Category: Crime Comics

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Desperation Row


By Denis Mérezette & Jean-François di Giorgio (Editions Michel Deligne)
ISBN: 2-87135-019-1

Even in these cosmopolitan times of easy access and no borders a truly monolithic amount of world comics still languishes untranslated and thus unappreciated by a vast pool of potential fans. It’s certainly not the Japanese or Europeans’ fault. Over the decades many publishers, Eastern and Occidental, have tried to crack the American market (let’s be honest here; Britain alone is certainly too small for the effort to mean anything or be cost effective) with usual painful and costly results.

However it does mean that circulating out there are many intriguing lost gems of graphic narrative such as this dark and moody adult thriller that came and went largely unremarked in 1985 but is certainly worthy of a second look and a larger audience in these more cosmopolitan times.

Desperation Row (or more accurately ‘Street of Shadows’) was the debut pairing of Mérezette & di Giorgio, appearing on a few British bookshelves in 1986, a year after publisher De Ligne launched it in France as ‘Rue Des Ombres’ – a terse and intriguingly intense period crime drama set in the mythical, movie-immortalised gutters and slums of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen.

Artist Denis Mérézette’s first published work was ‘Le Berger’ (written by Sédille), released in 1981. He went on to illustrate Duménil’s ‘Algérie Française!’ before joining with Jean-François di Giorgio on ‘Rue des Ombres’ in 1985 and ‘Julie Julie’ in 1986. In 1988 he produced ‘Hank Wetter – Les Carnassiers’ with Philippe Illien, for Magic Strip and adapted, with author De la Royère, B. Clavel’s epic ‘Harricana – Le Royaume du Nord’ in 1992.

Di Giorgio moved from editorial to authorial creativity with his debut albums ‘Rue des Ombres’ and ‘Julie Julie’ after which he began the serial ‘Munro’ (illustrated by Griffo and André Taymans for Spirou) as well as novel adaptations of novels such as Le Pays Perdus and many other strips like ‘Fous de Monk’, ‘Sam Griffith’, ‘Les Aventures de Bouchon le Petit Cochon’, medieval blockbuster ‘Shane’ (with Paul Teng), ‘Le Culte des Ténèbres’ and ‘Mygala’… all stuff I’d love to see make the jump to English.

This bleak noir homage pushes all the visual, tonal and narrative buttons of mythic 20th century America as it follows the foredoomed path of burned-out Parisian Paparazzo Paul; moving through the mean streets of the Bowery and immigrant districts, capturing the sordid glamour of America’s underbelly for the bored readers of Europe.

Tracking an unexplained spate of suicides Paul spots a high roller slumming on skid row and gets far too close to a big story…

Inexplicably ignoring the tawdry instincts of a lifetime, Paul sells wealthy Mr. Ofield the undeveloped film-roll of his Bowery escapade and in return the millionaire offers him a high-paying gig… obtaining compromising and legally airtight photos of his cheating spouse.

Paul succeeds and things start to get really messy: his apartment is searched, thugs beat him up, terrorise his hooker girlfriend and then his building – and the ones either side – are torched. As his fellow news-photographers happily snap away at the maimed and homeless survivors of the conflagration, Paul reaches an epiphany and realises he’s no longer one of their conscienceless fraternity… and that’s when the cheating wife he so recently exposed confronts him and the photographer begins to regret keeping those negatives….

It would seem Mr. Ofield never intended to divorce his wandering wife and now Paul is fatally involved in a deadly, devious war between rival gangsters and an equal ruthless government agency. Paul trades his camera for a hastily purchased gun, but when his old pal and street tipster Shorty is brutally murdered by the beggars who run the Bowery Paul finds himself remorselessly pulled between, honour, ambition and survival and having to decide if he’s a recorder of or participant in life…

Cunningly twisted and nihilistically bleak, this grim thriller suffers somewhat from a mediocre translation, but the plot and art are fearfully engaging and this moving, stylish adult yarn is long overdue for a more sensitive interpretation and new English edition.
© 1985 Editions Michel Deligne S.A., and Mérezette & Giorgio Productions. All rights reserved.

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Omaha the Cat Dancer Complete Set (part 2)


By Reed Waller & Kate Worley with James M. Vance (NBM/Amerotic)
Set ISBN: 978-1-56163-601-3
Vol. 4 ISBN: 978-1-56163-451-4, vol. 5 ISBN: 978-1-56163-451-4, vol. 6 ISBN: 978-1-56163-451-4, vol. 7 ISBN: 978-1-56163-451-4

These books are intended to make adults laugh and think and occasionally feel frisky. If the cover images haven’t clued you in, please be warned that these items contain nudity, images of sexual intimacy – both hetero and homosexual – and language commonly used in the privacy of the bedroom and probably school playgrounds whenever supervising adults aren’t present.

If that sort of thing offends you, read no further and don’t buy these books. The rest of us will just enjoy one of the best graphic novel experiences ever created without you.

Omaha the Cat Dancer began during the 1970s as an “underground” venture and over slow torturous decades grew into a brilliant but controversial drama of human fallibility were all the actors just happened to be ordinary people with animal characteristics. What most people noticed was the matter-of-fact and constant inclusion of graphic sex acts, extremely well rendered.

As there’s only so much a man of my hard-lived years can endure and certainly only so much me you can stand, I’ve divides this graphic novels review of the series and specifically the glorious seven-volume complete set that prompted it in two (see yesterday’s post for the rest). The entire supremely economical shrink-wrapped gift set is available for your reading pleasure and you’d be bonkers not to not take advantage of the fact, but if you are of a cautious nature most individual editions can still be obtained through internet retailers.

The stunning, addictive saga of the erotic dancer, her bone-headed boyfriend and the anthropomorphic extended ensemble cast takes a dark and dreadful turn with Volume 4 (re-presenting the Kitchen Sink Omaha issues #10-13 and the one-page gag strip ‘Alterations’ from Fire Sale #11988-1989) as the mysterious death of Charles Tabey Sr., the increasing violence and oppression of the Campaign for Decency and a seemingly constant stream of personal revelations strain Omaha and Chuck’s relationship to the breaking point.

