Wanted: Undead or Alive: Vampire Hunters and other Kick-Ass Enemies of Evil


By Jonathan Maberry & Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel Press)
ISBN: 978-0-8065-2821-2

Although out of my usual comfort zone and possibly beyond my usual purview, when this fascinating item thunked onto my doormat I confess I was intrigued enough to stretch a point and review it here – especially with Halloween looming large on the horizon.

Written in a wonderfully accessible style this series of essays, liberally illustrated with both colour and monochrome images, examines the concept of evil monsters and how to fight them in fact and fiction; real life and all the myriad media forms that comprise our global entertainment landscape: books, films, television and comics.

Jonathan Maberry is an award-winning factual and fiction writer with a few comicbook credits to his name and Janice Gable Bashman is a successful thriller author, and together they examine the nature of Darkness as a theoretical and philosophical concept in their introduction ‘That Whole “Good and Evil” Thing’ before moving on to recount ‘The Roots of Good vs. Evil’ and listing the prerequisites for survival in ‘Heroes and Villains’.

Vampires, how they’re interwoven into all the world’s cultures and, of course, how to combat them comes to the fore in ‘It Didn’t Start With Van Helsing’ whilst ‘Hunting the Fang Gang’ provides a comprehensive list of traditional and fictional Nosferatu-killers ranging from Bataks and Dhampyrs to Bram Stoker’s seminal crew and Buffy’s far-ranging friends and descendents…

‘Fangs vs. Fangs’ delineates the monsters who fight for Good – or at least against Greater Evils – and ‘Legendary Heroes’ recounts the brave and the bold of myth, history and fiction who have battled demons, devils and beasts, as well as far more intangible horrors. Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Rocky Balboa, Jack (“24”) Bauer, Emmeline Pankhurst and Mother Theresa are among the many examples that define this pinnacle of human-ness and the chapter also lists the worst monsters ever recorded.

‘Did You Use Protection?’ covers weapons, charms, talismans and practices that assist and arm the devil-slayers, ‘A Priest and a Rabbi Walk into a Crypt’ examines the role of various religions and belief systems and ‘Who You Gonna Call?’ takes a peek at the role of ghosts in history and entertainment.

‘Pulp Friction’ relates the growth of popular entertainment forms and how they have handled heroes and monsters(human, supernatural and even super-scientific) and the comicbook superhero phenomenon gets the same treatment in ‘Spandex to the Rescue’.

The effects of these concepts on discrete sections of the public goes under the microscope in ‘Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things’; examining conventions, fan groups, games, tattoos and skin art, Role Playing (both RPGs and LARPs) and Cosplay before the really scary section tackles ‘Real Evil’ with a comprehensive listing of Serial Killers which makes all the preceding fictional Psychos and Mass Murderers look tame and insipid by comparison…

Topped off with the Online Film Critics Society Top 100 Villains of All Time, a list of Spirit Superstitions and the Top 10 Vampire, Werewolf, Demon and Ghost Movies of all time, this superb compendium is a sublime delight for fans and thrill-seekers to dip into over and again.

Stuffed with interviews and commentary from across the spectrum of popular media including Stan Lee, John Carpenter and a host of artists, creators and designers this is a delight no fantasy fan should dare to miss.

© 2004, Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman. All rights reserved. An extended edition of this volume is also available as an ebook.

Spicy Tales Collection


By various, compiled and edited by Tom Mason (Malibu Graphics)
ISBN: 0-944735-32-0

Before the birth of the American comic-book industry the most popular mass-market home-entertainment was reading and a vast market of cheap, readily accessible pulp magazines provided escapist literature on every subject for every genre imaginable.

There’s no real artistic or literary justification for today’s featured item, and I’m not even particularly inclined to defend some of material within on historical grounds either.  Not that there isn’t an undeniable and direct link between these enchantingly tawdry vignettes and today’s comic book market of age-and-maturity-sensitive cartoons, and when taken on their own terms the stories do have a certain naively beguiling quality. Moreover the rather seedy little strips gathered here are an early turning point for the American branch of our industry for the plain and simple reason that they singled out and were aimed at grown-up readers of picture strips at a key moment before comic book even existed.

The story of how Max Gaines turned freebie pamphlets containing reprinted newspaper strips into a discrete and saleable commodity thereby launching an entire industry, if not art-form, has been told far better elsewhere, but I suspect that without a ready public acceptance of serialised sequential narrative via occasional book collections of the most lauded strips and these saucy little interludes in the all-pervasive but predominantly prose pulps, the fledgling comic-book companies might never have found their rabid customer-base quite so readily.

There were pulps for every possible genre and topic including racier “men’s adventures”; two-fisted exotic action-thrillers heavy on mildly fetishistic sadism and bondage themes, with rugged American men coming to the rescue of white women in peril from thugs and foreigners and especially saving them (the white women, of course) from “fates worse than death”, but only just in time and never before they had lost most of their clothes (the girls – well actually the Rugged American too, in many cases…). How much better than words then would a pictorial adventure seem?

