Category: Drama

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The Loxleys and the War of 1812 (second edition)


By Alan Grant, Claude St. Aubin, Lovern Kindzierski, Todd Klein & Mark Zuehlke (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-9921508-0-8 (HB)

People and other less dogmatically certain designations who’ve read my musings before know I’m loath to appear political and hold abso-frikkin-lutely no contentious opinions whatsoever. Uneven so, I just felt I should re-recommend an eminently entertaining historical looks from someplace place called Candida or canadia or something that nobody at all wants…

America has been in lots of wars since it won Independence from Britain 20 minutes ago. It has, in fact, started a goodly proportion of those conflicts, special military manoohvers and po-lice actions for less than noble reasons. To be fair, Britain’s far longer war record is no better, but most people here have never even heard of the brutal and frankly stupid conflict now known as The War of 1812. At least, that is until Tangerine PotUS started proving there was no law or rule he couldn’t break…

Somehow the patronised saint of ignorance has started a renaissance in research as all over everywhere, people hear something dumb or desperate and reach for a search engine or even a book…

Two centuries after the fact a small independent creative outfit called Renegade Arts Entertainment (initially Alexander Finbow, Alan Grant, Doug Bradley, John Finbow, Nick Wilson and Jennifer Taylor: originators of comics, audio books, movies, animation, prose and graphic novels, merchandise and games) put their heads together. The glorious result celebrated and commemorated the story of a forgotten clash of political intransigents and empire-building politicians via a pictorial tome for youngsters featuring and seen through the eyes of a multi-generational family caught up in the conflict.

The book won many prestigious awards and the narrative was adapted into an animated motion comic (with the assistance of Arcana Studios and the Department of Canadian Heritage), tablet and digital PDF iterations and numerous other online formats, as well as for a wealth of educational materials for use in conjunction with the piece. Much-missed author Alan Grant rewrote his comics saga as a prose novel and Oscar-nominated screen writer Tab Murphy remade the original story into both a screenplay and school play performed by students across Canada.

This updated, upgraded second edition is a stunning 175 page full-colour hardback tome partnering a powerfully enthralling graphic narrative with an abundance of fascinating extras. Packed with additional illustrations, Finbow’s background-packed Foreword and moving Acknowledgements page whet the appetite for a rollercoaster tale in ‘The Loxleys and the War of 1812’ according to writer Grant, illustrator Claude St. Aubin, colourist Lovern Kindzierski and letterer Todd Klein.

Matriarch Aurora Loxley is justifiably proud of her extended family; three generations living and working together to build a farm and a life in a welcoming land. Originally from Pennsylvania, she and her departed husband Abraham migrated to Canada after the War of Independence, heading to the far side of the Niagara River where their burgeoning clan prospered near the Canadian town of York. Extracts from her journal begin with the harvest of 1811 where hard-earned celebrations are only slightly marred by talk amongst the men of war with America. Britain is currently battling Napoleon all over the world and the Royal Navy has raided American ships and ports, impressing men they claim are British deserters to serve on their embattled vessels. The practise outrages their southern neighbours on the other side of the river, but many leaders in Washington DC act just as badly as the former regal masters they despise.

“War Hawks” in Congress are rapacious expansionists, wanting to wipe out the Indian peoples and believing it is their manifest destiny to rule the entire continent.

As the idle party talk continues frail William takes a moment to capture the entire family (a dozen happy souls and their dog Duke) in a pencil portrait that depicts their last time as a happy, united family…

Everything changes on the night of November 11th after the hospitable Loxleys invite a frantic messenger into their home. He brings news that the main settlement of visionary Chief Tecumseh’s “nation within a nation” has been destroyed by a force of Americans in a night of massacre. Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet have long worked to create a federation of disparate tribes united as a bulwark against American westward expansion. Now the Yankees have taken the opportunity to move north as well and intend to drive the British out of Canada…

And so begins a deeply moving, informative, even-handed and intensely exciting tale of ordinary people moved to defend themselves against greed and aggression, set against the backdrop of possibly the most ineptly handled, poorly executed war in history – but let’s give it time, eh?

Despite being born of common greed and ruthless ambition by a few and ignorance and intolerance by a multitude, the haphazard, cravenly executed conflict nonetheless bought misery and death to thousands of serving soldiers, sailors and militia volunteers on both sides and domestic atrocity to an uncounted number of innocent civilians over the following two years and eight months. Even America’s greatest triumph, one of pitifully few in their overcautious, criminally mismanaged string of campaigns, was a ludicrous farce. Despite being considered a stunning triumph and affirmation at the time, the Battle of New Orleans occurred weeks after the war officially ended and nobody except the dead, maimed and missing really cared…

As the Locksley family splinters, the story powerfully covers the role of militias on both sides – as well as the valiant French-speaking citizens we know as Quebeçois today – and examines the crucial part played by and eventual betrayal of the First Nations peoples. Also seen through innocent eyes are the machinations of the politicians on both sides and the aftermath of the war..

For old fuddy-duddies like me who like their facts and analysis printed on paper there’s historian Mark Zuehlke’s epic, fascinating and lavishly illustrated essay ‘The War of 1812: Historical Summary’ – preceded by a stunning painting of ‘The White House in Flames’ by John M. Burns – to enjoy before a range of follow-up features offer further information through ‘Creator Biographies’ and alluring details on the other strands of the project such as ‘The Loxleys and the War of 1812 School Play’ and ‘The Loxleys and the War of 1812 Novel by Alan Grant’ both of which include excerpted passages a piece on the ‘The Interactive iPad and Android Tablet app’ and a wealth of delightful ‘Initial Character Designs by Claude St. Aubin’.