The Story resumes after an introduction from writer James Vance (who married Kate Worley after she split up with Waller and worked with the artist to finish the saga from her notes after her untimely death in 2004), before the tense drama kicks into high gear as Chuck comes to terms with the shocking knowledge that his mother didn’t die decades ago. The pressure seems to be affecting him badly – or perhaps the thought of all the wealth and responsibility – and the decent young man is becoming as exploitative, abusive and creepy as his manic dad was, but even though he’s acting paranoid, it doesn’t mean he’s hasn’t got real and deadly enemies. The situation isn’t helped by learning that somewhere his beloved Omaha has a husband she hasn’t quite divorced and never ever mentioned…

The sinister Senator Bonner is ratchetting up the pressure of his anti-smut campaign and even close ally Jerry is working to his own agenda, with the assistance of avaricious partner Althea. Confused, lonely and neglected, Omaha devotes her energies to dancing for the upcoming video for Shawn’s band, and Rob confronts Shelley whom he believes ordered the attempt on his life and torching of his studio…

At long last the will is read and Chuck does indeed inherit the bulk of his father’s holdings and, apparently, many of Tabey Sr.’s deranged obsessions. The far more intriguing than she appears Shelley acts on Rob’s misperceived accusations whilst her lover/carer Kurt Huddle finds part-time employment with the mysterious Mr. Lopez – the last major player in an increasingly complex game. Meanwhile high-powered call-girl, blackmailer and keeper of Secrets Joanne re-insinuates herself with Jerry and Chuck and Bonner in a terrifying confrontation threatens to destroy Omaha and Chuck in his own blackmail scheme…

During the video shoot Omaha and Joanne compare notes on Bonner, after which the capable call-girl enlists Rob’s photographic aid in a scheme to get the goods on the hypocritical Senator – with whom she shares a highly secret and extremely specialised professional relationship…

Whilst both Joanne and Rob are practising their unique skills the senator is murdered in the most compromising of all positions and the story moves effortlessly from human drama to dark murder mystery. Abandoned, bewildered, angry and very hurt, Omaha leaves town unaware that both she and Joanne are suspects in the Bonner murder case…

As she heads for a new life in rural Wisconsin, Chuck is learning some long-forgotten personal history from his mother, but no matter how she disguises her appearance that increasingly popular video means the cat dancer will never be truly safe or unseen…

Volume 5 is introduced by Neil Gaiman, after which issues #14-17 (1990-1992) find the lovers painfully adapting to life apart, with all of Omaha’s old friends wondering where she’s gone. Meanwhile in Lawrenceville, Wisconsin, after an abortive stab at office work for an all-too-typical, male-dominated factory, “Susan Johnson” goes back to honest work dancing in the town’s only strip joint, making some reliable new friends and meeting a young man who will become far more…

In Mipple City, Joanne and her lawyer finally clear her of suspicion in Bonner’s murder, Jerry is planning to reopen infamous bordello The Underground as a legitimate nightclub, and Chuck is making new friends and intimate acquaintances whilst spending his days trying to save the Bohemian A Block district from redevelopment, inadvertently getting far closer to the heart of all the various intrigues that threaten the players in the drama, and Jerry’s business partner Althea reveals her true colours and allies. At Senator Bonner’s funeral Lopez reveals an unsuspected connection to the venomous politician…

Shelley has made new friends too (in a scathing and utterly delightful episode exposing unexpected biases in certain sorts of feminists and do-gooders), Joanne is increasingly at odds with Rob regarding the films of Bonner’s last moments and when Jerry invites Chuck to become a partner in his new nightclub Althea tries to secure the deal by offering herself as sweetener… or does she actually have another reason for her bold advances?

Kurt and Shelley’s relationship begins to show signs of strain but in Lawrenceville “Susan” is relaxed and happy, with the strength to contact the friends she ran out on.

In Mipple, the cops are slowly uncovering some uncomfortable facts about everybody in the Bonner case when the Senator’s private secretary comes forward with new information, whilst Joanne is finally securing her final weapon necessary to expedite her plans…

The final Kitchen Sink issues (#18-20, 1993-1994) comprise the major part of the sixth volume, and follow an introduction from Terry Moore, a brief discourse on the cat dancer cast’s other appearances and a few shorts pieces from diverse places.

First there’s a delightful humorous foray into mainstream comics from Munden’s Bar Annual #2 in 1991. ‘A Strip in Time’, wherein the exotic kitty pops up in the legendary pan-dimensional hostelry, after which two short and sexy vignettes originally produced for The Erotic Art of Reed Waller , one untitled and the other graced with the subtly informative designation ‘Waking Up Under a Tent’, act to somewhat offset the angst and drama of the main event.

Rob learns what Shelley’s actual role was in the arson attack on his shop, Joanne takes a live-in position with Mr Lopez and after many abortive attempts Chuck and Omaha finally speak. As Thanksgiving dawns many of Omaha’s friends gather for a momentous dinner, things start to unravel for the bad-guys trying to destroy A Block and in Wisconsin, just as she is becoming reconciled with Chuck, the cat dancer’s fling with appreciative punter Jack intensifies to a crisis point. Meanwhile elsewhere, somebody with an intimate knowledge of her recognises the hot dancer in a rock video and begins making fevered inquiries…

When Shawn’s touring band reaches Lawrenceville and discover “Susie” is Omaha, the scene is set for her return to Mipple City, where, after being arrested in connection with Bonner’s murder, Chuck’s mother reveals the whole story of her past and the sordid truth of Calvin Bonner’s obsessive depravity and Charles Tabey’s bi-polar affliction. In light of the horrific revelations Chuck seems to go completely off the deep end and, far too late, his friends and family realise that money and looks might not be the only things the son inherited from the father…

Next, just a smidge out of chronological order, comes ‘Tales of Mipple City: Rob Steps Out’ a charming first date tale which first appeared in the anthology series Gay Comics #22 (1994) after which the tension and revelations resume as the cops release Maria Elandos Tabey, whilst her son is sectioned. In Lawrenceville, Susie gets an unforgettable farewell from Jack after which she returns to her true love who has never needed her more…

The final volume in this magnificent series features the last four issues published by Fantagraphics as Omaha the Cat Dancer volume 2, #1-4 (1994-1995). The series has at times seemed cursed: plagued by illness and creative problems which have taken its toll on all the creators. The creators ended their relationship in spectacular fashion at this time and only began working together again in 2002. Soon after Kate Worley died from cancer and it seemed the saga was destined to remain an unfinished masterpiece, but in 2006 Waller and Worley’s husband James Vance began to finish the job from her notes, with the concluding chapters serialised in the magazine Sizzle. When those final instalments are finally collected the completed Omaha the Cat Dancer will be possibly the finest adult comics tale in history…

For now however the brilliant yarn reaches a kind of conclusion here as after an introduction from honorary Mipple City resident Denis Kitchen, and a stunning cartoon recap Omaha and Chuck renew their relationship, Jerry and Shelley and Rob and Joanne reach workable détente agreements and that missing husband tracks the cat dancer to her new home. Set over the Christmas/New Year period, all the various plot threads come together during an unforgettable party at Chuck’s palatial new house, although the hung-over aftermath promises that there are still stories to be told and loose ends to be knotted off once and for all.