One publisher in particular specialised in this niche market, producing a range of saucy genre thrillers all graced with a defining appellative: Spicy Detective, Spicy Western, Spicy Mystery and Spicy Adventure Stories. This was printer-turned-publisher Harry Donenfeld, who assumed control of some companies who couldn’t pay their print bills in 1934 and knowing pretty well what readers liked, created a Men’s Mag mini Empire under the twin banners of Culture and Trojan Publications. Of course, that’s also how he assumed control of the companies that became DC Comics less than a decade later, but the flak that eventually accrued to Trojan and Culture dictated a diametrically opposing editorial policy in 1940…

In 1943 the pressure exerted by various censorious elements in America became too much and the Trojan/Culture company changed tack and “Spicy” overnight evolved into “Speed Detective”, “Speed Western” and so forth…

This cheap and cheerful black and white compilation, neatly packaged behind a delightful Bruce Timm cover, features a couple of fascinating and informative assays from Tom Mason and John Wooley who provides background for each of the star turns revived here. The art for all of these strips was supervised if not provided by Adolphe Barreaux, through his own Majestic Studios Art “Shop” and these strips were first re-surfaced in Malibu’s Eternity Comics imprint Spicy Tales in 1989.

The major portion of this book features 24 tales of Sally the Sleuth, feisty special agent who debuted in the torrid two page yarn ‘A Narrow Escape’ wherein she lost all her clothes, but not her dignity, and with vagabond boy wonder sidekick Peanuts saved the day against vile gangsters.

Format firmly established they went on to tackle burlesque-murderers, white-slavers, fashion-poisoners, trial-tamperers, mad scientists, foreign devils and assorted criminal scum in such startling visual vignettes as ‘The Dart of Death’, ‘Crimson Menace’, ‘The Torso Murder’, ‘Maid to Order’, ‘The Spider’ and ‘Toy of Fate’. The stories are slick and minimalist, playing heavily on prevalent racial and sexual stereotypes of the era but well constructed and devilishly moreish, spanning November 1934 to October 1940.

Sally even graduated to proper comic-books for a while in the 1950s anthology Crime Smashers, drawn as ever by Barreaux.

The adroit and prolific artist also illustrated Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective, who began life as a prose gumshoe in Spicy Detective, becoming so popular that he graduated to his own title, winning himself a comic strip feature into the bargain. He even became the star of his own Tinseltown movie “Blackmail” in 1947.

The novellas and strip were written by the stunningly prolific pulp-writer Robert Leslie Bellem and the decadent glamour of Turner’s profession and location afforded the movie-land mystery-solver a longevity denied to his generally underdressed co-stars here. I don’t recall him ever having to get his kit off either…

Turner also got substantially more room to solve his pictorial puzzles – usually 6-8 pages per episode  – and is represented here 5 early cases: ‘The Murdered Mummy’, ‘Murder With Music’, ‘Zoot Suit Killers’, ‘Killer’s Foil’ and ‘Sinister Santa Claus’ all culled from Spicy Detective between January 1943 and October 1944.

One of the most intriguing and disturbing strips came from Spicy Western Stories, and launched relatively late – November 1936. Polly of the Plains was a decent girl called from the civilised East into the Wildest of Wests to manage a homestead in trouble. Once there she undergoes kidnap by Mexican bandit Pancho, is whipped, chained, tortured and generally abused for a year by all the bad things cowboy fiction contains, until the feature was abruptly dropped mid-cliffhanger in December 1937.

The first two strips were drawn by the ever-so-young Bill Everett (who would find immortality creating Amazing Man and Sub-Mariner) a few years later, then taken over by Joseph Sokoli who eschewed Everett’s mild but pretty innuendo for a far more raw, racy and graphic (mis)treatment of the harassed heroine. The strips reprinted here cover the first half of the run.

The final distressed damsel on show is Diana Daw whose fantastic exploits debuted in Spicy Adventure Stories in November 1934; the tale of a far less innocent, more competent African explorer who stumbled into a lost world of barbarian natives, hidden kingdoms, knock-off Tarzans and a forgotten colony of Crusaders. Diana gets stripped and tied up an awful lot but is by no means a frail female – she revels in her naked savagery and kills as many attackers – be they Ape, Arab or Aborigine – as any of her brawny he-men admirers…

The seven 2-page serial instalments reproduced here show a woman far more in keeping with post-millennium attitudes, most probably crafted by writer Robert Maxwell (who wrote for the Superman Radio and TV shows as well as scripting the 1951 movie Superman and the Mole Men) and illustrator Max Plaisted, collaborating under the pen-name Clayton Maxwell. The episodes here run from the introductory chapter until June of 1935.

Hard to find, difficult to justify but inarguably a vital stepping stone to our modern industry there is a rough, guilty gratification to be found in these undeniably effective little tales. This book and the era it came from are worthy of far greater coverage than has been previously experienced and no true devotee can readily ignore this stuff.
© 1989 Malibu Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman: the First Jewish Superhero


By Thomas Andrae, Mel Gordon, Jerome Siegel & Joe Shuster (Feral House)
ISBN: 978-1-932595-78-9

The comics industry owes an unpayable debt to two Jewish kids from Cleveland who were in the right place at the right time and were able to translate their enthusiasm and heartfelt affection for beloved influences and delight in a new medium into a brand new genre which took the world by storm.