Despite the panoply of interactive iterations listed above, this sterling and compulsively readable chronicle ably proves one of my most fervently held beliefs: the comics medium is the perfect means to marry learning with fun and a well-made graphic treatise is an unbeatable mode with which to Elucidate, Educate and Enjoy.

So buy this and do so…
The Loxleys and the War of 1812 © 2012 Renegade Arts Entertainment.

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Dolltopia


By Abby Denson (Green Candy Press)
ISBN: 978-1-931160-70-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

Not everybody is comfortable with whom they are and most of us don’t like to be assumed one thing when we’re another. Lulu/IPPY Award winner Abby Denson is a magically subversive cartoonist and journalist with such disparate notches in her belt as graphic novel Tough Love: High School Confidential (relating the Coming Out story of two suburban teens), lifestyle bibles Cool Tokyo Guide, Cool Japan Guide and The City Sweet Tooth: a culinary cartoon column about the New York desserts scene for L Magazine.

An educator (teaching at Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, Eugene Lang College at The New School, Sophia University, Tokyo), her script credits run from Scooby Doo and Power Puff Girls to Spider-Man via Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, Disney Adventures and The Simpsons.

This entrancing shocking pink parable is an edgy, deceptively naivist fairy tale about gender, place and identity: making telling points in a clandestinely gentle manner via a swingeing attack and dissection of conformity…

Kitty Ballerina is a doll who escapes from The Factory, refusing to be what her makers tell her to be. During her escape she meets Army Jim, another maverick toy who refuses to conform. Together they make their way to the Promised Land of Dolltopia, where you can wear and look like and be whatever you want. With the comradeship and assistance of the cat Mr. M, fashion Divas Candy X and Candy O and slightly off-kilter, self-taught “plastic surgeon” the Doctor, the renegades make themselves at home and truly free…

However, freedom demands effort, vigilance and sacrifice. Some such recently emancipated individuals seem to crave their previous cultural indenture, and raids to liberate more dolls suffer when the apathetic conformists refuse to cast off their social shackles. However, the real threat comes when humans threaten to take away and destroy the hard-won oasis of security these disappointed rebels have strived so long and hard to win…

Charming and cleverly controversial, if perhaps a little heavy-handed at times (sometimes you need fireworks and two-by-fours just to get a mule’s attention!), this eclectic black, pink & white tome – complete with cut-out-&-dress paper dolls – is a winning and culturally crucial addition to the world of adult cartooning and the bigger one you can read it in. You’d be an idiot not to take a good long look – but of course you don’t have to be what I say you are…
© Abby Denson. All right reserved.

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Limit Book 1


By Keiko Suenobu, translated by Mari Morimoto (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-93565-456-8 (TPB Tank?bon edition)

Travelling a little off the traditional Shōjo (“girl’s comic”) path, Limit is a marvellous thriller by Keiko Suenobu, brought to English-speakers by New York publisher Vertical. In Japan it ran from October 13th 2009 to September 13th 2011, ultimately filling six collected volumes.

Born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka in March 1979, Suenobu graduated from the University of Tsukuba before beginning her creative career with the school romance Happy Tomorrow. She gravitated towards darker themes of conformity, social pressure and bullying in Vitamin and the moving, controversial and multi award-winning Raifu – translated as Life by TokyoPop in 2006 and later assumed by Kodansha for a20 volume run. This was followed by 2019’s ongoing It’s Over If You Fall.

In 2009 the author took her interest in social issues and the nastier side of school life to imaginative extremes when Limit began serialisation in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Friend. Dark and exceptionally grim, it’s another minor classic inexplicably out of print and hard to find but which will definitely appeal to a readership far beyond the general Shōjo target-market if it ever gets re-issued…

Mizuki Konno is lucky – and savvy – enough to fit with the “In-Crowd” at her all-girls school. Acceptably cute and suitably smart, she’s learned to make no waves and accept that the ways things work is the way things should be. The popular girls – like undisputed teen goddess Sakura Himezawa – make the rules, and the rest conform. It’s a simple matter of survival…

If you’re physically different or interested in odd things, like dumpy manga-fan/tarot reader Arisa Morishige, life can be hell. Only the strongest personalities, like bookish, decent and determinedly wound-tight non-conformist Chieko Kamiya have any chance of standing up to the constant pressure to comply, accept and keep your place in the hierarchy of ‘A Perfect World’…

However, everything changes when Sakura’s class drive off for an extended visit to an Exchange Camp in the wilderness. Each class spends a week roughing it with nothing more than a communal scythe and their ever-present cell phones to hold back the horrors of nature, but with this last trip of the semester things go tragically wrong. High in the mountains the coach driver has a heart attack at the wheel and the vehicle, packed with excited girls and their harried teacher, plunges catastrophically into a wooded hidden valley.

Only five girls survive, and undisputed queen of the modern world Sakura isn’t one of them…

As Konno drags shell-shocked Haru Ichinose – Sakura’s subordinate and deeply devoted deputy, and utterly unable to function without her – out of the wreckage sometime later, she sees smoke from a fire. Tracking the signal they find middle-ranking Chikage Usui with her leg splinted and bandaged outside a cave. The wounded survivor has been saved and succoured by coldly efficient Kamiya, who has also scavenged everything potentially useful from the crash site.