Even if the saga stopped here, Omaha the Cat Dancer would be an incredible narrative achievement and groundbreaking landmark of comics creation, but with the promise of a final resolution still to come, it looks set to become an icon of our industry, celebrated forever for moving beyond simple titillation and happy, innocent prurience to become a fully matured work of Art.

Captivating, intense, deeply moving and addictively engrossing, Omaha never forgets to be also be fun and fabulous and utterly inclusive: full of astonishingly well drawn, folk (admittedly largely furry or feathered folk) happily naked and joyously guilt – free… at least about sex…

No cats, dogs, birds or ferrets were harmed, abused, distressed or disagreeably surprised in the making of these lovely, lovely books, so if you’re open-minded, fun-loving and ready for the perfect grown-up adventure please take advantage of this unmissable opportunity. You won’t regret it….

© 1987-1996 Reed Waller & Kate Worley. Contents of these editions © 2005-2008 NBM. All Rights Reserved.

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Omaha the Cat Dancer Complete Set (part I)


By Reed Waller & Kate Worley with James M. Vance (NBM/Amerotic)
Set ISBN: 978-1-56163-601-3
Vol. 1 ISBN: 978-1-56163-451-4, vol. 2 ISBN: 978-1-56163-457-3, vol. 3 ISBN: 978-1-56163-474-3

These books are intended to make adults laugh and think and occasionally feel frisky. If the cover images haven’t clued you in, please be warned that these items contain nudity, images of sexual intimacy – both hetero and homosexual – and language commonly used in the privacy of the bedroom and probably school playgrounds whenever supervising adults aren’t present.

If that sort of thing offends you, read no further and don’t buy these books. The rest of us will just enjoy one of the best graphic novel experiences ever created without you.

Omaha the Cat Dancer began during the 1970s as an “underground” venture and over the torturous decades grew into a brilliant but controversial drama of human fallibility with all the characters played by funny animals. What most people noticed was the matter-of-fact and constant inclusion of graphic sex acts.

The series was subject to many obscenity seizures by various muddle-headed stickybeaks over the years, inspiring the formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. One classic case apparently involved the local defenders of morality raiding a comics store because Omaha promoted Bestiality!

As there’s only so much excitement a man of my advanced years and proclivities can endure (and probably only so much me you can stand) I’ll be to reviewing these seven tomes in two batches rather than in totality but I will remind you each time that the whole saucy saga is available in a supremely economical shrink-wrapped gift set that you’d be crazy to not take advantage of.

After an introduction by late-coming co-scripter James Vance and Reed Waller’s original intro from the 1987 collected edition, The Complete Omaha the Cat Dancer volume 1 gathers the short story appearances from a number of Counter-culture Commix as well as some out-of-continuity infilling short pieces so readers can enjoy what can best be described as the official Directors Cut of the tale.

The wicked wonderment begins with the very first ‘Adventures of Omaha’ from Vootie in 1978. Vootie began in 1976 as a self-published fanzine founded by Reed Waller and like-minded artistic friends who bemoaned the loss of anthropomorphic comics – once a mainstay of US comicbooks.

When contributors also griped that there wasn’t much sex in comics either, Waller, taking inspiration from R. Crumb’s Fritz the Cat and responding to an intensification of local Blue Laws, created the evocative, erotic dancer and compared her free and easy life-style against a typical, un-elected, interfering know-it-all moral guardian busybody. Blue Laws are particularly odious anti-fun statutes – usually instigated by religious factions – designed to keep the Sabbath holy by dictating shop-opening hours and generally limit or ban adult entertainments like clubs and pubs, and their repressive use (in fact and fiction) became a major narrative engine for the series.

‘Why they Call Her Omaha’ introduces young stripper Susie Jensen who hits the metropolis of Mipple City, Minnesota (a thinly concealed Minneapolis) and signs up with a modelling agency where she meets fellow dancer Shelley Hine. Over lunch they bond and pick a better stage name for the gorgeous but naive newcomer, whilst ‘Kitten of the Month’ and ‘Omaha centrefold’ reveal the first glorious results of her managements efforts. No-holds barred sexual action returns in ‘Shelley and Omaha’ with the girls, now popular erotic dancers, meeting some guys who will play a big part in the unfolding drama to come.

In ‘Chuck and Omaha’, which officially heralded the beginning of scripter Kate Worley’s stunning contribution to the series, Jerry – one those aforementioned pick-up guys – introduces Omaha to Chuck Katt, a shy artist who will become the great love of the sexy kitty’s life. ‘Adventures of Omaha’ sees the budding relationship progress whilst ‘Tip of the Iceberg’ moves the grander story arc along when Mipple bans nipples in the opening shot of a political power-grab using Christian and Family-morality pressure groups as unwitting, if fervent, patsies…

Although it comprises less than 50 pages the preceding material took nearly fifteen years to produce. For years Omaha had no fixed abode; peripatetically wandering from magazine to Indie book and even guest-shots in the occasional mainstream publication. From Kitchen Sink’s Bizarre Sex #9-10 in 1981-2, a pastiche page in E-Man (in 1983 and included in volume 2), Dope Comix #5 (1984), she even starred in a story from Munden’s Bar Annual #2 in 1991. Often stalled for creative, not censorship, reasons Omaha finally won her own title in 1984 from SteelDragon Press, but vanished again until 1986 when Kitchen Sink Press finally took over publication. For further details I strongly advise checking the lovely official website at www.omahathecatdancer.com.

