Category: Comic Strip Classics

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The Outer Space Spirit: 1952


By Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer & Wally Wood (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 0-87816-012-4

In keeping with the dolorous nature of this time of year I’m concentrating on a few missed opportunities in this period between the dubious joys of Christmas and the nervous anticipation of the New Year so here’s a graphic novel that in some ways didn’t live up to all it could have been – not necessarily because of the material itself but because of the kind of world we live in…

It is pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of those pivotal creators who shaped the American comic book industry, with most of his graphic works more or less permanently in print – as they should be. However, although the story can be found as part of the recent Spirit Archive volume 24, this classy monochrome volume from much-missed independent publisher Kitchen Sink in 1983 released in both hardback and softcover, is by far a better reading experience.

Sometimes the Medium is the Message, especially when the artefact is a substantially solid tome delivering magical artwork in crisp, breathtaking black and white which details – not only in the reprinted strips but also sketches, incidental artwork and author’s breakdown layouts – the last and most striking saga of one of the world’s greatest fantasy characters.

From 1936 to 1938 Eisner worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm known as the Eisner-Eiger Shop, creating strips for both domestic US and foreign markets. Using the pen-name Willis B. Rensie he created and drew opening instalments for a huge variety of characters ranging from funny animal to historical sagas,

Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillers… and superheroes – lots of superheroes …

In 1940 Everett “Busy” Arnold, head honcho of the superbly impressive Quality Comics outfit, invited Eisner to take on a new challenge. The Register-Tribune newspaper syndicate wanted a 16-page weekly comicbook insert to be given away with the Sunday editions. Eisner jumped at the opportunity, creating three strips which would initially be handled by him before two of them were handed off to his talented assistants. Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic and distaff detective Lady Luck fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (then still Nicholas Viscardi) and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead feature for his own playground and over the next twelve years The Spirit became the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. However, by 1952 he had more or less abandoned it for more challenging and certainly more profitable commercial, instructional and educational strips, working extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly, and generally leaving comics books behind.

For the final year or so the bulk of Spirit tales were produced by other hands with assistant Jules Feiffer handling the bulk of the scripts and diverse artists producing the art. Feiffer preferred to map out his episodes in rough pencil with word balloons and captions fully scripted: once approved by Eisner the roughs would then be interpreted by the assigned artist for the individual episodes. The long-term plan was not to cancel The Spirit but to redefine it for a new decade and expand the Eisner studio/company beyond and around it – but that’s not quite how it played out.

As seen in the scholarly introduction by Cat Yronwoode and Eisner’s own director’s commentary ‘Reminiscence’, the plans to reposition The Spirit were not welcomed by the client papers buying the strip; the creators handling the feature had different creative goals and drives and Eisner himself couldn’t quite let go of his precious baby.

Even though society and comicbooks were wildly in love with the bold new genre of space opera science fiction and Eisner had previously dabbled with the form in a few previous adventures, a large number of Spirit clients and readers did not want any “flying saucer spacey stuff” on their Sunday funnies pages. Moreover the brilliantly sardonic, existentialist and sensitively satirical Feiffer was approaching the tales in a bleak, almost nihilistic way, emphasising existentialist isolation, human frailty and the passing of an era rather than rugged he-men with hot babes in bikinis and fishbowl helmets…

After a succession of fill-in draughtsmen Wally Wood was selected as artist, a stunningly gifted imaginer who had been reaching unparalleled heights with his work for EC and other comicbook Sci Fi publishers. Wood had actually begun his professional career on the Spirit in the 1940s as a letterer and was fantastically keen on the new project, but the merciless deadlines and his overwhelming desire to surmount his own high standards soon had the saga experiencing deadline problems on top of everything else…

After the text features, the first episode ‘Outer Space’ begins, preceded as are most of the strips here by Feiffer’s meticulous and detailed script layouts. First appearing on Sunday, July 27th 1952, it saw Denny Colt, The Spirit, managing a crew of convict volunteers on an American rocketship to the moon, at the insistent request of eminent space scientist Professor Hartley Skol. However this was a new hero for an uncertain age. The tough, fun-loving, crime-fighting daredevil had become a cautious, introspective leader, feeling fully the weight of his mission and the burden of unwelcome responsibilities.

‘Mission: the Moon’ (August 3rd 1952), follows Colt, Professor Skol and the pardoned felons onto the satellite’s barren surface and recounts the Spirit’s first victory as he heads off a potential mutiny with reason, not force, whilst ‘A DP on the Moon’ reveals how closely Eisner still monitored the series.

DP’s were “Displaced Persons” a common term in the post-war world, and when the explorers find a diary in the lunar dust, it reveals that the world’s greatest dictator and his inner circle fled to the moon to escape Allied justice. Unfortunately they could not outrun their own paranoia and madness…

In the original script and finished art the diarist is Adolf Hitler, but the grim fate that befell his fellow Nazis was altered at the very last moment by Eisner, who felt the plot already old hat. Swift retouching transformed Der Fuehrer into fictitious Latin American dictator Francisco Rivera and the revised version ran on August 10th 1952. It still reads well but if you look carefully those uniforms in the background flashbacks are hauntingly familiar…

With ‘Heat on the Moon’ the deadline crunch hit, and one and a half pages of spectacular Lunar exploration by Wood abruptly segue to a “meanwhile back on Earth” scene by Eisner, featuring Chief Dolan, daughter Ellen and a criminal with a vested interest in assuring that at least one of the moon volunteers isn’t pardoned.

Following their first fatality the mission began to go swiftly awry and ‘Rescue’ (the instalments now cut to only four pages in an attempt to fight the deadline doom) saw another body-blow to the expedition. Defeated and demoralised Spirit decided to return the survivors to Earth…

‘The Last Man on the Moon’ depicted the launch from the moon as on Earth another gangster attempted to scotch the return trip. The mission, clearly cursed, suffered one more disaster as a convict sneaks away before take-off, becoming, with the September 7th episode ‘The Man in the Moon’.

On September 14th the inevitable occurred and the feature was forced to run a modified reprint (‘The Amulet of Osiris’ from the late 1940s) before Wood resurfaced to illustrate the philosophically barbed ‘Return from the Moon’ on September 21st. As Denny Colt and the remaining lunar-nauts debate the nature of reality, Eisner stepped in with the help of Al Wenzel to produce ‘The Return’ a hasty wrap-up that still found room for a close encounter with a flying saucer.

A scheduling blip saw an alternate version of the return a week later (not included here) and the last episode ‘Denny Colt, UFO Investigator’ ran on October 5th 1952: an inconclusive new beginning illustrated by Klaus Nordling. The strip died with that episode as Eisner, increasingly occupied with military work, and bleeding client-papers, terminated the feature.

But that isn’t quite the end: this book also includes in various forms what would have been the next three chapters, discovered in Eisner’s extensive file vault in the early 1980s. First is a fully lettered Feiffer layout, followed by a sequence of lettered pages prior to the art being drawn and the first (and only) typed script from assigned new creator Nordling.