At the back of the cave, Morishige sits inside a pentagram, casting the cards. Kamiya has brusquely taken charge, organising resources and outlining options until they can be found and rescued, but introspective Konno can barely grasp the strange situation and new rules of survival. Events take an even nastier turn when the Tarot reader suddenly explodes in jubilation, claiming her prayers have been answered and her tormentors all punished…

Indifferent, ambiguous pragmatist Konno is forced to confront a new world order in ‘The Strong vs. the Weak’, wherein increasingly unstable Morishige takes control. After panicking and unsuccessfully failing to climb out of the box valley, Konno returns to find bereft Haru attacking the former class pariah, but Morishige’s big and burly frame – which brought her such cruel treatment in school – is now the most valuable asset in this new hostile environment. Moreover, she has found that wickedly lethal scythe…

The new queen easily defeats her attacker and then regales the horrified girls with a litany of all the cruel acts she saw their perfect princesses constantly inflict upon each other during their wonderful school days. Haru is unable to accept the change of status and even refuses Konno’s overtures to become allies, just as ascendant Morishige casts the cards again and sees a future where only the strong will survive…

With food already running out, events spiral towards deadly conflict as Konno recalls better days that weren’t actually all that great, only to be dragged back to reality when Morishige decides to split the remaining rations four ways. The clearly unstable would-be witch has established her own social hierarchy with pragmatically compliant Kamiya as Royalty, Usui a Commoner and the roles of Servant and Slave still to be determined by her under ‘The Empress’ Rules’…

Haru is provisionally Slave but since they don’t get food she must fight Konno to determine who gets the final privileged – and elevated – role of Servant… To the death, naturally…

To Be Continued…

Rather inaccurately likened to Michael Lehmann’s 1988 cult black comedy Heathers (although perhaps influenced by Koushun Takami’s novel Batoru Rowaiaru or Kinji Fukasaku’s filmic adaptation Battle Royale) Limit certainly derives much of its energising concepts from William Golding’s landmark Lord of the Flies. This bleak, viciously introspective and absolutely chilling tale marries lavish illustration to fearsome examination of what civilised folk consider acceptable behaviour and asks many entertainingly challenging questions.

This lost book – which also includes a charming glance at the author’s methodology in the mini-feature My Workroom – is printed in traditional Japanese right to left, back to front format, but surely we’re all used to that by now?
© 2012 Keiko Suenobu. All rights reserved.

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Batman Arkham: Catwoman


By Bill Finger, Frank Robbins, Dennis O’Neil, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Mindy Newell, Devin Grayson, Ed Brubaker, Jeph Loeb, Joëlle Jones, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Mike W. Barr, Mark Waid, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Charles Paris, Irv Novick, Joe Gella, Don Newton, Steve Mitchell, Alfredo Alcala, Joe Brozowski & Michael Bair, Jim Balent, John Stanisci, Brad Rader, Rick Burchett, Tim Sale, Dave Stevens, Brent Anderson, Brian Stelfreeze, Joelle Jones & Laura Allred and many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2177-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant – like this one – will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy I’m plugging here one of the bigger birthdays in a book still readily available either physically or in digital formats…

Cover-dated April 1940, Detective Comics #38 changed the landscape of comic books forever with the introduction of Robin, The Boy Wonder: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes. He thereafter joined Batman in a lifelong quest to bring justice to the victims of crime. After the Flying Grayson’s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ before introducing two villains who would each redefine comics in their own very different ways.

There will be more on co-anniversarians The Joker and Robin throughout the year, but today it’s the turn of a wicked thief from the comic’s third tale to be caught in a spotlight…

Batman Arkham: Catwoman re-presents material from Batman #1, 3, 210, 266, 332 & 355, Detective Comics #122, Catwoman volume 1 #2, Catwoman vol. 2 #57, Catwoman vol. 3 #10, Catwoman: When in Rome #4, Catwoman vol. 5, #1 with selections from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #4 & 16.

These cat tales span Spring/March 1940 to September 2018 and, eschewing any kind of editorial preamble, begin tracking track the feline fury from her first appearance as a mysterious jewel thief all the way to the very recent past in a snapshot of action, intrigue romance and career changing.

It all began long ago with disguise artist ‘The Cat’ – AKA “Miss Peggs” plying her felonious trade of jewel thief aboard the wrong cruise-liner and falling foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo. Swiping the Travers necklace on an ocean cruise in a taut nautical caper courtesy of Bill Finger, Bob Kane & Jerry Robinson, the wily Cat was stopped by fellow debutante Robin and later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion in her next appearance where she clashed with Batman and the Joker.

That’s not included here (but go see any collection including the contents of Batman #2), but her third appearance – ‘The Batman vs the Cat-Woman!’ (Batman #3 by Finger, Kane, Jerry Robinson & George Roussos) offered a taste of her future exploits and MO as, clad in cape and costume but once again in well over her now cat-masked head, she courted headlines by stealing for – and from – all the wrong people and ended up a catspaw for truly evil men… until Batman and Robin tracked her down…

Who’s Who #4 (1985) provided illustrated profiles of Catwoman of Earths-One & Two by Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Mike W. Barr, Dave Steven & Brent Anderson after which Detective Comics #122 (April 1947) commits ‘The Black Cat Crimes!’ by Finger, Kane & Charles Paris as the sinisterly sultry Catwoman claws her way out of jail and ruthlessly, spectacularly exploits superstitions to plunder the city…

It’s a big leap to the end of the 1960s – and therefore supposedly post Batman TV show campiness – as Batman #210 (March 1969) and Frank Robbins, Irv Novick & Joe Giella bring a new look Catwoman into circulation in nonsensical caper ‘The Case of the Purr-Loined Pearl!’ Here, oh, so terribly gradually, Selina Kyle begins her return to major villain status, by fielding eight recently recruited former convicts as a team of cunning crime-skilled Catwomen in pursuit of a gem score beyond compare.

