Category: Comic Strip Classics

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Hurricane Isle: The Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs


By Roy Crane, edited by Rick Norwood (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-809-0 (HB)

Modern comics evolved from newspaper cartoons and comic strips, and these pictorial features were until relatively recently utterly ubiquitous and hugely popular with the public. They were also highly valued by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee and increase circulation and profits.

It’s virtually impossible for us to today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and the wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio barely established and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. They were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality. Crucially this notionally free entertainment kept readers loyal to the papers that ran a family’s favourites…

From the very start humour was paramount; hence the terms “The Funnies” and “Comics”, and from these gag and stunt beginnings – a blend of silent movie slapstick, outrageous fantasy and raucous vaudeville shows – came a thoroughly entertaining mutant hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs.

Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day strip not much different from family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s friend and contemporary Carl Ed). As first depicted on April 21st 1924, Tubbs was a diminutive, ambitious and bumbling young store clerk when the feature debuted, but after only three months Crane re-evaluated his little enterprise, making a few changes which would reshape the entire art form…

Having Wash run away to the circus (Crane did much the same in the name of research). the artist gradually moved the strip into mock-heroics, then through a period of gently boisterous action romps to become a full-blown, light-hearted, rip-roaring adventure series. It was the first of its kind and dictated the form for decades thereafter. Crane then sealed its immortality with the introduction of prototype he-man and ancestral moody swashbuckler Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929.

As the yarns became more exotic and thrill-drenched, our globe-trotting little dynamo clearly needed a sidekick and sounding board. After a number of bright and breezy types were tried and discarded, Crane decided on one who could believably handle the combat side of things, and thus, in the middle of a European war in the fairytale kingdom of Kandelabra, Tubbs liberated a mysterious fellow American from a dungeon and history was made.

Before long the mismatched pair were inseparable; tried-and-true travelling companions hunting treasure, fighting thugs and rescuing startlingly comely damsels in distress…

The bluff, two-fisted, completely capable and utterly dependable, down-on-his-luck “Southern Gentleman” was something not seen before in comics: a taciturn, raw, square-jawed hunk played completely straight rather than the previously popular buffoon or music hall foil seen in such classic serials as Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond.

Moreover, Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance and design was a far more accessible and powerful medium for action story-telling than the static illustrative style favoured by artists like Hal Foster who was just beginning to make waves on the new Tarzan Sunday page at this time.

Tubbs & Easy were as exotic and thrilling as the Ape Man but rowdily rattled along like the tempestuous Popeye, full of vim, vigour and vinegar, as attested to by a close look at the early work of the would-be cartoonists who followed the strip with avid intensity. Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially young Joe Shuster were eager fans taking notes and following suit…

After a couple of abortive attempts starring his little hero, Crane eventually bowed to the inevitable and created a full colour Sunday page dedicated solely to his increasingly popular hero-for-hire. The Captain Easy feature debuted on 30th July 1933, in wild and woolly escapades set prior to his fateful meeting with Tubbs.

Both together and separately, reprinted exploits of these troubleshooters became staples of the earliest comic books – specifically The Funnies from October 1936 and The Comics, from March 1937 onwards.

With an entire page and vibrant colours to play with, Crane’s imagination ran wild and his fabulous visual concoctions achieved a timeless immediacy that made each page a unified piece of sequential art. The effect of these can be seen in so many strips since, especially the works of such near-contemporaries as Hergé and giants in waiting like Charles Schulz. They have all been collected in the 4-volume Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips. Sadly, no digital versions yet, but there’s always hope…

Those pages were a clearly as much of a joy to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les Turner in 1937 was NEA Syndicate’s abruptly and arbitrarily demanding that henceforward, all its strips be produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated. Crane just walked away, concentrating on the daily feature. In 1943 he quit NEA completely, to create wartime aviator strip Buz Sawyer, and Turner became the able custodian of the heroes’ fate.

Wash Tubbs ran until January 10th 1988.

Before all that, however, Wash was the affable and undisputed star of a never-ending parade of riotous monochrome daily escapades and this superb hardback opens with two of them: part of a cherry-picked compilation of ten of the very best adventures of the bombastic buddies. Hopefully it will one day lead to another complete reprinting such as the 18-volume series covering the entirety of the Wash Tubbs run – 1934-1943 – that was published by NBM from 1987-1992. Good luck finding those…

Before the non-stop nonsense begins author and pre-eminent comic strip historian Ron Goulart details all you need to know about the tales in ‘A History of Lickety Whop’ whilst editor Rick Norwood provides further background information in his copiously illustrated Introduction, after which we’re plunged into astounding adventure on eponymous ‘Hurricane Isle’ (which originally ran from February 23rd to June 6th 1928)…

At this time Wash and fellow inveterate fortune-hunter Gozy Gallup are gloating over securing an ancient map which once belonged to the dread pirate Edward Teach… AKA Blackbeard!

As they research the infamous buccaneer and scrabble to find a ship to take them where they need to go, they are unaware that aggrieved enemy Brick Bane – the “Bandit King of Mexico” – is hard on their heels and hungry for vengeance. Stalking them as they journey from New Orleans to the Caribbean, he takes a nasty sea captain into his confidence and arranges for that sinister salt to hire out his ship to the treasure seekers. The skipper is unsavoury brute Bull Dawson: destined to become Tubbs’ – and later Easy’s – greatest, most implacable foe…

After travelling to the island with them Dawson, having already removed Bane, springs his trap and turns Wash and Gozy into enslaved labourers, digging with the crew to find the fabled horde. The lads soon rebel and escape into the jungle to search on their own, and also abortively attempt to steal Dawson’s ship.

The wily brute is too much for them, however, and even after the boys finally locate the loot, the malicious mariner reappears to take it from them. The sadistic swine is preparing to maroon them when Bane arrives with a ship full of Mexican bandits and a shooting war begins…

With bullets flying and bodies dropping, Wash and Gozy convince affable deckhand Samson to switch sides and the trio take off for civilisation with the treasure in the hold…

Money comes and goes pretty freely for these guys but by the time ‘Arabia’ (July 30th – December 12th 1928) opens, they are still pretty flush and opt for a luxurious Mediterranean cruise. Unfortunately Wash’s propensity for clumsy gaffes raises the ire of very nasty sheik Abdul Hoozit Hudson Bey and the affronted potentate swears vengeance when the ship docks in Tunis.

As if icing fate’s cake, when wandering through the bazaar Wash is glamoured by a pair of gorgeous eyes and inadvertently seals his doom by attempting to rescue a girl from a seraglio: Jada is not only a distressed damsel but Bey’s favourite wife…

Heeding the French authorities’ advice to leave town quickly, the lads take off on a camel caravan into the Sahara. They have no idea they are heading into cunning Bey’s trap…

The fact that Jada is the favourite of the incensed chieftain saves them temporarily, but when the sheik finally finds a way to surreptitiously assassinate them, she and her devoted slave Bola dash into the deep desert to save them, and the quartet strike out for safety and freedom together.

That trek dumps them in the clutches of Bey’s great rival Abdullah Bumfellah and leads to a tribal shooting war. Happily, Bola has been busy and found a Foreign Legion patrol to save the day.

And that’s when Jada drops her bombshell. She is actually a princess from a European principality, sold to Bey by her father’s Grand Vizier so that he could steal the throne. Now that she’s free again, Jada must return to liberate her poor people. Despite having to get back to America, Wash won’t shut up about wishing he’d gone with her…

He soon gets the chance. Spanning April 11th through July 6th 1929, ‘Kandelabra’ became the most significant sequence in the strip’s history: introducing Captain Easy in a riotous, rousing Ruritanian epic which we join after Wash reunites with Jada in the postage stamp kingdom she had been so cruelly stolen from.

Our little go-getter infiltrates the government and rises to the rank of admiral of the landlocked realm before overplaying his hand and beingframed for stealing the army’s payroll. Delivered to a secret dungeon he (partially) escapes and finds a gruff fellow American who refuses to share his name but insists on being called “Easy”…

Busting out his new ally, Wash and the stranger are soon caught in a bloody revolution when the aggrieved army mutinies. Before long the Vizier’s cronies are ousted, the vile villain accidentally orchestrates his own demise and regally restored Jada declares the birth of the continent’s newest democracy…

In ‘Desert Island’ (February 6th – June 7th 1930) Bull Dawson returns to steal Tubbs’ entire fortune, and flies off across America in a bid to escape with his ill-gotten gains. The robbery becomes a nationwide sensation and we join the action as Wash & Easy pursue the fugitive. Tracking Dawson to San Francisco, they continue the chase as the malign mariner takes off in a schooner with our heroes first stowaways and, before long, prisoners…

The sadistic Bull lose face after being thrashed in a no-holds barred fight with Easy, which was mere subterfuge to allow the southern soldier of fortune to pick Dawson’s pocket and recover Wash’s easily portable $200,000 in cash. As the battered thug recuperates, the vessel is hit by a monster typhoon which apparently leaves our heroes sole survivors aboard shattered shards of the schooner.

The wreck fetches up on a desolate Pacific atoll where the boys soon fall into the routine of latter-day Robinson Crusoes. The isolated idyll becomes cruelly complicated when they find the place is already home to a young woman who was the only survivor of an attack by roving headhunters from Borneo. Mary Milton is brave, competent and beautiful and before long the lonely pals are fierce rivals for her affections…

The situation grows dangerously intense and only stabilises when the savages return, forcing the warring suitors to stand together or fall separately…

I think it’s about time that I remind everyone that these stories were crafted a long time ago for audiences with far less progressive ideas than us. There’s no deliberate intention to belittle or deride, but these lovely pages are certainly piled high with outdated assumptions and behaviour. If you are unable to forgive or set aside such treatment, please give this book a miss.

When the brutal battle ends, the westerners are in possession of a sturdy war canoe and opt to risk their lives on an epic ocean odyssey to the nearest outpost of civilisation. It’s only after the voyagers are far out to sea that Wash agonisingly recalls that he left his stash of dollars behind…

The next adventure (running from June 9th – October 1930) immediately follows on, with the weary travellers reaching French Indo-China and, thanks to a friendly soldier, escaping far inland via a mighty river. After days of travel they reach the previously hidden kingdom of Cucumbria and fall foul of the toad-worshipping emperor Igbay Umbay who takes one look at Mary and decides he has to have her…

Being a coward who stole the throne from his brother, this Grand Poobah hasn’t the nerve to simply take her, and so orchestrates a succession of scurvy schemes to get rid of Wash and Easy. Naturally, the boys are too smart and bold to fall for them.

Infuriatingly rising in power and status, aided by young prince Hilo Casino – freshly returned from college in America – the Americans finally seem be out of Umbay’s hair after they agree to lead his armies against supernatural rebel leader ‘The Phantom King’…

Despite deep misgivings “General” Easy and his aide Washington Tubbs embark upon a campaign that will ravage the hidden kingdom, unseat an emperor, cost thousands of lives and lose them the girl they both love…

A year later, ‘Down on the Bayou’ (March 12th to July 25th 1931) found the world-weary wanderers nearing home again, only to be arrested as they approach New Orleans in a stolen plane. They were fleeing a clever frame-up in infamous Costa Grande, but without any proof could only evade their US Navy captors and flee into the swampy vastness of the Mississippi Delta…

Lost for days and starving, they are picked up by vivacious gangster’s moll Jean who recruits them into a gang of smugglers and rum-runners who inhabit a huge plantation somewhere between Pelican Island and Barataria, dedicated to various criminal enterprises. Tubbs & Easy soon comfortably settle in amidst the rogues and outcasts, but everything changes when Jean’s brother returns from a smuggling trip. His name is Bull Dawson…

He is prevented from killing our heroes by Jean and the huge Cajun in charge of the outlaw outpost, but takes it badly. With his gang of deadly bodyguards in tow, Bull decides to take over the whole enterprise. A couple of murders later he’s big boss, but also oddly friendly to his most despised enemies.

