Walt Disney’s Donald Duck volume 21: Christmas in Duckburg (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library)


By Carl Barks, with Bob Gregory & Vic Lockman, Rich Tommaso, Digikore, Gary Leach, Erik Rosengarten, Donald Ault & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-239-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68396-299-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, and raised in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in US history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books. With cartoon studio partner Jack Hannah (another occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for an animated cartoon short into the comic book Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 in October of that year and – although not his first published comics work – it was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, Barks worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing and drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters. These included Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the legendarily nefarious Beagle Boys (1951) to supplement Disney’s stable of cartoon actors. His greatest creation was undoubtedly crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged septuagenarian and the harassed, hard-pressed not-so-silent co-star of this show.

Whilst producing that landmark, material Barks regarded himself as just a simple working guy: generating cover art, illustrating other people’s scripts when required, and contributing characters and stories to the burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Once Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his efforts – and other selected Disney strips – in the 1980s, Barks discovered a well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed. So potent were his creations that they even fed back into the conglomerate’s animation output, although all his brilliant comic work was done for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly animated series Duck Tales, heavily based on his comics output. Throughout his working life Barks was blissfully unaware that his work – uncredited by official policy, as was all Disney’s cartoon and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabid and discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, a belated celebrity began.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, which led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comics blockbuster: blending history, plucky bravado, wit and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which utterly captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been Indiana Jones

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books began collecting Barks’ Duck stuff in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing his year-by-year output in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet imagineer. These will comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. Physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and re-presenting works from 1947 – albeit not in strictly chronological release order. Today however, it’s seasonal yarn ‘Christmas in Duckburg’ that lends its title to volume 21 of this unmissable publishing event.

It begins with the eponymous full-length Holidays thriller (from Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #9; cover-dated December 1958 and scripted by Bob Gregory) as Barks’ most enduring creation Scrooge McDuck pressures Donald Duck and his miracle working nephews Huey, Louie & Dewey to head north and bring back a 100ft fir tree for Duckburg City square. This is not some aberrant act of civic largesse, but simply in response to being publicly joshed and barracked all year by obnoxious business rival “Jolly” Ollie Eiderduck who provided the previous prodigious record-breaking pine for the city’s seasonal blowout. Incensed and outraged, Scrooge gets the boys cheaply, since Donald has made another so-typical financial blunder and must find some way to pay for an entire Ferris wheel…

However, there’s no love lost between the turbulent tycoons, and as the poor young ducks head to a Canadian logging camp, enflamed ire turns to ridiculous wagers, and Jolly Ollie hires the nefarious Beagle Boys to sabotage the expedition. Nevertheless, despite their every spectacular attempt, most of the massive living monument makes it back to Duckburg, where the insidious Eiderduck has one last card to play… but so too do the ingenious nephews…

Undoubtedly, the greatest cartoon creation of legendary magnificent story showman Barks, Downy Dodecadillionaire Scrooge McDuck quickly took on a life of his own after appearing as simple throwaway miserly villain. The old coot was crusty, energetic, menacing, money-mad and yet honest and brave by his own standards and oddly lovable  and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent. He returned often and eventually expanded to fill all available space in tales from scenic metropolis Duckburg, either as star or as a motivating engine for Donald and the boys.

Another sterling creation – and ideal story cog – was super-lucky butthead Gladstone Gander: eternal foil for Donald and rival for Daisy Duck’s attentions. In ‘Dramatic Donald’ (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #217, October 1958) the fortunate one gleefully tramples all over Donald’s thespian aspirations and efforts to score a leading role in Daisy’s Halloween play, bringing out our hero’s dark side and inciting a stage catastrophe. Then, Donald’s hunt for rare and valuable marine creatures sparks a manic sea hunt and nautical chaos only curtailed by a large pod of ‘Noble Porpoises’ (WDC&S #218 November 1958).

Cover-dated February 1959, the duck tale in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #221 reveals exactly how parsimonious Scrooge was made to pay for Duckburg’s magnificent new Junior Woodchucks of the World Hall of Science in ‘Tracking Sandy’: a tale of mystery, masked and masquerading gold miners, canny nephews, investigations and a dynamic detective deduction, whilst WDC&S #219 (December 1958) offers a rare moment of failure as Donald, Huey, Louie & Dewey and even wise old Grandma Duck all fail to tame an orphan coyote in ‘The Littlest Chicken Thief’.

Donald and Gladstone clash again at ‘The Beachcombers’ Picnic’ (WDC&S #224, May 1959) where a concatenation of bizarre events and fervent scavenger hunting antics result in a rare victory for “unca Donald” after which the loco parental displays an uncanny ability to transport anything anywhere in WDC&S #222 (March 1959). Typically, however, ‘The Master Mover’ goes too far only to come a crushing cropper after guaranteeing to shift an entire zoo to a mountaintop in one afternoon! A facility for lucky accidents and the nephews’ chemistry set results in a major step forward in ballistic science… until US military intransigence and Donald’s stubbornness reduce the race for space to a ‘Rocket-Roasted Christmas Turkey’ (WDC&S #220, January 1959), in advance of the accidental savant succumbing to ‘Spring Fever’ (WDC&S #223, April). With the sun out and flowers blooming, Donald craves a quiet day’s fishing, but his rush to relax causes chaos for the kids and makes him the target of a ticket-happy game warden…

Volunteer firefighter Donald finds respect, his happy place and victory over gloating Gladstone in all-action romp ‘The Lovelorn Fireman’ (WDC&S #225 June), before Scrooge resurfaces to fall foul of satellite technology after spotting and appropriating ‘The Floating Island’ (#226, July). It turns out to be a rare bad gamble and brutally depreciating asset, after which Donald becomes proxy prey for the Junior Woodchucks in fieldcraft test ‘The Black Forest Rescue’ (#227 August), again learning the kids know their stuff and that nature abhors a smug git…

Anthology Walt Disney’s Summer Fun #2 (August 1959) provides anthropological hilarity as Donald attempts to emulate explorer-documentarians’ ‘Jungle Hi-Jinks’ without leaving the house, only to end up lost, out of his depth and impersonating a caveman in Africa before a quartet of tales bucolic pastoral tales sees Barks as illustrator only. Scripted by Vic Lockman, ‘The Flying Farmhand’, ‘A Honey of a Hen’, ‘The Weather Watchers’ & ‘The Sheepish Cowboys’ all originated in Four Color #1010 (July-September 1959): a themed anthology entitled Walt Disney’s Grandma Duck’s Farm Friends.

With movie star guests such as Dumbo, Big Bad Wolf and Gus Goose augmenting Barks regulars Gyro Gearloose, Daisy, the nephews, Grandma, Scrooge and Donald, the vignettes detail how thieving Zeke Wolf fails to impress as a stand-in scarecrow, what Scrooge learns of the true cost of buying vegetables wholesale, why goats can derange meteorological predictions and where nephews seek size-appropriate steeds for their cowboy games…

With the visual verve done with again, we move on to a cover gallery and validation as ‘Story Notes’ provides erudite commentary for each Duck tale and Donald Ault details ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’ before ‘Biographies’ reveals why he and ‘Contributors’ Alberto Beccatini, Craig Fischer, Leonardo Gori, Thad Komorowski, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone, Francesco “Franky” Stajano, Mattias Wivel and Daniel F. Yezbick are saying all those nice and informative things. We close for Christmas – and the meanwhile – with an examination of provenance with ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’ explaining the somewhat byzantine publishing schedules of Dell Comics and origin points of all the fun we’ve just had…

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, and almost all his work featured Disney’s characters: reaching and affecting untold millions of readers across the world and he all too belatedly won far-reaching recognition. You might be late to the party but it’s never too soon to climb aboard the Barks Express.
Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Christmas in Duckberg” © 2020 Disney Enterprises, Inc. “Story Notes” texts © 2020 the respective authors. “Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks” © 2020 Donald Ault. Other text © 2020 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys: The Collected Dailies and Sundays


By Albert Laws Stoffel, Mike Arens, Hy Mankin, Al, Bob, Chuck & Tom McKimson, John Ushler, Pete Alvarado, Alex Toth & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-932563-51-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Holiday Fare & Your Granddad’s Delight … 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

If you live long enough, you will either calcify into a barking reactionary nightmare-to-know or possibly spend your last days wracked with shame and guilt: an apologist for your life and loves. It’s especially true in film and comics, where suspect or devalued prior cultural modes and mores can slap happily-woke, proudly re-informed You right in the face as soon as you start.

A conscience is a wonderful thing but so is the ability to realise how components of your idealised past were not so golden and glorious for everyone. It may be hard to admit, but lots of great old stuff had ethical sell-by dates and now can’t be more than purely historical or aesthetic artefacts but not comprehensively accepted popular entertainment. So BIG NOs to race/ethnic/religious humour, sexist attitudes and exploitation, gender suppression, white/male supremacy, cultural appropriation in all forms, anything claiming to be “just banter”, and everything else I’ve missed. You literally know what I mean.

If you have a fondness or connection to any kind of cross-generational entertainment you are at risk of this phenomenon. Take a good hard listen to almost any pop song lyric from 1956  onwards and think “stalker?” And just how rapey do leading men need to be before they are seen as villains?

As an ancient Briton, I personally suffer from a nostalgic sin. I love so many comic strips where casual and pointless female nudity is a given, and periodical comics tales where chicks put on skimpy costumes just to serve sandwiches, get held captive or be told “no dear”. I have argued art-appreciation and acknowledged sublime illustrative talent but it’s still gratification via nudity…

And yet there are still comics, films, shows, records, posters and books that I will ask you to exempt, accept and explore for what I consider worthwhile reasons.