Writer Jerome Siegel and artist Joe Shuster were a jobbing cartoonist team just breaking into the brand new but ailing comic-book business with strips such as ‘Henri Duval’, ‘Doctor Occult’ and ‘Slam Bradley’ when they rejigged a constantly rejected newspaper strip concept into the greatest sensation of the Age.

Superman captivated depression-era audiences and within a year had become the vanguard of a genre and an industry. In those early days the feature was both whimsical and bombastic, as much a gag strip as an adventure serial, and it was clear the inspired whiz kids were wedded to laughs just as much as any wish-fulfilling empowerment fantasies.

Siegel and Shuster were not well-served by their publishers and by 1946 no longer worked for National Periodicals (today’s DC Comics). In fact they were in acrimonious litigation which led to the originators losing all rights to their creation and suffered years of ill-treatment until an artist-led campaign at the time of the 1978 Superman movie shamed the company into a belated reversal and financial package (consisting mostly of having their names returned to the character’s logo and company medical benefits).

Before this however the pair produced an abortive “Last Hurrah”: another unique character based on early influences, but one who sadly did not catch the public’s attention in those post war years when the first super-heroic age was ending. Based broadly on Danny Kaye, Funnyman was a stand-up comedian who dressed as a clown and used comedy gimmicks to battle criminals, super-villains and aliens: first in six issues of his own comic-book and then as a Daily and Sunday newspaper strip.

A complete antithesis to the Man of Steel, Larry Davis was a total insider, no orphan or immigrant, wealthy, successful, accepted and revered by society but who chose to become a ridiculous outsider, fighting for not the common good but because it gave him a thrill nothing else could match. The series was light, beautifully audacious, tremendous fun and sunk like a concrete-filled whoopee cushion.

Here social historians Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon re-examine the strip in the much broader context of Jewish Identity and racial character, (especially as it applies to Jewish-Americans), and make some fascinating observations and postulates. Following an intriguing preface by author, writer, editor and comics historian Danny Fingeroth this book dissects the history and psychology of the Judaic experience in a compelling series of astoundingly illustrated essays gathered under the umbrellas of Gordon’s ‘The Farblondjet Superhero and his Cultural Origins’ and Andrae’s ‘The Jewish Superhero’.

The former (and Farblondjet translates as “mixed up” or “lost”) probes ‘The Mystery of Jewish Humor’, ‘The Construct of Humor in Everyday Jewish Life’, ‘The Old Theories: ‘Laughter-Through-Tears’; ‘A Laughing People’; ‘Outside Observer’ and ‘The Badkhn Theory’ (Badkhn being performers hired to insult, offend and depress guests and celebrants at social gatherings such as weddings or funerals).

‘Characteristics of Modern Jewish Humor’ are subdivided and explored in ‘Aggression’, ‘The Yiddish Language’, ‘Self-Mockery’, ‘Inversion and Skepticism’, ‘Scatology’, ‘Gallows Humor’ and ‘Solipsism and Materialism’ and Gibson’s compelling, contextual  potted-history concludes with ‘American- Jewish Comedy Before 1947’ ( when Funnyman debuted) with ‘Weber and Fields’, ‘On the Boards’, ‘The Borscht Belt’, ‘Cartoons and Jokebooks’ and ‘Hollywood Talkies and Syndicated Radio’.

In ‘The Jewish Superhero’ Andrae examines Siegel and Shuster’s possible influences; everything from German expressionist cinema masterpiece ‘The Golem: How He Came into This World’ to the real-life strongman Sigmund Breitbart, a Polish Jew who astounded the world with his feats in the early 1920s. On his American tour he appeared in Cleveland in October 1923. Siegel, a local resident, would have been nine years old…

‘Funnyman, Jewish Masculinity and the Decline of the Superhero’ then explores the psychology and landscape of the medium through the careers and treatment of Siegel and Shuster in ‘The Birth of Funnyman’, ‘The Body Politic’, ‘The Schlemiel and the Tough Jew’, ‘The Decline of the Superhero’ and ‘Comic Book Noir’ before going on to recount the story of the newspaper strips in ‘The Funnyman Comic Strip’ and ‘Reggie Van Twerp’ (a last ditch attempt by the creators to resurrect their comic fortunes) before the inevitable ‘End Game’…

So far this book has been a compulsive and hugely informative academic work, but in ‘Funnyman Comic Book Stories’ the resplendent fan fun really begins with a full colour section reproducing a selection of strips from the six issue run. ‘The Kute Knockout!’ (Funnyman #2, March 1948) pits the Hilarious Hero against a streetwalker robot built to seduce and rob Johns whilst ‘The Medieval Mirthquake’ (Funnyman #4, May 1948) propels the Comedy Crusader back to the time of Camelot. From the same issue comes ‘Leapin’ Lena’ as Funnyman tackles a female bandit who can jump like a kangaroo and #5 (July 1948) has him chasing a worrying new crime gimmick in ‘The Peculiar Pacifier’.