Maybe it’s a ploy to put them off guard, or perhaps it has more to do with the gang of Chicago mobsters who have come down South, to put an end to the bootlegging mavericks cutting into their profits…

The troubles and bloodshed escalate exponentially and Jean drops her final bombshell: she’s a federal agent working with the Coast Guard to smash the budding criminal empire!

Once the dust settles she has one final surprise in store. In all the years of their friendship Wash could never get his taciturn pal to talk of his past or even reveal his real name. Now the government girl gives Mr. William Lee a message which sends him rushing across country to an old plantation home. Here the astounded Wash hears all about his pal’s shocking life, sordid scandals and abandoned wife… and then he learns the whole truth…

Soon, the impediments and lies which blighted Easy’s life are all removed and the wanderer settles in to a well-deserved retirement with the girl he always loved but could never have. Tubbs moves on, quickly reuniting with old chum Gozy Gallup…

Some weeks later, ever-restless Wash is riding a tramp steamer headed for Europe, intent on paying Jada a visit in Kandelabra but – falling foul of rustic transportation systems – ends up in the similar but so different Principality of Sneezia…

Apart from pretty girls, the tiny kingdom has only one point of interest: the world’s dinkiest railway service. Run by aged expatriate American Calliope Simpson, ‘The Transalpina Express’ (August 13th – November 21st 1931) links Sneezia to sister kingdom Belchia and is the most unique and beloved (by its intoxicated customers at least) service in the world.

Wash is especially keen to learn the business, since being the engineer has made octogenarian Cal the most irresistible man in two countries, fighting off adorable young women with a stick…

Someone’s greatest dream comes true when Simpson finally elopes with one of his adoring devotees and Washington Tubbs become sole operator of the Express, but his joy at all the feminine attention soon sours when Belchia and Sneezia go to war, and both sides want to use his train to move men and material into combat. Of course, the dilemma can only end in disaster and before long our boy is running for his life again…

There’s a big jump to the next yarn which finds Wash and Easy reunited and stowing away on the wrong-est ship imaginable. Quickly caught, they are understandably assumed to be part of the contingent of prisoners bound for the final destination – ‘Devils Island’ (June 9th to August 30th 1932)…

No sooner are they mixed in with the hopeless prison population than the planning of their inevitable escape begins. However, success only leads to greater peril as they and their criminal confederates take ship with a greedy captain subject to murderous bouts of paranoia and madness…

‘Whales’ (April 24th – August 30th 1933) is probably the most shocking to modern sensibilities of the perennial wanderers’ exploits. Here Wash & Easy are drugged in a Dutch cafe and dumped aboard one of the last sailing ships to work the whaling trade. Elderly and nostalgic Captain Folly has been convinced by psychotic First Mate Mr. Slugg to compete one last time against the new-fangled factory whaling fleets, unknowingly crewing his creaking old ship with shanghaied strangers…

The grim minutiae of the ghastly profession are scrupulously detailed as our heroes seek some means of escape, but with Slugg becoming increasingly unbalanced – and eventually murdering Folly – bloody mutiny leads to the ship foundering. Both factions – or at least the survivors of each – are subsequently marooned on arctic Alaskan ice, where (naturally) our heroes find the only pretty girl in a thousand square miles…

This fabulous treasury of thrills concludes with one last battle against Bull Dawson after the incorrigible monster links up with gorgeous grifter Peggy Lake, who fleeces gullible Wash of his savings and disappears into the endless green wilderness of the swamps of ‘Okefenokee’ (June 13th – July 24th 1935).

The crime leads to a massive police manhunt through the mire before the boys personally track down the villains and deliver one more sound thrashing to the malodorous malcontent and his pretty patsy…

Rounding off this superb collection is a thorough ‘Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs Episode Guide’ by Rick Norwood, a glorious graphic Mexican travelogue feature by Crane in ‘An Afterword in Pictures’ and informative biography section ‘About the Authors’…

If I’ve given the impression that this has all been grim and gritty turmoil and drama thus far, please forgive me: Crane was a superbly irrepressible gag-man and his boisterous, enchanting serials resonate with breezy, light-hearted banter, hilarious situations and outright farce – a sure-fire formula modern cinema directors plunder to this day.

Easy was the Indiana Jones, Flynn (The Librarian) Carsen and Jack (Romancing the Stone) Cotton of his day – and, clearly blazed a trail for all of them – whilst Wash was akin to Danny Kaye or our own Norman Wisdom: brave, big-hearted, well-meaning, clay-footed, irrepressible and utterly indomitable everymen… just like all of us.

This superb monochrome landscape hardback (274 x 33 x 224 mm) is a wonderful means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventure trailblazer.

This is comics storytelling of the very highest quality: unforgettable, spectacular and utterly irresistible. These tales rank alongside her best of Hergé, Tezuka and Kirby, irrefutably informing the creations of all of them. These strips inspired the giants of our art form. How can you possibly resist?
Hurricane Isle: The Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy Strips © 2015 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Superman Sunday Classics Strips 1-183 (1939-1943)


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster & the Superman Studio (DC/Kitchen Sink Press: Sterling Publishing Co. Inc.)
ISBN: 978-1-40273-786-2 (Sterling) 978-1-56389-472-5(DC/KS)

It’s indisputable that the American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was rapturously adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation, quite literally giving birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and wish-fulfilment that epitomised the early Man of Tomorrow spawned an impossible army of imitators. The original’s antics and variations grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction fantasies, and whimsical comedy. Once the war in Europe and the East ensnared America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters exploded: all dedicated to exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

In comicbook terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Metropolis Marvel relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1, the Man of Steel became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest, most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, The Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen or heard an actor as Superman than have ever read his comicbooks. The globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, Superman was a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in an astounding animated cartoon series, two films, on TV and a prose novel by George Lowther.

He was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended that first smash live-action television presence. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a string of blockbuster movie franchises and an almost seamless succession of games, bubble gum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even his superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and often the planet – it was seen by millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books. It also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture.

Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Most of them still do…

However it was considered something of a risky double-edged sword when a comicbook character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all, weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to become a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip.

Superman was the first comic book star to make that leap – six months after exploding out of Action Comics – with only a few ever successfully following. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and teen icon Archie Andrews made the jump in the 1940s with only a handful like Spider-Man, Howard the Duck and Conan the Barbarian doing so since.

The Superman daily newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939, supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by Siegel & Shuster – whose primary focus switched immediately from comic books to the more prestigious and lucrative tabloid iteration – and their hand-picked studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth daily grind soon required the additional talents of Jack Burnley and supplementary writers including Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz.

This superb collection – doubly out-of-print and still not available digitally, despite its superb quality and sublime content – opens with an Introduction by contemporary Super-Scribe Roger Stern. He effusively recaps the sensation and spotlights his creators, before we see the first 19 complete tales of the primal powerhouse in stunning full colour stupendously unfold.

Whether in pamphlet or local periodical, these tales of the modern Hercules exploded into the consciousness of the world. No one had ever seen a fictionalised hero throw all the rules of physics away and burst into unstoppable, improbable action on every page. In fact, editors and publishers’ greatest concern was that the implausible antics would turn off audiences. Clearly, they could not have been more wrong…

Thus early episodes simply establish the set-up of an Alien Wonder among us, masquerading as an extremely puny human at a “great metropolitan newspaper”… when not crushing evil as his flamboyant alter-ego. These stories are all about constant action and escalating spectacle, displaying the incredible power of a bombastic, heroic man of the people…

On the first Sunday in November 1939 the parade of marvels commenced with a single introductory page describing Superman’s origins in ‘The Man of Tomorrow’ followed seven days later by initial adventure ‘Twenty-Four Hours to Ruin’ which found the Action Ace in a non-stop rush of blood and thunder, saving a logging concern from sabotage and hostile takeover by gangsters.

Crime segued into scientific fantasy when Superman saved ‘The Mindless Slaves of Dr. Grout’ from forced labour as the villain fomented a coup against America…

Inklings of true comic book themes and more complex storylines arrived as Clark Kent and Lois Lane were despatched to investigate the ‘Giants of Doom Valley’: discovering a race of hostile subterranean invaders for Superman to discourage, before ‘Assassins and Spies’ took them into the most pressing concern of the era after agents of a foreign power spread sedition and terror on America’s shores to bolster a European war.

A mysterious mastermind then employed super-science, coercion, abduction and giant insects to ensure ‘The Chosen’ carried out his plans of global financial dominance before a more bucolic tale saw Superman helping Lois escape fatal consequences as ‘The Dangerous Inheritance’ left her with 5,000 acres of seemingly worthless scrubland. Not everyone agreed with the assessment and the Man of Steel was never busier…

Woe in the wilderness gave way to big city bombast as ‘The Bandit Robots of Metropolis’ caused carnage in search of cash, pushing the Man of Steel to his physical and intellectual limits and priming him for a landmark clash against ‘Luthor, Master of Evil’ who turns the weather into a weapon in his escalating war against mankind.

A cunning murderer sought to frame a professional automobile driver in ‘Death Race’ whilst a high-tech propaganda campaign almost destabilised the city when ‘The Committee for a New Order’ pirated the airwaves. Crushing their campaign of terror, Superman was embroiled in a blistering battle against vile enemy agents who knew Lois was his Achilles’ Heel…

Another corporate assault on trade is exposed when freight drivers are poisoned by crooks trying to ‘Destroy All Trucks’ of a businessman’s rivals, after which a mirage-making super-villain pillages Metropolis until her galvanic guardian saw through ‘The Image’…

When Clark’s ‘Arson Evidence’ convicts an innocent man, his other self moves Heaven and Earth to exonerate the jailbird and ferret out the true fire-fiend, after which – it being almost three years since his debut – Superman spent two weeks reminding old readers and informing new ones why and how he was ‘The Champion of Democracy’.

To a large extent mention of World War II was kept to a minimum on the Action Ace’s funny pages, but now ‘The Superman Truck’ – detailing how a prototype military transport was relentlessly targeted by saboteurs – plunged right in to conflict with a subplot about a reluctant taxi driver enlisting in the Army Transport Corps. Tracing his induction and training, this yarn was a cunningly-conceived weekly ad and plea for appropriately patriotic readers to enlist…

Military motifs continued as a ship full of diplomats and war correspondents was set afire by an incendiary madman allied to in-over-their-heads Fifth Columnists. It’s not long before ‘The Blaze’ is in critical timberland, acting on his own deranged impulses and leaving the Metropolis Marvel with the huge job of saving America’s war effort…

Showbiz raised its glamorous head when Clark and Lois were sent to cover the morale-boosting ‘Hollywood Victory Caravan’ tour, only to stumble into backbiting, sabotage, intrigue and murder at the hands of Nazi infiltrators.

Wrapping up the vintage spills and thrills is another fervent comics call to arms as Superman – and Clark – take a well-intentioned but lazy and perpetually backsliding wastrel in hand. How he is shepherded through aviator ‘Cadet Training’ to a useful existence as a warrior of Democracy is a rousing wonder to behold.

Supplementing the gloriously rip-roaring, pell-mell adventure are spellbinding extra features including ‘How Superman Would End World War II’ (first seen in the February 27th 1940 issue of mainstream icon Look magazine), promo ads and a 1942 ‘Superman Pinup’.