One of the most tricky subsets of this quandary is westerns. In almost every aspect and platform this overwhelmingly popular genre just can’t be defended without a raft of caveats and picky exemptions. Root and branch, westerns are a shoddy defence and inadequate alibi for brutal colonialism, constructed by victors to whitewash and justify their sins. But again, there are so, so many really entertaining ones…

If any fellow shameful hypocrites are still with me, I’m not saying some things deserve a pass because of exculpatory artistic merits, but only asking that if you admire such wonderful “guilty-pleasure” arts and stories, keep foremost in mind that what you see is not the same as what others may. The same of course applies to anyone I’ve offended with the previous pontificating paragraphs. Yes, it is your childhood, and yes it was great and did you no appreciable harm, but you are not the only past and potential consumer of such material, whether Cowboys & Indians yarns, husbands & boyfriends who’ll “be watching you” or the latest Irish or poof joke…

Moving on…

Born Leonard Franklin Slye on November 5th 1911, American – and for a while, global – cultural touchstone Roy Rogers was a hugely popular entertainer who started as a rodeo performer and singing cowboy and built an empire on a folksy yet heroic image and fictionalised life. As a singer and actor (live shows, 90 movies, radio serials and more) he was a household name even before conquering the new medium of television. From 1951-1957, Roy, wife Dale Evans, horse Trigger and faithful dog Bullet were weekly invited into everybody’s home and enjoyed a mini-empire of comic books, strips. Rogers died on July 8th 1998. Unlike many contemporary media icons, he has not sustained his celebrity much beyond his generation of fans even though his name – and Trigger’s – remain an aspect of colloquial folklore.

While at his acme, however, Roy Rogers merchandise was exemplary. Artists such as John Buscema and Nat Edson drew his comic books (which sold north of 2 million copies per issue in the late 1950s), and his personalised toy guns, archery gear and cowboy/cowgirl playsets topped Christmas shopping lists. As seen in this curated compilation, the syndicated strip drew upon gifted but usually uncredited journeymen artists like Mike Arens, Hy Mankin, Al, Bob, Chuck & Tom McKimson, John Ushler and Pete Alvarado, and employed gifted ghosts and part-timers like Alex Toth.

Running seven days a week for 12 years, Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys graced 186 papers across America. As with all Hermes volumes, the vintage material is supplemented by picture-packed essays and editorial additions. Here that begins with Foreword ‘Roy Rogers and waiting at the Newsstand’, penned by his son Roy “Dusty” Rogers Jr., and precedes Tim Lasiuta’s Introduction ‘Roy Rogers, the 1950s, and the Funnies’ offering background, context and artist biographical data amidst many glorious illustrations including painted comic book covers, candid photos, panel details, and fabulous merch items such as fan club cards, movie posters, lunchboxes, press stills, original art and more.

The storytelling (by journalist Albert Laws Stoffel), and art are exemplary, and it’s a shame this is a commemorative celebratory selection rather than complete collection. Unlike many similar western strips of the era, the Rogers experience was vaguely contemporary, and family oriented, with action and violence taking a backseat to domestic drama, humour and mysteries suitable to children.

Opening the comics section and spanning January 2nd to February 17th 1950, ‘The Shasta Valley Dam’ details daily how a local irrigation project is almost scuttled by a selfish landowner, putting ranch owner Roy and old pal/travelling salesman Willie Dooley through a gauntlet of pacy perils, promptly followed by ‘Jack Spratt’ (January 2nd to February 17th), wherein our hero helps the sheriff of Jericho capture ghostly bandit “The Stick”…

Portly but astonishingly spry and astute “Zumaho Medicine Man” ‘Two Shadow’ (April 17th – June 10th) requests the Rogers touch when his tribe are framed for crimes and dangerous recidivism next, tumultuously causing chaos all around before leading to the exposure of a rich white man’s plot to deprive the tribe of oil deposits beneath their lands.

Pausing briefly to enjoy original art for a Roy Rogers Colouring Book, comics fun resumes with ‘Chili’ (June 12th – August 5th) as Willie Dooley discovers his dream of settling down endangered when hydraulic engineers divert all the region’s waters for illicit mining. Thankfully a sharp little Mexican kid is on hand to point out a solution, but not before an uncharacteristic and violent protracted shooting battle breaks out…

More colouring book art carries us into ‘The Sheep-Cattle War’ (August 7th – September 30th) as Roy is made deputy marshal of Peace City to quell a manufactured crisis that only benefits enigmatic bandit chief The Shroud, but also somehow helps a local business casualty get even richer, after which 1950’s daily dilemmas conclude with ‘The Stagecoach Race’ (October 2nd – November 25th). The stories all very much mirror the plots of the movie and TV serials that inspired them, and this was no doubt exactly what the franchise holders and reading public wanted as in this much-told tale of rival businesses competing for a stagecoach contract with Roy in the middle of sassy, gun-totin’ owners’ daughters and evil entrepreneurs…

As with many strips of the era, Roy Rogers Dailies and Sunday strips told separate stories. Here credited to Al McKimson and in full colour is ‘The Charity Carnival’ (August 21st – November 20th 1955) as Roy ends the cheating ways of a bunch of fairground folk before joining little Chili – from March 4th to 27th May 1956 – in stopping the ‘Attempted Murder’ of a man who’s been dead for 50 years…

Covering 26th May to September 1st 1957, ‘Bride By Mail’ offers a comedy break when a woman contracted to marry a man she’s never met expresses her anger that the hubby sent her a picture of Roy instead for his own far less attractive face. Cue a disgruntled wedding party and much gun-waving until the real sender of the picture is exposed as well as his greedy reason…

The storytelling concludes with Roy exposing scuba divers mimicking sea monsters for nefarious purposes in ‘Underwater Mystery’ (24th August to November 23rd 1958) before we return to academia with Daniel Herman’s copiously illustrated essay ‘Roy Rogers and the Art of Alex Toth’, revealing the graphic maestro’s previously unheralded contributions, before ending with another tranche of ‘Memorabilia’

A treasure very much of its time, but with enough intrinsic charm and artistic merit to be worth a cautious modern revisit, Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys: The Collected Dailies and Sundays is an acquired taste that might just make a select comeback.
© 2011 The Roy Rogers Family Entertainment Corporation, reprinted with permission.  Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Ginette Kolinka Adieu Birkenau


By Ginette Kolinka, JDMorvan & Victor Matet, Cesc & Efa, Roger, Tal Bruttmann & various; translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-423-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Awful Truth That Must Be Told… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

With its world-shaking reordering of society and all the consequent, still-felt repercussions of the rise of fascism and (hopefully) temporary triumph of totalitarianism, World War II – and the apparently ongoing/slowly gaining momentum third one – remain very much in people’s minds. I fear current events may well be inviting the world to revisit and reemphasise those hard learned lessons in the months and years to come…

The role of history in avoiding repeating past mistakes has never been more crucial and -thanks to brave and talented individuals and a trend for biographical and autobiographical sequential narratives – better armed than now. One chilling yet charming case in point is this testament, detailing the life and work of a Frenchwoman who survived Nazi concentration camps and enjoyed a “normal” life before latterly dedicating her last years to educating the world and preventing the reoccurrence we’re all anticipating today…

Born in February 1925, Parisian Ginette Kolinka (nee Cherkasky) enjoyed an unexceptional early life within a large, loving, non-religious Jewish family. That changed in 1940 when the Nazis took over. Fleeing across the divided nation (half under direct German administration and half under the puppet “Vichy” regime), Ginette and her kin were inevitably captured, processed through a methodically inhuman system and sent to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Birkenau. Ginette somehow survived as so very many did not and was liberated in May 1945.

She returned to France, married and remained silent about what she endured for fifty years, but was convinced by other Shoah survivors to share her experiences – particularly with school children. Kolinka became a tireless and passionate “ambassador for the memory” of those dark days and actions. Her efforts have been acknowledged with fame and numerous accolades, including a knighthood from (and eventual officer status in) the Legion of Honour, and appointment as commander of the Ordre des Palmes académiques for services to education.

Kolinka is a major force in spreading awareness of atrocity and in 2022 her life and achievements became this engaging and compelling graphic tome thanks to writers JDMorvan & Victor Matet, illustrators Cesc & Efa and colourist Roger. Rather than further précising Kolinka’s amazing story, I’ll just say that the tone seamlessly switches from sweetly engaging to appallingly chilling (and back again) with deft ease and the narrative conceit of contrasting flashbacks of Ginette’s historical recollections with a present day trip back to camp with a group of modern-day schoolchildren is shockingly effective and powerfully evocative.

Adding academic vigour and heartbreaking veracity, the tale is appended by Tal Bruttmann’s pictorial essay ‘Ginette Kolinka: A Survivor’s Story’, detailing everything from Paris under Nazi occupation to life in the camps, supplemented by photos, sketches, recovered artefacts and family memorabilia.

This tale is a potent counterpoint to the usual shock-&-bombast approach, devoting as much time to showing how far we’ve come and what we all stand to lose if those days and attitudes are allowed to resurface. Adieu Birkenau reveals how inhumanity, stupidity and simple evil can only be defeated by endurance and will. Here, we see acknowledgment of the nigh-universally disregarded contributions of women caught up in the conflict, and how the way to win against monsters is to not to be like them and never let them win.
© Éditions Albin Michel Départment bande dessinée, 2023. All rights reserved.

Orwell


By Pierre Christin & Sébastien Verdier, with André Juillard, Olivier Balez, Manu Larcenet, Blutch, Isabelle Merlet, Juanjo Guarnido, Enki Bilal & more: translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-910593-87-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Capping what has been an already appalling month for planet Earth, (belated) news just reached us that we have lost two more of comics’ most prodigious and influential talents. You’re all busy and so am I, but we can’t let this go unremarked, so here’s a quick reminder in review form of what we can no longer enjoy and why Pierre Christin will be so missed.