Tense, suspenseful, dark and fearsomely compelling, these are the stories that killed off the Spirit for nearly two decades, but today they stand as a mini-masterpiece of modern comics storytelling that was quite simply, too far advanced for its audience. For we survivors of Cold War, Space Race and Budget-cut scientific exploration they are a chilling and intensely prophetic examination of human nature in a Brave New World rendered with all the skill and frantic passion of some of comics’ greatest talents.

What wonders could have followed if the readers had come along with them?
© 1983 Kitchen Sink Press. © Art and stories 1983 Will Eisner. All rights reserved.

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Dynamo


By Wally Wood & various (Tower Books)
ISBN: 42-660

I’ve often harped on about the mini-revolution in the “Camp-superhero” crazed 1960s that saw four-colour comicbook classics migrate briefly from flimsy pamphlet to the stiffened covers and relative respectability of the paperback bookshelves, and the nostalgic wonderments these mostly forgotten fancies still afford (to me at least), but here’s one that I picked up years later as a marginally mature grown man.

Although the double-sized colour comicbooks T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, its spin-offs Undersea Agent, Dynamo, NoMan and the magnificent war-comic Fight the Enemy were all distributed in Britain (but not, I believe comedy title Tippy Teen) these monochrome, resized book editions, to the best of my knowledge, were not.

It doesn’t matter: to my delight, it seems that even today the format and not the glow of childhood days recalled is enough to spark that frisson of proprietary glee that apparently only comic fans (and Toy collectors) are preciously prone to.

Of course it doesn’t hurt when the material is as magnificent as this…

The history of Wally Wood’s immortal spies-in-tights masterpiece is convoluted, and once the mayfly-like lifetime of the Tower Comics line ended, not especially pretty as the material and rights bogged down in legal wrangling and petty back-biting, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the far-too brief careers of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves was a benchmark of quality and sheer bravura fun for fans of both the reawakening superhero genre and the 1960s spy-chic obsession. Their sheer imaginative longevity is attested to by the fact that they’re back again now, courtesy of that Costumed Cut-ups Clearing House, DC Comics…

In the early 1960s the Bond movie franchise went from strength to strength, with action and glamour utterly transforming the formerly understated espionage vehicle. The buzz was infectious: soon Men like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action as television shanghaied the entire bandwagon with the irresistible Man From U.N.C.L.E. (beginning in September 1964), bringing the whole genre inescapably into living rooms across the world.

Creative maverick Wally Wood was approached by veteran MLJ/Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit – Tower Comics. He, in turn called on many of the industry’s biggest names to produce material for the broad range of genres the company envisioned: Samm Schwartz and Dan DeCarlo handled Tippy Teen – which outlasted all the others – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown, Bill Pearson, Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, Russ Jones, Gil Kane and Ralph Reese all contributed to the adventure series.

With a ravenous public appetite for super-spies and costumed heroes exponentially growing the idea of blending the two concepts seems a no-brainer now, but those were far more conservative times, so when T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 appeared with no fanfare or pre-publicity on newsstands in August 1965 (with a cover off-sale date of November) thrill-hungry readers like little me were blown away. It didn’t hurt either that all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80 Page Giant format: there was a huge amount to read in every issue!

All that being said the strips would not be so revered if they hadn’t been so superbly crafted. As well as Wood, the art accompanying the compelling and generally mature stories was by some of the greatest talents in the business: Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Steve Ditko and others.

This slim, seductive digest stars the UN Agency’s Ace troubleshooter and all-round Ordinary Guy Len Brown in five staggering spy thrillers featuring a winning combination of cloak-and-dagger danger, science fiction shocks and stirring super-heroics which also includes the origins of aforementioned fellow operatives NoMan and Menthor.

It all starts with a simple fast-paced introductory tale ‘First Encounter’ by Ivie & Wood, wherein UN commandos failed to save brilliant scientist Professor Emil Jennings from the attack of the mysterious Warlord, but at least rescued some of his greatest inventions, including a belt that increases the wearer’s density until the body becomes as hard as steel, an invisibility cloak and an enigmatic brain-amplifier helmet.

For security purposes these prototype weapons were divided between several agents to create a unit of superior fighting men and counter the increasingly bold attacks of global terror threats.

First chosen was affable file-clerk Len Brown who was, to everyone’s surprise, assigned the belt and the codename Dynamo in a delightfully light-hearted adventure ‘Menace of the Iron Fog’ (written by Len Brown, who had no idea illustrator/editor Wood had prankishly changed the hero’s civilian name as a last-minute gag) which gloriously depicted every kid’s dream as the not-so-smart nice guy got the irresistible power to smash stuff. This cathartic fun-fest also introduced Iron Maiden, a sultry villainess clad in figure-hugging steel who was the probable puberty trigger for an entire generation…

‘T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent NoMan Battles the Spawns of the Devil’ follows: the eerie saga of aged Dr. Anthony Dunn who chose to have his mind transferred into an android body, then equipped with the invisibility cape. The author is unknown but the incredible Reed Crandall (with supplemental Wood inks) drew this breathtaking rollercoaster adventure which also found time and space to include a captivating clash with sinister mastermind Demo and his sultry associate Satana who had unleashed a wave of bestial sub-men on a modern metropolis. NoMan had one final advantage: if his artificial body was destroyed his consciousness could transfer to another android body. As long as he had a spare ready, he could never die…

The third agent was chosen in ‘The Enemy Within’ (also with no script credit and illustrated by Gil Kane, Mike Esposito and George Tuska). However here the creators stepped well outside comic-book conventions: John Janus was the perfect UN employee – a mental and physical marvel who easily passed all the necessary tests and was selected to wear the Jennings helmet. Sadly, he was also a deep-cover mole for the Warlord, poised to betray T.H.U.N.D.E.R. at the earliest opportunity…

All plans went awry once he donned the helmet and became Menthor. The device awakened the potential of his mind, granting him telepathy, telekinesis and mid-reading powers – and also drove the capacity for evil from his mind whilst he wore it. When the warlord attacked with a small army and a giant monster, Menthor was compelled by his own costume to defeat the assault. What a dilemma for a traitor to be in…

All the tales in this diminutive paperback gem were taken from the first comicbook issue of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and although some features were left out, the spectacular old-fashioned team-up of the disparate forces of the Agency, assembled to rescue their prime agent who was ‘At the Mercy of the Iron Maiden’ (by Brown, Wood & Dan Adkins) remains, a magnificent battle blockbuster that still takes the breath away, even resized reformatted and in black and white.

To be honest the sheer artist quality of the creators is actually enhanced by removing the often hit-or-miss colour of 1960s comics, and these truly timeless tales only improve with every reading – and there’s precious few things you can say that about…
© 1965, 1966 Tower Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Beyond Mars volumes 1 & 2


By Jack Williamson & Lee Elias (Blackthorne)
ISBNs: 0-932629-82-2 and 0-932629-84-9

The 1950s was the last great flourish of the American newspaper strip. Always intended as a way of boosting circulation and encouraging consumer loyalty, the inexorable rise of television and spiraling costs of publishing gradually ate away at all but the most popular cartoon features as the decade ended, but the earlier years saw a final, valiant, huge burst of creativity and variety as syndicates looked for ways to recapture popular attention whilst editors increasingly sought ways to maximise every fraction of an inch for paying ads, not expensive cost-centers.