As the Darknight Detective gradually regained his grim reputation, Batman #266 (August 1975) saw Kyle back in her classic cape & whip costume and again cashing in on superstition in ‘The Curious Case of the Catwoman’s Coincidences!’ by Denny O’Neil, Novick & Dick Giordano. Her increasingly frequent appearances, growing moral ambivalence and status as possible love interest started a process of reformation leading to occasional team-ups with her arch foe and eventually Catwoman was more antihero than villain…

Lovingly limned by Don Newton & Steve Mitchell over Marv Wolfman’s script, Batman #335 offered solo back-up story ‘Cat’s Paw’ wherein Kyle inadvertently foils a scheme to create super assassins for Ra’s al Ghul (another annoying taste of a longer tale not completed here) whilst ‘Never Scratch a Cat’ from #355 (January 1983, by Gerry Conway, Newton & Alfredo Alcala) re-emphasises her unpredictable, savagely independent and increasingly unstable nature and unwillingness to be ignored by Batman when Bruce Wayne starts dating Vicki Vale and Ms Kyle takes murderous umbrage at the seeming betrayal…

Glossing over the painfully dated politics of romance encapsulated here, lets admire the updated Catwoman Profile by Mark Waid & Brian Stelfreeze from Who’s Who in the DC Universe #19 (1992) before Crisis on Infinite Earths unleashes a whole new universe and continuity for DC. Following Batman: Year One, Selina Kyle was reimagined for a darker nastier world; a dominatrix and sex worker inspired by the arrival in Gotham City of a man who dressed like a giant bat and was determined to punish the corrupt and evil…

In the wake of Miller & Mazzuchelli’s epochal rethink, a Catwoman miniseries was released revealing the opening shots in her own war on injustice and privilege. Crafted by Mindy Newell, Joe Brozowski & Michael Bair, ‘Downtown Babylon’ (#2, March 1989) sees Selina confront her sadistic pimp Stan and unwittingly unleash his vengeance on a local nun. It’s a brilliantly manipulative piece of cruelty as Sister Magdalene was once Maggie Kyle – and Selina’s biological sister…

As is often the case you’ll need to seek elsewhere for the rest of the story as here we advance to her time as glamourous jewel thief and troubled soul seeking redemption. Catwoman vol. 2, #57 (May 1998) is set during the Cataclysm storyline when Gotham was wrecked by an earthquake and left to fend for itself by the Federal government. Devin Grayson, Jim Balent & John Stanicsi deliver a relatively quiet but suspenseful moment as Selina seeks to convince eco-terrorist and vegetable monster hybrid Poison Ivy to stop predating embattled human survivors in ‘Reap what You Sow’. It doesn’t go well…

In 2002 original graphic novel Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score led to a far more stylish and compelling reboot, based on crime pulps and caper movies. Catwoman volume 3, #10 sees Selina using her gifts and exploiting old friends and trusted contacts to spring convicted murderer Rebecca Robinson and get her out of the country for reasons she will not share even with Bruce Wayne and her sidekick Holly in ‘Joy Ride’ by Ed Brubaker, Brad Rader & Rick Burchett, after which Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale & Dave Stewart continue their continuity-reworking shenanigans as seen in Batman: the Long Halloween. In #4 of miniseries Catwoman: When in Rome #4, ‘Thursday’ sees Selina still fleeing the repercussions of ripping off and disfiguring Gotham Mob boss Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, leading to a manic clash with mystic femme feline The Cheetah…

The catalogue of crime catastrophes closes with another tempting but frustrating teaser as the first chapter of extended saga ‘Copycats’ (Part 1 by Joëlle Jones & Laura Allred, Catwoman volume 5, #1) finds the felonious feline relocated to Californian city Villa Hermosa and enjoying all those ill-gotten gains. The only real downside is having honest cops chasing her as she tries to find who is fielding a whole squad of Catwomen who look just like her but have no problem shooting anyone who gets in the way of all the robberies Selina isn’t committing…

With covers by Kane & Paris, Neal Adams & Carmine Infantino, Dick Giordano, Ed Hannigan, Brozowski & Bair, Balent & Sherilyn Van ValkenBurgh, Scott Morse, Richard Horie & Tanya Horie, Sale & Stewart, Joëlle Jones & Laura Allred, this is compelling distraction for any fan. Catwoman is a timeless icon and one of the few female comic characters the entire real world has actually heard of. With decades of back history material to enjoy, it’s great that there are primers like this to point the way to fuller exploits. Start planning those acquisitions here and make your move, tiger…
© 1940, 1947, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1992, 1998, 2005, 2018, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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High Soft Lisp


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-318-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an adult nature, specifically designed for adult consumption, employing the kind of coarse, vulgar language most kids are fluent in by the age of ten. If reading about such things is likely to offend you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll write about something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the graphic and literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar and the later stories of those characters collected as Luba gained such critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced compelling stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Grip and Girl Crazy. They are all marked by his bold, simplified line artwork and a mature, sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets is an anthology comics publication featuring slick, intriguing, sci fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasy and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. The astounding Hernandez Bros still captivate with incredible stories that sample a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and luchadores.