We all have our heroes. One whom I apparently share with another of my most admired and revered favourites is Eric Arthur Blair, who you may know as George Orwell.

One of the most significant literary, societal, cultural and political figures of the 20th century, Orwell is also a particular fascination of comics icon Pierre Christin, co-creator of epically barbed, venerable sci fi masterpiece Valerian and Laureline. Born in Saint-Mandé on July 27th 1938, Christin studied political science at the Sorbonne and Paris Institute of Political Studies, and became a professor of French Literature at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, before penning his first barbed comics script (Le Rhum du Punch for Pilote) in 1966. Academia’s loss was literature’s gain and his stellar works have enriched us all. Christin died On October 3rd 2024.

The inveterate scholar investigator and raconteur was also – and primarily – a seditiously canny political commentator in his own right – as seen in such thought-provoking pictorial subversions as The Town That Didn’t Exist, The Black Order and The Hunting Party. He began this particular piece of literary reportage after completing a personal project investigating the world’s various functioning – if not necessarily functional – Communist regimes…

Also a writer to his core, Eric Blair was a true and ardent democratic socialist: author, critic, essayist and unflinching observer of humanity saddled with a loathing of privilege and an inescapably, embarrassingly obvious upper-class education. Blair was a solitary individual who loved people, and an angry humanist vehemently opposed to greed, stupidity, extremism, totalitarianism and oppression (equally from the Left, Right and Religious alike). He fought for his ideals during the Spanish Civil War and loathed Stalin, Hitler and probably his own and all other national leaders with equanimous passion.

The complex man’s fascinating private life is brilliantly and addictively detailed in Orwell: Old Etonian, copper, prole, dandy, militiaman, journalist, rebel, novelist, eccentric, socialist, patriot, gardener, hermit, visionary: Christin’s compelling graphic biography and appreciation primarily illustrated by Sébastien Verdier (Ultimate Agency; Le marathon de Safia; Zodiaque) with additional visual contributions from André Juillard, Olivier Balez, Manu Larcenet, Blutch, Juanjo Guarnido, Enki Bilal, colourist Isabelle Merlet and more.

Sagely divided into ‘Orwell Before Orwell’, ‘Blair Invents Orwell’ and ‘Orwellian Orwell’, with an assessment of the world ‘After Orwell’, the narrative messaging and potent documentary depictions are bolstered with adapted snatches from Orwell’s groundbreaking stories and non-fiction, plus plenty of quotes taken from the cultural witness/prophet’s diaries.

Moving, revelatory, potent and supplemented by a methodological Afterword from Christin, this is a captivating graphic triumph no fan of graphic biography or devotee of the only man to provably predict the future should be without.
Orwell © DARGAUD 2019, by Christin, Verdier. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 SelfMadeHero.

Superman – The Silver Age Dailies volume 2:1961-1963


By Jerry Siegel, Wayne Boring, Curt Swan & Stan Kaye with Otto Binder, Leo Dorfman, Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger & Robert Bernstein (IDW Publishing Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6137-7923-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would be an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. Spawning an army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reforming dramas, sci fi fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

From the outset, in comic book terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook biz, the Man of Tomorrow irresistibly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as epitome and acme of comics creation, the truth is that very soon after his springtime debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was 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 and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen and heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comic books. His globally syndicated newspaper strips alone were enjoyed by countless millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around, at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial star, headlined a series of astounding animated cartoons, become a novel attraction (written by George Lowther) and helmed two films and his first smash, 8-season live-action television show. He was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and in his future were even more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark, Smallville, Superman & Lois), a stage musical, franchise of blockbuster movies and almost seamless succession of games, bubble gum cards and TV cartoons. These started with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and have continued ever since. Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the previous 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 still do…

So it was always 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 became a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip. Superman was the first original comic book character to make that leap – about six months after he burst out of Action Comics – but only a few successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie Andrews made the jump in the 1940s and only a handful like Spider-Man, Howard the Duck and Conan the Barbarian have done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939, supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by luminaries like Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task required the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing at its peak, in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers – a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually, Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unflagging Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Siegel provided stories, telling serial tales largely divorced from comic book continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

Then in 1956 Julie Schwartz kicked off the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4 and before long costumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many publishers began to cautiously dabble with the mystery man tradition and Superman’s newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages. As Jet-Age gave way to Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a comfortably familiar icon of domestic America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comic book stories which had received such a terrific creative boost when superheroes began to proliferate once more. The franchise had been cautiously expanding since 1954 and by 1961 Superman was seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy, but also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and Justice League of America. Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the more widely-read newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolution…

This second expansive hardback collection (spanning August 1961 to November 1963) opens with a detailed Introduction from Sidney Friedfertig, explaining the provenance of the strips; how and why Jerry Siegel was tasked with retuning recently published yarns from comic books; making them into daily 3-&-4 panel black-&-white continuities for an apparently more sophisticated and discerning newspaper audience. This frequently required major rewrites, subtle changes in plot, direction and tone and – on occasion – merging more than one funnybook story into a seamless new exploit to excite and amuse sensible, mature grown-ups.

If you’re a veteran fan, don’t be fooled: the tales retold here might seem familiar, but they are not simple rehashes: they’re variations and deviations on an idea for a readership perceived as completely separate from kids’ comics. Even if you are familiar with the original source material, the adventures here will read as brand new, especially as they’re gloriously illustrated by Boring (with a little occasional assistance from Swan) at the very peak of his artistic powers. After years away from the feature Boring had replaced his replacement Swan at the end of 1961, regaining his position as premiere Superman strip illustrator to see the series to its eventual conclusion. As an added bonus the covers of the issues the adapted stories came from have been included as a full, nostalgia-inducing colour gallery…

The astounding everyday entertainments by Siegel & Boring commence with Episode #123 from August 14th to September 16th, 1961 revealing how meek Clark Kent mysteriously excels as a policeman whilst wearing a legendary old cop’s lucky tin star in ‘The Super Luck of Badge 77!’: based on one of the same name by Otto Binder & Al Plastino from Superman #133 (November 1959). Running in papers from September 18th to 5th November and first seen in Superman #126 (January 1959 by Binder, Boring & Stan Kaye) ‘Superman’s Hunt for Clark Kent’ details how a Kryptonite mishap deprives the hero of his memories, leaving him lost in Metropolis and trying to ferret out the secret of his other identity, before Episode #125 – November 6th to December 23rd – finds a restored Clark as ‘The Reporter of Steel’ (once a Binder, Boring & Kaye yarn from Action Comics #257, October 1959), wherein Lex Luthor very publicly inflicts the mild-mannered journalist with unwanted superpowers, setting Lois Lane off on another quest to prove her colleague is actually a Caped Kryptonian.

‘The 20th Century Achilles’ ran from Christmas Day 1961 through January 20th 1962, adapted from an Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan & Kaye thriller in Superman #148 (October 1961). It detailed how a cunning crook holds the city hostage to his apparent magical invulnerability whilst ‘The Man No Prison Could Hold’ (January 22nd – February 24th by Finger, Boring & Kaye from Action Comics #248, in January 1959) sees Clark and Jimmy Olsen captured by a Nazi war criminal using slave labour to construct a mighty vengeance weapon. Unbeknownst to all, the Man of Steel has good reason to foil every escape attempt and stay locked up…

An old-fashioned hard lesson informs the Kryptonian Crimebuster’s short, sharp shock treatment of ‘The Three Tough Teenagers’ (February 26th to March 31st and based on a Siegel & Plastino collaboration contemporaneously appearing in Superman #151 (February 1962)). Perhaps the headline-grabbing nature of youth in revolt was too immediate to resist? Usually timing discrepancies in publication dates could be explained by the fact that submitted comic book yarns often appeared months after completion, but here it feels like neither iteration of the franchise was willing to surrender sales-garnering topicality…

Swan illustrated portions of the Siegel/Boring strip version of ‘The Day Superman Broke the Law’ (2nd to 28th April), derived from the original by Finger & Plastino in Superman #153, May 1962. Here, the hero falls foul of a corrupt city councilman rewriting ordinances to hamper him, after which the Kryptonian became ‘The Man with the Zero Eyes’ (30th April to June 2nd from an uncredited tale in Superman #117, November 1957 and first limned by Plastino) as a space virus causes super-freezing rays to uncontrollably erupt from his eyes.

Spanning 4th – 23rd June, ‘Lois Lane’s Revenge on Superman’ grew out of a comedy tale by Siegel, Swan & George Klein in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #32 (April 1962). For adults, however, there’s a dark edge apparent as the frustrated journalist revels in humiliating her ideal man when a magic potion turns him into a baby…

‘When Superman Defended his Arch-Enemy’ – published from 25th June to August 4th as adapted from Action Comics #292 (September 1962 by writer unknown & Plastino) – sees the Metropolis Marvel acting as defence Counsel for ungrateful mad scientist Luthor after the fleeing maniac dismantles a sentient mechanoid on a world of machine intelligences…

Daily from 6th August to September 8th,‘Lois Lane’s Other Life’ retold Siegel, Swan & Klein’s tale from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #35 (August 1962) as the dauntless reporter changes her appearance to go undercover but subsequently loses her memory, after which ‘The Feud Between Superman and Clark Kent’ – September 10th to 27th October, and originally crafted by Hamilton & Plastino for Action Comics #292, with a cover-date of October 1962) depicts the two halves of the hero separated by Red Kryptonite. Sadly, the goodness and nobility are all in the merely human Clark part and he must avoid his merciless alternative fraction’s murderous clutches until the effect wears off…

First conceived by Siegel, Swan & Klein (in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #38, January 1963), ‘The Invisible Lois Lane’ was more comedy than drama, but here filled newspaper pages between October 29th and December 1st as the undetectable investigator quickly sees her quarry switch from Clark to Superman. It takes super-ingenuity to convince her otherwise…

‘The Man Who Hunted Superman’ (December 3rd 1962 to January 19th 1963) originally appeared as Leo Dorfman & George Papp’s Boy of Steel blockbuster ‘The Man Who Hunted Superboy’ in Adventure Comics #303 (December 1962), finding Clark subbing for a prince in a Ruritanian kingdom, complete with adoring and compliant princess bride, until the Action Ace could topple a highly-placed usurper and save the kingdom. Then ‘Superman Goes to War’ (January 21st to February 23rd, initiated by Hamilton, Swan & Klein in Superman #161, May 1963) as Lois and Clark visit a film-set sponsored by the US military and are inadvertently caught up in a real, but unconventional, alien invasion…

From February 25th to April 20th Red K stripped our hero of his powers, leaving ‘The Mortal Superman’ forced to fake it due to an unavoidable prior engagement in a terse reinterpretation of the Dorfman & Plastino yarn seen in Superman #160, April 1963. The Man of Steel, for good and sound patriotic reasons, allows himself to be locked up for the alleged murder of Clark Kent in ‘The Trial of Superman’ (22nd April -May 25th), seen later in its original format as Hamilton & Plastino’s thriller in Action Comics #301, June 1963.