No matter how well produced, imaginative or entertaining, if strips couldn’t increase sales, they weren’t welcome…

The decade also saw a fantastic social change as a commercial boom and technological progress created a new type of visionary consumer – one fired up by the realization that America was Top Dog in the world. The optimistic escapism offered by the stars above led to a reawakening in the moribund science fiction genre, with a basic introduction for the hoi-polloi offered by the burgeoning television industry through such pioneering if clunky programmes as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and movies from visionaries like Robert Wise (Day the Earth Stood Still) and George Pal (Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, War of the Worlds and others).

For kids of all ages conceptual fancies were being tickled by a host of fantastic comicbooks ranging from the blackly satirical Weird Science Fantasy to the welcoming and openly enthusiastic Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. In the digest magazines master imagineers such as Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Sturgeon, Dick, Bester and Farmer were transforming the genre from youthful melodrama into a highly philosophical art form…

With Flying Saucers in the skies, Reds under the Beds and adventure in mind, the Worlds of Tomorrow were common currency and newspaper strips wanted more. Established features such as Buck Rogers, Brick Bradford and Flash Gordon were no longer enough and editors wanted new fresh visions to draw in a wider public, not just the steady fans who already bought papers for their favourite futurian.

John Stewart “Jack” Williamson was one of the first superstars of American science fiction, a rurally raised, self-taught author with more than 50 books, 18 short story collections and even volumes of criticism and non-fiction to his much lauded name. Born in Arizona in 1908, he was raised in Texas and sold his first story in 1928 to Amazing Stories.

Williamson created a number of legendary serials such as the Legion of Space, The Humanoids and the Legion of Time and is credited by the OED with inventing “terraforming” and “genetic engineering.” He was one of the first literary investigators of anti-matter with his Seetee novels.

“See Tee” or “Contra Terrene Matter” is at the heart of the strip under discussion here, collected in two oversized black and white paperback volumes by Blackthorne in 1987 as part of their Comic Strips Preserves project.

A damning newspaper review of Seetee Ship, Williamson’s second novel in that sequence, claimed the book was only marginally better than a comic strip, prompting the editor of a rival paper to engage Williamson and artist Lee Elias to produce a Sunday page based in the same universe as the books. With Dick Tracy maestro Chester Gould as adviser for the early days, the strip ran exclusively in the New York Daily News from 17th February 1952 to May 13th 1955, a glorious high-tech, high-adventure romp based around Brooklyn Rock in 2191AD, a commercial space station bored into one of the rocky chunks drifting in the asteroid belt ‘Beyond Mars’ -the ideal rough-and-tumble story venue on the ultimate frontier of human experience.

The nominal star is Spatial Engineer Mike Flint, an independent charter-pilot based on the rock (although as the series progressed a progression of sexy women and inspired extraterrestrial sidekicks increasingly stole the show) and the first tale begins with Flint selling his services to pluck Becky Starke who has come to the edge of humanity in search of her missing father, although she cloaks that in the quest for a city-sized solid diamond asteroid floating in the deadly “Meteor Drift”…

Soon Mike and his lisping ophidian Venusian partner Tham Thmith are contending with Brooklyn Rock’s crime boss Frosty Karth, a fantastic raider dubbed the Black Martian, a super-criminal named Cobra and even more unearthly menaces in a stirring tale of interplanetary drug dealers, lost cities, dead civilisations and a fantastic mutation – a semi-feral terran boy who can breathe vacuum and rides deep space on a meteor!

With that tale barely concluded the crew, including the rambunctious space boy Jimikin, fell deep into another mystery – Brooklyn Rock was missing!

However Flint had no time to grieve for the family and friends left behind as he intercepted an inbound star-liner and discovered an old flame and a smooth thug bound for the now-missing space station – moreover, one of them knew where it went…

Unknown to even this mastermind, the Rock, stolen by pirates, was out of control and drifting to ultimate destruction in a debris field, but no sooner wais that crisis averted than the heroes became entangled in a “First Contact” situation with an ancient alien from beyond Known Space – or at least with the devilish devices he/she/it left running…

With Book 1 ending on that dramatic cliffhanger, the concluding chronicle opens with Mike, Tham, Jimikin and curvaceous Xeno-archeologist Victoria Snow narrowly escaping alien vivisection from the robotic relics before the tragic, inevitable conclusion.

Snow’s brother Blackie was a fast-talking ne’er-do-well and when he showed up old enemy Karth took the opportunity to try and settle some old scores, leading Flint into a deadly trap on Ceres and a slick saga of genetic manipulation, eugenic supermen and bonanza wealth…

Meanwhile on an interplanetary liner, a new cast member “resurfaced” in the shape of crusty old coot and Mercurian ore prospector Fireproof Jones, just in time to help Flint and Sam mine their newfound riches. As ever Karth was looking to make trouble for the heroes but he invited some for himself when his young daughter suddenly turned up on the Rock accompanied by the gold-digging Pamela Prim. And suddenly the murderous raider Black Martian returned to plague the honest pioneers of the Brooklyn frontier…

Glamour model Trish O’Keefe caused a completely different kind of trouble when she arrived looking for her fiancé, but Tack McTeak wasn’t the humble space-doctor he claimed to be but a cerebrally augmented criminal mastermind, and his plans to snatch the biggest prize in space led to a sequence of stunning thrills and astonishing action.

The scene switched to Earth as the cast visited “civilisation” and found it far from hospitable, so the chance to battle manufactured monsters and the mysterious Dr. Moray on his private tropical island was something of a welcome, if mixed, blessing.

By this time the writing must have been on the wall, as the strip had been reduced to a half page per week, but the creators had clearly decided to go out in style. The sheer bravura spectacle was magnificently ramped up and all the tools of the science fiction trade were utilized to ensure the strip went out with a bang. Moray’s plans were catastrophically realised when the villain used an anti-gravity bomb to steal Manhattan, turning it into a deadly Sword of Damocles in the sky…

The series ended when the paper changed its editorial policy and dropped all comics from its pages. The decision was clearly a quick one as the saga finished satisfactorily but quite abruptly on Sunday 13th March 1955.

Beyond Mars is a breathtaking lost gem from two master craftsmen that successfully blended the wonders of science and the rollicking thrills of Westerns with broad, light-hearted humour to produce a mind-boggling, eye-popping, exuberantly wholesome family space-opera the likes of which wouldn’t be seen again until Star Wars put the fun back into futuristic fiction. This is a saga crying out for a definitive collectors edition.
© 1987 Lee Elias Jack & Williamson. Lee Elias. All rights reserved.