Palomar was the conceptual and cultural playground “Beto” devised for extended serial Heartbreak Soup: a dirt-poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s meta-fictional environs – and did – as the artist explored his own post-punk influences: comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics, and all in a style somehow informed by everything from Tarzan comics to Saturday morning cartoons and The Lucy Show.

Happily, Beto often returns to Palomar, frequently for new tales involving the formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house, acted as Mayor (and sometimes police chief) as well as adding regularly to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight or ever looked for, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Concepcion.

Luba eventually migrated to the USA and reunited with her half-sisters Petra and – the star of this volume – Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez. This collection was compiled from assorted material that first appeared in Love and Rockets volume II and Luba’s Comics and Stories, with new pages and many others redrawn and rewritten.

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature. She is a psychiatrist and therapist, former B-Movie actress, occasional belly dancer, persistent drunk and ardent gun-fetishist, as well as a sexually aggressive and manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly damaged, with a possibly-intentional and affected speech impediment, she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again.

This moving, shocking, funny chronicle uses the rambling recollections of one of her past husbands – sleazy motivational speaker Mark Herrera – to review her life from High School punkette outsider through her various career and family ups and downs…

Under the umbrella title of ‘Dumb Solitaire’, what purports to be the memoir of Senor Herrera reveals in scathing depth the troubled life of a woman he just cannot stay away from in an uncompromising and sexually explicit “documentary” which pulls no punches, makes no judgements and yet still manages to come off as a feel-good tale.

High Soft Lisp is the most intriguing depiction of feminine power and behaviour since Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – and probably just as troubling and controversial – with the added advantage of intoxicating drawing adding shades of meaning mere text cannot impart.

Extremely funny and powerfully moving, remarkable and unmissable: no fan of the medium, student of humanity or lover of life in the raw should deprive themselves of this treat.
© 2010 Gilbert Hernandez. All Rights Reserved.

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Robin: Year One – the Deluxe Edition


By Chuck Dixon, Scott Beatty, Javier Pulido, Robert Campanella, Lee Loughridge, Sean Konot & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7764-2 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Robin the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 – which despite its April 1940 cover-date was first snatched off newsstands across the USA from March 6th – until they all sold out. Happy Birthday, Boy Wonder! and congratulations on sparking an entire comics subgenre and inspiring so many heroes to indulge in innocuous child endangerment in our favourite entertainment medium and so many others…

Devised by Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson, Robin was a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss in a savage display of ruthless public barbarity. The story of how Batman took orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day. This 25-year-old version remains one of the best as well as arguably the least in need of toxic levels of suspended disbelief…

In the original pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as an indicator of those socially turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder/college student. His creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with has inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders, and Grayson continued in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture.

The first Robin even had his own solo series in Star Spangled Comics from 1947-1952 (mostly collected as two DC Archive volumes), a solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s – a position he alternated and shared with Batgirl – and a starring feature in anthology comic Batman Family. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans, initially in his original costumed identity but eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing, all while re-establishing a (somewhat turbulent) working relationship with his mentor Batman.

This Deluxe Edition compiles Robin: Year One #1-4, cover-dated December 2000 to April 2001: an enthralling embellishment of early Golden Age adventures topped up with modern sensibilities and a few supervillains to provide that peculiar kind of “fan-service” comic book devotees demand.

It begins in Blackgate prison with recent acquisition Joe Minette expressing his extreme unhappiness with being busted by a little kid in pixie boots. The brutal thug wants his notional partner Two-Face to do something about it, but seemingly legit intermediary Louis soon realizes his bifurcated boss is spiralling again: locked onto the idea that his lone adversary “The Bat” is now a tag-team of two…

In the avenues and alleyways, more and more miscreants are reporting a gaudily-garbed sparrow who flits like a bird and hits like a hammer, unaware that the nightly crime thwarting is simply on-the-job training for Batman’s newest weapon. In the Batcave, however, faithful family retainer Alfred Pennyworth is concerned at how happy and keen recently orphaned Dick Grayson appears. The boy seems to have accepted the death of his parents’ killer “Boss” Zucco and a prospective career bringing similar scum to justice, but how can the boy possibly be so well adjusted?

As the much travelled lad adapts to life in one – admittedly palatial – place, across town Mr. Pak meets professional henchperson Dormouse and his leader Jervis Tetch. The Mad Hatter is a subcontractor, using his mind control technology to assemble a unique package for a very prestigious and discriminating client. Visiting dignitary President Generalissimo Singh Manh Lee has a thing for little white girls, but unfortunately the Hatter has his own exacting aesthetic standards to fulfil, and has only programmed and prepped eight of the ten originally contracted for…

When another goes missing from Dick’s high school it’s game on…

Police Captain James Gordon is a father and far from happy that his clandestine costumed ally has brought a child into their personal war on crime. However, eventually accepting that it’s as much therapy for the victim as tactical advantage for the Batman, he’s prepared to let it pass, at least until the little girls are all found…

However it’s as a callow schoolboy that Grayson finds a crucial lead, before blotting his copybook by suiting up to rescue the victims and confront the exposed Generalissimo whilst spectacularly lowering the boom and nabbing his first supervillain. The pushback from austere-but-really-trying mentor Bruce is not at all what the Boy Wonder anticipated…

After more humdrum daily/nightly deeds of derring-do and clashes with minor mooks like Killer Moth, Firefly, Cluemaster and even hulking brute Blockbuster, the kid’s next formative crisis crops up as Two-Face makes the enigmatic junior partner his special project and means of keeping detested Batman in his proper place…