Also included are the striking covers of all six issues, the origin of Funnyman from #1, lots of splash pages and a selection of Shuster’s Superman art, but the most welcome benefit for collectors and collectors is a detailed précis of the entire run’s 20 tales.

The same consideration is offered for the newspaper strips. As well as similar synopses for the Sundays (12 adventures spanning October 31st 1948 to the end of October 1949) and the Dailies (another dozen larks beginning October 18th 1948 and ending September 17th 1949) there are 11 pages of full colour Sunday sections and the complete black and white ‘Adventure in Hollywood’ (December 20th to January 12th 1949) to adore and marvel over.

Like Funnyman this book is an odd duck. Whereas I would have loved to see the entire output gathered into one volume, what there is here is completely engrossing: a wonderful appreciation and compelling contextualization of genuine world-altering pioneers. This is a fabulous book with an appeal that ranges far beyond its possibly limited comic-fan audience.

Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman © 2010 Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon. All rights reserved.

Early Barefootz


By Howard Cruse (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-052-1

Howard Cruse’s remarkable cartooning career has spanned decades and encompassed a number of key moments in American history and social advancement.

Beginning as a Hippy-trippy, counter-culture, Underground Comix star with beautifully drawn, witty, funny (not always the same thing in those days – or these, come to think of it) strips, evolving over the years into a powerful voice for change in both sexual and race politics through such superb features as Wendel culminating in his masterful Stuck Rubber Baby – an examination of oppression, tolerance and freedom in 1950s America. Since then he has worked on other writer’s work, illustrating an adaptation of Jeanne E. Shaffer’s The Swimmer With a Rope In His Teeth.

Born in 1944 the son of a Baptist Minister in Birmingham, Alabama, Cruse grew up amid the smouldering intolerance of the region’s segregationist regime, an atmosphere that affected him on a primal level. He escaped to Birmingham-Southern College to study Drama in the late ’60s, graduating and winning a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship to Penn State University.

Campus life there never really suited him and he dropped out in 1969. Returning to the South he joined a loose crowd of fellow Birmingham Bohemians which allowed him to blossom as a creator and by 1971 was drawing a spectacular procession of strips for an increasingly hungry and growing crowd of eager admirers.

Whilst working for a local TV station as both designer and children’s show performer he created a kid’s newspaper strip about talking squirrels, Tops & Button, still finding time to craft the utterly whimsical and bizarre tales of a romantic quadrangle starring a very nice young man and his troublesome friends for the more discerning college crowd he still mingled with. The strips appeared in a variety of college newspapers and periodicals

He was “discovered” by publishing impresario Denis Kitchen in 1972 who began presenting Barefootz to a far broader audience in such Underground publications as Snarf, Bizarre Sex, Dope Comix and Commies From Mars from his Kitchen Sink Enterprises outfit.

Kitchen also hired Cruse to work on an ambitious co-production with rising powerhouse Marvel Comics, attempting to bring a bowdlerised version of the counter-culture’s cartoon stars and sensibilities to the mainstream via the Comix Book – a newsstand magazine. It only ran to a half-dozen issues and although deemed a failure it provided the notionally more wholesome and genteel Barefootz with a larger audience and yet more avid fans…

As well as an actor, designer, art-director and teacher, Cruse’s work has appeared in Playboy, The Village Voice, Heavy Metal, Artforum International, The Advocate and Starlog among countless others, and the tireless storyman found the time and resources to self-publish Barefootz Funnies, two comic collections of his addictively whimsical strip in 1973.

Here in this fascinatingly written memoir of those salad days Cruse movingly recounts those early triumphs and re-presents the strips that began it all, covering 1970-73, and although he has moved on to weightier material since (especially on Gay and Race issues) these splendidly whacky and deliriously charming adventures still stand among his most evergreen creations.

So here, for your consideration and delectation are the gathered exploits and ruminations of thoughtful, Nice Young Man Barefootz, his way-out friend and confidante Headrack, sexually aggressive and very forceful gal-pal Dolly and Glory: the frog-manifesting “Thing Under the Bed”, aided and abetted by an ever-changing cast of erudite cockroaches who share his apartment.

As well as the history and Cruse’s reflections, this terrific compilation includes in stunning and meticulous monochrome a selection of Tops & Button gag-panels, ‘The Head Strip’, early strips from campus journal The Crimson-White and The Alternate, syndicated Barefootz from Service Strips, Kitchen Sink single-pagers and the longer stories, ‘Tussy Come Back’, ‘Hint and Run’, ‘Cream of the Genes’, ‘It All Fits’, ‘Suffering Celeste’, the Paperman strips and ‘The Eclipse’, – a classic and unflinchingly engaging treat for any comics fan and grown-up dreamer.

For further information check out Howardcruse.com and track down this and all his other brilliant creations – before Glory turns you into a frog…
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977 & 1987, 1990 Howard Cruse. All rights reserved.