This specific Sterling Publishing volume is a reissue of the 1999 DC/Kitchen Sink co-production, but either edition offers timeless wonders and mesmerising excitement for lovers of action and fantasy. If you love the era or just crave simpler stories from less angst-wracked times, these yarns are perfect comics reading, and this a book you simply must have.
Superman and all related names, characters and elements are ™ & © DC Comics © 2006. All rights reserved.

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Superman: The Dailies 1939-1940


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster with Paul Cassidy (DC/Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-460-2 (TPB)

It’s indisputable that the American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was rapturously adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation, quite literally giving birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and wish-fulfilment that epitomised the early Man of Tomorrow spawned an impossible army of imitators. The original’s antics and variations grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction fantasies, and whimsical comedy. Once the war in Europe and the East ensnared America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters exploded: all dedicated to exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

In comic book terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Metropolis Marvel relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1, the Man of Steel became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest, most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, The Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized media creatures instantly recognisable globally across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen or heard an actor as Superman than have ever read his comic books. The globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around, Superman was a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in an astounding animated cartoon series, two films, on TV and a prose novel by George Lowther.

He was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended that first smash live-action television presence. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a string of blockbuster movie franchises and an almost seamless succession of games, bubble gum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even his super-dog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and often the planet – it was seen by millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books. It also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture.

Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Most of them still do…

However it was considered something of a risky double-edged sword when a comicbook character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all, weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to become a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip.

Superman was the first comic book star to make that leap – six months after exploding out of Action Comics – with only a few ever successfully following. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and teen icon Archie Andrews made the jump in the 1940s with only a handful like Spider-Man, Howard the Duck and Conan the Barbarian doing so since.

The Superman daily newspaper strip launched on 16th January 1939, and was eventually supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that so momentous year. Originally crafted by Siegel & Shuster – whose primary focus switched immediately from comic books to the more prestigious and lucrative tabloid iteration – and their hand-picked studio (including Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth grind soon required the additional talents of Jack Burnley and even co-writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz.

This superb collection from 1999 – long overdue for re-release, especially in this anniversary year! – opens with an Introduction by James Vance, declaring ‘A Job for Superman’ before effusively recapping the overnight sensation conception, reviewing his antecedents and regaling us with the acts of his creators (and assistants like Cassidy).

Then we see the first 10 tales (nine and a half actually) of the primal powerhouse in all-action monochrome. Wisely and boldly, the first serial – ‘Superman Comes to Earth’ (16th – 28th January 1939) only depicts the Man of Tomorrow on the last of the 12 daily episodes. Instead, Siegel & Shuster took readers to doomed planet Krypton for the first time and revealed how desperate scientist Jor-L and wife Lora were thwarted in their attempts to save the population from their own indifference and ignorance and compelled in desperation to save their newborn son by sending him away in a prototype test rocket aimed at planet Earth. Almost as an afterthought, the last strip reveals how the infant was found, adopted, raised and now operates in secret as vigilante do-gooder Superman…

Whether in pamphlet or local periodical, these tales of the modern Hercules exploded into the consciousness of the world. No one had ever seen a fictionalised hero throw all the rules of physics away and burst into unstoppable, improbable action on every page and panel. In fact, editors and publishers’ greatest concern was that the implausible antics would turn off audiences. Clearly, they could not have been more wrong…

That’s only one reason why the indomitable champion confronted problems and issues every reader was familiar with. Second adventure ‘War on Crime’ (30th January – 18th February) combined social activism and civic corruption as the mighty Man of Tomorrow begins his crusading career by rescuing ten men trapped in a vault. In fact he only saves eight and realises that he needs to be in a place where information can reach him instantly. Thus Clark Kent applies for a job at The Daily Star and stumbles into a deadly case of graft, gangsterism and high-level corruption ferreted out by dynamic reporter Lois Lane. After Superman cleans up the racketeers, the shy unassuming new guy confirms his position by scooping Lois to the first interview with the mysterious costumed vigilante…

A boxing drama follows as the Man of Steel saves a derelict from suicide and uncovers a tragic case of match-fixing and shattered dreams. ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ (20th February – 18th March) begins with Superman masquerading as the supposedly finished former heavyweight champion in a whirlwind tour of spectacular bouts, whilst training and rehabilitating the stumblebum to reclaim his title personally in the big championship match. Of course, the Action Ace is on hand when Trent’s crooked manager tries to dope him a second time…

Lois begins her own rise to stardom when she’s relegated to the lonely hearts and lovelorn section, turning up a sinister case of a blackmailed husband entrapped by ‘Jewel Smugglers’ (20th March – April 1st) victimising refugees fleeing war in Europe. Naturally, Superman is lurking in the shadows, ready to handle any necessary roughness required…

A string of fatalities on a construction site takes the hero into the sordid depths of capitalism in ‘Skyscraper of Death’ (3rd – 29th April) as he tackles a saboteur and exposes a ruthless businessman happy to kill innocent workers to destroy a rival, after which ‘The Most Deadly Weapon’ (1st May – 10th June) reflects the tone of the times in a chilling tale of espionage and realpolitik. When Kent interviews Professor Runyan about his deadly new poison gas, the chemist is kidnapped and murdered by spies from a foreign nation. In hot pursuit, Kent discovers the plot was instigated by an arms dealer profiteering from an ongoing civil war and calls in his other – true – self to recover (and ultimately destroy) the formula, punish the perpetrators and even spectacularly force both sides to make peace…

Early episodes never stinted on action and increasingly ingenious ways of displaying Superman’s miraculous abilities. The plan was to simply establish the set-up of an Alien Wonder among us, masquerading as an extremely puny human at a “great metropolitan newspaper” when not crushing evil as his flamboyant alter-ego. These stories are all about constant action and escalating spectacle, displaying the incredible power of a bombastic, heroic man of the people…

Heralding longer stories and more evocative plots, Siegel returned to social crusading for ‘Superman and the Runaway’ (12th June – 22nd July), as the Man of Steel recues orphan Frankie Dennis from imminent destruction and discovers a tale of shocking corruption and abuse at the State Orphanage the boy would rather die than return to. Realising this is no job for Superman, Kent enlists Lois and Frankie to expose monstrous, murderous Superintendent Lyman, but severely underestimates the grafter’s ruthlessness…

Romance taints the air next as ‘Royal Deathplot’ (24th July – 11th November) finds Superman foiling a plan to literally torpedo the diplomatic mission of visiting dignitaries King Boru and Princess Tania of Rangoria. His epic and breathtaking sea battle against a submarine is only the tip of an iceberg of trouble as Superman – and even briefly Kent – find favour in the eyes of the princess, even as elements in the royals’ own embassage continually seek their destruction. Far from impressed, but hot on a scoop, Lois sticks close and plays fifth wheel and rival to super-smitten Tania until the Man of Steel can foil the plot, crush the sinister mad scientist behind it and stabilise the political situation at home and abroad…

Historians might be interested to know that during this yarn, the use of art assistant Cassidy became markedly more noticeable. Other than handling character faces himself, Shuster was happy for the other artists to express themselves in how Siegel’s scripts were interpreted…

Major events were in store both for the hero and the whole of humanity and ‘Underworld Politics’ (13th November – 16th December) signalled the closing of a chapter. Simple cathartic super-deeds would soon take a back seat to grander designs, but only after the tale of how Superman – and especially Lois – destroyed the seemingly impregnable party machine of crooked political boss Mike Hennessey. That well-connected unworthy thought he could terrorise and even murder a crusading new District Attorney, but he was so very wrong…

After his fall Lois thought she had the front page sewed up, but didn’t figure on World War being declared in Europe…

This initial volume of pioneering paper perils begins a saga of sabotage and ‘Unnatural Disasters’ (18th December 1939 – January 6th 1940) as a mysterious gang blow up a dam and then poison the reservoir. Moments too late in each instance, all Superman can do is save what lives he can and determine to avenge the dead…

To Be Continued…

Offering timeless wonders and mesmerising excitement for lovers of action and fantasy, the early Superman is beyond compare. If you love the era or just crave simpler stories from less angst-wracked times, these yarns are perfect comics reading, and this a book you simply must see.
Superman: The Dailies volume 1 copublished by DC Comics and Kitchen Sink Press. Covers, introduction and all related names, characters and elements are ™ & © DC Comics 1998, 1999. All Rights Reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: “The Race to Death Valley” (Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Classic Collection volume 1)


By Floyd Gottfredson & various; Edited by David Gerstein (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-441-2 (HB/Digital edition)

As collaboratively co-created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, Mickey Mouse was first seen – if not heard – in silent cartoon Plane Crazy. The animated short fared poorly in a May 1928 test screening and was promptly shelved. (Happy technical 95th Anniversary, kid!)

That’s why most people who care cite Steamboat Willie – the fourth Mickey feature to be completed – as the debut of the mascot mouse and co-star and paramour Minnie Mouse, since it was the first to be nationally distributed, as well as the first animated feature with synchronised sound. Its astounding success led to a subsequent and rapid release of fully completed predecessors Plane Crazy, The Gallopin’ Gaucho and The Barn Dance once they too had been given soundtracks. From those timid beginnings grew an immense fantasy empire, but film was not the only way Disney conquered hearts and minds.

With Mickey a certified solid gold sensation, the mighty mouse was considered a hot property and soon invaded America’s most powerful and pervasive entertainment medium: comic strips…

Floyd Gottfredson was a cartooning pathfinder who started out as just another warm body in the Disney Studio animation factory. Happily, he slipped sideways into graphic narrative and evolved into a ground-breaker of pictorial narratives as influential as George Herriman, Winsor McCay and Elzie Segar. Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse entertained millions – if not billions – of eagerly enthralled readers and shaped the very way comics worked.

Via some of the earliest adventure continuities in comics history he took a wild and anarchic animated rodent from slap-stick beginnings and transformed a feisty everyman/mouse underdog into a crimebuster, detective, explorer, lover, aviator or cowboy. Mickey was the quintessential two-fisted hero whenever necessity demanded…

In later years, as tastes – and syndicate policy – changed, Gottfredson steered that self-same wandering warrior into a sedate, gently suburbanised lifestyle, employing crafty sitcom gags suited to a newly middle-class America: a 50-year career generating some of the most engrossing continuities the comics industry has ever enjoyed.

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was born in 1905 in Kaysville, Utah, one of eight siblings born to a Mormon family of Danish extraction. Injured in a youthful hunting accident, Floyd whiled away a long recuperation drawing and studying cartoon correspondence courses. By the 1920s he had turned professional, selling cartoons and commercial art to local trade magazines and Big City newspaper the Salt Lake City Telegram.

In 1928, he (and wife Mattie) moved to California where, after a shaky start, the doodler found work in April 1929 as an in-betweener with the burgeoning Walt Disney Studios. Just as the Great Depression hit, he was personally asked by Disney to take over the newborn but already ailing Mickey Mouse newspaper strip. Gottfredson would plot, draw and frequently script the strip for the next five decades: an incredible accomplishment by of one of comics’ most gifted exponents.

Veteran animator Ub Iwerks had initiated the print feature with Disney himself contributing, before artist Win Smith was brought in. The nascent strip was plagued with problems and young Gottfredson was only supposed to pitch in until a regular creator could be found.

His first effort saw print on May 5th 1930 (his 25th birthday) and Floyd just kept going for an uninterrupted run over the next half century. On January 17th 1932, Gottfredson crafted the first colour Sunday page, which he also handled until retirement.