Volume 1 switches to high gear and addictive narrative mode with the 40 page ‘Omaha #0’: a single page recap followed by a powerfully compelling yarn wherein the forces of decency make life increasingly difficult for the adult entertainment industry. With stripper bars closing Omaha is recruited to dance for “The Underground”: an exclusive, ultra-secret, high-class bordello that caters to the darkest desires of America’s ultra-elite of: businessmen and politicians many of whom are actively leading the Decency campaign…

Shelley is involved too, recruiting contacts from her old profession for more hands-on roles. Meanwhile Chuck has reapplied for his old advertising job where his old girlfriend Joanne makes life uncomfortable. However she has other problems as powerful forces are drawing Omaha and Chuck into a far-reaching and sinister scheme…

On opening night all the elements for disaster converge as the “Movers and Shakers” get more debauchery than even they can handle: someone has doped the entire proceedings leading to a violent, destructive orgy and set up cameras to record the whole event for blackmail purposes. As they flee the club hitmen try to kill Chuck but shoot Shelley instead. Believing her dead, Omaha and Chuck run for their lives. Heading for Joanne’s house Chuck reveals that he is the son of Charles Tabey: monomaniacal millionaire businessman, undisputed ruler of Mipple City and the probable target of the assassination…

Narrowly escaping another murder attempt they find Tabey and Joanne are intimately involved and are horrified to find that the millionaire was behind the whole thing, intending to mould Chuck into the kind of son he needs. The man is also clearly raving mad…

The traumatised, terrified young lovers jump into their car and head for California in the short ‘Adventures of Omaha’ vignette and the first volume concludes with the contents of ‘Omaha #1‘ as they reach San Francisco tired, hungry and broke.

Grateful for the kindness of strangers, they soon discover Joanne waiting for them and find that Tabey is not their only persecutor. During a drunken three-way another hired killer almost ends them all…

From a well-intentioned, joyous celebration of open living free-loving modernity Omaha had evolved into a captivating adult soap opera and conspiracy thriller of mesmerising intensity and complexity…

Volume 2, with a reprinted introduction by Kate Worley, eases into the enticing adult entertainment with the aforementioned ‘Hotziss Twonkies’ parody from First Comics’ E-Man #5 before issues #2-5 enlarge the sinister saga. In the aftermath of their latest close shave, Chuck and Joanne antagonistically spar whilst the increasingly traumatised cat dancer wanders the streets of San Francisco. When she is abducted by Tabey, who is moving against all his old enemies, Chuck and Joanne fall into bed…

Meanwhile Jerry, who also works for Tabey, is busying sorting the fallout from the club riot and shooting. In a secluded palatial beach-house Omaha discovers that Chuck’s dad has been watching over them for some time and soon discovers another shocking secret….

Omaha was utterly groundbreaking in its mature treatment of gay and disabled relationships; offering the sound and common sense opinion that this is what all people think and do and after all, “it’s just sex”…

Paralysed but not deceased Shelley is also sequestered in the house. She is a long-term Tabey employee and slowly developing a relationship with her nurse Kurt Huddle, and the manic tycoon has convinced Omaha to stay and help care for her. Back in Frisco Chuck has rekindled his old relationship with Joanne, utterly unaware that she has the films and photos taken at the club on that terrible night.

Rob Shaw, gay photographer, enters the picture, as developer and guardian of the contentious materials and old friend of Joanne. Chuck misses Omaha and the tension leads to him splitting with Joanne and moving in with Rob. The cat dancer too is lonely and finds unsatisfactory solace with Jerry again, but when Tabey goes off his meds Jerry arranges for Chuck and Omaha to reunite, leading to a dreadful confrontation between father and long-estranged son, as an apparent result of which the millionaire takes his own life…

Together again at last, Omaha and Chuck comfort each other as the repercussions of Charles Tabey Sr.’s demise shake the country and the cast. The close-knit group endure loss, guilt and outrageous press scrutiny as the matter of inheritance crops up. Against his wishes, Chuck might be incredibly rich and saddled with unwanted responsibilities but there are some unspecified problems with the will.

The plots thicken when Joanne and Rob have a falling out and as all this is going on, back in Mipple City a powerful new threat makes his move. Senator Bonner was one of the patrons at the Underground that fateful night but now he’s making a move for total power, stirring up a wave of fundamentalist hatred and anti-smut indignation with his “Crusade for Decency”…

Volume 3 (covering issues #6-9 and with an introduction by Trina Robbins) follows the action back to Minnesota, but things are difficult for Chuck and Omaha who can’t seem to re-establish their earlier, innocent rapport. They go house-hunting, whilst in San Francisco Rob Shaw is visited by thugs after the photos of the riot at The Underground. His shop destroyed, the photographer narrowly escapes burning with it…

Mipple City’s Blue Laws are more draconian than ever. When Omaha and Shelley, who has moved into the ground floor of the Cat dancer’s new house, visit their old workplace the Kitty Korner, they discovers that the performers now have to dance behind plate glass – which makes tucking punter’s tips into g-strings really tricky…

When old friend Shawn turns up he tells Chuck and Omaha of the plan to redevelop A Block – that part of town where all the artists, musicians and strip clubs are. Something needs to be done to stop it – and now, Chuck might just be the richest, most influential degenerate in town…

As the lovers go furniture shopping Shelley and Kurt look for a suitable physical therapy clinic – preferably a non-religious, non-judgemental un-condescending one – and later whilst Omaha helps Shelley move in, Chuck and Jerry make plans to fight the destruction of A Block, but as ever, there is far more going on than the lovers can imagine…

Omaha wants to get back into dancing and as Chuck becomes increasingly mired in the running of his father’s many businesses, Kurt learns some of Shelley’s murky history and Joanne and Jerry compare notes and make plans.

Rob turns up in Mipple after more attempts on his life, convinced that he needs to find his attackers’ boss before his luck runs out and the book ends on a shocking note for Chuck when he discovers that long-dead mother isn’t…

All these volumes, printed in black and white and at 8½ inches by 11, much larger than the original comicbooks, also contain many full page illustrations (many from the delightful art-book The Erotic Art of Reed Waller). This saga is one of the turning points of comics history – a moment when we could all provably say “this is socially relevant, capital “A” Art” – as viable and important as the best play or film or symphony: don’t miss this opportunity to make the whole marvellous classic yours forever…

© 1978, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987-1996 Reed Waller & Kate Worley. Contents of these editions © 2005-2007 NBM. All Rights Reserved

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R.I.P. Best of 1984-2004


By Thomas Ott and friends (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 987-1-60699-417-7

Being an old geezer but unreconstructed punk at heart I can firmly attest and confirm that the teen-years urge to shock and addiction to loud, fast, shouty-boy music never goes away. The same holds true for in-your-face comic strips…

Thomas Ott is a Swiss cartoonist, musician, satirist and film-maker (born in Berne in June 1966) who has, since the mid-1980s, been producing stunning strips and pastiches for commercial publications such as Ahai, Okay Erotik Magazin, Strapazin, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El Vibora, Libération, L’Echo des Savanes and a host of others whilst pursuing his own uniquely meticulous trash-culture visions in self-published monochrome anthological albums such as Tales of Error, Dead End, and Greetings from Hellville.