The Best American Comics Criticism


Edited by Ben Schwartz (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-148-0

If we want to have our particular objet d’art considered as valid, worthwhile and meaningful as those other peculiarly human non-survival oriented pursuits such as literature, poetry, painting sculpture, music, film and others of that ilk, it’s not enough to simply consume the product. Comics needs to be talked up, kicked about and generally deconstructed by people cleverer than us. It also needs to be done in a manner as interesting and beguiling as the art itself

Unlike me, proper critics need to be at once intensely engaged and incisively dispassionate regarding their subject; able to discuss it in a manner the rest of us can understand, and this magnificent compendium gathers together some of the most telling, pertinent and timeless considerations on sequential narrative of this century.

Naturally not everybody in our quirky community wants to spend money reading about comics rather than the items themselves, so if I can’t convince you to try this fabulous book with the absolutely true statement that “this is an immensely enjoyable read which offers you the chance to see your passion in a new light and will definitely open your eyes to new opportunities to read and collect” then please stop here.

If you’re intrigued and still with me I’ll now briefly run down the fabulous treasures in store if you do acquire this incredibly important and entrancing tome.

Divided into History, Fans, Appraisals, Reviews and Interviews, The Best American Comics Criticism covers every aspect of the industry, business and art-form, paying particular attention to that most under-estimated factor in the development of Comics: the unflinching devotees who turned a pastime into consuming passion – the readers and fans.

Brian Doherty leads off the History section with ‘Comics Tragedy: Is the Superhero Invulnerable?’ (from Reason magazine May 2001), followed by Paul Gravett’s ‘Graphic Novels: Can you Hear the Trucks?’ (Comics International March 2005) and concludes with two of R. Fiore’s Funnybook Roulette columns dealing with the aftermath of the 9/11 atrocity, ‘A Moment of Noise’ and ‘Make Me a Liar’ from Comics Journal #247 and 259 (October 2002 and April 2004 respectively).

The fascinating Fan section features ‘American Boys’, an extract from Gerard Jones’ superb Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the American Comic Book followed by a précis from the landmark judicial ruling overturning the copyright decision against Jerry Siegel, and which awarded some of the profits from the creation of Superman to the writers’ heirs, and ‘Then Let Us Commit Them’ a portion of David Hajdu’s book The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America.

This section concludes with ‘High Standards’ a cartoon examination of the fanboy phenomenon by Seth which was first seen in Wimbledon Green.

Appraisals sees a number of creators discussing other creators and their work with contributions from Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Steve Ditko, Harold Gray, Frank King, George Herriman, James Thurber, John Stanley, Charles Schulz, Will Elder, Daniel Clowes, Lynda Barry, Phoebe Gloeckner and a dissection of the Masters of American Comics exhibition with contributions from Douglas Wolk, Bob Andelman, Alan Moore, Peter Bagge, Donald Phelps, Ben Schwartz, Jeet Heer, Sarah Boxer, John Updike, Seth, Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Clowes, Ken Parille and Dan Nadel.

The Reviews section opens with Chris Ware’s ‘Töpffer in English’ (from Bookforum, April/May 2008), Rick Moody’s ‘Epileptic: Disorder in the House’ from the New York Times, 23rd January 2005, Robert C. Harvey’s ‘Fun Home: Literary Cartooning in a Graphic World’ (Rants & Raves and Comics Journal – December 2006 and February 2007).

The New York Times of June 1st 2008 provided John Hodgman’s ‘Epics (Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus; Kirby: King of Comics; Age of Bronze; Y: The Last Man)’ whilst the Amazon Customers Review Section was harvested for an anthology of contributions; ‘Was this Review Helpful to You?: Joe Matt’s Spent and the section closes with another visual treat as Nate Gruenwald pictorially examines ‘C. Spinoza’s Pacho Clokey

The final section is Interviews, with David Hajdu tracking from Carl Barks to Marjane Satrapi in ‘Persian Miniatures’(Bookforum, October/November 2004), Darrell Epp’s April 22nd posting on The Two-Handed Man website ‘It Keeps Ending Up Looking Like it was Drawn By Me: An Interview with Chester Brown’ and three Comics Journal interviews conducted by Gary Groth: Will Elder from #254, Yoshihiro Tatsumi in #281 and Kim Deitch in #292 (July 2003, January 2006 and October 2008 respectively).

A transcribed Art Festival event provided a Conversation Between Daniel Clowes and Jonathan Lethem: “I Could Relate Very Closely to Your Isolation” (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, June 12th 2005) whilst The New Art Comics HeroesCon (June 21st 2008) was the forum for Sammy Harkham & Dan Nadel’s closing discussion on the state of the Art.

With a wonderful introduction from Schwartz, loads of pictures, and a copious index and acknowledgements section this scholarly and infectiously accessible tome is just the kind of academic adjunct the comics biz needs, and therefore so do you. Don’t devour this book: pace yourself, dip in, ponder, reflect and, of course, then try out something you haven’t read before…

© 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Individual contributions are © their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Dashiell Hammett’s Secret Agent X-9


By Dashiell Hammett, Leslie Charteris and Alex Raymond (iPL)
ISBN: 0-930330-5-6-995

If you’re a fan of crime and adventure fiction or in any way familiar with the 1930’s the names Dashiell Hammett, Leslie Charteris and Alex Raymond will be ones you know. What you might not be so aware of is their brief shared endeavour on one of the most respected and beloved of American newspaper strips.