In the beginning he did everything, but in 1934 Gottfredson relinquished the scripting role, preferring plotting and illustrating the adventures to playing about with dialogue. Thereafter, collaborating wordsmiths included Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Dick Shaw, Bill Walsh, Roy Williams and Del Connell. At the start and in the manner of a filmic studio system, Floyd briefly used inkers such as Ted Thwaites, Earl Duvall and Al Taliaferro, but by 1943 had taken on full art chores.

This superb archival compendium – part of a magnificently ambitious series collecting the creator’s entire canon – re-presents the initial daily romps, jam-packed with thrills, spills and chills, whacky races, fantastic fights and a glorious superabundance of rapid-fire sight-gags and verbal by-play. The manner by which Mickey became a syndicated star is covered in various articles at the front and back of this sturdy tome devised and edited by truly dedicated, clearly devoted fan David Gerstein.

Under the guise of Setting the Stage the unbridled fun and revelations begin with gaming guru Warren Spector’s appreciative ‘Introduction – The Master of Mickey Epics’ and a fulsome biographical account and appraisal of Gottfredson and Mickey continuities in ‘Of Mouse and Man – 1930-1931: The Early Years’ by historian and educator Thomas Andrae.

The scene-setting concludes with ‘Floyd Gottfredson, The Mickey Mouse Strip and Me – an Appreciation by Floyd Norman’, incorporating some preliminary insights from Gerstein in …An Indebted Valley… before the strip sequences begin in ‘The Adventures: Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse Stories with Editor’s Notes’.

At the start the strip was treated like an animated feature, with diverse hands working under a “director” and each day seen as a full gag with set-up, delivery and a punchline, usually all in service to an umbrella story or theme. Such was the format Gottfredson inherited from Walt Disney for his first full yarn ‘Mickey Mouse in Death Valley’. It ran from April 1st to September 20th 1930 with the job further complicated by an urgent “request” from controlling syndicate King Features. They required that the strip immediately be made more adventure-oriented to compete with the latest trend in comics – action-packed continuities as seen in everything from Wash Tubbs to Tarzan…

Roped in to provide additional art and inking for the raucous, rambunctious rambling saga were Win Smith, Jack King, Roy Nelson & Hardie Gramatky. The tale itself involved a picaresque, frequently deadly journey way out west to save Minnie’s inheritance – a lost mine – from conniving lawyer Sylvester Shyster and his vile and violent crony Peg-Leg Pete.

To foil them Mickey and his aggrieved companion chased across America by every conveyance imaginable, facing every possible peril immortalised by silent movie westerns, melodramas and comedies. In their relentless pursuit they were aided by masked mystery man The Fox…

Next up – after brief preamble ‘Sheiks and Lovers’ – is another lengthy epic, featuring most of the early big screen repertory cast. ‘Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers’ (inked by Gottfredson, Gramatky & Earl Duvall and running from September 22nd – December 29th) opens with Mickey building his own decidedly downbeat backyard golf course before being repeatedly and disconcertingly distracted when sleazy sporty type Mr. Slicker starts paying unwelcome attention to Minnie. Well, it’s unwelcome as far as Mickey is concerned…

With cameos from Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, goat-horned Mr. Butt and a prototype Goofy who answered – if he felt like it – to the moniker Dippy Dog, the rambunctious shenanigans continue for weeks until the gag-abundant tale resolves into a classic powerplay and landgrab as the nefarious ne’er-do-well is exposed as the fiend attempting to bankrupt Minnie’s family by swiping all the eggs produced on their farm. The swine even seeks to frame Mickey for his misdeed before our hero turns the tables on him…

A flurry of shorter escapades follow: rapid-fire doses of wonder and whimsy including ‘Mickey Mouse Music’ (December 30th 1930 – January 3rd 1931 with art by Duvall), ‘The Picnic’ (January 12th – 17th, Gottfredson inked by Duvall) and ‘Traffic Troubles’ (January 5th – 10th with pencils by Duvall & Gottfredson inks) before Gerstein introduces the next extended storyline with some fondly eloquent ‘Katnippery’…

With story & art by Gottfredson & Duvall, ‘Mickey Mouse Vs. Kat Nipp’ proceeded from January 19th until February 25th 1931, detailing how a brutal feline thug bullies our hero. The sad state of affairs involves tail-abusing in various inspired forms, after which ‘Gallery Feature – …He’s Funny That Way…’ reveals a later Sunday strip appearance for Kat Nipp in a story by Merrill De Maris with Gottfredson pencils & Ted Thwaites inks. The excerpt comes from June 1938.

Gerstein’s introductory thoughts on the next epic – ‘High Society: Reality Show Edition’ – precede the serialised saga of ‘Mickey Mouse, Boxing Champion’. Running February 26th to April 29th by Gottfredson, Duvall & Al Taliaferro, the hilarious episodes relate how ever-jealous Mickey floors a big thug leering at Minnie to become infamous as the guy who knocked out the current heavy lightweight boxing champ.

Ruffhouse Rat’s subsequent attempts at revenge all go hideously awry and before long Mickey is acting as the big lug’s trainer. It’s a disaster and before long the champion suffers an inexorable physical and mental decline. Sadly, that’s when hulking brute Creamo Catnera hits town for a challenge bout. With Ruffhouse refusing to fight, it falls to Mickey to take on the savage contender…

Having accomplished one impossible task, Mickey sets his sights on reintroducing repentant convict Butch into ‘High Society’ (April 30th – May 30th – story & pencils by Gottfredson and inks from Taliaferro). The story was designed to tie-in to a Disney promotional stunt – a giveaway “photograph” of Mickey – and the history and details of the project are covered in ‘Gallery Feature – “Gobs of Good Wishes”’…

‘Mick of All Trades’ introduces the next two extended serial tales, discussing Mickey’s every-mouse nature and willingness to tackle any job like the Taliaferro-inked ‘Circus Roustabout’ which originally ran from June 1st – July 17th. Here a string of animal-based gags is held together by Mickey’s hunt for a cunning thief, after which ‘Pluto the Pup’ takes centre-stage for a 10-day parade of slapstick antics and Gerstein’s ‘Middle-Euro Mouse’ supplies context to the less-savoury and non-PC historical aspects of an epic featuring wandering “gypsies”.

‘Mickey Mouse and the Ransom Plot’ (July 20th – November 7th) follows the star and chums Minnie, Horace and Clarabelle on a travelling vacation to the mountains. Here they fall under the influence of a suspicious band of Roma exhibiting all the worst aspects of thieving and spooky fortune-telling. When Minnie is abducted and payment demanded, Mickey knows just how to deal with the villains…

Essay ‘A Mouse (and a Horse and a Cow) Against the World’ segues into fresh employment horizons for our hero as Gottfredson & Taliaferro test the humorous action potential of ‘Fireman Mickey’ (November 9th – December 5th). Another scintillating cascade of japes, jests and merry melodramas – and taking us from December 7th 1931 to January 9th 1932 in fine style – it offers glimmerings of continuity sub-plotting and supporting character development. These all shade a budding romance under the eaves of ‘Clarabelle’s Boarding House’. Although the chronological cartooning officially concludes here, there’s still a wealth of glorious treats and fascinating revelations in store in The Gottfredson Archives: Essays and Archival Features section that follows.

Contributed by Thomas Andrae, ‘In the Beginning: Ub Iwerks and the Birth of Mickey Mouse’ offers beguiling background and priceless early drawings from the earliest moments, as does Gerstein’s ‘Starting the Strip’ which comes packed with timeless ephemera.

As previously stated, Gottfredson took over a strip already in progress and next – accompanied by covers from European editions of the period – come the strips preceding his accession. Frantic gag-panels (like scenes from an animation storyboard) comprise ‘Lost on a Desert Island’ (January 13th – March 31st 1930, crafted by storyteller Walt and artists Ub Iwerks & Win Smith) are augmented by Gerstein’s ‘The Cartoon Connection’ with additional Italian strips from Giorgio Scudellari in ‘Gallery Feature – “Lost on a Desert Island”’.

Even more text and recovered-art features explore ‘The Cast: Mickey and Minnie’ and ‘Sharing the Spotlight: Walt Disney and Win Smith’ (both by Gerstein) before more international examples illuminate ‘Gottfredson’s World: Mickey Mouse in Death Valley’ whereafter ‘Unlocking the Fox’ traces the filmic antecedents of the hooded stranger, with priceless original art samples in ‘Behind the Scenes: Pencil Mania’.

More contemporaneous European examples from early collections tantalise in ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers’ before Alberto Beccatini & Gerstein’s ‘Sharing the Spotlight: Roy Nelson, Jack King and Hardie Gramatky’ supply information on these lost craftsmen.

Gerstein’s ‘The One-Off Gottfredson Spin-Off’ highlights a forgotten transatlantic strip collaboration with German artist Frank Behmak, whilst ‘Gallery Feature – The Comics Department at Work: Mickey Mouse in Color (- And Black and White)’ covers lost merchandise and production art whilst ‘Gottfredson’s World: Mickey Mouse Vs. Kat Nipp’ and ‘Gottfredson’s World: Mickey Mouse, Boxing Champion’ offer yet more overseas Mouse memorabilia.

‘Sharing the Spotlight: Earl Duvall’ is another fine Gerstein tribute to a forgotten artisan, supplemented by ‘The Cast: Butch’ and ‘Al Taliaferro’, after which ‘The Gottfredson Gang: In “Their Own” Words’ (Gerstein – with texts by Mortimer Franklin & R. M. Finch) reprints contemporary interviews with the 2D stars, garnished with publicity tear-sheets and clippings. This is rounded off by more foreign covers in ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Strange Tales of Late 1931’, ‘The Cast: Pluto’ and a stunning Christmas message from the Mouse as per ‘I have it on good authority’, giving Gottfredson himself the last word.

Gottfredson’s influence on not just the Disney canon but sequential graphic narrative itself is inestimable: he was among the first to produce long continuities and “straight” adventures; he pioneered team-ups and invented some of the first “super-villains” in the business.

When Disney killed the continuities in 1955, dictating henceforth strips would only contain one-off gag strips, Floyd adapted seamlessly, working on until retirement in 1975. His last daily appeared on November 15th with the final Sunday published on September 19th 1976.

Like all Disney creators, Gottfredson worked in utter anonymity, but in the 1960s his identity was revealed and the voluble appreciation of his previously unsuspected horde of devotees led to interviews, overviews and public appearances, with effect that subsequent reprinting in books, comics and albums carried a credit for the quiet, reserved master. Floyd Gottfredson died in July 1986.

Thankfully we have these Archives to enjoy and inspire us and hopefully a whole new generation of inveterate tale-tellers…
© 2011 Disney Enterprises, Inc Text of “In the Beginning: Ub Iwerks and the Birth of Mickey Mouse” by Thomas Andrae is © 2011 Thomas Andrae. All contents © 2011 Disney Enterprises unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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From the Files of… Mike Hammer: The Complete Dailies and Sundays


By Mickey Spillane & Ed Robbins: edited by Max Allan Collins (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-025-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Frank Morrison Spillane was Brooklyn born on March 9th 1918 and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He started writing in High School and, after trying a wide variety of jobs, joined a production shop in 1940, where he worked on articles for magazines (“slicks”), pulps and – thanks to a connection to Joe Gill (Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Peacemaker and more horror, war and science fiction tales than you can imagine) – comic books.

Spillane wrote dozens of text fillers (usually the only place you could sign your own name) for Funnies Inc. who supplied Timely Comics, Fawcett, National/DC and more, but also crafted comics tales too, including Blue Bolt, Captain Marvel, Batman, Captain America and Sub-Mariner. A rough, tough guy, and already qualified pilot, he enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor, but his expertise denied him the combat he craved and relegated him to the despised role of Army Air Corps flight instructor, stationed in Mississippi.

