Category: Crime Comics

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Arctic Comics


By Nicholas Burns, Jose Kusugak, Michael Kusugak, Germaine Arnaktauyok, George Freeman, Susan Shirley & various (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-98782-503-9

According to the Introduction by project instigator Nicholas Burns, this edition of Arctic Comics has been a long time coming. Springing out of his 1986 prototype comics anthology – created for the World Exposition of that year – the work here was originally intended for its 1992 sequel. Thanks to life and an astounding number of other worthy and worthwhile endeavours, that book now materialises as this superb oversized full-colour hardback album.

It certainly hasn’t suffered for the wait…

Offering a clutch of tales by creators from the far north – most of them of Inuit heritage – this Arctic Comics is a magnificent melange of mirth, murder, mythology, merriment and adventure that feels authentically hale, hearty and welcoming: gathering yarns and entertainments from a land and culture which values the power of stories…

Setting the ball rolling is a smart silent-gag strip starring Sheldon the Sled Dog who endures his own frustrating ‘Hunger Games’ courtesy of Burns before revered author, advocate, scholar and cultural proponent Jose Kusugak unites with noted Inuit printmaker Germaine Arnaktauyok to share their retelling of an Inuit creation myth when ‘Kiviuq meets Big Bee’.

Long ago in the time when men and animals were one, both could change shape and one could never be sure what you were dealing with. Kiviuq was the first man and one day he became circumstantially embroiled in the death of an able man and good provider. The dead man’s grandmother Angakkuq held Kiviuq and all the other village men equally responsible and used her magic to punish them all, luring them out to sea on a seal hunt and smashing them with a storm…

Kiviuq knew many things and survived the assault but it took many years to find his home again. Moreover, every landfall was fraught with peril such as this encounter with the eyelid-stealing woman known as Iguptarjuaq or Big Bee…

That mythological Arctic odyssey is followed by ‘On Waiting’: a poetic paean to childhood at the top of the world from author Michael Kusugak (Baseball Bats for Christmas, The Shaman) and celebrated landscape artist Susan Thurston Shirley. A moving celebration of a childhood packed with everyday delights – hunting, warm clothes, playing soccer under the illumination of the Northern Lights – is coloured with simple acceptance and edged with the pain of early loss…

Sled Dog Sheldon hilariously pops back on a snowy night – aren’t they all? – looking for ‘Any Port in a Storm’, after which Burns displays his pictorial versatility to detail romantic entanglements and sporting pride at war in ‘The Great Softball Massacre’.

Originally entitled ‘The Great Slo-Pitch Massacre’ this mini soap-opera is splendidly reminiscent of cult comedy movie classic Men with Brooms: a tale of young love gone wrong during a municipal slo-pitch tournament between deadly rivals.

In case you’re wondering, slo-pitch is like Softball or Rounders – except in the ways it differs – and is championed by beer leagues and other manful aggregations of inebriates across North America too far gone to indulge in the rigours and dangers of a real sport. It’s not Life and Death: it’s far more serious that that….

Slipping back into his Ligne Clair-informed Hergé style, Burns then introduces RCMP sleuth Constable Puqittuq and her Loyal Sled Dog Vincent in ‘Film Nord’ where the canny Inuk investigator uncovers skulduggery on a tundra movie location. Clearly shot through with weirdoes and probable perps, the long list of suspects dwindles and before long the sagacious peacekeeper discovers the victim’s death is the result of a most uncanny act…

Wrapping up the excitement is a dark and sinister eco-thriller by Burns and Winnipeg-based comicbook veteran George Freeman (Captain Canuck, Batman, Jack of Hearts, Elric: Weird of the White Wolf). ‘Blizzard House: a Future Arctic Adventure’ finds a couple of horny teenagers trapped in a prototype passive-energy wonder-house of tomorrow, even as a murderous energy baron attempts to sabotage and destroy the looming threat to his corporate cash cow…

Enthralling, astounding and beguilingly exotic, this collection of comics treasures offers tantalisingly different visions and voices that will appeal to every funnybook fan who thinks they’ve already seen everything under the sun…
Arctic Comics, the stories, characters, world and designs are copyright their respective writers and artists. This edition © Renegade Arts Canmore Ltd. 2016.

This book is available in English, Inuktitut and French editions.

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Clifton volume 3: 7 Days to Die


By Turk & De Groot, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-08-3

Seeing ourselves through other’s eyes is always a salutary experience and our Continental cousins in the comics biz are especially helpful in that respect as regards the core characteristics of being British

For some inexplicable reason most of Europe’s comics cognoscenti – most especially the French and Belgians – seem fascinated with us. Maybe it’s a shared heritage of Empires in Decline and old cultures and traditions in transition? An earlier age would have claimed it’s simply a case of “Know your Enemy”…

Whether we look at Anglo air ace Biggles, indomitable scientific adventurers Blake and Mortimer, the Machiavellian machinations of Green Manor or the further travails of Long John Silver, the serried stalwarts of our Scepter’d Isles cut a dashing swathe through the pages of Europe’s assorted strip-magazines and albums.

Clifton was originally devised by child-friendly strip genius Raymond Macherot (Chaminou, Les croquillards, Chlorophylle, Sibylline) for iconic Tintin Magazine; a doughty True Brit troubleshooter who debuted in December 1959, just as a filmic 007 was preparing to set the world ablaze…

After three albums worth of material Рcompiled and released between 1959 and 1960 РMacherot left Tintin for arch-rival Spirou and his eccentric comedy crime-fighter forlornly floundered until Tintin brought him back at the height of the Swinging London scene and aforementioned spy-boom, courtesy of Jo-El Azaza & Greg (Michel R̩gnier).

These strips were subsequently collected as Les lutins diaboliques in French and De duivelse dwergen for Dutch-speakers in 1969.