Now this retrospective compendium from Fantagraphics presents 19 of the very best (seven never before seen) spanning two decades of shocking horror, crime noir, mordant, nihilistic love, juicy revenge, surreal justice and bleak, black irony all delivered in Ott’s signature and obsessively meticulous scratchboard style, with gleaming white narrative emerging from ebon pages, sans dialogue but occasionally boasting impressive and imaginative typography.

Beginning with raw and raucous EC comics homages ‘The Hero’, ‘Clean Up!’, ‘A Wrinkled Tragedy’ and ‘Headbanger’; gradually building up to longer – and far shorter – pieces such as ’10 Ways to Kill Your Husband’, ‘Massacre Melodies Presents Buddy Butcher in “Buddy Goes Bloody”’, ‘G.O.D.’, ‘Goodbye!’, ‘The Job’,  ’10’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

Hardbitten mystery and sardonic imagination begin to predominate with ‘Breakdown’, ‘The Millionairs’ and ‘Washing Day’ but there’s still room for a laugh in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘The Clown’ or a disturbing chill in ‘La Fiancée du Lapin’ (written by David B) and sheer exuberance in ‘Recuerdos de Mexico’ before ending in classic droll darkness with ‘The Hook’.

Ott’s psychobilly sensibilities litter his narrative world with pimps, thugs and geeks; desperate chancers, deadly beloveds and down and outs on the edge of reality as well as society, so if jaded comics fans might feel they’ve been here before, the wider world are still only curious first-timers into a dismal dimension of vice, spice and bad advice…

Graphic, violent funny and unforgettable this is a special treat for thrill-starved adults in search of something a little beyond the norm…

© 2010 Verlag bbb Edition Moderne AG Switzerland except “La Fiancée du Lapin” © 1996 David B and Thomas Ott. All rights reserved.

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King of the Flies Volume 2: The Origin of the World


By Mezzo & Pirrus, translated by Helge Dascher with Dag Dascher & Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-390-3

Scary stories are everywhere, even in the most ordinary of suburban paradises: when DC Comics started calling Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing stories “Sophisticated Suspense” in the 1980s, to differentiate them from the formulaic “Set ’em up and then go Boo!” traditions of the horror comics medium, this kind of subtle, disorienting, creeping disturbia is exactly what they were aspiring to. Cleverly constructed, laconically laid out in the classic nine-panel-grid picture structure and rendered in comfortingly mundane style a la Charles Burns, King of the Flies is a landmark in metafictional mystery tales.

In volume 1, noted crime comics creators Pascal (Mezzo) Mesenburg and Michel Pirus introduced readers to the community of Hallorave and the eponymous Eric, a very troubled young man with a predilection for donning a gigantic Fly mask. A budding sociopath, the lad is into drugs, sex (consenting and otherwise), booze, introspection and instant gratification… but in that he’s not much different from the other residents of this little slice of Heaven. He also sees dead people occasionally – and again, he’s not the only one.

The book unfolded in seemingly unconnected vignettes narrated in the first person by a broad cast of unhappy campers and this second volume of three continues the tradition, but with the disparate threads increasingly overlapping and interlocking: the inevitable denouement seemingly inescapable and darkly bloody…

‘The Origin of the Species’ opens with Eric idly daydreaming of killing his mom’s new man Francis before heading out for Marie’s place. She isn’t Eric’s girlfriend really but she is sweet and easy and despises her parents too. Things kick off when gangster reprobate Ringo shows up and tells them to look after a bag he’s carrying.

Eric is cool but Marie takes a peek, finding bundles of cash and a bowling pin inside. Later that day Eric saves an old guy from drowning because he fancied the geezers young girlfriend Karine: once again his uncontrolled desires are screwing up his life…

‘Departures/Arrivals’ follows Karine, showing her dysfunctional relationship with her bitch of a mother and how her aged lover Becker dies of a heart attack in an airport. Karine is pregnant and Eric sees opportunity…

In ‘Come Back’ we see that Damien has no luck. Not only is he killed by a genuinely remorseful drunk driver, but his last mortal sight is the three thugs who chased him to his demise and his girl screwing his best friend Eric. He’s far more mellow as a ghost though, pitying his killer and hanging out with Becker, just as dead but far less sanguine about Eric, who’s now moved on to Karine… Damien’s ex-girl Sal was always wild and she too is making use of Eric’s hound-dog ways…

‘Flesh Safari’ returns the spotlight to Eric. His stepdad is wise to him but Marie’s father still trusts him to look after his little girl. When the youngsters go to a rich kid’s party at Coralie’s place, Fly boy is set up and humiliated, but does meet a new friend in the outcast intellectual David, before spitefully punishing Marie by sleeping with his host’s mother…

‘Maternal Damage’ shows the turmoil afflicting Marie’s mother and just how close to the breaking point she is, whilst ‘Superhero’ follows Eric as Sal leads him into trouble and somebody administers a particularly efficient punishment beating. Moreover, even though Eric has done with Marie he can’t bear her seeing a new guy and inflicts some rough injustice of his own.

We learn some intriguing and unsavoury insights about David in ‘Robin Redux’ before the focus switches to Ringo: a full-throttle psychopath who isn’t happy at all when he asks for his bag back and Eric discovers somebody’s taken it…

Ringo sees ghosts too, but they are no help when his Boss Ramos gets heavy. Eric and Marie are in deep trouble until somebody intercedes from ambush and there’s one more phantom in the cast…

‘Crazy Horse’ finds Eric still haunting Karine until he has a strange and disturbing encounter with Marie’s dad and this intermediate book ends on a foreboding spiritual high note with ‘2,969 Light Years From Earth’ as Damien takes steps to protect his loved ones from an angry spirit and each other. Meanwhile, the bag thief is revealed and the repercussions of all the messed up crap the residents have been inflicting on each other is coming to a head. The doorbell rings…

…And readers will have to wait for the concluding book to discover how this stunning, mesmerising amalgam of Twin Peaks, Desert Palms, Peyton Place, The Omen and Blue Velvet plays out. A stylish and magical portmanteau saga of a community cursed with an excess of human frailty – lust, rage, greed, despair and especially shallow selfishness – this is a story that will surprise, compel, distress and haunt anybody with even half an imagination.

