began on 13th January 1947, after a canny campaign to boost public anticipation following Milton Caniff’s very conspicuous resignation from his previous masterpiece Terry and the Pirates.

Caniff, master of suspense and well versed in the art of shaping reader attention, didn’t show his new hero until four days into the first adventure – and then only in a ‘file photograph’. The primed-and-ready readership first met Stevenson Burton Canyon, bomber pilot, medal-winning war-hero, Air-Force flight instructor and latterly, independent airline charter operator in the first Sunday colour page, on 19th January 1947.

Almost instantly Caniff was working at the top of his game, producing material exotic, familiar and – as always – dead on the money in terms of the public zeitgeist and taste.

Dropping his hero into the exotic climes he had made his own on Terry, Caniff modified that world based on real-world events, but this time the brooding, unspoken menace was Communism not Fascism. Banditry and duplicity, of course, never changed, no matter who was nominally running the show…

Caniff was simply being contemporary, but he was savvy enough to realise that with the Cold War “hotting up” inKorea, Yankees were going to be seen as spies in many countries, so he made that a part of the narrative. When Canyon officially re-enlisted, the strip became to all intents and purposes a contemporary War feature…

Over the decades the Steve Canyon strip honestly embraced the philosophy of America as the World’s policeman, becoming a bastion of US militarism and remaining true to its ideals even as the years rolled by and national tastes and readership changed…

Steve foiled plots and chased his true love Summer Olsen around the globe for thirty years – continually frustrated that fate cruelly kept them unhappily apart – until they finally wed in 1970. Steve had stayed a far-ranging agent of Air Force Military Intelligence even though by this time the Vietnam War had made the Armed Forces an extremely contentious issue…

Even after Mr. and Mrs. Canyon finally tied the knot, their lives were never easy. At the time of the two rather severely abridged tales in this digest-sized monochrome collection (spanning 1978-1979), Summer was missing, having inexplicably vanished from the family home without a trace. The stunned and heartbroken Steve spent even more restless years searching for her…

The action begins as the aging agent spots Summer in a newspaper photo showing survivors of a volcanic eruption and earthquake in distant far-eastern country Langapora. Almost immediately Canyon’s accommodating superiors have him on a plane to the hostile Asian nation and Steve’s own network of grateful friends and associates are ready to pitch in. Dissolute reporter Johnny Mink is waiting when he lands in the anti-American state, having made a number of discreet inquiries and told a few necessarily fantastic lies…

The National Office of Information has denied any disaster has occurred and there were certainly no blonde American women in that part of the country. Mink is unsurprised and has a cunning plan, blinding the starstruck government flack in charge of the Bureau with tales of secretly researching locations for a majorHollywoodmovie. It is a ploy that instantly beguiles the glamour-starved official, who clearly envisions a major role for herself…

Carrying spare papers and a passport for Summer, “film director”SteveCanyonromances the junior minister and by sheer chance spots a blonde in the back of a heavily fortified car…

Tracking down the vehicle Steve and Johnny get tantalisingly close but are rebuffed by private security guards belonging to a local ganglord. The woman is American but belongs to the truly baroque and deadly Ah Nu Mero Uno – a movie-mad warlord especially obsessed by Yul Brynner in The King and I…

After overcoming immense and utterly bizarre obstacles the determined Americans broach the walls and discover there is indeed a woman from Steve’s chequered past held captive therein, but it’s certainly not Mrs. Canyon…

Of course the gallant Steve has to quash his own desperate needs to rescue his old comrade in distress, countering staggering odds and deadly dilemmas before surrendering those fake papers to save the mystery miss, narrowly escaping in a fast commercial jetliner.

The rescued stray repays Steve generosity of spirit by leaving the plane – without those vital passport papers – at a stopover inSingapore, leaving Canyon free to continue searching for Summer. Disembarking atHong Kong, however, Canyon stumbles into a deadly comedy of errors when he is mistaken by Red Chinese agents for a Russian super-spy.

At that time tensions were high between the Soviets and their notional communist allies and Caniff, always up to the minute in terms of global geopolitics, saw a perfect opportunity to add a few funny thrills to the mix of tense soap-opera pathos as Steve searched for his missing mate…

Abducted, drugged and tortured, Canyon is only saved by the impressionable young female translator Comrade Jo, who sees the unconscious man as her ticket to a glamorous life as a Russian Spy-Queen. Of course the only reason he is unconscious is because Jo’s attempt to thwart the chemical interrogation and brutal torture have left a broken acupuncture needle in Steve’s brain, plunging the “Russian” spy into a deep coma…

On the run with the inert and hulking Steve, little Jo flees her masters only to be understandably rejected by the Soviet Trade Delegation who fear she might be a trap set by their own untrustworthy Party bosses. Soon everybody thinks it best if Jo and her mystery-man disappear quietly and forever, but luckily Steve has an enigmatic if mute guardian angel in the sinister shape of espionage legend Charlie Vanilla and his trusty band ofHong Kong gutter urchins and wharf rats…

Packed with wry action, pure belly laughs and terrific tension, this last tale proves again Caniff’s sheer bravura boldness and invention as the entire epic takes place with new and walk-on characters carrying the tale whilst the veteran lead spends the greater part of the as a mere prop and maguffin…

Steve Canyon is comic storytelling at its best. Beautifully illustrated, mesmerising black and white sagas of war, espionage, romance, terror, justice and cynical reality: a masterpiece of graphic narrative every serious fan and story-lover should experience. Most cartoonists – or workers in any field of artistic endeavour – go to their graves never attaining the giddy heights wherein they are universally associated with a signature piece of unequivocally supreme work. How incredible then when somebody achieves that perfect act of creation, not once but twice – and does so seven days a week for 64 years? …And that’s not to in any way disparage the astounding artistic contributions of Dick Rockwell who began assisting with the artwork in 1952 and, as Caniff’s health gradually failed over the years, invisibly assumed more and more of the strips visual aspect.

When Caniff passed away in 1988 Rockwell continued and concluded the final adventure ‘The Snow Princess’ before the series was finally retired with honour on Sunday, June 5th 1988.

Enticing, enthralling, exotic, action-packed and emotionally charged, Steve Canyon is a slice of the purest popular Americana and masterpiece of graphic narrative: a full-immersion thriller and a passport to the halcyon best bits of another age. Comics just don’t get better than this.

Moreover, I’ve always delighted in the particular buzz these paperback pioneers of the comics biz seem to instantly generate. If you’re in any way of similar mien, I can thoroughly recommend the sheer tactile and olfactory high that only comes from holding such a dinky digest item in your own two hands…
© 1978, 1979, Field Newspaper Syndicate.  All rights reserved.