Married in 1945, he found employment scarce when peace broke out and turned his 1942 comic creation Mike Lancer P.I. (latterly Mike Danger) into a rough, tough, vulgar and compelling paragon of toxic masculinity. The 1947 novel I, The Jury was written in 9 days and, on the suggestion of Ray Gill (brother of Joe), offered to EP Dutton. They published it in hardback which sold moderately that year. One year later the paperback edition sold six and a half million copies in the US alone, was translated everywhere, kicked off a detective boom in film and books, and created both an iconic character and arguably an entire subgenre. Spillane died in July 2006.

Love him or loathe (and people have always fallen pretty equally on either side) Mike Hammer changed the world of entertainment. Apparently based on Texas Ranger Mike Hamer (who killed Bonnie & Clyde in 1934), Hammer is hard-boiled and smart but also brutally violent, mercurial and misogynistic. His hatred for criminality borders on psychosis and in his later books viciously anti-communist. Despite respecting law and cops he considers both a constant impediment to justice. He carries a Colt 45 M1911A1 and has a distinctly modern relationship with his secretary Velda – who might well be a harder man than him. His best pal is NYPD Homicide Captain Pat Chambers…

Spillane wrote 13 Hammer novels between 1947 and 1996: a tiny fraction of a frankly heroic output, with the canon further extended in later years by crime maven and comics marvel Max Allen Collins – a close friend and associate who added 30 more to the tally. Working from Spillane’s notes, he posthumously extended Spillane’s Hammer canon by writing a further 13 Hammer novels and 17 other characters from the author’s notes…

Collins (Dick Tracy, Batman, Ms. Tree, Wild Dog, Mike Danger, Nathan Heller, Mallory, Nolan & Quarry series, The Road to Perdition) also edited and curated this epic collected archival edition, gathering another controversial Hammer spin-off but one of the anti-hero’s few failures…

We open with his Foreword ‘Mickey and Me’ and informative Introduction ‘From the Files of… Mike Hammer’ relating history and building context in heavily illustrated features sharing novel dustjackets, posters and lobby cards from some of the many movies, logos, designs and original art from the strip, all augmented throughout by promotional ads.

The short run was distributed by Phoenix Features Syndicate from 1953-1954: written by Spillane, Joe Gill and illustrator Ed Robbins, narrated like the books, in first person by Hammer. The reason for the minor league management was to keep authorial control out of the hands of timid censorious editors but it proved the strip’s undoing…

Originally compiled by Ken Pierce Books as Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer – The Comic Strip volume 1 (The Sudden Trap and Other Stories) & 2 (The Dark City and Other Stories), this edition maintains their layout of up to 4 dailies per page and opens with ‘Half-Blonde’ as the grim gumshoe stumbles over a pretty singer, witness – or culprit – to senseless murder. Inserting himself into the case, Hammer is shot, beaten and lied to but still unearths a long-buried secret to expose high society schemes of embezzlement and casual execution…

Whilst recovering from the latest bullet wounds incurred in the line of duty, Mike discovers dark deeds in the hospital and intercedes on behalf of ‘The Bandaged Woman’ who doesn’t officially exist; bringing down a diabolical doctor happy to butcher and torture patients to mollify his own monstrous child and maximise his personal fortune. Hammer’s cure is suitably efficient and comes in a single treatment…

The strip was full of raw, violence, barely concealed sex and comparatively shocking violence for America’s prime family entertainment medium, which made the subject of ‘The Child’ a charged one as Hammer is gulled by one gangster inro saving a little girl from another mob of kidnappers. When he learns he’s been made a patsy and the actual bereaved parent is President Eisenhower things get really nasty in the name of patriotism…

Hammer was never a conventional hero and the stories always pushed boundaries. Emotional turmoil rages through ‘Another Lonely Night’ after best pal Pat callously makes Mike bait to draw out mob killers and sits back as a procession of assassins seek to rub him out. At least the wounded warrior can always depend on pistol-packing Velda…

Newspapers used seasons as key sales points and everybody worked a ‘Christmas Story’ angle. For Hammer it took a typically bleak turn as – after arguing with Velda – Mike sets out to catch a crook on Christmas Eve: the busiest day of the year for grifters, grafters, pickpockets and buttonmen. Although apparently proving his point, Hammer had to ultimately concede that there is such a thing as the spirit of the season…

The dailies wrapped up with an epic ideological challenge as Hammer is targeted by the greatest criminal in America and forced to hunt an even worse public enemy in ‘Adam and Kane’. Facing three generations of sheer evil, Mike suffers a psychological freeze and is helpless against the truly diabolical son of aged Adam Shaver.

That “Napoleon of Crime” retired when he found true love but the fruit of it was even more evil and Adam now wants the toughest man in New York to bring him down for the sake of all.

Despite being physically outmatched and intellectually dwarfed, Hammer’s biggest handicap is his own fear until gloating Kane attacks other innocents under Mike’s protection. From then on, the gloves are off…

Sundays began on May 17th 1953 and there were only three before reader complaints ended the run and both strips. It began in full colour splendour with ‘Comes Murder!’ as Hammer discovers a young couple who have been gulled and roughed up by pro gambling racketeers. Incensed, Mike goes after slick Art Selton and meets his match and a major setback in the mobster’s busty blonde “assistant”. Overpowered but undaunted, he changes tack and quickly realises he’s not the only one after Selton. All he has to do is stir things up and stand back, but it helps if you know who’s actually calling the shots…

Crime never rests and when Hammer takes a short country break he meets a ghost in ‘The Sudden Trap.’ His astonishment at seeing the wife of gang boss Al Quinn two years after she died in a car crash and hubby dearest collected a million-dollar insurance pay out obsesses the PI, and his bullish investigations soon have everyone gunning for him. Luckily, local reporter Miss Hayes (no first name; just loads of diminishing “terms of affection”!) backstops him as he crashes from one wrong conclusion to the next until the many murderous fiends who want the revenant dead again are caught and the incredible truth is exposed…

The series concluded with ‘Dark City’ as traumatised Korean War vet Buddie and his sister Eve hire Mike to keep her safe from unknown assailants. Whilst doing the job, Hammer learns that he’s been lied to again. However, before he can confront them, the shamus is compelled by sheer decency to rescue her from abductors.

The scene of her being tortured is extremely graphic even by modern standards, leading to artist Robbins being accused of doing what no man could… killing Mike Hammer…

The story was wrapped up rapidly with our hero exposing the siblings’ scam in two-fisted style and the dream was over…

At its best the strip was evocative and extremely competent as well as being true to its times and its tenets. For those who admired Hammer’s oeuvre they comprise a lost treasure…

Closing this collection is behind-the-scenes feature ‘Restoring Mike Hammer’ by Daniel Herman revealing how the scattered and distressed remnants of the series were saved for publication.

Then come more objects of interest in ‘Mike Hammer and Pop Culture’ delivering poster and book cover art, extracts from comic spoofs ‘My Gun is the Jury! By Melvie Splane’ (Panic! #1 1954) and Mad Magazine’s parody of the 1980’s TV show (illustrated by Sam Viviano), candid photos and more.

Certainly not everybody’s shot of rye, From the Files of… Mike Hammer: The Complete Dailies and Sundays is a glimpse at a global icon at his visual peak: one you can take or leave but never ignore if you love exploring the annals of crime fiction.
© 2013 Mickey Spillane Publishing, LLC.

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The Phantom: The Complete Sundays Archive Volume Three 1945-1949


By Lee Falk, Ray Moore & Wilson McCoy: introduction by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-100-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Born Leon Harrison Gross, Lee Falk created the Ghost Who Walks at the request of his King Features Syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed champion in comics, The Phantom became the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits…

The generational champion debuted on February 17th 1936, in an extended sequence pitting him against an ancient global confederation of pirates. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over illustration to artist Ray Moore. The spectacular and hugely influential Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, The Phantom has been quite poorly served in the English language market (except for the Antipodes, where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god). Many companies have sought to collect strips from one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history, but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. That began to be rectified when archival specialists Hermes Press launched their curated collections…

This third edition is a lovely and large (229 x 330 mm) landscape hardback/digital tome, displaying a complete full colour Sunday per page. Released in March 2016, its 208 pages are stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like panel and logo close-ups, comics covers and lots of original art and opens with publisher Daniel Herman’s ‘Introduction: The Sunday’s Continue…’ recapping all you need to know about the feature and disclosing how Wilson McCoy assumed the illustrator’s role from Ray Moore – and why nobody knows exactly when he did…

For those who came in late: 400 years previously, a British mariner survived an attack by pirates, and – after washing ashore on the African coast – swore on the skull of his father’s murderer to dedicate his life and that of his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights evil and injustice from his fabulous lair deep in the jungles of Bengali. Throughout Africa and Asia he is known as the “Ghost Who Walks”…

His unchanging appearance and unswerving war against injustice led to his being considered an immortal avenger by the uneducated, credulous and wicked. Down the decades, one heroic son after another has inherited the task, fought and died in an unbroken family line, with the latest wearer of the mask indistinguishable from the first and proudly continuing the never-ending battle.

In his first published exploit the Phantom met and fell for wealthy American adventurer Diane Palmer and his passion for her was soon reciprocated and returned and she became a continuing presence in both iterations of the series as ally, partner, sounding board, a means of reader identification and naturally a plot pawn and perennial hostage to fortune.

Almost every saga featured powerful, capable and remarkably attractive women as both heroes and villains, and in opening tale ‘Queen Pera the Perfect’ (running from December 9th 1945 to March 17th 1946), Diana saw the tables turned…

The aforementioned ruler of remote but rich Karola was constrained to find a husband, and so sent her fanatical minions into the world to find a man worthy of her. They returned with a musical genius, celebrated fighter pilot, champion pugilist and cinema’s greatest lover, but wherever they went they heard legends of an incredible superman…

After The Phantom repeatedly refuses her men’s offer, and gives her stern lesson in manners, she responds by having him imprisoned in her dungeons until he sees sense, and this time it’s his true love who has to save the day…

Spanning March 24th to August 4th 1946, ‘King of Beasts’ sees the liberated champion retuned to Bengali in time for Diana to be unjustly imprisoned. A priceless pearl necklace has been stolen from a maharajah and nobody believes the story of who actually took it: not the police and certainly not American mobster Poison Ivy and his boys…

When The Phantom tries to engineer a jailbreak, he’s caught too and charged with being an accomplice, only for the true thief to free him and Diana by sending a pickpocketing monkey to unlock their cell. In the ensuing flight, Diana is snatched by the mobsters, who don’t believe a word about a hidden mastermind using trained beasts to burgle. That all changes when a trained troop of elephants bust into the bank and porcupines empty a packed casino for their masked master…

With chaos unleashed, The Phantom retrenches and calls in his own equine ally and canine corps. Mighty steed Hero and lupine assistant Devil soon track down the King of Beasts who is far from what anyone expected. However even after he’s handled, there’s still increasingly murderous Poison Ivy to deal with…

Another female fury debuts in ‘The Scarlet Sorceress’ (August 11th – December 22nd) as a royal visit to the Deep Woods of the Bandar People introduces little Princess Valerie and her grandfather the Rajah of Volara. The child will soon become a pawn in a wicked plot…

When the princess of neighbouring kingdom Wogu falls ill, a devious manipulator “prophesies ” that only golden-haired Valerie’s blood can save the ailing waif, prompting a kidnapping and a frantically fast response from the Ghost Who Walks. Not all the monstrous forces set against him can slow the Phantom, but after exposing the witch as a charlatan, the hero discovers that he’s fighting not a villain but another victim. Soon, however, his efforts save all involved and pacify two kingdoms…