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Prince Valiant volume 2: 1939-1940


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-348-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for everybody who ever dreamed or wondered…  9/10

Rightly reckoned one of the greatest comic strips of all time, this saga of a king-in-exile who became one of the greatest warriors in an age of unparalleled heroes is at once fantastically realistic and beautifully, perfectly abstracted – a meta-fictional paradigm of adventure where anything is possible and justice will always prevail. It is the epic we all aspire to dwell within…

Of one thing let us be perfectly clear: Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is not historical. It is far better than that.

Possibly the most successful and evergreen fantasy creation ever conceived, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13th February 1937, a glorious weekly full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto a world that should have been. It followed the life and adventures of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in of faraway Thule who rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

Crafted by the incredibly gifted Harold “Hal” Foster, this noble scion would over the years grow to manhood in a heady sea of wonderment, roaming the globe and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts. There have been films, cartoon series and all manner of toys, games and collections based the strip – one of the few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 3750 episodes and counting) and even in these declining days of the newspaper strip as a viable medium it still claims over 300 American papers as its home.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected to draw the feature. Foster carried on as writer and designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the scripter’s role.

In 2004 Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artist Gary Gianni and writer Mark Schultz – who wrote the fascinating forward ‘Yes, He Was a Cartoonist’ which opens this second stupendous chronological collection.

This exquisite hardback volume, reprints in glorious colour – spectacularly restored from Foster’s original Printer’s Proofs – the perfectly restored Sunday pages from January 1st 1939 to 29th December 1940, following the extremely capable squire of Sir Gawain as he rushes to warn Camelot of an impending invasion by rapacious Saxons via the vast Anglian Fens where the Royal Family of Thule have hidden since being ousted from their Nordic Island Kingdom by the villainous usurper Sligon.

After a breathtaking battle which sees the Saxons repulsed and the battle-loving boy-warrior knighted upon the field of victory, Valiant begins a period of globe-trotting through the fabled lands of Europe just as the last remnants of the Roman Empire is dying in deceit and intrigue.

Firstly Val journeys to Thule and returns his father to the throne, narrowly escaping the alluring wiles of a conniving beauty with an eye to marrying the Heir Apparent, then bored with peace and plenty the roving royal wildcat encounters a time-twisting pair of mystical perils who show him the eventual fate of all mortals. Sobered but not daunted he then makes his way towards Rome, where he will become unwittingly embroiled in the manic machinations of the Last Emperor, Valentinian.

Before that however he is distracted by an epic adventure that would have struck stunning resonances for the readership at the time. With episode #118 (14th May 1939) Val joined the doomed knights of mountain fortress Andelkrag, who alone and unaided held back the assembled might of the terrifying hordes of Attila the Hun which had decimated the civilisations of Europe and now gathered to wipe out its last vestige.

With Hitler and Mussolini hogging the headlines and Modern European war seemingly inevitable Val joined the Battle of Decency and Right against untrammelled Barbarism. His epic struggle and sole survival comprise one of the greatest episodes of glorious, doom-fated chivalry in literature…

After the fall of the towers of Andelkrag, Valiant made his way onward to the diminshed Rome, picking up a wily sidekick in the form of cutpurse vagabond Slith. Once more he was distracted however, as the Huns delayed. The indomitable lad resolved to pay them back in kind, and gathered dispossessed victims of Hunnish depredations, forging them into a resistance army of guerrilla-fighters – the Hun-Hunters…

Thereafter he liberated the vassal city of Pandaris, driving back the invaders and their collaborator allies in one spectacular coup after another.

Valiant reunited with equally action-starved Round Table companions Sir Tristram and Sir Gawain to make fools of the Hun, who had lost heart after the death of their charismatic leader Attila (nothing to do with Val, just a historical fact). When Slith fell for a beauteous warrior princess, the English Knights left him to a life of joyous domesticity and moved ever on.

An unexpected encounter with a giant and his unconventional army of freaks led to the heroes inadvertently helping a band of marshland refugees from Hunnish atrocity found the nation-state of Venice before at long last after a after a side-trip to the fabulous city of Ravenna the trio crossed the fabled Rubicon and plunged into a hotbed of political tumult.

Unjustly implicated in a web of murder and double-dealing, the knights barely escaped with their lives and split up to avoid pursuit. Tristan returned to England and a star-crossed rendezvous with the comely Isolde, Gawain took ship for fun in Massilia and Valiant, after an excursion to the rim of fiery Vesuvius, boarded a pirate scow for Sicily and further adventure.

To Be Continued…

This series is a non-stop rollercoaster of action and romance, blending realistic fantasy with sardonic wit and broad humour with unbelievably stirring violence, all rendered in an incomprehensibly lovely panorama of glowing art. Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring Prince Valiant is a World Classic of storytelling, and this magnificent deluxe is something no fan can afford to be without.

If you have never experienced the majesty and grandeur of the strip this astounding and enchanting premium collection is the best way possible to start and will be your gateway to a life-changing world of wonder and imagination…

Prince Valiant © 2009 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2009 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

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Little Maakies on the Prairie


By Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-392-7

Tony Millionaire clearly loves to draw and does it very, very well; referencing classical art, timeless children’s book illustration and an eclectic mix of pioneer comic strip draughtsmen like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray, Elzie Segar and George Herriman seamlessly blending their styles and sensibilities with European engravings masters from the “legitimate” side of the storytelling picture racket.

Born Scott Richardson, he especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as definitive formative influences.

With a variety of graphical strings to his bow such as his own coterie of books for children, (particularly the superbly stirring Billy Hazelnuts series), animation and the brilliant Sock Monkey, Millionaire still finds the time to produce a deeply odd weekly strip entitled Maakies which describes the riotously vulgar and absurdly surreal adventures of an Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and his fellow über-alcoholic and nautical adventurer Drinky Crow. They are abetted but never aided by a peculiarly twisted, off-kilter cast of reprobates, antagonists and confrontational well-wishers.

In the tradition of the earliest US newspaper cartoon features each episode comes with a linked mini-strip running across the base of strip – although often that link is quite hard to ascertain. Nominally based in a nautical setting of 19th century sea-faring adventure, replete with maritime monsters and stunning vistas, the dark-and-bitter comical instalments vary from staggeringly rude and crude through absolutely hysterical to conceptually impenetrable, with content and gags utterly unfettered by the bounds of taste or wholesome fun-squelching decency.

Millionaire even promotes his other creative endeavours in his Maakies pages, brings in selected guest creators to mess with his toys and invites the readership to contribute ideas, pictures and objects of communal interest to the mix This penetratingly incisive, witty and even poignant opus is his playground and if you don’t like it, leave…

Launching in February 1994 in The New York Press the strip is now widely syndicated in US alternative newspapers such as LA Weekly and The Stranger and globally in comics magazines such as Linus and Rocky. There was even an animated series that ran on Time-Warner’s Adult Swim strand.

Since continuity usually plays second fiddle to the avalanche of inventive ideas, the strips can be read in almost any order and the debauched drunkenness, manic ultra-violence in the manner of the best Tom & Jerry or Itchy & Scratchy cartoons, acerbic view of sexuality and deep core of existentialist angst (like Sartre ghostwriting The Office or perhaps The Simpsons) still finds a welcome with Slackers, Laggards, the un-Christian and all those scurrilous, lost Generations after X.