It begins with the modern Janus abducting a judge and staging a show trial to punish all those he holds responsible for the murder of his civilian half Harvey Dent as a prelude to capturing Robin and inflicting physical and psychological torments on his ultimate nemesis’ “second”…

Scarred and broken, Robin is no longer a feature of the night skies. Acting on toxic and malicious “information received” Gordon now acts on a promise he made himself and goes after the Dark Knight for reckless endangerment, child abuse and more. As Grayson comes out of his coma, his first thought is to get back into action, only to learn Bruce has benched him for life. Recuperating but shellshocked, the indomitable boy makes the best of his so-much-lessened life, enduring depression whilst dutifully soldiering on as civilian schoolboy. He does however secretly prepare for a change of heart and call back to action. That comes during a regular checkup with in-the-know family physician Leslie Thompkins, when Dr. Victor Frieze – Mister Freeze – ruthlessly raids the hospital blood bank. In his eagerness to stop the death toll mounting, a masked Grayson saves the day but only at the cost of more lives…

Finally pushed too far and convinced of his own utter worthlessness, Grayson runs away from home, but his time on the streets is cut short after Two-Face breaks out and Minette hires League of Assassins hitter Shrike to settle all his outstanding accounts…

As Batman hunts all the murderous players, he is distracted by the loss of his partner, unaware that the acrobat is not only a target of assorted super freaks but has also been “adopted” by Shrike and added to a most elite training cadre and is picking up skills the Dark Knight would never dream of teaching to children…

Inevitably all the vengeance-hungry murderers’ various schemes converge with Grayson right in the middle. But deep in the shadows, Batman has found him and accepted that theirs is an eternal, fated partnership…

An astounding and breathlessly fun-filled revision by Chuck Dixon (Batman, Robin, Bane, G.I. Joe, The Punisher, The Simpsons, Birds of Prey, Spongebob Squarepants, The Hobbit, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Superman), brought to boundless life by Javier Pulido (Ninjak, Human Target, She-Hulk Star Trek, Jessica Jones, Amazing Spider-Man) & Robert Campanella, the saga herein contained also comes with the artist’s gorgeous ‘Robin: Year One Sketchbook’ of character studies, roughs, layouts and fully pencilled pages, cover roughs and pencils more.

Short and so very, very sweet, this is thrilling romp Fights ‘n’ Tights fans will adore and a paean of pure superhero joy and grace any action/adventure admirer will covet.
© 2000, 2001, & 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Veils


By Pat McGreal, Stephen John Phillips, José Villarrubia & Rebecca Guay (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-355-1 (HB): 978-1-56389-561-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Although at first glance more exercise than exposition, this undemanding and inarguably prurient tale of the Seductive East is also a very readable exercise in genre fiction. Victorian gentlewoman Vivian Pearse-Packard is late in marrying, and her eventual “better half” is a ne’er-do-well wastrel. Now her father-in-law has brought them with him as he resumes his post as British Consul to a Far Eastern Sultanate.

The new and exotic land is shocking to Vivian, and husband Harry remains a possessive and loveless beast, but her life changes when a visit to the Sultan’s seraglio leads to a friendship with one of the ruler’s odalisques. Vivian’s need for companionship initially draws her into the luxuriously seductive world but soon she becomes subtly aware of a hidden agenda among some of the women. Specifically, she is told the ancient tale of Rosalind, a white woman stolen from her father and given to a Sultan, only to rise to the second most powerful position in the land.

How the fable impacts on the increasingly desperate and repressed Englishwoman, and the choices she is subsequently compelled to make in her own life, provide a predictable but enjoyable spin on a most clichéd plot. Moreover, the combination of Phillips stagy yet compelling photography, augmented by Villarrubia’s digital enhancement, imbues the tale with a static theatricality verging on abstraction in places. Rebecca Guay provides classic pen-&-watercolour art for those sections involving Rosalind’s story, imparting the strangest inversion as her contribution is warm, sensitive, deeply alive and approachable, in contrast to the cold, distant and passionless fumetti walling it all in.

All that aside, this is a worthy effort to escape to traditional boundaries of our medium and serves well as a bridge to the wider public.
© 2001 Pat McGreal, Stephen John Phillips & Rebecca Guay. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Mighty Thor volume 4: When Meet the Immortals


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, with Vince Colletta, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5426-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before, but today I’m once again focussing on format. The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line launched with economy in mind: classic tales of Marvel’s key creators and characters re-presented in chronological publishing order. It’s been a staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, hardback collectors editions. These editions are cheaper, on lower quality paper and – crucially – smaller, about the dimensions of a paperback book. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all…

Even more than The Fantastic Four, Sci Fi fantasy title The Mighty Thor was the arena in which Jack Kirby’s boundless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through his increasingly groundbreaking graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s plethora of power-packed signature pantheons began in a modest little monster mag called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-&-true comic book concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by the rapidly resurgent company who were not yet Marvel Comics: adding a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This cheap & cheerful epochal pocket tome re-presents more pioneering Asgardian exploits from Journey into Mystery Annual #1, JiM #120-125, and The Mighty Thor #126-127: altogether spanning cover-dates September 1965 to April 1966 as the venerable anthology title changed name to further magnify its magnificent wide-screen feature hero, in a blazing blur of innovation and seat-of-the-pants myth-revising and universe-building. It is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Art Simek & Sam Rosen, and an unjustly anonymous band of colourists.