December 29th 1946 to June 29th 1947 finds The Phantom once more battling to save Diana after the filthy rich and spoiled Potentate of Ptjar Prince Pepe abducts her to be his very best bride. Law and reason mean nothing to the repulsive despot and by the time the hero reaches the distant kingdom, she is beyond even the Ghost’s reach. His only recourse is to play Pepe’s game and in a dozen days complete ‘The 12 Tasks’ conceived to frustrate and humiliate the hero. However, wit and ingenuity married to his mighty physicality make short work of the impossible – such as capturing an invulnerable giant bandit, emptying a river of carnivorous fish, banishing every shark in the bay or stopping all crime for 24 hours – and despite Pepe’s cheating equivocations the final task changes the nation forever and for the better…

A return to jungle warfare and tribal feuding underpins ‘The Dragon God’ (July 26th to November 16th) as Diana’s interest in an ancient Wambesi idol presages the fire-breathing saurian coming to life and demanding its worshippers kill and plunder their neighbours the Ulangi. With “The Phantom’s Peace” broken, the Ghost Walks amongst them to re-establish order and quickly discovers white instigators and recovered wartime weaponry behind the uprising, but once begun war has its own momentum and tribal grudges run deep and burn forever…

With bloodshed ended, a change of pace and tone heralds the return of an appalling duo who had previously made life miserable for The Phantom. Spanning November 23rd 1947 to May16th 1948, ‘The Marshall Sisters’ sees over-privileged brats Lana and Greta return to Africa in a ruthless no-holds barred competition to seduce and wed the mighty jungle avenger. This is after their last attempt to land the ultimate trophy husband was foiled by Diana Palmer…

When allure, deception and blackmail all fail, the hellions even try shanghaiing and blunt force trauma to achieve their aims, but lose all control when the various thugs they hire hijack the caper…

A relatively short story running from May 23rd through September 5th follows, revealing how a long-running annual sporting contest devised by the original ancestral Phantom has served to ameliorate tribal tensions for four centuries. Although its dollar value is meaningless to the competitors who strive for pride and bragging rights alone, the gem-stuffed urn that acts as ‘The Phantom Trophy’ is an irresistible prize for cop-killing fugitives Spike and Grunt.

When they rope in more scallywags to swipe the prize from the previous holders/custodians, before it can be handed over to the new champions tribal war erupts. Although The Phantom hunts the thieves he might be too late as naked greed turns the rogues against each other…

The final sequence in this volume visits ‘The Haunted Castle’ (September 12th 1948 – February 13th 1949) as Diana goes exploring alone and is propelled into wild unexplored country. As The Phantom and Devil search for her, she wanders a lost valley whose people are enslaved by sinister wizard Great Moogoo who shrinks anyone who opposes him to the size of a plaster gnome and adds them to his terrifying garden…

As the lascivious sorcerer captures her, Diana’s man has tracked her to the stone citadel and begun a one-man siege that exposes his nefarious trickery and wrecks his powerbase…

Taken from America’s immediate post-war period, these brief encounters are bold, brash, uncomplicated fare, full of despicable rogues, lost kingdoms, savage tribes, dangerous but still redeemable dames and very bad guys, but thrillingly reassuring entertainment for all that. Just remember, different times have different values. If the kind of fare you’d encounter in a 1940s Tarzan movie or cop thriller might offend, you should consider carefully before starting this…

Finally rediscovered, these lost treasures are especially rewarding as the material is still fresh, entertaining and addictively compelling. However, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians – manic devotees of the implacable champion from the get-go) surely the Ghost Who Walks is worthy of a little of your time?
The Phantom® © 1945-1949 and 2016 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

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The Art of Ramona Fradon


By Ramona Fradon; interviewed by Howard Chaykin (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-140-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Although present in comic books from the start, women – like so many other non-white male “minorities” – have been largely written out of history. One of the very few to have weathered that exclusion is Ramona Fradon. This excellent commemorative art collection celebrates not only her life and contribution, but thanks to its format – a free and unexpurgated extended interview with iconoclastic creator Howard Chaykin – offers the artist’s frank and forthright views on everything from work practise to the power of fans…

It all begins with an Introduction from Walt Simonson who proclaims ‘Meet your Idol… and discover They’re even Cooler than you Thought!’, before the early days are revealed in ‘Part One: Setting the Scene’ and ‘Part Two: In the Beginning’…

Ramona Dom was born on October 2nd 1926 to an affluent Chicago family with many ties to commercial creative arts. Her father was a respected artisan, letterer and calligrapher who had designed the logos for Camel cigarettes, Elizabeth Arden and other major brands, and also formulated the fonts Dom Casual and Dom Bold. He had plans for his daughter, urging her to become a fashion designer…

The family moved to (outer) New York when Ramona was five., Ramona initially attended The Parsons School of Design, where she discovered she had absolutely no interest in creating clothes. Although she had never read comic books, she had been a voracious reader of illustrated books like the Raggedy Anne and Andy series by John Barton Gruelle, and a devoted fan of newspaper strips. Her favourites included Dick Tracy, Bringing Up Father, The Phantom, Alley Oop, Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates and Li’l Abner (all represented here by examples from the 1930s) and she transferred to the New York Art Students League, a hotbed of cartooning…

There she met and married Arthur Dana Fradon, who would become a prolific illustrator, author and cartoonist and a regular contributor to The New Yorker between 1948-1992. They wed in 1948 and he actively encouraged her to seek work in the still young funnybook biz.

‘Part Three: Gingerly Breaking into Comics’ reveals how her first forays at Timely Comics led to DC/National Comics and a Shining Knight story published in Adventure Comics #165 (cover-dated June 1951), ten months later taking over the long-running Aquaman feature in #167. Fradon was one of the first women to conspicuously and regularly illustrate comic books, drawing the strip throughout the 1950s and shepherding the sea king from B-lister to solo star and Saturday morning TV pioneer.

In the first of a series of incisive and informative mini biographies, ‘Sidebar: Murray Boltinoff’ reveals the influence of the much-neglected and under-appreciated editor. ‘Part Four: Queen of the Seven Seas’ and ‘Part Five: Man of 1000 Elements’ show how occasional stints on The Brave and the Bold team-ups led to her co-creation of Sixties sensation Metamorpho, the Element Man. However in 1965 – at the pinnacle of success – she abruptly retired to raise a daughter, only returning to the fold in 1972 for another stellar run of landmark work.

‘Sidebar: George Kashdan’ tells all about the multi-talented scripter before ‘Part Six: Ramona Returns to Comics… At Marvel???’ details how the House of Ideas lured the artist back to her board and highlights her difficulties working “Marvel-style” on assorted horror shorts, The Claws of the Cat and Fantastic Four, all presaging a return to DC…

‘Sidebar: Joseph Patterson’ looks into the astounding strip Svengali who green lit Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley and more before ‘Part Seven: Back Home at DC Comics’ where she was busier than ever. As well as horror and humour shorts, Fradon drew a new Metamorpho try-out, superhero spinoff Freedom Fighters and her twin magnum opuses: revived comedy superhero Plastic Man and TV tie-in Super Friends. The revelations are bolstered by ‘Sidebar: E. Nelson Bridwell’, exploring the life of the man who knew everything about everything…

In 1980, Fradon took over Dale Messick’s long-running Brenda Starr newspaper strip, drawing it for 15 years. ‘Part Eight: Leaping From Books to Strips’ explores the painful and unpleasant chore in sharp detail, supplemented by ‘Sidebar: Brenda Starr’ outlining the feature’s history and reprinting those episodes when the ageless reporter met a certain cop, allowing Fradon to finally draw childhood idol Dick Tracy…

The most fascinating stuff is left until last as ‘Part Nine: Ramona the Author’ discusses her career post-Brenda: drawing for Bart Simpson and Spongebob Squarepants comics, returning to higher education and writing a philosophical historical mystery novel – The Gnostic Faustus: The Secret Teachings Behind the Classic Text – as well as illustrated kids book The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct.

Packed throughout with candid photos, and stunning pencil sketches, painted pictures and privately commissioned works of her stable of past assignments – like Aquaman, assorted Super Friends, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin; the Metal Men, Aqualad, Brenda Starr, Black Canary, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Shining Knight, The Atom, The Spirit, Metamorpho and cast, Marvel Girl, Miss America, Power Girl, Catwoman, Hawkman, numerous illustrations from The Story of Superman book, and convention sketches, this celebration concludes with even more fabulous sleek super art images in ‘Part Nine: Ramona Today’ and ‘Part Eleven: Bibliography’…

This is an amazing confirmation of an incredible career and any nostalgiac’s dream package. Amongst the gems unearthed here are complete Aquaman stories ‘The Kid from Atlantis!’ (Adventure Comics #269, 1960), ‘A World Without Water’ (Adventure Comics #251, 1958) and ‘How Aquaman Got his Powers!’ (Adventure Comics #260, 1959), plus tales from Star Spangled War Stories (#184, 1975) and ‘The Invisible Bank Robbers!’ from Gangbusters (#30, 1952).

Also on show are unpublished sample strips by Dana & Ramona Fradon and a monumental cover gallery depicting unforgettable images from Super Friends #3, 5-8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24-27, 31, 33, 36-39 & 41; Plastic Man #16-20; The Brave and the Bold #55, 57, 58, Showcase #30 & 33, Metamorpho, the Element Man #1-5, Namora #1 (2010), Fantastic Four #133 and Freedom Fighters #3.

These are supported by selected interior pages in full colour or monochrome from Star Spangled War Stories #8; Adventure Comics #190; Metamorpho, the Element Man #1; 1st Issue Special #3; Fantastic Four #133; The Brave and the Bold #57; House of Secrets #116 & 136; Secrets of Haunted House #3 & 14; House of Mystery #232 & 273; Plop! #5; Freedom Fighters #3 & 5; Plastic Man #14; Super Friends #6-8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21, 23 & 25 and the Super DC Calendar 1977.

A truly definitive appreciation of the Comic Book Hall of Fame inductee 2006, this oversized (229 x 305 mm) hardback reproduces hundreds of pages and covers, plus a wealth of out-industry artwork and commissioned wonders, as accompaniment to an astonishingly forthright testament and career retrospective of a phenomenal and groundbreaking talent.

The Art of Ramona Fradon will delight everyone who wants to see a master in their element showing everybody how it should be done….

Marvel Characters © and ™ 1941-2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. DC Comics Characters © and ™ DC Comics. Brenda Starr™ © 2013 Tribune Media Services. All Rights Reserved

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Krazy & Ignatz 1916-1918: The George Herriman Library volume 1


By George Herriman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-255-7 (HB/Digital edition)

In a field positively brimming with magnificent and eternally evergreen achievements, Krazy Kat is – for most cartoon cognoscenti – the pinnacle of pictorial narrative innovation: a singular and hugely influential body of work which shaped the early days of the comics industry whilst elevating itself to the level of a treasure of world literature.

Krazy & Ignatz, as it is dubbed in these gloriously addictive archival tomes from Fantagraphics, is a creation which must always be appreciated on its own terms. Over the decades the strip developed a unique language – simultaneously visual and verbal – whilst delineating the immeasurable variety of human experience, foibles and peccadilloes with unfaltering warmth and understanding…and without ever offending anybody. Baffled millions certainly, but offended? …No.