This latest lush landscape hardcover collection provides still more of the wonderful same with such spit-take, drink-coming-out-of-your-nose moments as ‘The Brainy Balls Procedure’, a visit to ‘the Cootie Farm’, the secrets of ‘Booze Vision’, ‘The Universal Moon Genius’. ‘The Neanderthal Super-Genius Society’, ‘Rainbow of Illness’, a sordid selection of ghastly interspecies progeny, assorted single entendres and bodily function faux pas and more mandatory, gory death-scenes.

If you’re the kind of fan who thrives on gorge-rousing gags and mind-bending rumination this is a fantastic and rewarding strip, one of the most constantly creative and entertaining on the market today and this latest collection is one of the very best yet. If you’re not a fan of Maakies this is the ideal chance to become one and if you’re already converted it’s the perfect gift for someone what ain’t…

© 2010 Tony Millionaire. All rights reserved.

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Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1950


By Milton Caniff (Checker Book Publishing Group)
ISBN: 1-933160-51-9

Most cartoonists – most artists in fact – work their entire lives without reaching the giddy heights wherein they are universally associated with a signature piece of unsurpassable work. How incredible then when somebody achieves that perfect act of creation, not once but twice – seven days a week for decades?

Volume four of Milton Caniff’s second comic-strip masterpiece finds World War II veteran pilot Steve Canyon plunged back into the grip of armed conflict as the Korean War breaks out in the exotic, intrigue-dipped dailies and Sunday page, covering the period from February 19th 1950 until January 27th 1951, subdivided into five frantic episodes for your convenience.

‘Missionary’ (February 19th – March 24th) follows directly on from the previous volume and finds Steve and female air-ace/fighter pilot Doe Redwood recovering from injuries in the sorely-pressed Christian Mission of the redoubtable Miss Plum. Not only is this bold battle-axe hiding the downed pilots but also sheltering a jolly horde of oriental orphans from the encroaching Communists who want the kids for the re-indoctrination schools.

It takes a cunning plan, Yankee ingenuity and sheer guts to save everybody when the ruthless invaders lose patience and try to take the kids by force…

‘Mechanical Brain’ (March 25th – June 3rd) drops the escapees into a bigger frying pan when Steve is forced to impersonate a Soviet advisor to the People’s Army to save his life. Unfortunately “Comrade Smrnsk” is Russia’s greatest mathematician and computer expert – and remember this was back when the things went “Blurp! Bloop!” and were the size of bungalows (that’s thinking machines, not mathematicians I’m talking about). Moreover the Professor is married to Canyon’s old enemy Madame Lynx!

For her own reasons Lynx continues the deception, allowing Steve to deal with another unexpected surprise: the American traitor selling the tech to the Communists, who is accompanied by Steve’s old secretary Feeta-Feeta…

As the Chinese increasingly became seen as a bugbear if not out-of-control aggressor state in the build-up to the Korean Conflict, the ever-contemporary Caniff was weaving snippets of research and speculative news items into the grand story unfolding on his drawing board. Ever the patriot, his opinions and pro-“Free World” stance gives some of these strips a somewhat parochial if not outright jingoistic flavour, but as with all fiction viewed through the lens of time passed, context is everything. Unlike his unpopular stance on Vietnam two decades later, this was not an issue that divided America or even the world at large.

However the public and officials of the USA treated Communists and suspected “Pinkos” within their own borders, the Red Menace of Russia and China was real, immediate, and actively working against Western Interests. The real talking point here is not the extent of a creator’s (mis)perceived paranoia, but rather the restraint which Caniff showed within his strip compared to what was going on in the world outside it. Just check out any Timely/Atlas/Marvel war title of the period if you want to see totally unrestrained “patriotic fervour”…

When the situation becomes untenable Canyon is forced to take extreme action to save the stolen American technology, rescue the unsuspecting Feeta-Feeta and escape the arrayed forces of Socialist Expansion…

Meanwhile back in the mountainous kingdom of Princess Snowflower, American warlord Hogan is coming under pressure not just from the Chinese invaders but also the ruler’s sexist, xenophobic generals and ‘Rallying Point’ (June 4th – August 12th) finds her and the resistance army in extreme danger – which only increases when young Reed Kimberly also resurfaces to join the struggle…

With a deft flourish Caniff had left the titular hero of the strip completely absent from this tale, confident that events and the strong supporting cast could carry the series – and with spectacular success – but with ‘Serge Blu’ (August 13th – October 8th) the disparate plot threads began to merge.

Reunited with another long-lost character Kimberly falls into the hands of opportunistic bandits until together they make their escape. Soon they are reunited with Steve, now a Major on active service with the US Air Force. This terrific master-class in comics creation and drama concludes as an entire airbase is disrupted by Reed’s sultry companion whilst the heroic Canyon is busy attempting to stem the flow of contraband weapons to the Communists – materiel stolen from the Americans and sold by an enigmatic local crime-lord ‘The Mysterious Monsieur Gros’ (October 9th 1950 – January 27th 1951)…

Caniff’s irresistible narrative blend of action, adventure, soap-opera, comedy and sex-appeal has seldom been better employed than in this startling thriller and the oppressive mood of something big and nasty coming lends this entire volume an epic scale which makes these stories as powerful now as they ever were. Moreover the Master’s art went from strength to strength at this time and it’s easy to see why a generation of comics illustrators swiped his style.

Exotic, frenetic, full of traditional values and as always, captivating in both word and picture, this is another old-fashioned, unreconstructed delight. Every panel tells a story and no fan of the medium or art-form will want to miss a single one.

© 2005 Checker Book Publishing Group, an authorized collection of works © Ester Parsons Caniff Estate 1950, 1951. All characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of the Ester Parsons Caniff Estate. All rights reserved.

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Archie & Friends All-Stars: Christmas Stocking


By Dan Parent & various (Archie Comics Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-879794-57-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for all the Good little girls and Boys who deserve something extra-special this year 8/10

My good lady wife and I have a peculiar ritual that I’m not ashamed to share with you. Every Christmas we lock the doors, draw the shutters and stoke up the radiators before settling down with a huge pile of seasonal comics from yesteryear. There’s a few DC’s, a bunch of Disneys and some British annuals, but the huge preponderance is Archie Comics. From the 1950s onwards this seldom-mentioned comics institution has quite literally “owned Christmas” with a gloriously funny, charming, nostalgically sentimental barrage of perfect stories capturing the spirit of the season throughout a range of comicbooks running from Archie to Veronica, Betty to Sabrina and Jughead to Santa himself…

For most of us, when we say comicbooks people’s thoughts turn to buff men and women in garish tights hitting each other and lobbing trees or cars about, or stark, nihilistic crime, horror or science fiction sagas aimed an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of confirmed fans – and indeed that has been the prolific norm of late. Throughout the years though, other forms and genres have waxed and waned but one that has held its ground over the years – although almost completely migrated to television – is the teen-comedy genre begun by and synonymous with a carrot topped, homely (at first just plain ugly) kid named Archie Andrews.