Hardworking, obsessive editor Perry White loses his memory and falls into the clutches of criminals who use his investigative instincts to uncover Earth’s greatest secret in ‘The Man who Betrayed Superman’s Identity’ between 27th May and July 6th (adapted from Dorfman, Swan & Klein’s suspenseful romp in Action Comics #297, February 1963) whilst, with adult sensibilities fully addressed, genuine tragedy and pathos pushes Siegel & Boring’s reworking of ‘The Sweetheart that Superman Forgot’ – running 8th July to August 17th – to the heady heights of pure melodrama as Superman loses his powers, memories, and use of his legs; but meets, falls in love and loses a girl who only wants him for himself. In one of the most adult of stories of his canon, the hero recovers his astounding gifts and faculties but has no notion of what he’s lost and who waits for him forever alone: a depth of emotion the author could only dream of approaching in the Plastino-illustrated original version appearing in Superman #165 (November 1963).

Painfully locked into un-PC, sexist comedy tropes of the era, from August 19th to September 14th comes ‘Superman, Please Marry Me’ wherein a novelty record of Lois purportedly begging her ideal man to give in makes the reporter’s life a living hell in a “tweaked-for-married-readers” yarn based on Siegel, Swan & Klein’s ‘The Superman-Lois Hit Record’ in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #45 (November 1963). From the same issue, ‘Dear Dr. Cupid’ by Siegel & Kurt Schaffenberger is a light-hearted turn running from September 14th to October 12th detailing how the “news-hen’s” surprising and unsuspected gift for doling out advice as an Agony Auntie leads to a series of disturbing gifts from an unexpected admirer…

The epic escapades conclude with October 14th -November 23rd 1963’s ‘The Great Superman Impersonation’ (based on Robert Bernstein & Plastino’s Action Comics #306, November 1963) with Clark kidnapped by foreign agents who pass him off as the Man of Tomorrow to facilitate the takeover of a Central American republic: big mistake, especially as Superman is in a playful mood…

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1961-1963 is the second of three huge (305 x 236 mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Action Ace and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

If you love the era, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have – especially as there’s still no sign of any digital editions yet.
Superman ™ & © 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

The Incredible Story of Cooking – From Prehistory to Today: 500,000 Years of Adventure


By Stéphane Douay & Benoist Simmat, with Christian Lerolle, Robin Millet & Joran Tréguier, translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-340-0 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-341-7

Usually this bit is about sex or swearing, but here I’m issuing another culinary advisory. If you are vegan, squeamish or can be upset by fish, cetaceans and other really cool animals comedically killed, butchered and consumed, do not buy this book. It’s really not for you.

The purview of graphic novels and illustrated narrative has expanded to mirror every aspect of prose print and even TV broadcasting these days. One of the most engaging for me and many others is historical investigations, breezy documentaries and fact-based investigations and speculations… and even well-researched cookbooks. Here, direct from the continent via those fine folks at NBM, is a graphic treat that combines all of that…

The history and development of cuisine has fascinated most people and this bold venture agues wittily and quite convincingly that this is the most likely way it all unfolded…

Author, economics journalist and comic book writer Benoist Simmat is mostly known to us for Wine, A Graphic History which sold over 100,000 copies in France and has been translated into many languages, but if you drink poshly you might also have seen his satirical bande dessinée collaboration with Philippe Bercovici – Robert Parker: Les Sept Pêchés capiteux. The ambitious tome under review here is likely to be just as popular, especially as it is expansively limned by comics veteran Stéphane Douay.

Born in Le Havre, the picture maker tried assorted jobs – like radio operator and actor/juggler – before settling into drawing for money. He has illustrated strips for over two decades with Matiè re fantô me, Commandant Achab, Les Anné es rouge & noir, Ririri, Don Quichotte dans la Manche, and strips in several collective albums to his great credit. In 2006, he began the Matière Fantôme series. I don’t know if he or Simmat ever worked as cooks or sous chefs…

The cookery class – extravagantly footnoted throughout – commences with their ‘Foreword The Oldest Story in the World’ before carrying us back to Africa and a quick menu of the species that preceded us in Chapter 1 ‘The Slow Emergence Of Prehistoric Cuisine’. Beginning by examining the capture of fire by Homo erectus, the ice ages of 700,000-500,000 years ago and the first recorded/found recipes found in sites across Asia, the gastro-journey explores with wit, charm and a soupcon of silliness how chucking the latest killed catch onto flames, hot stones and embers not only introduced a whole new range of flavours but also kickstarted the discipline of bacterial control and food hygiene…

With the addition of plants as comestibles and/or flavour enhancers and preservatives, and scavenging increasingly supplanted by farming, the science of food had begun, and as neanderthals and homo sapiens spread across the globe, experts and specialists began carving out their own niches in tribes all advancing as cooking and eating together bound families and individuals into nascent societies…

The second chapter highlights ‘Dinner Tables Of The First Great Civilizations’, sampling moments and menus of Sumer and the origin of beer and trade; Mesopotamia, breadmaking and the invention of status-enhancing banquets; Assyria, the start of gender-specific cooking roles and Egypt’s embracing of salad as well as food for haves and have nots…

Also visited is proto-imperial China as its founders confirmed the link between food and health and formalised the cuisine that has conquered the modern world: a proud claim also true of its contemporary realms in the Indus valley who propounded a connection between certain edibles and a healthy soul, before the chapter closes with a round-up of the state of play in early African and Mesolithic American nations…

The combination of anecdotal snippets, hard archaeological fact and speculation all backed up with unearthed recipes continues in the same breezy manner, encompassing ‘Culinary Passions Of The Ancient Greeks And Romans’, ‘The Trade Routes of the Far East’, ‘Castle Life’ and ‘The New Worlds’ before offering deeper insights into modern eating habits and its politically-charged, commercially ruthless dominance as philosophically demarcated and defined in ‘Bourgeois Revolutions 1: Gastronomy’ and ‘Bourgeois Revolutions 2: Capitalist Cuisine’

From there it’s a short hop into today’s fashionably foody forum in ‘The Era Of Light Eating’ briefing on “taste activism”, macrobiotics and other fad foodisms, fair trade, fast food vs junk food, biodiversity, compassion in farming, food miles, technological advances (like microwave cookers and air fryers), the power of “Big Food”, foods that harm us, the diet industry and so much more that makes eating a political choice and how staying alive is now a balancing act between health, production, pleasure and authenticity…

Following a summation asking where it will all end and how will we get there, this fabulous buffet of fact and fun wraps up with ‘Recipes’: detailing 22 significant dishes the reader can make, culled from the historical archive and the entirety of human experience across the planet.

Graded Easy, Elaborate or Difficult and spanning recent to ancient the list opens with ‘Anti-waste Velouté – Italy’ and includes ‘Vegan Hamburger – England’; ‘Chicago Hot Dog – USA’; ‘Chow Mein Noodles – China’; ‘Cincinnati Chili – USA’; ‘Fish Ceviche – Peru’; ‘Homemade Ketchup Sauce – USA’; ‘Herring and Potatoes in Oil (Hareng Pommes À L’Huile) – France’; ‘Authentic Paella Valenciana “Mixta” – Spain’; ‘Fish & Chips – England’; ‘Woodcock Hash in Beauvilliers-style Croustade – France’; ‘The Aztec Taco – Mexico’; ‘Chicken Marengo – France’; ‘Cassava-Plantain Fufu with Mafé Sauce – Ivory Coast’; ‘Pork Vindaloo – India’; ‘Oyakodon Donburi – Japan’; ‘Maestro Martino’s Macaronis – Italy’; ‘Lamprey Pâté – France’; ‘Beef Plov – Uzbekistan’; ‘Maza Bread – Greece’; ‘Roman Garum – Italy’ before ending at the beginning with ‘Prehistoric Confit – France’

The art of food and pleasures of eating have never been better appreciated or shared than in books like these, blending fun and exoticism with the tantalising yet satisfying anticipation of gustatory consumption. Academically robust and steadfast, the book’s ‘Bibliography’ and ‘Acknowledgements’ sections are huge but fascinating, making this a simply delightful dish: an inviting comics divertissement that absolutely whets the appetite for more… and maybe a snack to accompany the ingestion…

The Incredible Story of Cooking – From Prehistory to Today © Les Arènes, Paris, 2021. © 2024 NBM for the English translation.

The Incredible Story of Cooking – From Prehistory to Today: 500,000 Years of Adventure will be published on 10th September. 2024 and is available for pre-order now. NBM books are also available in digital formats.
For more information and other great reads see NBM Graphic Novels.