Then it was back into retirement until 1971 when first Greg (in collaboration with artist Joseph Loeckx) took his shot; working until 1973 when writer Bob De Groot and illustrator Philippe “Turk” Liegeois fully revived the be-whiskered Brit for the long haul. They produced ten tales of which this – 7 jours pour mourir from 1979 – was the fourth.

From 1984 on, artist Bernard Dumont – AKA Bédu – limned De Groot’s scripts before eventually assuming the writing chores as well, until the series at last concluded in 1995.

…But Not For Long…

In keeping with its rather haphazard Modus Operandi and indomitably undying nature, the Clifton experience resumed yet again in 2003, crafted by De Groot & Michel Rodrigue for four further adventures; a grand total of 25 to date.

The setup is deliciously simple: pompous, irascible Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton, ex-RAF, former Metropolitan police Constabulary and recently retired from MI5, has a great deal of difficulty dealing with being put out to pasture in rural Puddington. He thus takes every opportunity to get back in the saddle, occasionally assisting the Government or needy individuals as an amateur sleuth.

Sadly for Clifton – as with that other much-underappreciated national treasure Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army – he is too keenly aware that he is usually the only truly competent man in a world full of blithering idiots…

This particular tale however strays somewhat from well-trodden humour paths and indulges in some frantic action and sinister suspense bombastic whilst still resolutely going for comedy gold.

In this third translated Cinebook album – first seen in 2005 – the Gentleman Detective is notably absent as the tale opens in London at the secret Headquarters of MI-5. Veteran warhorse and ultra-capable spymaster Colonel Donald Spruce is having a little bit of a crisis…

A battled-scarred survivor of simpler times, Spruce longs for one last field mission, but is instead swamped with petty admin nonsense. That all changes in an instant as the computer boffins in charge of Betty – latest in the line of “Thinkover” super-calculators – discover a little problem.

In the age of automation, Betty controls every aspect of physical eliminations for the agency. It is an infallible electronic assassination expediter. Information on a target is fed in and Betty commences a contract, contacting outside agents to do the dirty work and providing all the details they will need to complete the commission. No hostile has ever lasted more than a week when Betty is concerned: she provides efficiency, expediency, economy and utter deniability…

Except now the harassed technos are enduring a severe tongue-lashing from Spruce who has noticed that the latest print-out is retired agency star and his old chum Harold Wilberforce Clifton. As Spruce fumes and fulminates the abashed boffins try to explain that the process is irreversible. They can’t contact the contractors to cancel the hit. Clifton is as good as dead…

With no other choice the Colonel frantically phones the retired agent and gives him the bad news. Our hero, unwilling to bow out gracefully, immediately goes on the run, using all his cunning and years of tradecraft to stay one step ahead of his faceless hunters. His stalkers however are seasoned professionals too and luck more than guile is the only thing saving him from an increasingly spectacular succession of devastating “accidents”…

Thematically far darker than previous tales, 7 Days to Die is nevertheless stuffed with hilarious moments of slapstick and satire to balance some pretty spectacular action set-pieces as frantic flight, devious disguise and even coldly calculated counterattack all fail to deter the implacable assassins. However as the climax approaches Clifton and Spruce individually come to the same stunning conclusion: this selection by Betty might not have been an accident after all…

Visually spoofing the 1970s’ original era of Cool Britannia and staidly stuffy English Mannerism with wicked effect, these gentle thrillers are big on laughs but also pack a lot of trauma-free violence into the eclectic mix. Delightfully surreal, instantly accessible and doused with serous slapstick à la Jacques Tati and deft, daft intrigue like Carry On Spying or Morecambe & Wise’s The Intelligence Men, this romp rattles right along offering readers a splendid treat and loads of to think about.
Original edition © 1979 Le Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) by De Groot & Turk. English translation © 2005 Cinebook Ltd.

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Murder by Remote Control


By Janwillem van de Wetering & Paul Kirchner (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80560-3

“Graphic novels” are utterly ubiquitous these days, even though a huge part of the population can’t or won’t differentiate between the big books we insiders mean and the flimsy, pamphlet periodicals comprising the bulk of items on sale.

Can I at least muddy the waters a little more?

Yes I Can.

Something that gathers a selection of previously-published material – strips, comicbook issues, selected stories on a theme – used to be an Album, Collection, or even, God help us, an Omnibus or Trade Paperback. These included any re-presentation of superhero sagas like Archives or Essentials, themed conglomerations like Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told or Marvel Visionaries or even the groundbreaking Cerebus “phone-book” editions.

Anything serialised in periodicals, but intended from conception to be eventually gathered into one unified form, was a graphic novel (Maus, Watchmen, Persepolis or Cerebus – confusing ain’t it?)

Any long-form tale utilising sequential narrative (A Contract with God, Sabre, Pride of Baghdad) released in one big bite is a true Graphic Novel. That’s what Will Eisner, Jim Steranko and Neal Adams were getting at when they started using the term in the late 1970s and it’s what we should mean when lobbing these terms about willy-nilly.

For every person who agrees with those categorisations, there are a dozen who violently disagree and can cite at least one package which correctly refutes and defies the definition. And because I’m a wilfully contrary pixie, I’ll just remind you that Charles Dickens published his greatest books as periodical magazine part-works before some bright spark stitched them all together in single complete editions called novels…

I don’t care: just remember all modern comics publishers crave the cachet of the term graphic novel attached to their product but it is one that has been adopted and most ardently championed by retailers and distributors who – from the moment big books of drawn stories started appearing – needed some way to pigeon-hole and differentiate them from cookbooks, coffee-table tomes, kids story-books and other releases packed with pictures.

Murder by Remote Control is a true Graphic Novel – arguably one of the very first planned and premeditated examples of the form – and after decades in obscurity you have the chance to see it in all its intended glory…

In the 1980s American comics got a huge creative boost with the advent of high quality magazines such as Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated which showcased adult-oriented material with high quality graphics and formats such as had taken Europe by storm a decade earlier.