Darkly addictive, casually violent and graphically sexual, King of the Flies is “adults only” and well worth waiting until you’re 18 for…
© 2005 Glenat Editions/Drugstore. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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The Return of Mister X


By Gilberto, Mario & Jaime Hernandez, Dean Motter & others (Graphitti Designs)
ISBN: 0-936211-03-2

It’s the same old story.

Sometimes chaos and acrimony can produce something uniquely beautiful. At the height of the 1980s independent comics explosion a group of very talented individuals briefly got on long enough to produce a visual masterpiece that perfectly captured the tone of the times, before personalities, fame, money and conflicting ideas brought everything down in disaffection and anger.

In 1983 illustrator and designer Dean Motter created an iconic visual image of a trench-coated bald man in smoked glasses. That evocative beginning grew into the concept of a tormented genius, drawn back to atone for his greatest creation – an incredible retro-futuristic metropolis. It was the 1980’s: the era of style over substance and fortunes and careers had been built on so much less…

Motter took the concept to Canadian indie publisher Vortex and brought in more experienced comics artists Paul Rivoche and Klaus Schönefeld to further develop the series. After an initial appearance in the company’s anthology Vortex #2 and a stunning poster campaign by Rivoche a new comicbook debuted. Already creative differences were pulling the team apart. Some session creators were needed to finish the job…

‘The Return of Mr. X’, scripted by Gilberto and Mario Hernandez with Motter, illustrated in a slick and compelling celebration of pure, synthesised-and-street-ready nostalgia by the inimitable Jaime Hernandez (all lavishly coloured by Rivoche and Schönefeld) blended a veritable bucket-load of cool influences into a staggeringly impressive melange of German Expressionism and American Film Noir, referencing also elements of pop science fiction, gangster movies, Art Deco, Bauhaus architectural design, LA street culture and the budding lexicon of graphic imagery from a brand new phenomenon – the music video…

Although Los Bros departed after completing the first story-arc in issue #4, citing payment disputes, the series carried on until 1985 with another ten issues by Motter and artist Seth rounding out volume 1: after which a second, black and white volume by writer Jeffrey Morgan illustrated by Shane Oakley, D’Iraeli and Ken Holewczynski was released in 1989. Since then the character has appeared sporadically under diverse hands including Motter, Bill Sienkiewicz, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean and others. Most recently Dark Horse revived Mr. X in 2008.

Once upon a time an inspired architect designed the perfect city. With a brilliant mathematician as his partner they proposed the glorious concept of Radiant City, man-made paradise and City of Tomorrow. But as the city grew the scientist killed himself and the artist went mad: pushed by the drug he had invented to stave off time-wasting sleep. Perhaps the real reason was all the betrayals by friends, associates and his lover…

His brains scrambled, Walter Eichmann abandoned his “City of Dreams” allowing others to short-cut, adulterate and bastardize his unique mind-massaging “psychetecture” into something not soothing and beneficial but subtly dangerous. In his absence the rooms and buildings became twisted. The dwellings slowly poisoned the minds and souls of the citizens who occupied them. Le Corbusier called houses “machines for living” and the demented Eichmann had allowed them to become psychological war machines…

Years later, clean, relatively sane, cadaverous and hungry for redemption the mysterious Mr. X comes back to his city, now a gaudy, forbidding, vile and corrupted metropolis. He is armed with the intimate secrets of its genesis and determined to make amends, but to repair the mind-altering topography of the dark Somnopolis he will have to face all his old friends – men and women tainted by years dwelling in his creation and even more greedy, violent and ruthless than they were…

This material has been collected numerous times, but I’m concentrating on the first time: a sleek, luxurious tome which gathered those landmark first four issues – and more specifically the glorious signed, numbered hardback edition produced by high-end specialist printer/publisher Graphitti Designs.

In addition to the wonderful classic adventure this chronicle also includes a full colour by plate-page by Jaime, signed by all concerned, a huge designs, page-roughs and sketches section dubbed the X-files (that’s a catchy title: somebody should do something with that…) plus superbly pithy, short graphic sidebar novelettes entitled Tales From Somnopolis by Gilbert and Mario.

There’s also a tipped in colour plate reproducing Motter’s very first image of Mr. X (originally the cover for Patrick Cowley’s album Megatron Man).

Sexy, scary and funny, compelling and visually astounding, this tale – and this particular edition of it – absolutely captured and epitomised an era where how you looked was as or even more important than what you did – and the very special saga subsequently influenced a generation of comics creators, movie directors and video makers.

Whichever version you read The Return of Mr. X is a saga you must not miss.
© 1986 Vortex Comics Incorporated. All Tights Reserved. This edition © 1986 Graphitti Designs.

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100 Bullets: The Hard Way

New Extended review

By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-041-0

When as perfect a story-hook as “what if you were given an untraceable gun, one hundred bullets and a damned good reason” is in the creative hands of talents like Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso you know the resultant drama is going to start big and end spectacularly but even after fifty issues the breakneck pace and heart-stopping tension of this series never faltered and indeed intensified…

With this eighth volume The Hard Way (collecting issues #50-58 of the 100 Bullets monthly comic) comes a ramping-up of suspense as a lot of questions are (partially) answered and the myriad players take their positions for the apocalyptic finale – still half a c-note away…

The key piece here is the full, complete and true history of the United States of America and the origins of the Trust: illicit brotherhood of hereditary crime-kings who have controlled the nation since before it even was a country.

In ‘Prey for Reign’ a guy walks into a bar…

So many stories start that way, but when the guy is reactivated Minuteman Victor Ray (100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) and the beer-and-buddies yarn he spins concerns the secret history of America, you’d better listen…

Not long after Columbus stumbled upon America, thirteen European crime-families migrated to his New World and clandestinely carved up the continent between them. When the new nation was born the Trust embedded itself in every aspect of it.

To prevent their own greed and ambition screwing up the sweetest deal in history the Families created an extraordinary taskforce to mediate and police any Trust member or faction acting against the best interests of the whole. Dubbed the Minutemen they were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

A few years ago Trust leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them. Betrayed Minutemen leader Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal lying down and has been manipulating events and people to rectify that injustice.