In the 1930’s the power of newspaper strips to capture and hold vast audiences was unsurpassed (see The Adventurous Decade for further details). When the revolutionary Dick Tracy launched in 1931 for the Chicago Tribune-News Syndicate, it caused a sensation, and gritty, two-fisted crime-busting heroes became the order of the day. Publishers Syndicate released Dan Dunn, Secret Operative 48 as a response in 1933, and the usually quick-acting William Randolph Hearst was forced to respond from the back foot.

He ordered Joe Connelly, head of King Features, to produce their own He-Man G-Man, and to spare no expense. That meant pursuing America’s most popular mystery writer, who luckily for them spent money like water.

Despite having just released his fifth novel The Thin Man (following The Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key), being a regular and popular contributor to Pulps such as Black Mask and having recently established himself as a major Hollywood screenwriter, the ex-Pinkerton detective was a hard-living firebrand who lived “a life on the edge” and could always use more money.

The artist was to be, after a casting call that included Will (Red Barry) Gould and major illustrator Russell Patterson, a young man named Alexander Raymond, who since working as an assistant on such popular strips as Tillie the Toiler, Blondie and Tim Tyler’s Luck, had just been signed by Hearst to produce a new Sunday strip to challenge the science fiction blockbuster Buck Rogers. As well as his own Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, Raymond would illustrate one of the most high-profile crime strips of the decade.

Secret Agent X-9 launched as a daily strip on January 22nd 1934 and ran until 10th February 1996 having been handled by some of the biggest and most talented names in comics (including a succession of writers using the King Features house nom de plume Robert Storm), artists Charles Flanders, Mel Graff – who renamed him “Secret Agent Corrigan”, Bob Lubbers, Archie Goodwin, Al Williamson and George Evans.

The hero himself was based in large part on Hammett’s first creation “The Continental Op”, who debuted in 1923 and starred in both Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, but there are also powerful touches of Sam Spade and Nick Charles (hero of but not ever ‘The Thin Man’) in the first year of continuities which introduce the ruthless, relentless detective/quasi-official agent of a nameless Federal organisation dedicated and driven to crushing America’s foes and protecting the innocent.

This collection of the first few tumultuous years begins with ‘You’re the Top’: an introductory tale of a criminal mastermind who uses murder and extortion to undermine society – a fairly common plot elevated to near genius by the sharp plotting and dialogue of Hammett, who was allowed to build the tale and unleash narrative twists at his preferred pace. This first saga took seven breathtaking months to unfold, with Raymond’s clean beautiful lines depicting victims and vamps, the highest of society and lowest of dregs and a frankly startling bodycount…

This was followed by ‘The Mystery of the Silent Guns’ wherein the anonymous X-9 comes to the rescue of a kidnapped millionaire industrialist, a breakneck thriller that ranges from the big city to the wild wide-open prairies and features a spectacular mid-air duel of guns and parachutes.

Although his work was impressive, Hammett’s lifestyle and attitude were a continuing problem for Connelly. Deadlines were missed and it was clear that the writer was bored and losing all interest in the strip. At some unspecified stage of ‘The Martyn Case’ Hammett left King Features with Raymond and unnamed writers concluded the tale of young Jill Martyn, a pawn in a custody battle between rich aunt and dissolute, destitute mother. Of course it’s not just a legal struggle once beatings, abduction and machine guns enter the equation…

Hammett plotted ‘The Torch Case Case’ but again other diverse hands brought the tale to fruition, in a smooth a sexy drama that found X-9 joining the FBI to crack a counterfeiting case. It was April 20th 1935. The next two cases, ‘The Iron Claw Case’ and ‘The Egyptian Jewel Case’ were both written by in-house scripters and for at least part of the first tale the art was “ghosted” (probably by Austin Briggs), whilst a major relaunch of the strip, which never really caught on with the general public, was undertaken.

Casting around for another major name the syndicate decided on British writer Leslie Charteris whose roguish 1928 creation Simon Templar: The Saint (in Meet – the Tiger!) had been followed by 14 immensely popular sequels by the time King Features invited him to assume control of X-9 (he wrote another 36 saint sagas between 1936 and 1978) and was poised to take America by storm thanks to a series of B-Movies starring his affable anti-hero.

Charteris added a kind of suave, capable malice to the character that any fan of James Bond will instantly recognise, but he also produced all but a handful of stories before moving on. This book concludes with his first, and the only one which Alex Raymond drew before he too left – to concentrate of the increasingly successful Flash Gordon.

‘The Fixer’ began on November 25th 1935, and saw the anonymous operative hunting down a criminal quartermaster who provided hardware and supplies for the underworld; a fast-paced whodunit stuffed with sleazy thugs and hot dames that literally rockets to an explosive conclusion.