Previous US experience of such work had been limited to the Underground Comix scene – in terms of content if not production values, at least – and the occasional independent, out-market experiment of such maverick luminaries as Wally Wood, Steve Ditko and Steranko.

When Heavy Metal premiered in April 1977 – looking very much like its French conceptual “parent” Métal Hurlant – there was precious little original American material to supplement the sumptuous continental work therein. One of the first US creators to join the magazine was Paul Kirchner (The Bus, Realms, Dope Rider), who had worked as an assistant to Wood in the early 1970s, contributing to such projects as Big Apple Comics.

Born in 1952, Kirchner was in his third year at Cooper Union School of Art in New York when Neal Adams and Larry Hama introduced him to the horror editors at DC, whose anthology titles always needed fresh blood. He thereafter assisted Tex Blaisdell on Little Orphan Annie and in 1973 joined Ralph Reese at Wood’s studio.

A young man in tune with many of the spiritual and conceptual tropes prevalent during those culturally cosmopolitan times, there was a thoughtful, underplayed intensity in his meticulously-crafted work, but Kirchner was hampered by his slow working-speed, at a time when quick turnaround always trumped artistic merit and quality. He eventually drifted out of comics to find far better-paying work in the advertising, animation and design trades.

Part of the reason for the transition is explained in his Introduction, which describes his meeting with Dutch expatriate author Janwillem Lincoln van de Wetering (The Empty Mirror, Grijpstra and de Gier crime novels, Hugh Pine (the Porcupine), Judge Dee Plays His Lute); a global-traveller and Zen Buddhist scholar who eventually settled in Maine. Under circumstances best enjoyed first hand by reading the actual Intro, the exuberant writer and jaded cartoonist met in 1981 and decided to work together on a dream project: a crime mystery in comics form…

The project took Kirchner a few years to complete but when ready for publication the real hard work began. Most publishers prefer to work in 20-20 hindsight: happy to jump on a successful bandwagon but preferring to chew off their own arms rather that risk money on being first with something new that can’t be easily categorised…

The completed work was schlepped around for two years until in 1986 Ballantine bought it. This was the period in which Maus, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman all simultaneously slapped the world in the face and the public went ga-ga for graphic narratives.

Ballantine – who had decades earlier introduced America to comicstrip paperbacks with its digest-sized collections of Mad reprints – was willing to take a chance on a mass-market edition, albeit in a diminished size and format, even though as Moord Op Afstand the tale had been a success in Holland and elsewhere as a lavish, full-sized hardback album. Despite favourable coverage from Gahan Wilson in The New York Times Book Review, the bowdlerised Murder by Remote Control sank without trace and the creators reluctantly moved on to other things.

Now, after far too long, I can retire my battered old copy since Dover have added the sublime metaphorical masterpiece in monochrome to their crucial list of rescued comics treasures, restored to its intended page size (278 x 218 mm) and with the original cover replacing the sliced-&-sampled multiple-panel mock-up of the 1986 edition…

The story itself would have been groundbreaking if it had been released in 1983 and remains decidedly off-key and devilishly off-beat. Resonances of Agent Dale Cooper, Blue Velvet and later cult entertainment icons eerily abound here…

After obnoxious property speculator Mr. Jones starts buying up sections of idyllic Maine coastline, he suddenly turns up dead in his little fishing dingy. The death occurs in full view of four residents who each might have a strong motive to remove the interloper, but the County Sheriff is extremely keen on ruling the case an accidental death.

However, his report results in the unwelcome arrival of agonisingly restrained and refined – almost emotionless – Detective Jim Brady from the Augusta Office. Cool and preternaturally calm, the self-effacing little man has a way of seeing deep into the hearts and minds of everybody, and he quickly rules it a homicide by most arcane means.

Now he’s going to stick around, probing the characters and backgrounds of the uniquely baroque quartet of suspects and undoubtedly sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong…

Informed by Zen principles, the story unfolds as Brady flamboyantly deconstructs each potential suspect, consequently uncovering far more secrets than any little rural enclave could possibly contain before reaching his conclusions.

However, even with the case closed his actions remain at odds with your run-of-the-mill Copper, and there’s one last twist still in store…

Cool, surreal and challengingly psychedelic, the plot is realised with sleek and understated panache; mixing the welcoming warmth and idiosyncratic style of Ditko’s figure-work and facial expressions with the glossy sleek glamour and factual solidity of Wally Wood. This book is a delicious treat for the eyes and a therapeutic exercise for the mind…

Supplemented by Stephen R. Bissette’s incisive and expansive Afterword ‘A Man, A Boat, A Bay, A Bite, A Beer Can…’ offering historical context and artistic commentary, this is a magnificent lost gem, rightly restored to its place in the history of our art form, but it’s also a beautifully-crafted, intellectually challenging Bloody Good Read.

Go get it.
© 1986, 2016 by The Wetering Family Trust and Paul Kirchner. Afterword © 2016 by Stephen R. Bissette. All rights reserved.

Murder by Remote Control will be published on 24th June 2016 and is available for pre-order now. Or if you still wander actual streets it might already be on the shelves of your local comic shop…

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Yoko Tsuno: the Prey and the Ghost


By Roger Leloup translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-56-4

Sublime scientific investigator Yoko Tsuno debuted in Spirou in September 1970 and is still going strong. As detailed by Roger Leloup, the astounding, all-action, excessively accessible exploits of the slim, slight Japanese techno-adventurer are amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created.

The phenomenal magnum opus is an expansively globe-girdling, space-&-time-spanning series devised by another monumentally talented Belgian maestro. Roger Leloup began his solo career after working as a studio assistant on Herge’s Adventures of Tintin. Compellingly told, superbly imaginative and – no matter how fantastic the premise of any individual yarn – always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings underpinned by authentic, unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, his illustrated epics were the forefront of a wave of strips changing the face of European comics in the mid-1970s.