Batman: The Sunday Classics 1943-1946


By Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Joe Samachson, Alvin Schwartz, Bob Kane, Jack Burnley, Fred Ray & various (Barnes & Noble/DC Comics/Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 978-1-1402-4718-2 (Album HB) 978-0-87816-148-1 (PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

If the newspaper comic strip was the 20th century’s Holy Grail, the Holiest of Holies was a full-colour Sunday page. These stunningly produced showcases for talent were delivered to families all across America and the wider world and inescapably formed part of the fabric of the mass entertainment society: demanding and generating the best of the best. Such was absolutely the case of the 1940s Batman and Robin strip: coming late to the party but developing into arguably the highest quality comics-to-strips offering of all.

Although a highpoint in strip cartooning, both iterations of the Batman feature were cursed by ill-timing. After years of dickering the daily debuted at a time when newspaper publishing was hampered by wartime rationing, and a changing marketplace meaning these strips never achieved the circulation they deserved. However, Sundays were given a new lease of life in the 1960s when DC began reprinting vintage stories in 80-Page Giants and Annuals.

The superior quality adventures were ideal action-mystery short stories, adding an extra cachet of exoticism for young readers already captivated by enjoying tales of their heroes that were positively ancient and redolent of History with a capital “H”.

The stories themselves are broken down into complete single page instalments building into short tales averaging between 4 to 6 pages per adventure. Mandatory esoteric foes include such regulars as The Penguin (twice), Joker, Catwoman and Two-Face and all-original themed villains like The Gopher, The Sparrow and Falstaff, but the bulk of the yarns offer more prosaic criminals, if indeed there is any antagonist at all. However, a policy of shorter individual story sequences means that there were 26 complete adventures for modern fans to enjoy now. especially if DC ever reprint and produce a digital edition of these classic romps…

A huge benefit of work produced for an audience deemed “more mature” is the freedom to explore human interest stories such as exonerating wrongly convicted men, fighting forest fires or discovering the identity of an amnesia victim. There are even jolly seasonal yarns…

The writers included comic book veterans Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Joe Samachson and Alvin Schwartz with art by Bob Kane, Jack Burnley and Fred Ray and inking by Win Mortimer and Charles Paris. The letterer was tireless, invisible calligraphic master Ira Schnapp and the strips were all coloured by Raymond Perry.

As with the companion Dailies collection this compendium is packed with info features and a wealth of extra features such as biographical notes, a history of the strip, promotional features and artefacts, behind-the-scenes artwork and sketches, and much more: offering history, context, appraisals, appreciations and a wealth of merchandising material courtesy of Joe Desris. These are divided into ‘Getting the Job Done’, ‘A History of the Batman and Robin Sundays’, ‘Biographies’, ‘Bubble Gum Similarities’, ‘Previous Reprintings’, ‘The McClure Syndicate’s Promotional Book’, ‘Jack Burnley’s Pencils’ plus contemporaneous article ‘Batman – Backward Looking and Forward Leaning’ by scripter Alvin Schwartz.

With far more emphasis on fun and thrills and less of murder and sinister extended-by-design skulduggery, the masked manhunters launch the Sunday sessions with Cameron – or possibly Samachson – Kane & Paris depicting ‘The Penguin’s Crime-Thunderstorms’ (weeks 1-6, November 7th – December 12th 1943). This brief introductory sally sees the Dynamic Duo thwarting the bird-based bandit’s cunning scheme to use bad weather and his patented uniquely weaponised bumbershoots to pluck penniless the most infamous miser in Gotham.

Weeks 7-10 (December 19th 1943 – January 9th 1944 by Finger, Kane & Paris) set a nautical themes as ‘The Secret of Cap’n Plankton’s Ghost’ finds our playboy heroes fishing in their civilian identities when the resort of Pirate’s Cove is raided by an ancient vessel packing very modern artillery. The robbed rich folk all believe it the last descendent of an infamous old buccaneer, but Batman and Robin find that’s not the case at all when they lower the boom on the true culprits…

Finger, Burnley & Paris produced the next dozen delights beginning with western teaser ‘Jesse James Rides Again!’ (weeks 11-15, January 16th – February 13th 1944) as a train robbery reenactment is hijacked by opportunistic modern bandits with a degree of panache after which ‘The Undersea Bank Bandits’ (16-20 February 20th – March 19th 1944) employ mining and diving techniques to plunder from below Gotham’s streets whilst ‘Liquid Gold!’ (21-26, March 26th – April 30th) finds our heroes out west helping prospector’s daughter Ruth Parker bring in her first oil well despite the machinations of a cunning property speculator…

Comedy loomed large in ‘Cap’n Alfred’ (weeks 27-31, May 7th – June 4th) as the faithful manservant dabbles in nautical lore and celebrates his family’s maritime heritage by taking a part-time job skippering the Gotham Ferry. His tenure begins in the middle of a major hijacking spree but – happily for all concerned – his usual employers had come aboard to see him shine… or not…

A truly crafty, twisty tale of cross and double-cross follows as the Dynamic Duo rush to prove the innocence of a man who claims to be ‘Death Row’s Innocent Resident’ (32-39, June 11th – July 30th) after which Jack Burnley joined Finger and Paris for a season of superb thrillers starting with ‘The Mardi Gras Mystery’ (40-46, August 6th – September 17th) as Bruce and Dick head to the Big Easy and stumble into a deadly con game turned lethal treasure hunt led by a genially murderous giant dubbed Falstaff

Back home and enjoying the bucolic delights of an upstate County Fair, the off-duty Duo discover that ‘An Attic Full of Art’ (weeks 47-53, September 17th – November 5th) left to a couple of innocent hicks is plenty of reason for city slicker art dealer Maxwell to connive, cheat and even commit murder to corner the market. Time for the other suits, lads…

The year turned with a beguiling fantasy fable as ‘There Was a Crooked Man…’ (54-61, November 12th– December 31st 1944) saw our heroes drawn into a seemingly sinister chase across the seediest sectors of Gotham in pursuit of a villain out of a nursery rhyme. There was however, a solid sensible explanation for the rollercoaster rush & tumble…

Things turn deadly serious during a visit to timber country as ‘Holy Smoke!’ (62-68, January 7th – February 18th 1945) sees a recovering pyromaniac scapegoated for a series of deliberate fires, until Batman deduces the real reason and exposes the true culprit after which humour and pathos return in ‘An English Sassiety Skoit’, (69-72, February 25th – March 18th). When a pretty con-artist impersonates Alfred’s never-seen Australian niece and looks to cash in on the Wayne fortune, Batman and Robin must intervene with breaking the old soul’s heart, but severely underestimate their manservant’s detective skills, after which the heroes head out west again and find ‘Rustling on a Reservation’ (73-78, March 25th – April 29th) whilst helping “Pueblo Indians” stop a systematic plunder spree designed to starve them out and steal their ancestral lands…

Another spate of subsurface capers signal the debut of an engineering super-criminal as ‘The Gopher: King of the Underworld!’ (79-85, May 6th – June 17th) has bandits use tunnels and building works in their thefts, leading the Caped Crusaders a merry dance down below before good old detective digging unearths the mystery mastermind.

Bob Kane returned in 15th tale ‘The Tale of the Tinker Diamond’ (weeks 86-90, June 24th – July 22nd) as a gem cutter’s son is kidnapped to force his collusion in a massive jewel heist – until Batman intervenes – after which Schwartz, Burnley & Paris open the first of eight consecutive adventures with ‘A Pretty Amnesiac’ (91-97 July 29th – September 9th). When the Gotham Gangbusters save a young woman from brutal abductors they discover she has no memory and no identifying property, marks or characteristics. With the victim still hunted by her kidnappers, the World’s Greatest Detectives must identify her and stop an unimaginable injustice from occurring…

‘Devil’s Reef’ (98-103, September 16th– October 21st) details how Batman’s cross-continental manhunt for modern-day pirates The Miller Gang coincides with and converges on Alfred’s new hobby of treasure hunting, leading to a deadly entombment and spectacular escape before The Joker breaks jail to clash with new rival The Sparrow who constantly proves herself to be ‘Gotham’s Cleverest Criminal’ (104-110, October 28th – December 9th)… until the Dynamic Duo capture them both.

A fortnight of festive fun and sugar-candy sentiment follows the faithful butler playing ‘Alfred Claus’ (weeks 111-112, December 16th – 23rd) to a group of dead-end kids before a new year beckons and begins the final newspaper cases in ‘Twelvetoes’ (113-118, December 30th 1945-February 3rd 1946). Here an underweight, under-paid beat cop is – somehow! – set to marry a millionairess, but only if an old bankrupt roué with eyes on her bank figures can be stopped from “removing” his rival in blue. Happily, Batman and Robin are on hand to aid and save the connubial underdog, before we enjoy the most influential strip story of all as ‘Oswald Who?’ (February 10th – March 10th) sees the Dynamic Duo enjoying themselves immensely escorting The Penguin around Gotham as the Wily Old Bird seeks to impress his dowager Aunt Miranda. Of course, his best efforts end with him hunted by other hoods for collaborating with the enemy and behind bars once the old lady is safely off home, but at least Batman and all of us now know the villain’s real identity… Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot: a one-off gag that has become a confirmed snippet of Bat-Lore…

‘Hotel Grandeur’ (124-129, March 17th – April 21st) set a missing person mystery in a resort building housing the population and resources of a small city, with Bruce and Batman both hunting an abducted finance minister from Europe through its labyrinthine corridors and tunnels before ‘Catwoman’s Grasshopper Chase’ (130-137, April 28th – June 16th) sees Fred Ray (Superman, Tomahawk, Congo Bill) alternating pencilling with Burnley and Win Mortimer inking Schwartz’s tale of the hunted felon going on the offensive and trying to trash Batman’s reputation for infallibility by making him a laughing stock… yet another time the Dark Knight’s strategy demands Robin dress up as girl…

Finger, Burnley & Mortimer remodelled the story of Two-Face in ‘Half Man – Half Monster’ (138-146, June 23rd – August 18th) as actor Harvey Apollo is driven mad after an acid attack whilst on the witness stand. In the newspaper strip, his subsequent crime and killing spree has no cure or happy ending after Batman is forced to stop him…

When seer and mystic Jandor is murdered live on air by robbers ‘The Curse of the Four Fates!’ (147-154, August 25 – October 13th by Finger, Burnley & Paris) that he gasps out inexorably punishes the perpetrators despite every effort of the Caped Crimebusters to catch and/or save them. The Sunday ventures conclude with Schwartz, Burnley & Paris’ brief bout of ‘Tire Tread Deathtrap’ (weeks 155-156, October 20th & 27th 1946) as a set of tracks lead to the heroes entering and escaping a cunning ambush and getting their man one last time…

This amazing compilation ends with tantalising lost treats beginning with some unattributed Batman strips from an abortive revival in ‘Later Newspaper Strips: 1953’, backed up by ‘Later Newspaper Strips: 1966’: offering Dailies from that successful venture which you can find fully collected in 3 volumes of Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays.