As you already know: Once upon a time, lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway and encountered the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As months swiftly passed, rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie tyrants, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces. Moreover, from JiM #110, the wild warrior’s Realm of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for our hero’s earlier exploits, heralding an era of cosmic fantasy to run beside young Marvel’s signature superhero sagas.

Every issue carried spectacular back-up sagas Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gifting Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends. They also allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics – in every sense of the word. Initially adapted myths, these yarns evolved into serial sagas unique to the Marvel universe where Kirby constructed his own cosmos and mythology, underpinning the company’s entire continuity.

Here – with everything attributed to Lee, Kirby & Vince Colletta and after Thor has defeated his malign step-brother Loki and The Destroyer in Vietnam – the Thunder God returns to America, leaving room for a special event and flashback tale too big for the regular periodical.

The blockbusting lead story from Journey into Mystery Annual #1 reveals how in undisclosed ages past the God of Thunder fell across dimensions into the realm of the Greek Gods for a landmark heroic hullabaloo ‘When Titans Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’ The spectacular clash of theologies was an incredible all-action episode, and is augmented by a stunning double-page pin-up of downtown Asgard – a true example of Kirby magic…

Back in the now, Thor stops at Pittsburgh’s steel mills to repair Mjolnir – cut into pieces by the Destroyer – and ‘With My Hammer in Hand..!’ prepares to denounce Loki’s villainy to Odin. In the process he mislays one of his brother’s magical Norn Stones: a mishap that will cost him dearly later. Meanwhile, beloved Jane Foster has been abducted by a hidden miscreant with mischief in mind but before the Thunderer can act on that he is ambushed by Loki’s contingency plan as the awesome Absorbing Man returns…

In the back, the Tales of Asgard serial ‘The Quest’ further unfolded as hand-picked warriors on Thor’s flying longship endure further hardship in their bold bid to forestall Ragnarok. This month’s Asgardian edda sees their bold but misguided attempt finally start, as they ‘Set Sail!’ against their legendary prophesied foes…

JiM #121 opens mid-melee as the Thunderer’s attack against colossal Crusher Creel intensifies in ‘The Power! The Passion! The Pride!’ before the god’s compassion for human spectators sparks his downfall and defeat. Seemingly doomed Thor’s cliffhanger fate is paused as B-feature ‘Maelstrom!’ sees Asgardian Argonauts epically encounter an uncanny living storm…

In #122’s ‘Where Mortals Fear to Tread!’ triumphant Crusher Creel is prevented from finishing Thor when he is abducted by Loki to attack Asgard and Odin himself: an astounding clash capped by cataclysmic conclusion ‘While a Universe Trembles!’ Meanwhile at the rear, ‘The Grim Specter of Mutiny!’ invoked by seditious young Loki is quashed in time for valiant Balder to save the Argonauts from ‘The Jaws of the Dragon!’ in the ever-escalating Ragnarok Quest.

In modern times, with the latest threat to Asgard ended and Creel and Loki banished, Thor returns to Earth to defeat The Demon: a “witchdoctor” empowered by the magical Norn Stone left behind after the Thunder God’s Vietnamese venture. However, whilst the Storm Lord is away, Hercules is dispatched to Earth on a reconnaissance mission for Zeus. ‘The Grandeur and the Glory!’ opens another extended story-arc/action extravaganza, bouncing the Thunderer from bruising battle to brutal defeat to ascendant triumph…

As seen in Journey into Mystery Annual #1, long ago the God of Thunder inadvertently invaded the realm of the Greek Gods. Now with the Greek godling clearly popular with readers, Hercules properly enters the growing Mavel Universe. After the impending imbroglio with Thor, the Prince of Power would battle the Hulk and eventually join the Avengers but right now he’s still just another enemy for the Thunderer to face…

Issue #125 –‘When Meet the Immortals!’ – was the last Journey into Mystery for decades. With next month’s ‘Whom the Gods Would Destroy!’, the comic became The Mighty Thor and the drama amped up, culminating with ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ In short order Thor crushes the Norn-fuelled Demon, tells Jane his secret identity and is deprived of his powers by Odin. He is then brutally beaten by Hercules, and subsequently seemingly loses Jane to the Prince of Power, yet still manages to save Asgard from unscrupulous traitor Seidring the Merciless who had usurped Odin’s mystic might while the All-Father was distracted with family matters. And in the wings another epic encounter opened as a certain satanic terror set his infernal sights on an unwitting godly prince…

To Be Continued…

The accompanying Tales of Asgard instalments see the Questers home in on the cause of all their woes. ‘Closer Comes the Swarm’ pits them against the Flying Trolls of Thryheim, before ‘The Queen Commands’ sees Loki captured until Thor answers ‘The Summons!’, promptly returning all Argonauts to Asgard to be shown ‘The Meaning of Ragnarok!’

In truth, these mini-eddas were, although still magnificent in visual excitement, becoming rather rambling in plot, so the narrative reset was neither unexpected nor unwelcome…

The episodic exploits then close with the original pencil art to the cover of JiM #123.

These Thor tales show the development not only of one of Marvel’s fundamental continuity concepts but more importantly the creative evolution of the greatest imagination in comics. Set your common sense on pause and simply wallow in the glorious imagery and power of these classic adventures for the true secret of what makes graphic narrative a unique experience.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Green Arrow/Black Canary: Till Death Do They Part


By Judd Winick, Cliff Chiang, Amanda Conner, Mike Norton, André Coehlo, Wayne Faucher, Rodney Ramos, Patricia Mulvihill, Paul Mounts, David Baron & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-929-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and comedic effect.