This gentle revolution featured the rise of competent, clever and brave female protagonists, all taking their places as heroic ideals beside the boys and elevating Continental comics in the process. Happily, most of their exploits are as timelessly engaging and potently empowering now as they ever were, and none more so than the trials and tribulations of Yoko Tsuno.

Her very first outings – Hold-up en hi-fi, La belle et la bête and Cap 351 – were brief introductory vignettes before the superbly capable engineer and her valiant but less able male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen properly hit their stride with premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange which began in 1971 with Spirou‘s May 13th issue…

In the original European serialisations, Yoko’s exploits alternated between explosive escapades in exotic corners of our world and sinister deep-space sagas with the secretive, disaster-prone alien colonists from Vinea but, for the majority of the English translations thus far, extraterrestrial encounters have been generally sidelined in favour of epically intriguing Earthly exploits such as this sinister, spectrally-inspired crime caper…

There have been 27 European albums to date. This tale was first serialised in 1981 (in Spirou #2244-2264) and collected the following year as 12th volume La Proie et l’ombre. Due to the quirks of publishing it reached us Brits as Yoko’s third Cinebook outing: a suspenseful modern gothic thriller challenging the barnstorming boffin’s courage, resourcefulness and fundamental beliefs…

Yoko and Pol are driving through Scotland on a Highlands road as the afternoon lengthens into evening when they are forced into a ditch by a young woman throwing herself at their car. The dishevelled creature is being pursued by a pack of hounds and gang of men, but Yoko’s horror is momentarily quelled when the leader of the pursuers explains that poor Cecilia is mad…

The deranged waif begs the strangers to save her, but when her guardian Sir William – the local Laird – arrives, further answers emerge. The poor lass believes she is visited by her dead mother…

Yoko and Pol accept an invitation to stay at the castle, but stay behind to repair their vehicle before joining the party. As they change the tyre a stranger approaches, offering another side to the strange family history. An author, scientific ghosthunter and debunker, the anonymous newcomer relates how 15 years previously Cecilia’s mother Mary chose Sir Brian over another ardent suitor. The rejected swain was a self-proclaimed sorcerer named Mac Nab who prophesied the newlyweds would both die violently and that their daughter would perish before reaching her majority…

When Brian died in a strange accident, his brother William took the seat and married the grieving widow. Mary went mad when Cecilia was five and was killed in a riding accident.

In the intervening years William has tried everything to ensure the last part of the curse would never come to pass, but now at twenty, the daughter seems to have gone the way of her tragic mother. Moreover, reports abound that the sorcerer is still alive, hiding on the estate to ensure his prediction’s completion. When Yoko and Tsuno finally reach the castle they are bristling with theories and suspicions, but steadfastly refuse to give any credence to supernatural forces…

As the household convenes for supper, the visitors are astounded to find Cecilia completely recovered: almost a completely different woman, whose only problems are a short temper and tendency to forget things…

The meal is strained and fractious and ends early. Strangely tired and oddly clumsy, Yoko retires to bed but her sleep is disturbed after a veiled woman in black lures her out into the castle halls before disappearing. All that is left of her is an empty gown.

Baffled Yoko heads back upstairs and lets herself into Cecilia’s locked room. The strange girl is now eager to see her; quitting her painting to examine the dress which she claims belonged to her mother. As they talk, the women glance out of a window and Yoko sees a ghostly figure on a far parapet. It looks exactly like the portrait of deceased, tragic Mary…

Giving chase – and carefully noting that every door seems to open for her – Yoko races across the castle grounds in rapid pursuit with Cecilia trying to keep up. The chase ends in the ruins of an abbey where the technologist passes right through the apparition and realises her suspicions have been confirmed.

Even though she is unaware that sinister eyes are watching her, Yoko is pretty convinced that she knows what’s going on now…

The next day she deftly continues her investigations and makes her preparations to expose a criminal conspiracy years in the making, but has she made the foolish mistake of underestimating her opponents and incorrectly deducing who’s actually behind the murderous scheme?

Complex, devious and subtly suspenseful, this fresh take on an old plot bristles with clever clues for the attentive reader to pick-up on and delivers a splendidly crafty conclusion, once more affirming Yoko Tsuno as top flight troubleshooter, at home in all manner of scenarios and easily able to hold her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or other genre-busting super-stars: as triumphantly capable facing swindlers and murderers as aliens, mad scientists or unchecked forces of nature…

As always the most effective asset in these breathtaking tales is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail.

The Prey and the Ghost is a brilliant mystery; which will appeal to any devotee of Holmes, Marple, Castle or Scooby-Doo.
Original edition © Dupuis, 1982 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2008 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Criminal volume 4: Bad Night


By Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips (Image Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63215-260-2

Do you recall the early 1950s? I wasn’t actually there, but for comics fans it was a time of astounding promise. Every conceivable genre of funnybook could be found on US newsstands (except porn, I guess): children’s fantasies, teen comedies, licensed books, war, super-heroes, horror, science fiction and especially crime stories.

Bad guys living (and dying) bad lives were everywhere, and don’t even get me started on movies. Technicolorâ„¢ was still expensive so the concerns and sensibilities of the public were most commonly realised through gritty, grainy, moody Film Noir vehicles.

This populist pulp-paperback and B-Movie movement towards cynical post-war realism grew into an art form all its own while nobody was looking…

What has this to do with the book in question? Nothing really except that when this series first came out the comics industry was enjoying a mini-revival and resurgence of straight crime thrillers. Moreover, collaborators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips were then forging a creative partnership that seemed incapable of setting a foot wrong: each stand-alone story arc building on the previous caper, getting tougher, stronger, meaner and better…

The entire series was repackaged and re-released as a uniform set of trade paperbacks in 2015 with this fourth captivating collection featuring Criminal volume 2 #4-7 (July-November 2008) – possibly the most experimental tale in the entire canon.