MLJ were a small publisher who jumped on the “mystery-man” bandwagon following the debut of Superman. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the common blend of funny-book costumed heroes and two-fisted adventure strips, although Pep did make some history with its lead feature The Shield, who was the industry’s first super-hero to be clad in the flag (see America’s 1st Patriotic Hero: The Shield)

After initially profiting from the Fights ‘N’ Tights crowd Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) were quick to spot a gap in their blossoming market. In December 1941 the costumed heroes and two-fisted adventure strips were supplemented by a wholesome ordinary hero, an “average teen” who would have ordinary adventures like the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 introduced a gap-toothed, freckle-faced red-headed goof showing off to the pretty blonde next door. Taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy matinee movies starring Mickey Rooney, Goldwater developed the concept of a wholesome youthful everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work. It all started with an innocuous six-page tale entitled ‘Archie’ which introduced boy-goofball Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper. Archie’s unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted in that first story as did the small-town utopia of Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had graduated to its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first non-anthology magazine and with it began the slow transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Phenomenon (Superman being the first).

By May 1946 the kids had taken over, so the company renamed itself Archie Comics, retiring its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming to all intents and purposes a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like the Man of Steel’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV, movies, pop-songs and even a chain of restaurants.

Those costumed cut-ups have returned on occasion (see High Camp Superheroes), but the company now seems content to simply license them to DC whilst they concentrate on what they do uniquely best.

Archie is a well-meaning boy but lacks common sense. Betty is the pretty, sensible girl next door, with all that entails, and she loves Archie. Veronica is rich, exotic and glamorous; she only settles for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him, though. Archie, typically, can’t decide who or what he wants…

This family-friendly eternal triangle has been the basis of nearly seventy years of charming, raucous, gentle, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending comedy encompassing everything from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, as the kids and an increasing cast of friends grew into an American institution. So pervasive is the imagery that it’s a part of Americana itself. Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad of the growing youth culture, the battalion of writers and artists who’ve crafted the stories over the decades have made the “everyteen” characters of mythical Riverdale a benchmark for youth and a visual barometer of growing up.

Archie’s unconventional best friend Jughead Jones is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo, providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. That charming triangle (+ one) has the foundation of decades of comics magic. Moreover the concept is eternally self-renewing…

Each social revolution was painlessly assimilated into the mix (the company has managed to confront a number of social issues affecting the young  in a manner both even-handed and tasteful over the years) and the addition of new characters such as Chuck, an African-American kid who wants to be a cartoonist, his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie and Maria and a host of others such a spoiled home-wrecker-in -waiting Cheryl Blossom all contributed to a broad and refreshingly broad-minded scenario.

Archie Comics has always looked to new formats for their material and this volume is the sixth in a line of albums blending old with new and capitalising on the growing popularity of graphic novels. This sparkling volume collects some of the best Christmas stories of recent years as well as an all-original Yule adventure which delightfully shows the overwhelming power of good writing and brilliant art to captivate an audience of any age.

Beginning with ‘Have Yourself a Cheryl Little Christmas’, this volume sees the gang head off en masse for a winter break, not knowing that Queen of Mean Cheryl Blossom is intending to spoil all their fun. Luckily the ever-vigilant Santa knows who’s going to be naughty or nice and dispatches his top agent Jingles the Elf (an Archie regular for decades) to foil her plans…

‘The Night Before Christmas’ adapts the perennial 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” attributed to Clement Clarke Moore into a handy introduction to the Riverdale stars before culminating in a clever and heart-warming family moment for Archie and his long-suffering parents, whilst Jughead’s family take centre-stage in the mini-miracle ‘Playing Santa’.

The stresses of having two girlfriends finally overcomes Archie in ‘A Not-So-Cool Yule’ whilst Veronica’s hard-pressed dad once more gets the short end of the stick in ‘Santa Cause’ before the rivals Betty & Veronica succumb to another bout of insane competition in ‘Tis the Season For… Extreme Decorating’.

That darned elf returns in ‘Jingles All the Way’ trying to pry Archie out from under Betty & Veronica’s shapely thumbs, but faces unexpected opposition from that pixie hottie Sugar Plum the Yule Fairy, and we get a glimpse of the kids’ earliest experiences when Betty digs out her diary for a delightful trip ‘Down Memory Lane’ after which this sparkling comic bauble concludes with another tale based on that inescapable ode in ‘The Nite Before X-Mas!’

These are perfect stories for young and old alike, crafted by those talented Santa’s Helpers Dan Parent, Greg Crosby, Mike Pellowski & George Gladir, and polished up by the artistic talents of Parent, Stan Goldberg, Fernando Ruiz, Rich Koslowski, Bob Smith, Al Milgrom, John Lowe, Jack Morelli, Vickie Williams, Jon D’Agostino, Tito Peña, Barry Grossman and Digikore Studios.

These stories epitomise the magic of the Season and celebrate the perfect wonder of timeless children’s storytelling: What kind of Grinch could not want this book in their stocking?

© 2010 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Teen-Aged Dope Slaves and Reform School Girls


By Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman & various (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-79-3   ISBN-13: 978-0-913035-79-5

As the flamboyant escapist popularity of superheroes waned after World War II newer genres such as Romance and Horror came to the fore and older forms regained their audiences. Some, like Westerns and Funny Animal comics hardly changed at all but crime and detective tales were utterly radicalised by the temperament of the times.

Stark, uncompromising, cynically ironic novels and socially aware, mature-themed B-movies that would become categorised as Film Noir offered post-war society a bleakly antiheroic worldview that often hit too close to home and set fearful, repressive, middleclass parent groups and political ideologues howling for blood.

Naturally the new forms seeped into comics, transforming two-fisted gumshoe and Thud and Blunder cop strip-thrillers of yore into darkly beguiling and frightening tales of seductive dames, big pay-offs and glamorous thugs. Sensing imminent Armageddon, the moral junkyard dogs bayed even louder as they saw their precious children’s minds under seditious attack…

From that turbulent period a number of tales and titles garnered especial notoriety from the doomsmiths and particular celebration amongst us tragic, psychologically scarred comics-collecting victims, so in 1989 Eclipse Comics parceled together a bunch of the most salacious, shocking, sensationalistic, best written and drawn examples, produced by an impressive variety of superstars and anonymous unsung draftsmen purely in the interest of historical research…

Still readily available through internet suppliers at extremely reasonable prices, this cool chronicle opens with a handy and informative introduction from Eclipse publisher Dean Mullaney before the sordid spectacle begins with the outrageously trashy tale of Faith: a Bad-Girl-gone-Badder, who only just found redemption in the arms of her equally penitent-and-going-straight ideal man Jeff. There’s no record of who scripted ‘Reform School Girl!’ (1951) but the splendidly kinetic art comes from Louis Zansky.