For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets… Now Victor sits in bar spilling secrets, knowing that since all the listeners are murderous thieves awaiting a payoff that will never come, there’s little chance of this history lesson going public…

The Trust is under attack. House leaders have been killed, and as the surviving members convene to utterly rewrite their 400 year old accord, scattered members of Grave’s old team circle in the wings. Wylie Times (100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow) resurfaces in New Orleans on another mysterious mission and takes up temporary residence in a jazz bar whilst waiting to make his move…

‘Wylie Runs the Voodoo Down’ finds him confronting Trust facilitator/fixer Mr. Shepherd and newest Minuteman Dizzy Cordova (also 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) whilst stumbling onto a particularly grisly murder. Hunted by the brutal killers and torn by guilt over his lost love Rose, Wylie becomes too involved in the tragic lives of (relatively) ordinary folks until the grim reality of his past painfully, horrifyingly reminds him that his old masters have a long reach and their dirty fingers in every pie…

For someone like Wylie however, the safest escape plan is to remove all possible threats and the cataclysmic conclusion of this compulsive seven-chapter saga sees more than one major player taken off the board…

The book ends with ‘Coda smoke’ as dishonoured Minuteman Lono and cellmate Loop Hughes (100 Bullets: Samurai) get a shocking phone call and rush to Shepherd’s aid. It appears the man with all the answers was betrayed by his most trusted agent. How bad must it be if an ex-con and a sociopath with impulse-control issues are the first number on your speed-dial…?

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets imperceptibly grew into a terrifyingly imaginative conspiracy thriller of vast scope and dazzling, intricate detail. Azzarello and Risso have never been accused of underestimating their audience’s intelligence – or appetite for blood, sex, intrigue and action.

If there are still any shock-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – who aren’t addicted to this astounding epic crime-thriller yet, get out there and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! You need them all and the very best is yet to come…

© 2004, 2005 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Anarcoma


By Nazario, translated by David H. Rosenthal (Catalan Communications)
No ISBN

Here’s another warning: this book is filled with graphic homosexual acts, full frontal nudity and coarse language: if that causes you any offence don’t buy this book and don’t read this review. The rest of us will manage without you.

You know what it’s like: sometimes you’re just in the mood for something challenging, different or just plain nasty and nothing better sums up that feeling than this startling pastiche of film noir chic transposed into the even grimmer, darker and nastier milieu of the gay-underworld of post-Franco Spain.

Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a right-wing general who ruled the country from 1947 until his death in 1975, “on behalf” of a puppet monarchy helpless to resist him. His repressive Christian-based attitudes held the country in an iron time-lock for decades as the rest of the world moved an around him. Vera Luque Nazario was an intellectual, college professor and cartoonist living under the fascist regime, but inspired by the freedom and exuberant graphic license displayed in American underground commix, especially the works of R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton and possibly Spain Rodriguez.

In an oppressive state that openly advocated the “curing” of homosexuals, Nazario founded an artist’s collective or “contracultural group” in 1971 to produce home-grown underground commix (El Rollo Enmascarado, Paupérrimus, Catalina, Purita and others) often incurring the wrath of the Francoist censors and police. His work received far fairer treatment outside Spain, appearing in such groundbreaking mature magazines as It, Actuel, Oz, Gai Pied, and L’Echo des Savanes.

When Franco died the country opened up and there was a tumultuous cascade of artistic expression. Extremely strident adult material designed to shock began to appear in new magazines such as El Víbora, Cannibale and Frigidaire. After years of comics production multi-talented artist Nazario eventually moved into design and record cover production. In recent years he has concentrated on painting and his first prose novel was released in 2006.

Anarcoma began as strip in a porn magazine, but that quickly folded and the artist transferred the feature to El Víbora in 1979, reveling in homoerotic excess in a magazine with no censorial boundaries. It ran for years and this hardcover translation is but the first collection of many.

Symbols of freedom never came more outrageously formed that Anarcoma; a spectacularly endowed, star-struck transvestite private detective who hangs all-out in the notorious red-light district of Las Ramblas. A stunning blend of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall “she” works as prostitute and club entertainer while pursuing her dream of becoming a real gumshoe like the ones in the American movies she adores…

Life is complicated: ex-army buddy Humphrey is her current her boyfriend, but he won’t leave his wife and kids and Anarcoma’s hobby has won her no friends among both the cops and the criminal gangs run by the ruthless Captain Seahorse. Moreover there are even weirder and more dangerous folk around…

After a series of profound prose appreciations from Alberto Cardín and Ludolfo Paramio and a thoroughly absorbing cartoon cast-list, the ultra-explicit adventure begins…

The city is in turmoil: Professor Onliyu’s latest invention has been stolen. Nobody knows what it does but everybody wants it and Anarcoma thinks she has a lead…

The trail leads through all the sleaziest dives and dens, and implicates almost everybody at one time or another, but when the manic religious order The Black Count and his Knights of Saint Represent and feminist paramilitaries Metamorphosina and her One-Eyed Piranhas start their own conflicting campaigns for the missing machine, Anarcoma is distracted and almost loses her life to a mysterious sex-robot XM2.

Luckily her charms extend and affect even artificial he-men…

Outrageously brutal and sexually graphic, this devastatingly ironic genre mish-mash is audacious and bizarre, but unflinchingly witty as is probes the role of hero in society and eulogises the heady power of liberation.

Anarcoma was first released in 1980, but even by today’s laxer standards the incredibly violent and satirically, staggeringly baroque pastiche is a shocking, controversial piece of work. Raw, shocking and wickedly delightful; the perfect walk on the wild side for people with open minds and broad tastes.
© 1983 by Nazario. English edition © 1983 Catalan Communications. All Rights Reserved.

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The Ditko Collection Volume 2 1973-1976


By Steve Ditko, edited by Robin Snyder (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 0-930193-27-X

After Steve Ditko left Marvel where his astounding work made the reclusive genius a household name (at least in comicbook terms) he continued working for Charlton Comics and in DC in 1968 began a sporadic association with DC by creating cult classics The Hawk and the Dove and the superbly captivating Beware… The Creeper. It was during this period that the first strips derived from his interpretation of the Objectivist philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand began appearing in fanzines and independent press publications like Witzend and The Collector.

This second softcover book, collected from a variety of independent sources by fan and bibliographer Robin Snyder, represents the remainder of a canon of lost treasures by a driven and dedicated artistic trailblazer whose beliefs have never faltered, whose passion never waned and whose art never stagnated. Produced in bold collage, abstract calligraphic and design essays and a variety of vibrant black and strips in his utterly unique cartoon style, these strident, occasionally didactic, but always bold, impassioned and above all – for Ditko never forgets that this is a medium of Narrative and Art – gripping stories and parables of some of his most honest – and infamous – characters.