Jacob Kurtz has got a lot of rage to deal with. The mild-mannered sap was never an angel. In fact he used to be a pretty good counterfeiter. However, when his wife disappeared he was the cops’ prime suspect in her murder until the body finally turned up, clearly the result of an automobile accident.

In the meantime of course Jake had been targeted by remorseless, hard-line Police Detective Max Starr, who had gone totally old school on him to secure a confession the widower could not make. Those injuries healed pretty quickly but were nothing compared to what his wife’s mobster uncle Sebastian Hyde did to him…

Crippled, ostracised and a total recluse, these days Jacob spends his time and makes his living crafting the savagely ironic comic strip Frank Kafka, Private Eye, gaining petty points by making the cops – especially the funnybook version of Starr – look like utter idiots.

Still, things are tough. Kurtz is in constant pain and afflicted with crippling insomnia, and even when he does drop off for a couple of hours the idiot vigilante haunting his neighbourhood pulls some crazy stunt like torching a drug-house and another night gets shot to hell…

When all else fails, Jacob heads for the all-night Blue Fly Diner to pass the time reading and shooting the breeze with Bob and Pat…

This one Bad Night, however, even that surcease is denied him as a young punk starts beating on the girl he’s with and Jacob is drawn in. Nobody thanks him for it; not the girl and certainly not cartoon super-Dick Frank Kafka who is always beside him, annoyingly telling the pen-pusher what a real man would have done…

Driving home in the pouring rain, Jacob picks up a drenched hitchhiker and is horrified to discover it’s the girl from the diner…

And so starts a devious and convoluted saga of sexual obsession, subterfuge, big scores, torture and vengeance as she seduces Jacob into theft and murder and far, far worse. Iris is a crazy lady with lots of problems and a body to die for, but she’s working to someone else’s hidden agenda and, after all the double-dealing and bloodletting peaks, the slick conspirators learn a dreadful truth: it’s Noir; everybody’s got a secret they haven’t shared yet…

What they should have wondered from the start is where would a counterfeiter-turned-cartoonist could learn so much about violent crime… and especially how to get rid of bodies?

Filled with twists, turns and even the occasional stunning plot-somersault, this viciously effective and deceptively scary yarn is dark, brutal and fearfully compelling: a tale of the other side of society which affords an irresistible view of raw humanity. These are stories that can’t be ignored… so don’t.
© 2008, 2015 Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. All rights reserved.

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Clifton volume 2: The Laughing Thief


By De Groot & Turk, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-07-4

For some inexplicable reason most of Europe’s comics cognoscenti – most especially the French and Belgians – seem fascinated with us Brits. Maybe it’s our shared heritage of Empires lost and cultures in transition? An earlier age would have claimed it’s simply a case of “Know your Enemy”…

Whether we look at Anglo air ace Biggles, indomitable adventurers Blake and Mortimer, the Machiavellian machinations of Green Manor or even the further travails of Long John Silver, the serried stalwarts of our Scepter’d Isles cut a dashing swathe through the pages of the Continent’s assorted magazines and albums.

And then there’s Clifton…

Originally devised by child-friendly strip genius Raymond Macherot (Chaminou, Les croquillards, Chlorophylle, Sibylline) for iconic Tintin Magazine, the doughty True Brit troubleshooter first appeared in December 1959. After three albums worth of material Рcompiled and released between 1959 and 1960 РMacherot left Tintin for arch-rival Spirou and his eccentric comedy crime-fighter sadly floundered until Tintin brought him back at the height of the Swinging London scene, courtesy of Jo-El Azaza & Greg (Michel R̩gnier).

These strips were subsequently collected as Les lutins diaboliques in French and De duivelse dwergen for Dutch-speakers in 1969.

Then it was back into retirement until the early 1970s when writer Bob De Groot and illustrator Philippe “Turk” Liegeois revived Clifton for the long haul, producing ten tales of which this – Le voleur qui rit – Clifton from 1973 – was their second collaboration.

Thereafter, from 1984 on, artist Bernard Dumont – AKA Bédu – limned De Groot’s scripts before eventually assuming the writing chores as well, until the series ended in 1995. In keeping with its rather haphazard nature and typically undying nature, the Clifton experience resumed once again in 2003, crafted by De Groot and Michel Rodrigue in four further adventures; a grand total of 25 to date.

The setup is deliciously simple: pompous and irascible Colonel Sir Harold Wilberforce Clifton, ex-RAF, former Metropolitan police Constabulary and recently retired from MI5, has a great deal of difficulty dealing with being put out to pasture in rural Puddington. He thus takes every opportunity to get back in the saddle, occasionally assisting the Government or needy individuals as an amateur sleuth.

Sadly for Clifton – as with that other much-underappreciated national treasure Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army – he is too keenly aware that he is usually the only truly competent man in a world full of blithering idiots…

In this second translated album – first seen in 2005 – the Gentleman Detective is embroiled in not one but two uncanny incidences, beginning with eponymous epic ‘The Laughing Thief’ wherein the still much-missed lawman rather forcefully inserts himself into a current case baffling Scotland Yard.