Also on view are ‘Later Newspaper Strips: 1978’ by Martin Pasko, George Tuska & Vince Colletta featuring Superman and Wonder Woman from Justice League based feature The World’s Greatest Superheroes plus ‘The Superman Sunday Special’ activity page by José Luis García-López and examples of the Batman strip revival engendered by the first Tim Burton movie. ‘Later Newspaper Strips: 1989’ offers segments by Max Allan Collins, Bill Messner-Loebs, Carmine Infantino (as “Cinfa”) Marshal Rogers & John Nyberg with the entire celebration closing with a discussion of (Dick) ‘Tracy’s Influence’: comparing names, locales and especially the pioneering strip’s preponderance of grotesque villains…

This lovely oversized (241 x 318 mm) full colour hardback and softcover tome was originally published in conjunction by DC Comics & Kitchen Sink Press in 1991, and is filled with death traps, daring escapes, canny ratiocination, moving melodrama, stirring sentiment and lots and lots of astounding action: in fact a perfect Batman book. It’s long past time it was back in print – and eBooked too – as it’s a must for both Bat-fans and lovers of the artform.
© 1991, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Batman: The Daily Classics 1943-1946 AKA Batman: The Dailies 1943-1946


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Don Cameron, Alvin Schwartz, Jack Schiff, Jack Burnley, Dick Sprang, Charles Paris, Stan Kaye & various (Sterling/DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4027-4717-5 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For most of the 20th century newspaper comic strips were the Holy Grail cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country and the planet with millions of readers; accepted (in most places) as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books, they also paid better. The Holiest of Holies was a full-colour Sunday page…

However, it was usually something of a poisoned chalice when original comic book stars became so popular that they swam against the tide to become syndicated strips. After all, weren’t funnybooks invented just to reprint newspaper stars in a cheap accessible form? Superman, Wonder Woman, Archie Andrews and a few others made the jump in the 1940s and many “four-color” features have done so since. One of the most highly regarded came late to the party, both in its daily and Sunday format. It was called Batman and Robin.

Although a highpoint in strip cartooning, both 1940s iterations of Batman seemed cursed – especially by bad timing. After years of negotiating, the Daily strip finally debuted during a period in newspaper publishing afflicted by war-time rationing, shortages and a volatile marketplace. Thus it never achieved the circulation it deserved, but at least some Sundays eventually won a new lease of life when DC began reprinting vintage stories in the 1960s in their 80-Page Giants and Annuals. The superior quality adult/family oriented adventures of were ideal action-mystery fare, and also added an extra cachet of exoticism for young readers already captivated by tales of their heroes that were positively ancient and redolent of History with a capital “H”.

The original printings comprising this epic hardback compilation tome were three volumes co-published by DC and Kitchen Sink Press in 1990. This 21st century re-issue is a cheaply-bound hardback easily damaged by its own bulk and poor quality stitching, so if given the choice get the trade paperbacks. Ideally of course, multimedia giant DC would release this whole collection digitally…

Each landscape TPB offered a wealth of superb background information provided by Joe Desris in his ‘A History Of The 1940s Batman Newspaper strip’. It remains in three parts, scattered throughout the book and preceding each monochrome section. Perhaps that’s best as it’s a phenomenal, near-overwhelming feat of scholarship offering history, biographies, historical anecdotes, context, critique and comparisons, a description of what was happening in the comics at the time and a mouth-watering mountain of candid photos, print and movie serial promotional material, individual essays on the creators and their strips, contributions and even merchandise memorabilia: all combining to form a fantastically informative and extensive overview detailing the strip, its antecedents and the tantalising minutiae, how it came to be and even why it never found an readership…

Nevertheless what you want is the stories, so following all that schooling comes sheer entertainment and an Introduction Week of strips by Finger & Kane with Charles Paris applying inks and crafting shading in a sequence setting the scene and revealing the secrets of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Alfred and the rest of the cast. This was used as a compulsory starter for any and every paper picking up the strip and was initially seen between October 25th to 30th 1943.

From there it’s straight into action as ‘What a Sweet Racket!’ (Finger, Kane & Paris spanning 1st November 1943 – 8th January 1944) sees the Batsignal lit, summoning the Dynamic Duo to find missing Police Commissioner Gordon…

The doughty lawman disappeared soon after visiting convict Spike Durphy at State Prison, and the con is also now gone! Although quickly recovered by the masked manhunters, Gordon has uncovered a sinister scheme to spring prisoners from jail and get them out of town. After many near-death incidents Batman and Robin realise the gang are well imbedded in Gotham and are playing more than one game, but what no one knows is that there’s a spy on the task force and the mobsters have a second scheme in play to remove their greatest enemy.

Of course the World’s Greatest Detective has already spotted a major giveaway and is ready to swoop when the time is right…

Switching from crime thriller to melodrama, second sortie ‘The Phantom Terrorist’ (Finger, Kane & Paris from 10th January to 18th March 1944) traces the macabre manoeuvres of a seeming maniac targeting dancer Rita Rollins. However, a little digging by theatregoers Wayne and Grayson exposes plenty of grudges and simmering tensions fraying the nerves of management, cast and crew; any one of whom could be the phantom saboteur spoiling the production and nearly killing many performers and audience members…

Oddly, even after devious deduction and dynamic derring-do leads to the capture of “The Terrorist”, accidents keep happening and the sleuths must think again – with some insightful input from Alfred – to stop tragedy occurring…

In pursuing a “more mature” newspaper readership editor Jack Schiff and the creators were mindful to keep supervillain appearances to a minimum and play up themes and plots familiar to movie-trained audiences. That might explain why killer-clown The Joker made an early appearance: his look was reputedly based on Conrad Veidt as tragic antihero Gwynplaine in the 1928 expressionist movie masterpiece The Man Who Laughed (itself an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel).

Again crafted by Finger, Kane & Paris and running Mondays to Saturdays from 20th March through 3rd June 1944, ‘The Joker’s Symbol Crimes’ opens with the villain in jail and seemingly suffering a psychological breakdown. It’s hard to tell with the “Clown Prince of Crime” but the situation is simply a ploy to escape and – once again at liberty – he goes on another terrifying spree based on images of symbolic value to the victims in an attempt to categorically prove his superiority to Batman. The chase leads all over Gotham and includes a fantastic sequence dangling from a clock tower that informed Bat-iconology for decades after as well as the climactic scene in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie…

It should also be noted that as a maturer feature, these Batman adventures casually included a lot more scantily clad ladies than the comic book iteration: generally actresses like Rita Rollins or, as here, svelte starlet Miss Gaylord

Big changes began with the fourth sequence as new writers delivered shorter, snappier adventures. beginning with ‘The Secret of Triangle Farm’ (5th June -12th August) by crime novelist Don Cameron. His comic book credits included Superman, Liberty Belle, Boy Commandos, Superboy, Aquaman, Congo Bill and DC western stars Pow Wow Smith, Hopalong Cassidy and Nighthawk) and with Kane & Paris he revealed here how fur thieves used their isolated spread to launder a string of brutal robberies. Mastermind The Silver Fox even managed to shoot the Darknight Detective, generating harrowing weeks of tense melodrama as he hovered between life and death. The Boy Wonder briefly worked alone until forced to recruit a lookalike Batman from the police force, but the ploy ended in shocking tragedy and ultimately a bittersweet victory when the true masked manhunter returned…

‘The Missing Heir Dilemma’ saw more radical roster changes with Alvin Schwartz (as Vernon Woodrum  and later scripter of many DC stars including Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Newsboy Legion, Aquaman, Vigilante, Slam Bradley, Tomahawk and the Superman newspaper strip), beginning the mystery with Kane pencilling the first 2 weeks before newspaper strip star/sports cartoonist Jack Burnley (Superman, Starman) replaced him. As ever Paris inked the tale which ran from 14th August to October 28th 1944.