It certainly went over the heads and around the hearts of many, but Krazy Kat was never a strip for dull, slow or unimaginative people: those who can’t or simply won’t appreciate complex, multilayered verbal and cartoon whimsy, absurdist philosophy or seamless blending of sardonic slapstick with arcane joshing. It is still the closest thing to pure poesy narrative art has ever produced.

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

George Joseph Herriman (August 22, 1880-April 25, 1944) was already a successful cartoonist and journalist in 1913 when a cat and mouse who’d been noodling about at the edges of his domestic comedy strip The Dingbat Family/The Family Upstairs graduated to their own feature.

Mildly intoxicating and gently scene-stealing, Krazy Kat debuted in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal on Oct 28th 1913: a 5-day-a-week monochrome comedy strip. By sheer dint of the overbearing publishing magnate’s enrapt adoration and direct influence and interference, it gradually and inexorably spread throughout his vast stable of papers.

Although Hearst and a host of the period’s artistic and literary intelligentsia (such as Frank Capra, e.e. Cummings, Willem de Kooning, H.L. Mencken and more) adored the strip, many local and regional editors did not; taking every potentially career-ending opportunity to drop it from those circulation-crucial comics sections designed to entice Joe Public and the general populace.

The feature found its true home and sanctuary in the Arts and Drama section of Hearst’s papers, protected there by the publisher’s unshakable patronage. Eventually enhanced (in 1935) with the cachet of enticing colour, Kat & Ko. flourished unhampered by editorial interference or fleeting fashion, running generally unmolested until Herriman’s death on April 25th 1944 from cirrhosis caused by Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Eschewing standard industry policy of finding a substitute creator, Hearst decreed Krazy Kat would die with its originator and sole ambassador.

The premise is simple: Krazy is an effeminate, dreamy, sensitive and romantic feline of variable gender, hopelessly smitten with venal, toxically masculine everyman Ignatz Mouse. A spousal abuser and delinquent father, the little guy is rude, crude, brutal, mendacious and thoroughly scurrilous.

Ignatz is a proudly unreconstructed male and early forerunner of the men’s rights movement: drinking, stealing, fighting, conniving, constantly neglecting his wife and many children and always responding to Krazy’s genteel advances of friendship (…or more) by clobbering the Kat with a well-aimed brick. These he obtains singly or in bulk from local brick-maker Kolin Kelly. The smitten kitten always misidentifies these gritty gifts as tokens of equally recondite affection, showered upon him/her/they in the manner of Cupid’s fabled arrows…

Even in these earliest tales, it’s not even a response, except perhaps a conditioned one: the mouse spends the majority of his time, energy and ingenuity (when not indulging in crime or philandering) launching missiles at the mild moggy’s mug. He can’t help himself, and Krazy’s day is bleak and unfulfilled if the adored, anticipated assault fails to happen.

The final critical element completing an anthropomorphic emotional triangle is lawman Offissa Bull Pupp. He’s utterly besotted with Krazy, professionally aware of the Mouse’s true nature, but hamstrung by his own amorous timidity and sense of honour from permanently removing his devilish rival for the foolish feline’s affections. Krazy is – of course – blithely oblivious to the perennially “Friend-Zoned” Pupp’s dolorous dilemma…

Secondarily populating the mutable stage are a large, ever-changing supporting cast of inspired bit players including relentless deliverer of unplanned babies Joe Stork; unsavoury Hispanic huckster Don Kiyoti, hobo Bum Bill Bee, self-aggrandizing Walter Cephus Austridge, inscrutable, barely intelligible (and outrageously unreconstructed by modern standards!) Chinese mallard Mock Duck, portraitist Michael O’Kobalt, dozy Joe Turtil and snoopy sagacious fowl Mrs. Kwakk Wakk, often augmented by a host of audacious animal crackers – such as Krazy’s niece Ketrina – all equally capable of stealing the limelight and supporting their own features…

The exotic, quixotic episodes occur in and around the Painted Desert environs of Coconino (patterned on the artist’s vacation retreat in Coconino County, Arizona) where surreal playfulness and the fluid ambiguity of the flora and landscape are perhaps the most important member of the cast.

The strips themselves are a masterful mélange of unique experimental art, cunningly designed, wildly expressionistic (often referencing Navajo art forms) whilst graphically utilising sheer unbridled imagination and delightfully evocative lettering and language. This last is particularly effective in these later tales: alliterative, phonetically, onomatopoeically joyous with a compellingly melodious musical force and delicious whimsy (“Ignatz Ainjil” or “I’m a heppy, heppy ket!”).

Yet for all our high-fallutin’ intellectualism, these comic adventures are poetic, satirical, timely, timeless, bittersweet, self-referential, fourth-wall bending, eerily idiosyncratic, outrageously hilarious escapades encompassing every aspect of humour from painfully punning shaggy dog stories to riotous, violent slapstick. Herriman was also a master of action: indulging in dialogue-free escapades as captivating as any Keystone Kop or Charlie Chaplin 2-reeler. Kids of any age will delight in them as much as any pompous old git like me and you…

Collected in a comfortably hefty (257 x 350 mm) hardcover edition – and available as a suitably serendipitous digital edition, this cartoon wonderment is bulked up with a veritable treasure trove of unique artefacts: plenty of candid photos, correspondence, original strip art and astounding examples of Herriman’s personalised gifts and commissions (gorgeous hand-coloured artworks featuring the cast and settings), as well as a section on the rare merchandising tie-ins and unofficial bootleg items.

These marvels are supported by fascinating insights and crucial history in Bill Blackbeard’s essay ‘The Kat’s Kreation’: detailing the crackers critters’ development and their creators’ circuitous path to Coconino, via strips Lariat Pete, Bud Smith, The Boy Who Does Stunts, Rosy’s Mama, Zoo Zoo, Daniel and Pansy, Alexander, Baron Mooch and key stepping stone The Dingbat Family…

From there we hie straight into the romantic imbroglio with ‘The Complete Krazy Kat Sunday Strips of 1916’ beginning with the full-page (17 panels!) episode for April 23rd wherein the Kat rudely absconds from a picnic to carry out a secret mission of mercy and sweet sentiment…

The peculiar proceedings were delivered – much like Joe Stork’s bundles of joy and responsibility – every seven days, ending that first year on December 31st. Across that period, as war raged in Europe and with America edging inexorably closer to joining in the Global Armageddon, the residents of Coconino sported and wiled away their days in careless abandon: utterly embroiled within their own – and their neighbours’ – personal dramas.

Big hearted Krazy adopts orphan kitties, accidentally goes boating and ballooning, saves baby birds from predatory mice and rats, survives pirate attacks and energy crises, constantly endures assault and affectionate attempted murder and does lots of nothing in an utterly addictive, idyllic and eccentric way. We see nature repeat itself with the introduction of our star’s extended family in “Kousins” Krazy Katbird and Krazy Katfish…

Always our benighted star gets hit with bricks: many, variegated, heavy and forever evoking joyous, grateful raptures and transports of delight from the heartsore, hard-headed recipient…

Often Herriman simply let nature takes its odd course: allowing surreal slapstick chases, weird physics and convoluted climate carry the action, but gradually an unshakeable character dynamic was forming involving love and pain, crime and punishment and – always – forgiveness, redemption and another chance for all transgressors and malefactors…

In ‘The Complete Krazy Kat Sunday Strips of 1917’ – specifically January 7th to December 30th – the eternal game plays out as usual and with an infinite variety of twists, quirks and reversals. However, there are also increasingly intriguing diversions to flesh out the picayune proceedings, such as recurring explorations of terrifying trees, grim ghosts, two-headed snakes and obnoxious Ouija Boards. Amidst hat-stealing winds, grudge-bearing stormy weather, Kiyote chicanery and tributes to Kipling we discover why the snake rattles and meet Ignatz’s aquatic cousins, observe an extended invasion of Mexican Jumping Beans and a plague of measles, discover the maritime and birthday cake value of “glowerms”, learn who is behind a brilliant brick-stealing campaign, graphically reconstruct brick assaults, encounter early “talkies” technology, indulge in “U-Boat diplomacy”, uniquely celebrate Halloween and at last see Krazy become the “brick-er” and not “brickee”…

With strips running from January 6th to December 29th, ‘The Complete Krazy Kat Sunday Strips of 1918’ finds Herriman fully in control of his medium, and kicking into poetic high gear as America finally entered the War to End All Wars.

As uncanny brick apparitions scotch someone’s New Year’s resolutions, cantankerous automobiles began disrupting the desert days, fun of a sort is had with boomerangs and moving picture mavens begin haunting the region. There are more deeply strange interactions with weather events, the first mentions of a “Spenish Influenza”, and a plague of bandit mice alternately led by or victimizing Ignatz. Music is made, jails are built and broken, Mrs Hedge-Hogg almost become a widow and criminal pig Sancho Pansy makes much trouble. Occasional extended storylines begin with the saga of an aberrant Kookoo Klock/avian refuge and invasive species of bean and “ko-ko-nutts”, and Krazy visits the Norths and Souths poles, foot specialist Dr. Poodil and Madame Kamouflage’s Beauty Parlor…

More surreal voyages are undertaken but over and again it’s seen that there is literally no place like Krazy & Ignatz’s home. There was only one acknowledgement of Kaiser Bill and it was left to the missile-chucking mouse to deliver it with style, stunning accuracy and full-blooded venom…

And then it was Christmas and a new year and volume lay ahead…

To complete the illustrious experience and explore an ever-shifting sense of reality amidst the constant visual virtuosity and verbal verve we end with splendidly informative bonus material.

Curated by Blackbeard, ‘The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Page’ provides pertinent facts, snippets of contextual content and necessary notes for the young, potentially perplexed and historically harassed. Michael Tisserand’s ‘“The Early Romance between George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and William Randolph Hearst’s ‘City Life”’ explores the strip’s growing influence on the world around him, and it’s supported by an article of the period.

‘A Genius of the Comic Page’ is an appreciation and loving deconstruction of the strip – with illustrations from Herriman – by astoundingly perspicacious and erudite critic Summerfield Baldwin and originated in Cartoons Magazine (June 1917) and is followed by Blackbeard’s biography of the reclusive creator in ‘George Herriman 1880-1944’.

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

If however, you are one of Them and not Us, or if you still haven’t experienced the gleeful graphic assault on the sensorium, mental equilibrium and emotional lexicon carefully thrown together by Herriman from the dawn of the 20th century until the dog days of World War II, this glorious parade of cartoon masterpieces may be your last chance to become a Human before you die…

That was harsh, I know: not everybody gets it and some of them aren’t even stupid or soulless – they’re just unfortunate…

Still, for lovers of whimsy and whimsical lovers “There Is A Heppy Lend Furfur A-Waay” if only you know where and how to look…
© 2019 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All contents © 2019 Fantagraphics Books, Inc., unless otherwise noted. “The Kat’s Kreation”, “The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Page”, and Herriman biography © 2019 Bill Blackbeard. “The Early Romance between George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and William Randolph Hearst’s ‘City Life”’ © 2019 Michael Tisserand. All other images and text © 2019 their respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Modesty Blaise: The Gabriel Set Up


By Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway (Titan Books)
ISBN: 987-1-84023-658-2 (2007) 978-0-90761-037-3 (1985)

The year 1963 was a big one for the world of entertainment. Go look it up.

Comics and strips particularly enjoyed an explosive renaissance and here we’re saying “well done!” to one of the most astounding characters in fiction: one long overdue for another moment to shine. Happy anniversary Modesty (and Willie)!