London is being wracked by devilishly clever crimes executed with infallible precision by a crack crew of blaggers, but the profits of each caper seem far below what such expert criminals should be bothering with. Moreover, each perfectly executed heist is preceded by a telephone warning from a braying braggart with the most annoying and distinctive laugh imaginable…

The crooks are incredibly bold and arrogant. Even after Clifton intervenes in the second robbery, the scoundrels easily outwit him, leave the dapper sleuth unconscious with dozens of other peculiarly proud and strangely supportive victims…

Moreover, although police “higher-ups” welcome Clifton’s help, officer-in-charge Lieutenant Hardfeeling doesn’t want the show-stealer around and is doing all he can to impede the Colonel’s investigations, despite the protests of his senior colleagues and the bobbies on the beat…

Nevertheless, persistence is its own reward, and when Clifton finally deduces the true reasons for the publicity-seeking crime-spree the resultant confrontation is both spectacularly satisfying and hilariously rewarding…

Being British and an ex-spy, Clifton has hung on to the odd gadget or two, such as an amazingly tricked out umbrella which plays a major part in this volume’s second tale ‘The Mystery of the Running Voice’. A suspenseful spooky yarn, it begins when the unhappy retiree meets old comrade Donald McDonald Muckyduck, who appears to have worn out every vestige of verve and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown…

Close consultation reveals that the former police Inspector is being haunted by a robber ghost; one that has already claimed six victims. However upon viewing the crime scene photos Clifton gains an inkling into how the trick is done and temporarily moves to bucolic village Flatfish-on-Apron, setting himself up as bait for a diabolical genius with a penchant for clever gimmicks…

Visually spoofing Swinging Sixties London and staidly stuffy English Manners with wicked effect, these gentle thrillers are big on laughs but also pack a lot of consequence-free action into their eclectic mix. Delightfully surreal, instantly accessible and doused with daft slapstick à la Jacques Tati and intrigue like Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, this brace of romps rattle along in the grand old tradition of Will Hay, Terry-Thomas and Alistair Sim – or Wallace and Gromit if you’re a callow yoof – offering readers a splendid treat and loads of timeless laughs.
Original edition © 1973 Le Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 1988 by De Groot & Turk. English translation © 2005 Cinebook Ltd.

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Small Press Sunday

I started out in this game when marks on paper were considered Cutting Edge, making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow weirdoes, outcasts and comics addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets still gets me going in ways that threatens my tired old heart…

With that in mind here’s a selection of tantalising treats that have landed in my review tray recently…

I’ve been collecting comics for more than fifty years now and my biggest regret is that for all the magnificent things I’ve read and enjoyed, only a pitifully fraction of the superb Alternative/Small Press/Self Published stuff I’ve seen has ever been collected in the online or graphic novel boom of this century.

I don’t know how to fix that problem – maybe a communal site where old stuff can be posted for readers to enjoy – but that means finding shy, lost or embarrassed creators and securing permissions and, most distressingly, so many of the creative folk I loved most are dead, vanished or cured now…

I’m not going to let such great material pass un-eulogized though, so whenever I feel like it I’m going to review something ancient, handmade and wonderful, and if the paper gods permit, perhaps you’ll find copies lurking in back-issue bins (do they still exist?) or at conventions or maybe the forgotten ones will re-emerge to take their long-deserved bows.

I’m going to start with a glorious prototype graphic novel compilation far ahead of its time, solely because creator Bob Lynch has already preserved it – and all of his other work – online. Skip my babblings and go right to his site if you wish.

Behold the Hamster

By Bob Lynch (Bob Comics)
No ISBN:

Most British comics devotees first noticed the self-effacing Bob Lynch through his contributions to the wonderfully eclectic self-publishing phenomenon Fast Fiction. From 1981 through 1990 Paul Gravett, Phil Elliott and Ed Pinsent’s Little Creative Co-operative That Could made conventions, comic-marts and monthly meetings of the Society of Strip Illustrators and Comics Creators Guild distractingly fun and bemusingly intoxicating with hand-crafted magazines of tiny print-runs yet immeasurably vast and broad comics entertainment.

Bob’s work first featured in the middle teens of the run (my memory is even more worn out than I am) and Behold the Hamster ran in #19, 20 and 22 – amongst other Bob bits such as Sav Sadness and rhymic slug Samantha – before being collected by your man himself in the book under discussion here and The Whirlpool of Disaster and Sadness in Space.

Lynch’s artwork is deceptively simple and astoundingly stylish, with puckish characterisations rendered in strong, bold black lines (sheer self-defence in an era where paper printing plates and public photocopiers were the acme of affordable reproduction technology for most of us). He was – hopefully still is – also one of the most surreal and simultaneously inviting story-men in the business; incorporating shared cultural icons from all vistas of the TV-watching, pub-going, comics-reading UK public into whacky whimsies and gently barbed observations on the human condition. You know: all the usual stuff…

This little A-5 64-page pamphlet has brightened my day on many occasions since I bought it in 1991, with its mad mash-up of time-travel, Frankensteinian science, detective mystery, true love and daft humour starring a star-crossed hamster named Behold who was brought back from beyond the grave to achieve an incredible destiny and save something or other…

Don’t take my word for it: check out –
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8424687@N08/sets/72157618049179283/

If I’ve piqued your interest you can catch a different flavour of Bob’s fantastic life at http://savsadness.blogspot.co.uk/

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Small Press Sunday


I started out in this game when marks on paper were considered Cutting Edge, making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow weirdoes, outcasts and comics addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets still gets me going in ways that threatens my tired old heart…
With that in mind, here’s a selection of tantalising treats that have landed in my review tray recently…
A few days before I began a major writing project with an insane deadline, I reviewed the magnificent GoodCopBadCop collections (still readily available and waiting to make your existence worthwhile…). In the same package was the first issue of the latest storyline and now that my day job’s back to normal – and with deepest apologies to Jim and the lads – here’s that promised review of the new follow-up case…

GoodCopBadCop Casebook #3.1 ‘Only Pigs and Horses’ Part 1
By Jim Alexander and Aaron Murphy, with Chris Twydell & Jim Campbell (Planet Jimbot Comics)

As well as mind-boggling graphic albums, independent publisher Planet Jimbot (Jims Alexander & Campbell with an ever-shifting pool of graphic talent) also delivers proper black-&-white comicbooks: none better than the continuing exploits of the most challenging rozzer in the history of crime.