It begins as super-slick sadistic Southern conman Percy Swann joins forces with local mobster “The Spaniel” to extend the scammer’s grift of choice by “finding” lost inheritors like Eggbert Dover. The Dynamic Duo find the petty criminal first but cannot see what benefit to major felons the job would afford… but that’s only until the real target is revealed and the long con exposed. Sadly, dying William Jenkin enjoys a miraculous recovery after Swann introduces him to the son he lost decades ago and when the located prodigal suffers pangs of conscience, steps need to be taken if the job is to succeed…

When those murderous efforts inadvertently involve Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend (nurse Linda Page) our heroes find the link they’ve been looking for and justice takes its harsh course…

The next five stories (preceded by another titanic tranche of information from Deris) originally comprised the second 1990s’ collection (covering 1944-1945) but here rolls straight on with Schwartz, Kane & Paris’ ‘The Two-Bit Dictator of Twin Mills’ (October 30th 1944 – January 27th 1945). This time dirty politics and graft are the topical topics as Bruce and Dick relocate to a nearby city and into a war between honest newspaper editor Ben Bellow and corrupt party boss Tweed Wickham. When Bellow won’t stop crusading his offices are blown up and friend/shareholder Wayne takes over the Twin Mills Sentinel and is soon finishing the job of dismantling Wickham’s all-powerful party machine. Despite the best efforts of corrupted cops, bought judges outlawing Batman & Robin, an army of cheap thugs and creepily “infallible” hired killer JoJo (based on actor Peter Lorre at his most sinister) the outcome is never in doubt. However, when JoJo feels he’s been betrayed by his employers a deadly wild card threatens to end everyone concerned on all sides…

Jack Schiff returned to his writing roots for next yarn ‘Bliss House Ain’t the Same’ (January 29th – April 28th) as Gotham suburb Midville Junction welcomes back prodigal son Martin Bliss. Sadly, his reunion at the old homestead reveals an unwanted and monstrous cuckoo in the nest and his fiery mother a virtual hostage. Fugitive poetic gangster Pomade is ruling the roost and soon “disappears” Martin’s girlfriend Corrine to further robberies involving shady gangster Skipper Keane… which is where Batman comes in as he’s just confirmed that gunman’s participation in a recent hold-up…

A classic caper of crooks, kidnaps, chases and sinister doings, the building tension culminates in an eerie subterranean pursuit and marine manhunt ending in the death of a tragic monster before Schiff, Burnley & Paris find true romance in ‘The Karen Drew Mystery’ (April 30th – July 7th). Here Bruce Wayne’s latest flighty fascination proves to be a real dark horse and his equal in ingenuity who initially frames him for murder before becoming a fellow fugitive from justice. Literally tied together Bruce and Karen hunt the real culprit with the Gotham cops dogging their heels until she brings him to the real enemy – blackmailing smuggler Mr. Wright –  and a rightful if rough and (for Bruce) unsatisfactory conclusion…

A moment of rare tranquillity opens Schwartz, Kane & Paris’ ‘Their Toughest Assignment’ (July 9th – September 1st) as Commissioner Gordon is compelled to pay off a longstanding police debt of honour and calls in Batman and Robin despite the matter having “nothing to do with crime”…

Big Ed Parker helped out the force in times of trouble and now needs to find his daughter an apartment in the city already groaning under a housing crisis caused by returning military and demobbed civilian workers all freshly out of WWII. It’s a conundrum even vast personal wealth and all the skills of the World’s Greatest Detectives can’t readily solve, and is soon complicated by equally desperate seekers competing for the premises of murder victims, upward moving millionaires and recently arrested felons.

Aso it doesn’t stay felony-free for long as even when they do find a home for Phyllis Parker it turns out to be an active crime scene and even Phyllis isn’t on the level…

Moving from wry topical humour to macabre murder mystery the same creative team detail ‘The Warning of the Lamp!’ (September 3rd – November 24th 1945) as a fishing trip lands Bruce & Dick in the heart of a mystery as fellow angler Finlay Gribbidge reels up a jacket with his name in that he’s never seen before…

Bitten by the mystery, Bruce pursues the odd coincidence and is soon wading through a complicated scam involving a cult of vegetarians led by a dubious prophet/spiritualist with his eye on a convoluted property scam. His multi-million dollar payout is almost assured and The Lamp is quite content to kill anyone in his way unless Bruce can find a way to foil him…

The third and final individual outing becomes the last section of this 40s Batman compilation, again enhanced by fascinating Bat-lore from Joe Desris (including a complete list of all the papers that carried the feature and a comparison of the comic book and strip interpretations of the Doctor Radium story).

From November 26th 1945 to February 9th 1946 Schwartz, Burnley Kane & Paris explored ‘An Affair of Death’ as a stolen car racket plagues Gotham and Bruce Wayne acts as an undercover agent of the DA’s office. Although the police arrest many lower down the chain, the endeavour prospers and Wayne agrees to buy a hot car from the enigmatic bosses. That trail seemingly leads to hulking, speech-impaired crime boss Lockjaw and his ubiquitous, obsequious major domo Echo, but something isn’t right…

In an effort to stop the interference, Lockjaw springs from jail young “gypsy” Eduardo (no such thing as Roma outside horror movies back then). The boy is already serving time for threatening the DA to protect his sister’s honour and Lockjaw tries to coerce the angry kid to get rid of his legal problems – but with no effect. Meanwhile said sister Juanita has already painfully interacted with Bruce, and when Batman follows her the truth slowly comes out, but not before the real leader captures the siblings and tries again to make them his patsies. As events spiral out of control a degree of disguise and identity trading leads to a vicious showdown and honour bloodily restored…

Jack Schiff clearly had fun great scripting ‘A Change of Costume’ (February 11th – March 23rd) for strip debutantes Dick Sprang & Stan Kaye as Gordon and Batman planned a big bust and the arrest of notorious gangster “Slugger” Kaye. The scheme involved tricking their quarry into attending a society ball he had never before missed but all the cheeky fun came as the Dynamic Duo attend dressed as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Robin was mad enough to be turning villainous heads as the glamorous Queen of France even before Slugger introduced his own “insurance policy”/escort – formidable female fighter Hammerlock Hilda. When she started laying out the attendees… all heck broke loose…

Reining in the delicious comedy Schwartz, Kane & Paris revealed how a ruthless, intrusive radio journalist Reed Parker broke all rules and abandoned ethics to trump his rivals with ‘The News That Makes the News’ (March 25th – June 1st). His scandalous scoops spoil police plans, endanger witnesses and allow the guiltiest scum in America to run free, but when he stepped over the line once too often, the government asked Batman and Robin to ferret out his sources and found a dark criminal secret at the heart of Parker’s crusade – one that could expose the Dark Knight’s other identity to the lethal glare of exposure…

Schwartz, Kane & Paris then revealed how a bridegroom on his wedding day only had ‘Ten Days to Live!’ (June 3rd – August 3rd). Cappy Wren’s shocking prognosis spurs his bride to marry him at once, but as the countdown ticks away Batman and Robin become involved when the living deadman tries to make his end meaningful by going after notorious criminals like Monty Flak

When that results in hoods and hoodlums seeking to speed up that demise, counterattacks by the Gotham Guardians result in a bonanza of arrests and big surprise happy ever after…

The law process is severely scrutinised by the same creative team in penultimate thriller ‘Acquitted By Iceberg’ (August 5th – September 21st) when the most cunning, unscrupulous and infallible defense lawyer in America sets up his shingle in Gotham and starts allowing the worst of the worst back onto its bloodstained streets. After numerous confrontations produce nothing but stalemate, Batman’s dogged determination finally overwhelms the Iceberg’s patience and when he finally steps over his own legal line, the true victor is justice…

First told in Batman #8 (1941), the last strip escapade adapts ‘The Strange Case of Professor Radium’ which told of a scientist abused by money-grubbing financial backers who turned himself into a deadly radioactive marauder. Here original writer Bill Finger with Kane & Paris radically revises, recycles and expands the moody horror as arrogant nuclear physicist Professor Knell accidently overdoses on radiation and becomes a madly murderous menace dubbed ‘Deadly Professor Radium’ (September 23rd – November 2nd). After developing a “death touch” and going on a horrific rampage of mercy-killings bringing peace and final rest to the afflicted whether they seek it or not, he meets his own end after turning the city into an abandoned ghost town, with scenes presaging the atomic monster tropes of the following 15 years. In the end it’s not the heroes who end the threat but hubris and fate…

And that was that. The daily strip incarnation of Batman and Robin closed with no fanfare and little lamentation as post-war America turned to different kinds of two-fisted champions for their family Funny Page hits. The Sunday page had already ended (on October 27th 1946) and world of regulation he-men in dire straits – but no tights and much military regalia – waited in the wings. However time and distance have showed us these are truly tales of golden vintage and inestimable value. It’s long past time this stuff was back in print, and available in digital formats too – as it’s a must for both Bat-fans and lovers of the artform.
© 1991, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Pink Floyd in Comics


By Nicolas Finet, Tony Lourenço, Thierry Lamy, Céheu, Samuel Figuiére, Alex Imé, Abdel de Bruxelles, Joël Alessandra, Gilles Pascal, Christelle Pécout, Antoine Pédron, Léah Touitou, Yvan Ojo, Toru Terada, Christopher, Antoane Rivalan, Martin Texier, Martin Trystram, Romain Brun, Will Argunas, Estelle Meyrand, Fred Grivaud, Georges Chapelle, Chandre, Kongkee, Christophe Kourita, Juliette Boutant, Afuro Pixe, Lauriane Rérolle, Pierre Vrignaud , Mathilde d’Alençon, Emmanuel Bonnet & various: translated by Peter Russella (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-336-3 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-337-0

Graphic biographies are all the rage these days and this one – originally released on the continent in 2016 – is one of the most comprehensively researched and emotionally rewarding that I’ve seen yet: part of NBM’s Music Star in Comics series guaranteed to appeal to a far larger audience than comics usually reach. It certainly deserves to and might make a perfect gift if any of us make it to the Great December fun-fest/Gig in the Sky…

If you’ve never heard of Pink Floyd there may not be much point in you carrying on past this point, but if you are open to having your mind blown visually whilst visiting wild spaces, please carry on and perhaps invest some time and effort into checking out the music too…

Still with us? Okay then…

As if cannily re-presented popular culture factoids and snippets of celebrity history – accompanied by a treasure trove of candid photographs, song lyrics, posters and other memorabilia – aren’t enough to whet your appetite, this addition to the annals of arguably the most creative and conflicted assemblage of musicians ever bundled in the back of a tour bus also offers vital and enticing extra enticements.