These early tales of crime-busting and gangsters may not have satisfied Citizen Hearst’s ambitions but they were strong enough to fuel more than five decades of captivating action-packed adventure. This little known collection, produced by an academic publisher, proves (to me at least, and you if you can track down a copy) that the time has never been better for a new and complete chronological collection of this legendary strip.
Story and art © 1983 King Features Syndicate, Ltd. All other material © 1983 International Polygonics, Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion


Compiled by Brian M. Kane, with an introduction by Ray Bradbury (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-305-7

One of the greatest and most successful comic strips of all time, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13th February 1937, a glorious weekly full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto what history should have been. It followed the life and adventures of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his homeland who rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

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

Foster wrote and illustrated the strip until he retired in 1971 when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected by Foster to continue the legend. In 2004 Cullen retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of Mark Schultz and Gary Gianni ever since.

This glorious book – available in both hardback and softcover – is a complete updating of a 1992 celebratory edition, and features a complete story index and précising of the 3757 adventures to date, including a summary and overview of Val’s life; some key historic interviews and articles on the creators gathered over the years from such disparate sources as Everyday Magazine, the St Louis Dispatch and The Comics Journal covering Foster’s last recorded interview, an examination of Cullen Murphy’s pre-Valiant career, a look at the contribution of both Murphy and uncredited “ghost penciller” Frank Bolle and a brand new appreciation of Schultz and Gianni’s tenure.

A well as a copious and fascinating collection of printed pages, unpublished art, working drawings and candid photographs this superb black and white book also houses a sixteen page full-colour selection of episodes from each creator.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring Prince Valiant is a World Classic of storytelling, and this book is something no fan should be without. If however you have never experienced the majesty and grandeur of the strip this thoroughly readable and tantalising appreciation might also be your gateway to a life-changing world of wonder and imagination…

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

The Art of Hergé – Inventor of Tintin: volume 2 1937-1949


By Philippe Goddin (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-724-2

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Hergé, created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and his entourage of iconic associates. Singly, and later with assistants including Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor and other supreme stylists of the select Hergé Studio, he created twenty three splendid volumes (originally produced in brief instalments for a variety of periodicals) that have grown beyond their popular culture roots and attained the status of High Art.

On leaving school in 1925 he worked for the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siécle where he fell under the influence of its Svengali-esque editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A devoted boy-scout Remi produced his first strip series The Adventures of Totor for the monthly Boy Scouts of Belgium magazine the following year, and by 1928 he was in charge of producing the contents of Le XXe Siécle’s weekly children’s supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

He was illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonette, written by the staff sports reporter when Wallez asked him to create a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who roamed the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

The rest is history, and for such a pivotal figure who better to recount it than Philippe Goddin, friend and acclaimed expert and the man who directed the Hergé Studio research and archives for a decade?

This intermediate volume of three follows the artist’s progress week by week and year by year through the heady successes of his major creations, diarising key events, clarifying the various tasks of a jobbing periodical cartoonist and noting the key personal moments of the man’s life – such as his affair with a friend of his wife Greg and the moment he discovered his agent had been embezzling from him.

Liberally illustrated with original art, printed and retouched pages and frames, copies of the comics and magazines the strips first appeared in and many photographs this is a fascinating insight into the working process of a graphic genius. The hundreds of pencil drawing and layouts alone are priceless to anyone with aspirations of a career in comics. If only other artists had been as scrupulously meticulous in preserving the many stages of their creations!

Beginning in 1937 the chapters follow the progress and output of all five Jo, Zette and Jocko tales from The Secret Ray through to Valley of the Cobras, new Tintin from The Broken Ear and Black Island to Land of Black Gold (ten albums), and the slapstick japes of Belgian urchins Quick and Flupke (twelve volumes), plus all the revision to the previous output that kept his work fresh – and available – to his growing legion of fans.

Covering the tumultuous war years, his temporary ostracising as a “collaborator”, his depression, breakdown and return to success and popularity this is a book that no fan can be without and no would-be storyteller can fail to profit from.

Art © Hergé/Moulinsart 2009. Text © Moulinsart 2009. All rights reserved.

All in Color for a Dime


Edited by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson (Ace Books)
ISBN: 01625

(Krause Edition 1997 ISBN-13: 978-0873414982)

I tend to concentrate on the worth and validity of sequential graphic narrative, both as art-form and commercial medium, and only peripherally discuss its value as a tool of nostalgia. That’s not because it is of any lesser value, but simply a facet of the fact that nostalgia is an intensely personal and mostly subjective experience. Tintin may be a world classic but the size and feel of the oversized hardback album that instantly rockets me back to 1963 and swamps me in a sea of joyous re-sensations is something I can barely describe, let alone communicate.

But comic-books do have a shared culture: a communal history and geography, part internal landscape and continuity and part acquisition memory as thousands of dedicated fans simultaneously recall how they first joined our particular cult and culture.

This is the book that really kicked it all off for comics fandom and brought criticism of the art-form into a more professional arena. Professionally produced by fans for fans it dangled the dazzling prospect of getting involved and getting paid for it: of joining those people that made the comics. It said “It’s okay to love comics, and by the way have you seen these?”