City of Glasgow Police Inspector Brian Fisher is a worthy, weary, dedicated public servant with the oddest partner an honest copper could ever imagine – his own ruthless, rule-less crazy-man bad side…

Following directly on from the last book collection (GoodCopBadCop Casebook volume 2) this deceptively moody yarn finds Fisher about to start work again after a long period of sick leave. He’s been stood down ever since he caught catching a macabre, mutilating serial killer who left his bloody mark on the seemingly inoffensive Inspector.

Also out of sorts is his assistant Detective Sergeant Julie Spencer, who’s presently kipping on his couch. She was starting to piece together the truth about Fisher’s condition, but just stopped caring when her mother died…

Before he was a quietly effective Detective, Fisher learned his trade in the mounted police division and spent many educational hours doing community policing for the Violence Reduction Unit, visiting schools where the kids were more ruthlessly ferocious than any full-grown bad guy. Moreover, Brian’s condition is not a total secret. Certain higher-ups know that he goes off the rails but no one important has complained yet and the clean-up rate is phenomenal…

Those halcyon days on horseback come back to haunt Brian here and now as a ghastly atrocity is invoked when a new nutter hits the streets and, with astounding overkill, butchers two beat coppers.

Back in the saddle, Brain immediately makes a connection to the events at the Tannoch police stables thirteen years previously and heads to Barlinnie jail to interview an old lag who knew the original perpetrator “Peter the Horse”.

For a sordid and risky moment of quid pro quo, Michael offers Brian the full SP on the maniac – including the fact that he’s been dead for year…

He also reveals that Peter had an acolyte: another Peter the Horse in the making and one that been out in the real world for six months now…

To Be Continued…

This is another beautifully paced, chillingly unfolding mystery soaked in chilling complexity and shocking moments, tailor made to be a movie or late-night Scandi-style drama serial…

This deftly underplayed, chillingly believable and outrageously black-humoured serial is a magnificent addition to the annals of Tartan Noir: smart, compelling, compassionate and fiercely engaging. If you like your crime yarns nasty and your heroes deeply flawed, GoodCopBadCop is a series you must not miss.
GoodCopBadCop Casebook #3.1 © 2016 Jim Alexander (story) and Aaron Murphy (art.)

Planet Jimbot has a splendid online shop so why not check it out?

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Rivers of London: Body Work


By Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan & Luis Guerrero (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-187-7

Ben Aaronovitch has been delighting fantasy fans for years, mostly through his television work on others people’s creations (Dr. Who: Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield, Jupiter Moon, Casualty and numerous licensed novels and audio-books), but really came into his own in 2011 when the Rivers of London (Midnight Riot in the USA) novel was released.

A supernatural police procedural saga with its sixth volume eagerly anticipated any moment now, it features the adventures of Peter Grant; the first Metropolitan Police officer in 70 years to transfer to the Special Assessment Unit, more commonly known as “Falcon” or the “weird shit” department. This well-known secret squad deals with all the magic and spooky stuff no sensible copper will admit occurs…

Grant’s boss there is the exceptionally dapper and imperturbable Inspector Nightingale who is far older than he looks and knows an awful lot about magic. As previously stated, Grant is his first Wizard’s Apprentice in decades…

The stories authentically resonate within the actual environs and legends of the big city, and amongst the pantheon of paranormal characters most prominent are the living spirits of the rivers which run through, beneath and between the boroughs of the macabre metropolis and the Thames Valley it lurks in…

This all-new yet canonical sequentially-illustrated tale sits between the fourth and fifth prose novels; written by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel, with art by the splendid Lee Sullivan and colourist Luis Guerrero.

The eponymous ‘Body Work’ started life as a 4-part monthly miniseries in July 2015 and opens, as so many police stories do, with an attention-grabbing death. What looks like a simple drowning gets dead scary dead quick when Peter Grant ambles into the SOCO clean-up, his indefinable instincts calling him to a situation which, although still unclear, is clearly unnatural…

Soon he’s on the trail of a haunted car which should have been destroyed but has instead been broken up for parts, scattering a lethal compulsion amongst an assortment of owners all now unwitting receptacles for a pitiless centuries-old force craving death and somehow connected to water.

Before long Grant and Nightingale (with his inimitable hound familiar Toby) are tracking down leads and the eldritch elder soon uncovers links to his own greatest failure and dereliction of duty…

Fast paced, funny-&-thrilling by turn and packed with intriguing, individualistic supporting characters, Body Work is above all a solid mystery which both curious neophytes and dedicated devotees of the prose iteration will delight in solving along with our quirky cast.

Cheekily augmenting the main case are a series of blackly comedic and often surreal vignettes starring the supporting cast beginning with Tales from the Thames starring Beverley Brook in ‘Off their Trolley’ with the cheeky Naiad teaching some drunken upper-class sods a lesson about dumping trash, whilst sinister serving wench Molly stars in ‘Red Mist’ – a gory Tale from The Folly – followed by another seeing astounding canine wonder Toby triumphing over a zombie apocalypse on the ‘Night of the Living Dog’.

Aaronovitch, Cartmel, Alan Quah & Guerrero then offer a chilling and silent extended Halloween diversion in ‘Sleep No More’ and the extra duties close with a final brace of Tales from The Folly as Toby submits to his sodden fate in ‘Pursuit’ before Nightingale gets the gang together for a festive emergency in ‘Urgent Summons’.

Including a large covers and variants gallery and whimsical page of Creator Biographies, this is a splendid genre-blending yarn for lovers of cops-&-wizards fans who also love playing Dungeons and Dragnets.
Rivers of London ™ and © 2016 Ben Aaronovitch. All rights reserved.