There are no credits at all for ‘Trapped!’ (also from 1951, and can I detect hints of John Rosenberger or Paul Reinman?); the tale of High School kid Bill Jones, sucked into a spiral of failing grades, lost friends and rebellion against parents and adults after he tries a reefer in the boys toilets. Fear not, however: love, decency and understanding once more save the day.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby ushered in the American age of mature comics, not only with their creation of the Romance genre but with challenging modern tales of real people in extraordinary situations, seen in their other magazines produced for the loose association of companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines. From Headline Comics #27 (1947) comes the stunning saga of Stella Mae Dickson… ‘The Bobby Sox Bandit Queen.’

Fictionalising true crime cases was tremendously popular at the time and of the assorted outfits that generated such material nobody did it better than S&K as this incredibly hard-punching saga shows with the tale of a young girl willingly drawn into a life of robbery and violence. Her ending was not so happy…

Next up is something of an oddity but still addictively enthralling for all that. ‘Lucky Fights it Through’ was published in 1949, a popular song adapted in 16 pages by Harvey Kurtzman (there’s even a sheet music section) as part of an educational comics project sponsored by Columbia University (as was Trapped!), a contemporary western saga about an ignorant cow-poke (don’t! It’s what they were called, not what they did) dealing with and explaining how to cope with Syphilis.

Crime Detector #5 (September 1954) provided two anonymous stories: ‘Gun Happy’ and the single pager which closes this volume. The former details the sad, brief life of juvenile delinquent Thomas Parker whose obsessive love of firearms took him into the army and Korea but who couldn’t stop the shooting once he returned.

He is followed by a second Simon & Kirby classic from Headline Comics #28. ‘I Worked For the Fence!’ outlines the sorry tale of show-girl Monica who found the lure of a smooth-tongued hustler and other people’s jewels too great to resist, before the major part of this tome relates the shocking fall and rise of a High School Jock dragged down by narcotic addiction until medical attention and the love of a devoted girl dragged him back from the edge…

The notorious ‘Teen-Aged Dope Slaves’ by Martin Bradley & Frank Edgington came from Harvey Comics Library #1 (April 1952) but was actually a resized reprint of a sequence from popular family newspaper strip Rex Morgan, M.D. Nonetheless, for all its strident preachiness, it remains a powerful, well-meaning drama that never forgets the cartoon doctor’s prime doctrine “First, Don’t be Boring.”

That aforementioned one-pager from Crime Detector closes the volume on a tantalising high note as Homicide Inspector Craig challenges the reader to solve the fair-play mystery of ‘The Deadly Needle’…

These black and white tales from a simpler a time about a society in meltdown are mild by modern standard of behaviour but the quality of art and writing make them far more than a mere historical curiosity. Teen-Aged Dope Slaves and Reform School Girls is a book well worth your time and attention, but please beware: such material can be habit-forming…
© 1989 Eclipse Enterprises, Inc. Individual strips are © 1947-1954 their respective creators/copyright holders.

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On Stage


By Leonard Starr (Blackthorne Publishing)
ISBN: 0-932629-11-3

Leonard Starr was born in 1925 and began his long and illustrious creative career in the Golden Age of American comic-books working for the crucially important Harry A. Chesler “Shop” at the dawn of the Golden Age. He moved for a period into the lucrative field of advertising before returning to creative pictorial narrative, settling in the gruelling arena of newspaper strips. He comicbook credits include Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch and the immensely popular but now all-but forgotten Don Winslow of the Navy during the 1940s, drew love stories for Simon and Kirby’s landmark Romance line and crime stories for EC, and freelanced extensively for ACG and DC Comics, where he worked on lost gems such as Pow-Wow Smith, Dr.13, the Ghost-Breaker and Gang Busters among many others until he left the industry for Madison Avenue. He returned to graphic narrative in 1955 when he began “ghosting” Flash Gordon.

In 1957 he created On Stage, a soap-opera strip starring aspiring actress Mary Perkins for the Chicago Tribune. After an astonishing and beautiful 22-year run, he left the globally syndicated feature in 1979 to revive Harold Gray’s legendary Little Orphan Annie (which he continued until his retirement in 2000), simultaneously creating the series ‘Cannonball Carmody’ for Belgium’s Tintin magazine. An experienced TV scripter since 1970 Starr worked as head writer on Thundercats, and briefly returned to comic-books in the 1980s. He received the National Cartoonist’s Society Story Comic Strip Award for On Stage in 1960 and 1963, and their Reuben Award in 1965. In collaboration with like-minded veteran Stan Drake he produced one of the best female action characters of the 1980s: Kelly Green.

Since I haven’t yet managed to lay hands on the Classic Comics Press reprint series (chronologically collecting all the adventures of career actress Mary Perkins), I’m reviewing this tempting and impressive little package from pioneering reprint publisher Blackthorne.

The feature began as On Stage with a Sunday page dated in February 10th 1957, at the height of the American fascination with movie stars and Hollywood celebrity, in papers subscribing to the Chicago-Tribune/New York News Syndicate, and detailed a warts-and-all tale of aspiring actress Mary Perkins. Starr sensibly opted to make his young ingénue a jobbing New York thespian seeking the lights on Broadway rather than taking the easy but limited Tinseltown glamour-puss route, allowing his starlet plenty of opportunity to meet and interact with real people and authentic situations: at least by soap opera standards…

In 1959 she married her photographer boy-friend Pete Fletcher and in 1961 she finally got star-billing when the strip was renamed Mary Perkins On Stage (naturally she had kept her stage name) and gradually added movies and television to her resume. She even made it to Hollywood…

Starr combined his narrative skills with beautiful clean-lined drawing and imaginative design and layouts that dipped heavily into his previous experiences as a comicbook action artist and that was never more apparent than in the first of the two sequences that make up this book.

Taken from the mid-1960s the book opens with ‘Captain Virtue Strikes Back’ as Mary is hired by a TV studio to coach a hunky school custodian who saved some kids and was offered a job of a comicbook hero being adapted for a prime-time television show. Holy Coincidences, B*tm*n!

Unfortunately Brooklyn boy Bernie Kibble comes with a little baggage. He’s big, goofy, uneducated and totally subordinate to his weaselly pal Al Gordon, a cunning, ambitious runt who knows a solid gold meal ticket when he sees one…

The Captain Virtue Show is a blockbuster success and with Mary’s coaching Bernie blossoms; even getting a girlfriend despite Al’s attempts to keep the lug dumb and under his thumb, but as is so often the case fame and fortune don’t necessarily lead to happiness…

The second tale is an intriguing Cold War Thriller that puts the actress and her loved ones in unusual peril, and gives the strong supporting cast a far more extensive role. In the years since his debut, husband Pete had become a roving photojournalist meeting the great and the good on seven continents. One of these, Morgana D’Alexius had developed an unhealthy attraction for the clean-living hunk and spent uncounted hours and millions trying to lure him away from his beloved Mary,

The romantic simpleton was completely oblivious to it all: thinking the richest woman in the world kept inviting him on holidays whilst Mary was working because she wanted to be friends. The erstwhile Miss Perkins, however, veteran of stage, screen and melodrama was not fooled…

‘Escape From Russia’ sees a turning point in this bizarre triangle when Mary is invited by the Soviet government to attend a rather unique cultural exchange as the star of the Moscow Film Festival. Meanwhile Major Grigori Volkov, charismatic hero of the Soviet Republics, is calling on his old friend Mike Fletcher to invite him for a visit to the USSR…

It soon transpires that Morgana has influence in the highest echelons of the Communist state and the entire event is a plan to separate Mike and Mary long enough for the amorous autocrat to work her wiles on the hapless photographer.