Infallible super-criminals Modesty Blaise and her lethally charming, compulsively platonic, equally adept partner Willie Garvin gained fearsome reputations whilst heading underworld gang The Network. Then, at the height of their power, they retired young, rich and still healthy. With honour intact and their hands relatively clean, they cut themselves off completely from careers where they made all the money they would ever need and far too many enemies: a situation exacerbated by their heartfelt and – for their professions – controversial conviction that killing was only ever to be used as a last resort.

When devious British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant sought them out, they were slowly dying of boredom in England. That wily old bird offered them a chance to have fun, get back into harness and do a bit of good in the world. They jumped at his offer and began cleaning up the dregs of society in their own unique manner. The self-appointed crusade took decades…

From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (the first tale in this collected volume) the dynamic duo went on to crush the world’s vilest villains and most macabre monsters in a perpetual succession of tense suspense and inspirational action that lasted for more than half a century.

The inseparable associates debuted in The Evening Standard on 13th May 1963 and, over the passing decades, went on to star in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, all in approximately three panels a day.

Creators Peter O’Donnell & Jim Holdaway (who had previously collaborated on Romeo Brown – another lost strip classic equally as deserving of its own archive albums) crafted a timeless treasure trove of brilliant pictorial escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero (and occasionally John Burns, Neville Colvin & Pat Wright) assumed the art reins, taking the partners-in-peril to even greater heights.

Holdaway’s version has been cited as a key artistic influence by many comic artists.

The series was syndicated world-wide and Modesty starred in numerous prose novels; short-story collections; several films; a TV series pilot; a radio play; an original American graphic novel from DC; an audio serial on BBC Radio 4 as well as nearly 100 comic adventures.

The strip’s conclusion came in 11th April 2001 edition of The Evening Standard. Many papers around the world immediately began running reprints and further new capers were conceived, but British newspaper readers never saw them. We’re still waiting…

The pair’s astounding exploits comprise a broad blend of hip adventuring, glamorous lifestyle and cool capers: a melange of international espionage, crime, intrigue and even – now and again – plausibly intriguing sci fi or supernaturally-tinged horror genre fare, with ever-unflappable Modesty and Willie the canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallibly human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wronged…

We have UK publisher Titan Books to thank for collecting the saga of Britain’s Greatest Action Hero (Women’s Division), although they haven’t done so for a while now…

Fist seen in 1985, this initial volume introduced Modesty and her right-hand man, retired super-criminals now bored out of their brains. Enter stiff, by the book spook Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a nebulous British spy organization who recruits her by offering her excitement and a chance to get some real evil sods. From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ – where the reinvigorated duo dismantle a global assassination enterprise, the focus moves on to ‘The Long Lever’ as our stars seek to save a Hungarian defector who has been inexplicably abducted by his former bosses.

The drama concludes with the ‘Gabriel Set-up’ as the purely platonic power couple scotch a sinister scheme by a criminal mesmerist…

Also included in this monochrome masterwork are ‘In the Beginning’ – a strip produced in 1966 as an origin and introduction to bring newly subscribing newspapers up to speed on the characters – plus text features ‘Blaise of Glory (part 1)’ by Mike Patterson and ‘Girl Walking’ by O’Donnell himself.

The tales are stylish and engaging spy/crime/thriller fare in the vein of Ian Fleming’s Bond stories (the comic version of which Titan also reprinted) and art fans especially should absorb Holdaway’s beautiful crisp line work, with each panel being something of a masterclass in pacing, composition and plain good, old-fashioned drawing.

The beauty of Modesty Blaise is not simply the timeless excellence of the stories and the captivating wonder of the illustration, but that material such as this can’t fail to attract a broader readership to the medium. Its content could hold its own against the best offerings of television and film. All we have to do is keep the stuff in print…
© 2004-2017 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.

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The Complete Peanuts volume 7: 1963-1964



By Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics Books/Canongate Books UK)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-723-0 (HB) 978-1683960058 (US PB) 978-1847678140 (UK HB)

Peanuts is unequivocally the most important comic strip in the history of graphic narrative. It is also the most deeply personal. Cartoonist Charles M Schulz crafted his moodily hilarious, hysterically introspective, shockingly philosophical surreal epic for half a century: 17,897 strips from October 2nd 1950 to February 13th 2000. He died from the complications of cancer the day before his last strip was published…

At its height, the strip ran in 2,600 newspapers, translated into 21 languages in 75 countries. Many of those venues are still running perpetual reprints, as they have ever since his death. In his lifetime, book collections, a merchandising mountain and television spin-offs had made the publicity-shy artist a billionaire.

None of that really matters. Peanuts – a title Schulz loathed, but one the syndicate forced upon him – changed the way comics strips were received and perceived: proving cartoon comedy could have edges and nuance as well as pratfalls and punchlines.

Following animator Bill Melendez’s Foreword – relating how he became the TV arm of the Peanuts phenomenon – the timeless episodes of play, peril, psychoanalysis and personal recrimination resume as ever in marvellous monochrome, with more character introductions, plot advancements and the creation of even more traditions we all revere to this day…

As ever our focus is quintessential inspirational loser Charlie Brown who, with increasingly fanciful, high-maintenance mutt Snoopy, remain largely at odds with a bombastic, mercurial supporting cast, all hanging out doing what at first sight seems to be Kids Stuff.

As always, daily gags centre on playing, musical moments, pranks, interpersonal alignments and a seasonal selection of sports, all leavened by agonising teasing, aroused and crushed hopes, the making of baffled observations and occasionally acting a bit too much like grown-ups.

However, with this tome, the themes and tropes that define the series (especially in the wake of those animated TV specials) become mantra-like yet endlessly variable. A consistent theme is Charlie Brown’s inability to fly a kite, and here the never-ending war with wind, gravity and landscape reaches absurdist proportions…

Mean girl Violet, prodigy Schroeder, self-taught psychoanalyst and world dictator-in-waiting Lucy van Pelt, her brilliantly off-kilter little brother Linus and dirt-magnet “Pig-Pen” are fixtures honed to generate joke-routines and gag-sequences around their own foibles, but some early characters – like Shermy and Patty – gradually disappear as new attention-attracting players join the mob. Here that’s thoroughly modern lad “5” and his forward-looking non-conformist family “the 95472s”…

At least Charlie Brown’s existential crisis/responsibility vector/little sister Sally has settled into being just another trigger for relentless self-excoriation. As she grows, pesters librarians, forms opinions and propounds steadfastly authoritarian views, he is increasingly relegated to being her dumber, yet always protective, big brother…

Resigned – almost – to life as an eternal loser singled out by cruel and capricious fate, the Boy Brown is helpless meat in the clutches of openly sadistic Lucy. When not playfully sabotaging his efforts to kick a football, she monetises her spiteful verve via a 5¢ walk-in psychoanalysis booth: ensuring that whether at play, in sports, flying that kite or just brooding, the round-headed kid truly endures the character-building trials of the damned…

At least she’s consistent and equally mean to all. Over these two years, her campaign to curb that weird beagle and cure her brother of his comfort blanket addiction reaches astounding heights and appalling depths – such as when she wins a school science fair by exhibiting Linus as a psychological case study.

This volume opens and closes with many strips riffing on snow, and with Lucy constantly and consistently sucking all the joy out of the white wonder stuff…

Her family ally in the Blanket War is Grandma, but that never-pictured elder’s efforts to decouple Linus from the fabric comforter that sustains him in the worst of times are becoming easier to counter, even as Snoopy’s schemes to swipe the shroud become more elaborate and effective…

Lucy also finds time to master skipping and train others in the wonders of her “jump rope”, but ultimately her unflinchingly high standards lead to accusations of “crabbiness”. The prodigy cannot, however, master the intricacies of kicking a football herself, to the woe of all around her…

Perpetually sabotaged, and facing abuse from every female in his life, Charlie Brown endures fresh hell in the form of smug, attention-seeking Frieda, who demands constant approval for her “naturally curly hair” and champions the cause of shallow good looks over substance. Even noble Snoopy is threatened, as she drags – literally – her boneless, functionally inert but still essentially Feline cat Faron into places where cats just don’t belong. When not annoying the ever-hungry, entertainment-starved beagle, Frieda constantly cajoles the unconventional hound into chasing rabbits like a real dog!

Endless heartbreak ensues once Charlie Brown foolishly lets slip his closet romantic aspirations regarding the “little red-haired girl”: a fascination outrageously exploited by others whenever the boy doesn’t simply sabotage himself…

With great effect, Schulz began assiduously celebrating more calendar occasions as perennial events in the feature: adding Mothers and Fathers’ Days, the Fourth of July and National Dog Week strips to established yearly milestones like Christmas, St. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween/Great Pumpkin Day and Beethoven’s Birthday.

Other notable events include persistent scholastic prevarications and a futile quest to attain that one elusive baseball bubble-gum card for Charlie’s set (Joe Shlabotnik, if you have a spare…), and the gang’s epic and sustained attempt to clean Snoopy’s labyrinthine multistorey doghouse.

At this time, the beagle was growing into the true star of the show, with his primary quest for more and better food playing out against an increasingly baroque inner life, wild encounters with birds, dance marathons, philosophical ruminations, and evermore popular catchphrases. Here, that sense of untrammelled whimsy leads to drama and rabies shots for Snoopy…

Sports injuries play a major role too, with baseball manager/pitcher Charlie Brown benched by “Little Leaguers elbow”, leading to a winning streak for the team. The event also spawns a late diagnosis of “eraserophagia” (nervous chewing of school pencil rubbers). At least the gang gamely rally round, with Linus becoming a lauded sporting superstar of the pitcher’s mound, whilst all and sundry are happy to scream at Charlie whenever he puts a pencil anywhere near his mouth…

The bizarre beagle magnified his strange interior development in all ways. Other than an extended Cold War duel for possession of the cherished comfort blanket, the manic mutt adapted to that darn cat and sundry rabbits but still made time to philosophise, eat, dance like a dervish, stand on his head, converse with falling leaves, play with sprinklers, befriend and battle birds, eat more, stoically brave the elements and discover the potent power of placards and marches…

The Sunday page had debuted on January 6th 1952: a standard half-page slot offering more measured fare than regular 4-panel dailies. Thwarted ambition, sporting failures, explosive frustration – much of it kite-related – and Snoopy’s inner life became the segment’s signature denouements as these weekend wonders afforded Schulz room to be at his most visually imaginative, whimsical and weird…

Particular moments to relish this time involve an increasingly defined, sharply-cornered romantic triangle involving Lucy, Schroeder and Beethoven; Charlie Brown’s backyard camping excursions; copious “pencil-pal” communications; poor penmanship; the power of television and decline of comic books; Lucy’s invention of “immoral” sporting tactics; an outbreak of tree-climbing in advance of the regular autumnal leaf collapse; horrendous rainfall; the growth of avian protest marches; Linus’ mural of the Story of Civilisation and eventual run for School President (with Charlie Brown as Veep!) and a new feature declaring what “Happiness Is…” at the start of each Sunday strip…

To wrap it all up, Gary Groth celebrates and deconstructs the man and his work in ‘Charles M. Schulz: 1922 to 2000’, preceded by a copious ‘Index’ offering instant access to favourite scenes you’d like to see again…

Readily available in hardcover, paperback and digital editions, this volume guarantees total enjoyment: comedy gold and social glue metamorphosing into an epic of spellbinding graphic mastery that still adds joy to billions of lives, and continues to make new fans and devotees long after its maker’s passing.
The Complete Peanuts © 2007, United Features Syndicate, Ltd. 2014 Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. The Foreword is © 2006, Bill Melendez. “Charles M. Schulz: 1922 to 2000” © 2007 Gary Groth. All rights reserved.