Author, filmmaker, journalist, publisher, educator, translator/music documentarian Nicolas Finet has worked in comics over three decades: generating a bucketload of reference works – such as Mississippi Ramblin’ and Forever Woodstock. He adds to his graphic history tally (Prince in Comics; Love Me Please – The Story of Janis Joplin 1943-1970 and David Bowie in Comics) with this deep dive into the crazed career of the ultimate cosmic explorers and rebellious cultural pioneers. His scripts of the comics vignettes compiled here are limned by international strip artists, providing vividly vibrant key moments in the band’s progress, with each augmented by photo/prose feature articles by Tony (Prince in Comics) Lourenço on chapters #1-14 and Thierry (David Bowie in Comics) Lamy for chapters #15-28.

The ever-growing show starts small and quite quietly in ‘1962-1967: Psychedelia and Light Shows’, as envisioned by Céheu with the meeting of school chums and enthusiastic Blues lovers in Cambridge. Roger Waters, Dave Gilmour and Roger “Syd” Barrett were all middle-class intellectual teens certain of succeeding in life – although no strangers to personal tragedy. However, as they progressed educationally and moved towards London – meeting Rick Wright and Nick Mason on the way – Music increasingly stole their souls…

Illustrated by Samuel Figuiére, the new band was making waves by 1965 and awash in the euphoria of first gigs by ‘1967: Dazzling Beginnings’: even taking on ardent fans Peter Jenner and Andrew King as their managers whilst they mixed fantasy, science fiction concepts and art school psychology with Avant Garde lighting effects in increasingly expansive live performances…

Alex Imé and colourist Mathilde d’Alençon depict ‘1968: A New Team’ as Mason, Waters, Wright & Syd capped off a perfect start with hit singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play with a breakthrough album Piper at the Gates of Dawn, as creative touchstone Barratt butted heads with dogmatic recording bosses and labels. Soon drugs, pressure and his own shaky mental health would push Syd into relinquishing touch with reality…

After introducing Storm Thorgerson and design specialists Hipgnosis (a lifelong secret weapon in Floyd’s conceptual arsenal), Abdel de Bruxelles’ ‘1967-1968: Syd Barrett, A Genius Struck Down’ reveals how a Rock & Roll lifestyle irreparably damaged the fragile genius who was the soul of the group and what happened with him after he left, whilst Joël Alessandra illuminates the next stage of the band’s creative growth in ‘1969 – Pink Floyd at the Movies: MORE’

Hungry to prove their creative worth and collaborative ethic, the unstoppable rise of the band is further explored in ‘1969 – A Record or Two’ by Gilles Pascal, whilst less happy film fun manifests in Christelle Pécout’s ‘1970 – Pink Floyd at the Movies: ZABRISKIE POINT’.

Internationally renowned, critically adored and hugely popular across the globe, a string of hit albums and monster tours are detailed (as Dave Gilmour returns to the line-up) in Antoine Pédron’s ‘1970 – A Cow and a Full Orchestra’ and ‘1971 – Welcome to Trippy Rock’ by Léah Touitou. Then Yvan Ojo shares the story of the world’s weirdest live gig in ‘1971 – A Day in Pompeii’, before Toru Terada depicts another astounding art-driven side project in ‘1972 – Pink Floyd at the Movies: OBSCURED BY CLOUDS’

The band’s world was about to change forever, even as internal dissent heralded a moment to pause and reflect. Christopher’s oblique approach illustrates ‘1973 – A Lunar Journey in the Form of Cosmic Validation’ as 8th album The Dark Side of the Moon elevated Pink Floyd to another level of success… and pressure.

This is counterpointed by Antoane Rivalan’s flashback moment ‘1967-1994 – Hipgnosis: Music to Look At’ and further revelations regarding Thorgerson and his designers before Martin Texier focuses on what true innovators do once they’ve done everything in ‘1971-1974 – Wavering: The Household Objects’. The answer for the group was individual endeavours and looking backwards as ‘1975 – Wish You Were Here’ by Martin Trystram honoured old mate Syd, just as internal tensions were peaking…

For years deeply politicised, antiwar activist Roger Waters had been seeking to appoint himself leader of a creative collective that didn’t want one, and his campaign to take charge – which eventually ruptured the band – really began with ‘1977 – Dogs, Sheep, Pigs’ as captured by Romain Brun. Incensed by the Falklands War but creating masterpieces despite breaking childhood bonds as seen in Will Argunas’ ‘1979-1982 – The Wall’ (album, tour and movie), the inevitable occurred in Estelle Meyrand’s ‘1983 – Break Up’

Dark days of dissolution and dispute are exposed in ‘1985 – The Great Beanpole Throws in the Towel’ by Fred Grivaud, ‘1987 – Pink Floyd Rolls the Dice Again’ by Georges Chapelle and Terada’s tour overview ‘1966-2005 – Absolutely Live’.

Reconciliatory moments triggered by time apart are seen in ‘1994 – Recapturing the Magic’ (by Chandre, coloured by Emmanuel Bonnet) as work on new album The Division Bell leads to the surviving but separate players partially reuniting for Kongkee’s ‘1996 – In the Pantheon of Rock’ before political protest movement Live 8 brought them together as seen in Christophe Kourita’s ‘1996-2005 – On the Back Burner’.

As friends and old enemies passed away with increasing frequency, their era’s end is acknowledged by Juliette Boutant in ‘2006-2012 – To its Dead, a Grateful Pink Floyd’ and Afuro Pixe’s ‘2014 – One More for the Road’, with speculative appraisal coming in ‘1967-2014 – Four Inspired Boys’ by Lauriane Rérolle and an exploration of legacy visualised in Pierre Vrignaud’s ‘2015-Infinity – Pink Floyd’s Children’…

This compelling and remarkable catalogue of cultural heritage and achievement concludes with Pink Floyd’s Discography (including all solo and off-brand releases), listings of Films, DVD, and Videos, Websites of Note, Bibliography and Recommended Reading plus a copious Acknowledgements section.

Pink Floyd in Comics is an astoundingly readable, beautifully realised treasure for comics and music fans alike: one to resonate with all who love to listen, look and fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way…
© 2022 Editions Petit as Petit. © 2024 NBM for the English translation.

Pink Floyd in Comics will be published on 13th August. 2024 and is available for pre-order now. NBM books are also available in digital editions. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful


By Darryl Cunningham (Myriad Editions)
ISBN: 978-1-91240-822-1 (PB)

Just in case you missed the last few days here’s a sly reminder of what we’ve just voted to end – at least as concerns direct involvement in public life…

There are books to read, books you should read – and some, certainly, that you shouldn’t – and there are Important books. The relatively new field of graphic novels has many of the first but still boasts precious few important books yet. Thankfully, British documentarian, journalist and cartoonist Darryl Cunningham seems to specialise in the latter and apparently never rests…

It’s hard enough to get noticed within the industry (simply excelling at your craft is not enough) but when comics does generate something wonderful, valid, powerful, true to our medium yet simultaneously breaking beyond into the wide world and making a mark, the reviews from that appreciative greater market come thick and fast – so I’m not going to spend acres of text praising this forthright, potentially controversial and damning examination of Earth’s Newest (but hopefully not Last) Dark Gods – the Super Rich.

Multi-disciplined artist Cunningham was born in 1960, lived a pretty British life (didn’t we all?) and graduated from Leeds College of Art. A welcome regular on the Small Press scene of the 1990s, his early strips appeared in legendary paper-based venues such as Fast Fiction, Dead Trees, Inkling, Turn and many others.

In 1998, he & Simon Gane crafted Meet John Dark for the much-missed Slab-O-Concrete outfit and it remains one of my favourite books of the era. You should track it down or agitate for a new edition.

Briefly sidelining comics as the century ended, Cunningham worked on an acute care psychiatric ward: a period informing 2011 graphic novel Psychiatric Tales, a revelatory inquiry into mental illness delivered as cartoon reportage.

As well as crafting web comics for Forbidden Planet and personal projects Uncle Bob Adventures, Super-Sam and John-of-the-Night or The Streets of San Diablo, he’s been consolidating a pole position in the field of graphic investigative reporting; specifically science history, economics and socio-political journalism via books such as Science Tales, Supercrash: How to Hijack the Global Economy, Graphic Science: Seven Journeys of Discovery and The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality and the Financial Crisis.

This offering details the rise and pernicious all-pervasive influence of three icons of the plutocratic ideal, all while debunking such self-deluding and damaging public myths as “self-made”, “coming from nothing” and “fair and honest”…

It opens with a pictorial Introduction outlining how late 19th and early 20th century robber barons of the Gilded Age set the scene for the rise of today’s financial overlords – and how governments responded to them…

Depicted in clear, simple, easily accessible imagery, Cunningham then deconstructs carefully crafted legends and official biographies of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, energy barons Charles & David Koch and internet retail supremo/space cadet Jeff Bezos with an even-handedness I’m not sure any other investigative author could match – or would want to.

Via an avalanche of always-attributable, deftly delineated facts and reported events, the artist delivers the very opposite of hard-hitting polemic, instead massaging and lathering readers with an ocean of appetising data allowing us make up our own minds about proudly ruthless apex business predators who have controlled governments, steered populations and reshaped the planet in their quest for financial dominance.

Best of all, Cunningham even has the courage to offer bold – and serious – suggestions on how to rectify the current state of affairs in his Afterword, and (should anybody’s lawyers or tax accountants be called upon) backs up all his cartoon classwork with a vast and daunting list of References for everything cited in the book.

Comics has long been the most effective method of imparting information and eliciting reaction (that’s why assorted governments and militaries have used them for hard and soft propaganda over the last century and a half), and with Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful we finally see that force being used against today’s greatest threat to continued existence…
© Darryl Cunningham 2019. All rights reserved.