With Mike innocently touring secret Soviet factories built by Morgana, Mary is abducted to Volkov’s Dacha, but the plucky, smart American son turns the tables and co-opts the Russian hero who helps her flee across the country to safe-haven and a final confrontation with Morgana in Trieste.

At a time when the Evil Empire could do no right, the depiction of suave, bold, heroic Volkov as a human and moral person must have been a controversial revelation to the American public and his transformation from beastly kidnapper to likeably roguish road-buddy is a delight, as is the final comeuppance of Morgana. This light frothy thriller is a splendid example of the magical blend of humour, romance, family-values and exoticism Starr could command in a few simple panels…

This superb black and white compilation also contains an early and provocative early Sunday page, photos of the creator and an insightful interview with Starr conducted by comic strip historian Shel Dorf.
© 1985 Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

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Will Eisner Color Treasury


By Will Eisner, written by Catherine Yronwoode (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 0-87816-006-X

It is pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of the key creative forces who shaped the American comic book industry, with most of his graphic works more or less permanently in print – as they should be. But as far as I know at least one of his milestones has generally escaped public attention.

From 1936 to 1938 Eisner worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm known as the Eisner-Eiger Shop, creating strips to be published in both domestic US and foreign markets. Using the pen-name Willis B. Rensie he created and drew the opening instalments of a huge variety of characters ranging from funny animal to historical sagas,

Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillers… and superheroes – lots of superheroes …

In 1940 Everett “Busy” Arnold, head honcho of the superbly impressive Quality Comics outfit, invited Eisner to take on a new challenge. The Register-Tribune newspaper syndicate wanted a 16-page weekly comicbook insert to be given away with the Sunday editions. Eisner jumped at the opportunity, creating three strips which would initially be handled by him before two of them were handed off to his talented assistants. Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic and distaff detective Lady Luck fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (then still Nicholas Viscardi) and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead strip for himself, and over the next twelve years The Spirit became the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. In 1952 the venture folded and Eisner moved into commercial, instructional and educational strips, working extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly, generally leaving comics books behind.

In the wake of “Batmania” and the 1960s superhero craze, Harvey Comics released two giant-sized reprints with a little material from the artist, which lead to underground editions and a slow revival of the Spirit’s fame and fortune via black and white newsstand reprint magazines. Initially Warren Publishing collected old stories, even adding colour sections with painted illumination from such contemporary luminaries as Rich Corben, but with #17 the title reverted to Kitchen Sink, who had produced the first two underground collections.

Eisner found himself re-enamored with graphic narrative and saw a willing audience eager for new works. From producing new Spirit covers for the magazine (something the original newspaper insert had never needed) he became increasingly inspired. American comics were evolving into an art-form and the restless creator finally saw a place for the kind of stories he had always wanted to tell.

He began crafting some of the most telling and impressive work the industry had ever seen: first in limited collector portfolios and eventually, in 1978, with the groundbreaking graphic novel A Contract With God.

If Jack Kirby is the American comicbook’s most influential artist, Will Eisner is undoubtedly its most venerated and exceptional storyteller. Contemporaries originating from strikingly similar Jewish backgrounds, each used comic arts to escape from their own tenements, achieving varying degrees of acclaim and success, and eventually settling upon a theme to colour all their later works. For Kirby it was the Cosmos, what Man would find there, and how humanity would transcend its origins in The Ultimate Outward Escape. Will Eisner went Home, went Back and went Inward.

This fictionalised series of tales about the Jewish immigrant experience led to a wonderful succession of challenging, controversial and breathtakingly human stories for adults which changed how comics were perceived in America… and all because the inquisitive perfectionist was asked to produce some new covers for old stories.

This glorious oversized hardback (still available through internet retailers) features two full Spirit adventures, fully re-coloured by the master (who was never particularly pleased with how his strips were originally limned), pencil sketches and a magnificent confection of those aforementioned covers – plus some really rare extras.

The eerie 1948 chiller ‘Lorelei of Odyssey Road’ leads off this tome followed by a barely seen science fiction Spirit story. ‘The Invader’ – produced in the 1970s as the result of a teaching gig Eisner had at Sheridan College in Canada.

Eisner created the first page in class to show students the fundamentals of comics creation, and after months of coaxing was convinced to complete the tale, which was published in an extremely limited edition as the Tabloid Press Spirit in 1973. The action and sly, counter-culture comedy is impressively compact and well coordinated: ‘The Invader’ comfortably fits 57 panels into its five pages whereas the old eight-page yarns used to average a mere 50 frames…

Following two gloriously lush wraparound Kitchen Sink covers (complete with a pencil rough) and the hilarious cover to underground anthology Snarf #3, the single page Warren pieces commence. Originally seen on issues #2 through 10 they have all been re-mastered by Eisner and are simply stunning.

After these come the fully-painted wraparounds (all magnificently presented as double-page spreads) that graced the Kitchen Sink Spirit issues #18,-24, #27-29 and #31 and then the rare 1977 Spirit Portfolio is reproduced in the same generous proportions: eleven stunning paintings encapsulating key moments in the masked detective’s astonishing career.

‘The Hideaway’, ‘The Scene of the Crime’, ‘The Women’, ‘The Duel’, ‘Dead End’, ‘The Convention’, ‘The Rescue’, ‘The Chase’, ‘The Capture’ and ‘The City’ plus the portfolio cover are followed by the contents of 1980’s ‘City: a Narrative Portfolio’ a series of evocative black line and sepia ghetto images with obverse blank verse and cameo images dealing with the eternal themes that shape man as a metropolitan dweller. Once more including the cover image, ‘The Spark’, ‘The City’, ‘Predators’, ‘Mugger’, ‘Family’ and ‘Life’ are powerfully moving and magically rendered one-frame stories that presage his growing use of the urban landscape as an integral character in his later works.

With a fascinating biography and commentary from historian and publisher Cat Yronwoode this book is a lavish treat for Eisner aficionados, but the treats still aren’t exhausted: there are also rare colour works and illustrations from Cosmos magazine and Esquire, plus poster art, unpublished Spirit paintings and a preview of his then forthcoming book Big City…

Will Eisner is rightly regarded as one of the greatest writers in American comics but it is too seldom that his incredible draughtsmanship and design sense get to grab the spotlight. This book is a joy no fan or art-lover can afford to be without.
© 1981 Will Eisner. All rights reserved.