The most common complaint about this area of Ditko’s work – and there have been lots – is the sometimes hectoring nature of the dialectic. Nobody likes to be lectured to, but it’s an astonishingly effective method of imparting information: our schools and Universities depend on the form as their primary tool of communication, just as Ditko’s is the comic strip artform.

He’s showing you a truth he believes – but at no time is he holding a gun to your head. If you disagree that’s up to you. He grants you the courtesy of acknowledging you as equal and demands that you act like one. You are ultimately responsible for yourself. It’s a viewpoint and tactic an awful lot of religions could benefit from.

After a new but unused cover piece and an introduction from editor Snyder the polemical panoply gathered here begins with the contents of self-published magazine The Avenging World (1973), beginning with an eponymous cartoon and collage directory of terms-defining vignettes after which some of his most impassioned artwork expands the arguments in ‘The Avenging World Part 2’, followed by the cover of that landmark publication and a highly charged parable ‘The Deadly Alien’.

At heart Ditko is an unreconstructed maker of stories and with ‘Liberty or Death: Libage Vs Chain’ (from the Collector 1974) he returns to the narrative idiom of enigmatic masked mystery heroes for a gripping tale of totalitarian barbarism and the struggle for freedom. ‘Who Owns Original Art?’ is a philosophical statement in essay form after which his satirically barbed ‘H Series: The Screamer’ perfectly marries superheroics, adventure, comedy and blistering social commentary.

After a selection of covers from Wha, the assorted contents follow beginning with hard-bitten incorruptible cop Kage who determinedly solves ‘The Case of the Silent Voice’ despite interference, apathy, malfeasance and the backsliding of his own bosses. ‘Premise to Consequence’ uses Ditko’s facility for exotic science fiction to examine truth and reality and sinister silent avenger ‘The Void’ reveals how even the best of men can betray their own principles.

‘The Captive Spark’ displays Ditko’s beliefs from the birth of civilisation to the sorry present whilst ‘Masquerade’ delightfully follows two journalists as they simultaneously and independently decide to crack a troubling story by becoming masked adventurers. The volume dedicates the remainder of its content to the final amazing exploits of Ditko’s purest ideological champion – the utterly uncompromising Mr. A…

TV reporter Rex Graine is secretly Mr. A: white suited, steel-masked, coldly savage, challenging society, ruthlessly seeking Truth and utterly incapable of moral compromise. In most respects A is an extreme extension of faceless agent of Justice The Question as seen in all his glory in DC’s Action Heroes Archive volume 2

From Mr. A #2 (1975) after the gloriously moody cover comes the gripping battle against duplicitous prestidigitator and media-darling bandit ‘Count Rogue’ and his startling solo campaign against ‘The Brotherhood of the Collective’ whose bullyboy tactics include racketeering, slander, murder and imposture. Also included here is the stunning Mr. A page from the 1976 San Diego Comic Con Program Booklet, a tantalising “coming next” page for the tragically unreleased ‘Mr. A Vs The Polluters‘ and this collection culminates with a true graphic tour de force as the incorruptible, unswerving White Knight battles the ultimate threat in a wordless, untitled masterpiece fans know as ‘Mr. A: Death Vs Love-Song’ (which appeared in The Comic Crusader Storybook in 1976 and from which the cover of this collection is taken).

I love comics. Steve Ditko has produced a disproportionate amount of my favourite, formative fiction over the decades. His is a unique voice wedded to an honest heart blessed with the captivating genius of a graphic master. The tales here have seldom been seen elsewhere; never often enough and always with little fanfare. If you can find this volume and its predecessor you’ll see a lot of his best work, undiluted by colour, and on lovely large (274x212mm) white pages.

Even if you can’t find these, find something – because Steve Ditko is pure comics.
All works © 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1986 Steve Ditko for The Avenging World, The Collector, Inside Comics, Comics Crusader, Wha, Mr. A, San Diego Comic Con Program Booklet and Comic Crusader Storybook respectively. All Rights Reserved.

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100 Bullets: Samurai


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-800-3

Not long after Columbus landed in America, thirteen ancient European crime-families migrated to the New World and clandestinely carved up the continent in perpetuity between them. As the country grew cultured and a new nation was born the Trust embedded itself in every aspect of it.

To prevent their own greed and ambition from destroying the sweetest deal in history the Families created an extraordinary police force to mediate and act when any Trust member or faction acted against the unity and best interests of the whole. They were called the Minutemen and were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

Not too long ago though, The Trust’s leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them. Betrayed Minutemen leader Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal well and has been slowly enacting a plan to rectify that casual injustice. For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets…

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets slowly, steadily transformed into a captivating conspiracy thriller of terrifying scope and immense, intimate detail. With this seventh volume (collecting issues #43-49 of the magnificently adult comicbook) creators Azzarello and Risso began arraying their huge cast of pawns and key pieces for the endgame and unguessable conclusion even though it was only the halfway point of the show…

With ‘Chill in the Oven’ the action switches to a maximum security prison where Loop Hughes is just getting out of solitary. Sadly that’s only the beginning of his problems since both the convict alpha dogs and the guards have been waiting for this moment…

Luckily, or probably not, the heat is temporarily off since the new intake includes the most dangerous sociopath nut-job in America… Lono, a brutal force of nature planning to take charge even from behind bars, fresh from an unexpected encounter in 100 Bullets: Six Feet Under the Gun. Sadly, the murderous ex-Minuteman also has a score to settle with Loop too…

When the Trust’s fixer Shepherd pays a surprise visit Lono realises who is behind all his problems if not why and decides to take matters into his own calloused, bloodstained hands…

Meanwhile out in the free world junkie Jack Daw (100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow) still has one of those untraceable guns and is travelling south with his skeevy pal Mikey. ‘In Stinked’ finds the pair laying low at a seedy wild animal park that secretly caters to “businessmen” who want to kill a big cat without the hassle of licenses, laws or leaving the country…

Jack clearly thinks he has more in common with the caged beasts but when he discovers what else goes on at Jungle Land the lost boy finally makes a stand that leaves the walls red and nobody standing…

Wicked, clever, blackly funny and gloriously, gratuitously vicarious, this ultra-violent, sex-stuffed, profanity-packed, utterly addictive thrill ride goes from strength to strength but always pay close attention! Every beautiful panel on every thrilling page might hold clues to the grand saga unfolding before your eyes.

If there are still any of you rush-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – who aren’t addicted to this compulsive classic yet, get out there and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! You need them all and the very best is yet to come…

© 2003, 2004 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.