It really began in 1965 with an industry insider: Jules Feiffer had published The Great Comicbook Heroes, a compendium and essay on historic characters of the early days of the industry, but this collection of recollections and reflections by a serious assemblage of fun-seeking writers spoke less to popular culture and more to the joy and wonder their vanished subjects had caused, and openly wished for their revival and return: these guys wanted to share the fun….

Complete with 16 pages of enticing full-colour cover reproductions and dotted with dozens of monochrome illustrations, it all starts with ‘The Spawn of M.C. Gaines’ an examination of the comic-book industry’s creation and its biggest stars Superman and Batman, from music critic, author and SF editor Ted White, whilst labour-leader, political activist and retired Military Intelligence officer Dick Ellington wrote compellingly of the innocent wonders to be found in Fiction House’s more adult oriented fare in ‘Take Me to Your Leader’, paying particular attention to the iconic Planet Comics.

Editor and author Dick Lupoff remembered the original Captain Marvel in ‘The Big Red Cheese’, Comics historian Bill Blackbeard described the glory days of Popeye in ‘The First (Arf Arf) Superhero of them All’ and journalist Don Thompson (who would dedicate decades of his life to the cause as editor of the industry’s greatest periodical The Comic Buyers Guide) conjured up magical moments with his recollections of Timely heroes evolution into Marvels in ‘OK Axis, Here We Come!’

Tom Fagan organised such successful comics-related Halloween pageants that he and his town of Rutland, Vermont became a part of four-color folklore themselves. In ‘One on All and All on One’ he outlines the history of the kids and kids gangs, writer editor Jim Harmon relates the history of the Justice Society of America in ‘A Swell Bunch of Guys’ and TV producer Chris Steinbrunner described the celluloid crossovers of comics characters in ‘The Four Panelled, Sock-Bang-Powie Saturday Afternoon Screen.’

Roy Thomas investigated the influence of Fawcett Comics legendary second stringers in ‘Captain Billy’s Whiz Gang’, writer and historian Ron Goulart explored the inexplicable appeal of ‘The Second Banana Superheroes’ and Harlan Ellison concluded the affair with paeans to surreal whimsy for the very young with an discussion of the incredible George Carlson and Jingle-Jangle Comics in ‘Comics of the Absurd’

This book opened the door for serious comics fandom, and possibly preserved what credibility the medium might have left after the painful over-exposure that came with the Camp Superheroes craze and Batmania. But it’s also a heartfelt and incisive examination of what we all love about comics and a book every fan and collector should read.
© 1970 Richard A. Lupoff and Don Thompson. All rights reserved.

The Adventurous Decade — Comic Strips in the Thirties

the-adventurous-decade.jpg

By Ron Goulart (Arlington House) ISBN: 0-87000-252-X
Softcover (Hermes Press) ISBN: 1-932563-70-9

Modern comics evolved from newspaper comic strips. These pictorial features were until very recently highly popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation – and profits. From the earliest times humour was paramount; hence the terms “Funnies” and of course, “Comics”.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924, it gradually moved from mock-heroics to light-action and became a full-blown adventure with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929), or Tarzan (which began on January 7th 1929) and Buck Rogers (also January 7th 1929) – both adaptations of pre-existing prose properties – the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good humour strips with the occasional child-oriented fantasy.

This changed in the 1930s when an explosion of action and drama strips were launched with astounding rapidity. Not just strips but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on not just today’s comic-books but all our popular fiction.

This superb book from author, historian and strip writer Ron Goulart is considered the definitive text on the decade. It outlines the development of the strips, the creators and the legacy of this most incredible creative period in the history of graphic narrative. Written with captivating enthusiasm Goulart describes the rise of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and many other science-fiction strips; aviation serials like Smilin’ Jack, Flying Jenny and all the rest; Westerns like Red Ryder and the Lone Ranger; Cops ‘n’ Robbers, Detectives and Spies (Dick Tracy, Charlie Chan, Secret Agent X-9, etc.) and straight adventure strips like Terry and the Pirates and all the wonderful rest.

The Adventurous Decade — Comic Strips in the Thirties

The Hermes Press paperback is produced in a landscape format with an addition 250 illustrations to supplement those in the hardback and highlights strips such as Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Scorchy Smith, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, Brick Bradford, The Spirit, and Don Winslow as well as lesser known examples like Bronc Peeler, Tex Thorne, Roy Powers, Dan Dunn and Tailspin Tommy. The text is also littered with contributions from Noel Sickles, Milton Caniff, Roy Crane, Alfred Andriola, Dick Moore, Mel Graff, Leslie Turner, Roy Crane, Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Chester Gould, Fred Harmon and Frank Robbins.

It’s virtually impossible for us to understand the power and popularity of the comic strip in America from the Great Depression to the end of the Second World War. With no television, far from universal usage of radio, and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most people, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. Comic strips were the most common recreation of untold millions of people who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality. This brilliant book recaptures that time with powerful effect. It is a book we should all read and hopefully it will show you just how great an entertainment medium comics can be.

© 1975, 2007 Ron Goulart. All Rights Reserved.