Rivers of London: Body Work will be released on March 18th 2016

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GoodCopBadCop

GoodCopBadCop

By Jim Alexander, Luke Cooper, Gary McLaughlin & Will Pickering with an Introduction by John Wagner (Rough Cut Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-9546726-6-9

GoodCopBadCop Casebook #2

By Jim Alexander, Luke Cooper, Will Pickering & Jim Campbell (Rough Cut Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-9546726-7-6

Seasoned old lags at getting the very best out of finite resources, fresh talent and strong ideas, Jims Alexander and Campbell with their compadres at Planet Jimbot have been crafting superbly enthralling – and in this particular case, award-winning – graphic narratives for a goodly time now.

This brace of superbly chilling crime compendia were originally crafted by the team and published by Rough Cut Comics, but since the title has now reverted to the Jimbots (the first issue of the next Casebook will star in a forthcoming Small Press Sunday) it’s long past due to give the series a lingering look…

Writer Alexander’s prodigious back catalogue includes Calhab Justice and other strips for 2000AD, Star Trek the Manga and a broad variety of comics and strips for The Dandy, DC, Marvel, Metal Hurlant, and loads of other places, and here turns his conceptual spotlight on City of Glasgow Police Inspector Brian Fisher; a worthy, weary, dedicated public servant with the oddest partner an honest copper could ever imagine…

Following an effusive and thought-proving Introduction from John Wagner, the scene is set with debut ‘Report Ident: GCBC’ (art by Gary McLaughlin, lettering Jim Campbell) wherein the traditional confrontation between thoroughly-nicked ratbag and legally-hamstrung policeman takes a very dark turn after the other guy in Brian’s head gets out and conducts the remainder of an interview with an axe-murderer in a bloodily fitting manner…

‘Mrs MacPhellimey’ then sees the other Brian leak out and act in most uncharacteristic manner when confronting a little old lady with a husband-shaped patch of dirt in her garden…

This is followed by a stylish tweak on prose short story telling, wherein Fisher’s tediously dogged hunt for legendary burglar ‘the Partick Cat’ is detailed through incident reports submitted alternately by Brian and the other Brian…

Having swiftly established the conceptual set-up, ‘Three Strikes’ returns to strip format and expands the cast with the introduction of Detective Sergeant Julie Spencer, who fruitlessly attempts to get Fisher fraternising with the other officers. The motivational engine then kicks in as Brian finds a child-abductor just a little too late…

Allowing his Other to deal with the killer is the right thing to do, but afterwards the decent copper resolves that since they have at last crossed a real line, he and himself only get two more chances between them…

The prose reports continue with the hunt for that burglar turning up a rather fishy lead, after which the comics crimebusting resumes as Under Investigation’ (illustrated by Will Pickering) offers the first hint that Brian’s condition is not a complete secret.

Despite a scrupulously honest and forthright interview with the Anti-Corruption Unit, relating recent – and excessively bloody – incidents involving a nuclear submarine and a legendary local gang-boss, Fisher is given a clean sheet and pat on the back…

The text trail of the Partick Cat concludes by way of sharp observation and a treatise on the nature of Glaswegian cuisine before the gripping drama ends as every great TV cop show should, with a tensely suspenseful cliffhanger…

‘Tiny Acts of Kindness’ (with Luke Cooper handling the art) opens as Julie gets a glimpse of the other Fisher when they confront smash-&-grab specialist Ricardo Dreyfus and his family crew. Elsewhere in Clydebank, meanwhile, a macabre and grotesque serial killer is having his special kind of fun…

After the bruised and battered Ricardo lawyers up and walks, easy-going, patient DI Fisher moves on to a missing persons case which seems to lead to a local church, but the other Brian still has his mind set on dealing with the Dreyfus clan…

To Be Continued…

Following an Introduction from author Douglas Skelton, the urban Hibernian atrocities carry on in GoodCopBadCop Casebook #2 with the grim continuation and grisly conclusion of ‘Tiny Acts of Kindness’ with Luke Cooper again illuminating Jim Alexander’s stories on our Jekyll and Hyde law enforcer.

It begins with a dismembered body in the river: apparently not that rare an occurrence in Glasgow. DS Julie Spencer is handling the recovery as Fisher is elsewhere.

When the Dreyfus boys turn over a local supermarket, Brian is waiting and happily lets the other Detective Inspector make the arrests… eventually…

Spencer is furious at his solo showboating but soon gets to the nub of the problem: why was Bruce Dreyfus floating in neat sections rather than on the raid with Ricardo and Uncle William?

A quiet chat with their Aunt Morag soon sets them on the trail of a rather odd cleric at the church and his connection to Russian orphans. Not long after, freshly severed fingers start turning up in the post…

And that’s where I’m stopping. The convoluted mystery cleverly unwinds with chilling complexity, loads of twisty-turny surprises and a succession of shocking moments, so if you don’t read these books you’ll have to wait for some media clever-clogs to turn this into a movie or preferably a BBC FOUR late-night Scandi-style drama serial…

You’ll thank me for it in the long run…

Prose Incident Reports – alternately submitted by Brian and Brian – serve to clear the palates whilst offering more thoughts on Glasgow’s gastro-culture and providing fascinating – and scarily hilarious – peeks into Fisher’s early life.

Before he was a quietly effective Detective, Brian Fisher learned his trade in the mounted police division and spent many educational hours doing community policing for the Violence Reduction Unit, visiting schools where the kids were more ruthlessly ferocious than any full-grown bad guy…

The Cops-&-Horrors show closes with a startling turning point as Julie at last sees the other Brian in full flow ‘Twisting the Knife’ (Pickering art) with a wounded suspect. When she quite naturally reports her observations to the Chief Superintendent, she is terrified and astounded by his response…

This deftly underplayed, chillingly believable and outrageously black-humoured serial is a magnificent addition to the annals of Tartan Noir: smart, compelling, compassionate and fiercely engaging. If you like your crime yarns nasty and your heroes deeply flawed, GoodCopBadCop is a series you must not miss.
All characters and distinctive names and likenesses thereof are © Planet Jimbot and used under license by Rough Cut Comics.

Planet Jimbot has a splendid online shop so why not check it out?