Green Arrow is Oliver Queen, a cross between Batman and Robin Hood and one of DC’s Golden All-Stars. He’s been a fixture of the company’s landscape – often for no discernible reason – more or less continually since his debut in More Fun Comics # 73 in 1941. In those heady days origins weren’t considered as important as image and storytelling, so originators Mort Weisinger & George Papp never bothered, leaving later workmen to fill in the blanks. France Herron, Jack Kirby and his wife Roz crafted one that stuck in ‘The Green Arrow’s First Case’ at the start of the Silver Age superhero revival (Adventure Comics #256, January 1959), and variations of it still impact modern iterations.

As a fixture of the DC Universe GA was one of the few costumed heroes to survive the end of the Golden Age, consistently adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comic books, joining the Justice League during the Silver Age return of costumed crusaders before eventually evolving into a spokes-hero of the anti-establishment during the 1960’s period of “Relevant” comics, courtesy of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. Under Mike Grell’s 1980/1990s stewardship he became a gritty and popular A-Lister: an urban hunter dealing harshly with corporate thugs, government spooks and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls.

…And then he was killed and his son took over the role.

…And then the original came back…

Black Canary was one of the first of relatively few Golden Age women crimebusters in DC’s universe, following Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle and Red Tornado (who actually masqueraded as a man) and predating Merry the Gimmick Girl. Bullet Girl, Phantom Lady and Mary Marvel all began their careers in the same time frame but only joined the DC pantheon after the Golden Age officially ended, snapped up in canny acquisitions that are still paying dividends. The Black Canary (Dinah Lance nee Drake) was created by Bob Kanigher & Carmine Infantino, debuting in Flash Comics #86, August 1947. She derived from a surge in femme fatales (mostly criminals or simply misunderstood) debuting due to equivalent exemplars appearing in gritty film noir B-features, but disappeared with most of the other print superdoers at the end of the Golden Age. However she was one of the first to be revived with the Justice Society of America in 1963.

Originally an Earth-Two crimefighter transplanted to our world, BC has been ruthlessly retconned over and again, but most often now Dinah Laurel Lance is the daughter of an earlier, wartime champion. However you feel about the character, two consistent facts have remained since her reintroduction/assimilation in Justice League of America #73-75 (see Crisis on Multiple Earths vol 1 please link to July 9th 2022 and The Justice League Hereby Elects  please link to September 15th 2017): she has vied with Wonder Woman herself for the title of premiere heroine and she has been in a stormy romantic relationship with Green Arrow ever since.

The tempestuous affair – which actually began during the Summer of Love – finally reached a dramatic culmination some years ago when the couple at last named the day, with this fearsomely dramatic and cripplingly funny tome gathering those unforgettable moments in a celebratory chronicle to warm the hearts and chill the souls of sentimental thrill seekers everywhere.

Reprinting Green Arrow and Black Canary Wedding Special and issues #1-14 of the monthly Green Arrow and Black Canary comic book that sprang from it, the saga begins with a hilariously immature retelling of the path to wedlock from scripter Judd Winick & Amanda Conner. Here the first cute-meet, passion, spats and tender moments are reviewed culminating in riotous hen-nights, rowdy stag-parties and a tremendous battle as a huge guard of dishonour – comprising most of the villains in the DCU – attack the assembled heroes when they’re utterly off-guard…

Naturally the bad guys are defeated, the ceremony concludes and the newlyweds head off to enjoy their wedding night.

And then – in circumstances I’m not going to spoil for you – Green Arrow dies again…

Obviously it doesn’t end there. The dramatic moment acts as springboard for a major restart. In the first issue of the new series Winick & Cliff Chiang’s ‘Dead Again’ only shows Ollie Queen in flashbacks as the Black (Widow) Canary goes on a brutal crime-crushing rampage.

‘Here Comes the Bride’ finds her slowly going off the rails. Only Ollie’s son Connor Hawke – heir to the Arrow mantle – seems able to get through to her where friends and allies like Green Lantern, Superman, Oracle and even Ollie’s old sidekicks Speedy and Red Arrow urge her to move on. As usual it takes the ultra-rational Batman to divine what really happened on the wedding night and send the grief spiral into useful new territory…

In ‘The Naked and the Not-Quite-So-Dead’ Dinah and latest Speedy Mia Dearden infiltrate the secret island paradise of the sinister miscreants who secretly abducted and imprisoned Green Arrow (notice how vague I’m being; all for your benefit?) and find where Ollie is currently; and constantly proving to be more trouble than he can possibly be worth. Conner is also on hand, but whilst attempting to spring his wayward dad also falls captive to uniquely overwhelming forces…

‘Hit and Run, Run, Run!’ ramps up the tension as the heroes all escape – but not before one of their number is gravely wounded by a mystery assailant, prior to ‘Dead Again: Please Play Where Daddy Can See You’ turning the tables and revealing that it’s Ollie’s turn to fall apart as his son and protégé fights for life…

With André Coehlo illustrating, heart-warming reverie ‘Child Support’ (another sequence of poignant flashbacks) describes Green Arrow’s history with his family and the extended team Arrow coterie of sidekicks. Soon, however, Dinah must drag Ollie back from the brink of utter despair when brain dead Connor is abducted from the hospital and life-support machines keeping him breathing…

Cliff Chiang returns for ‘Haystack – First Needle’ as the hunt goes global and felons from Prague to New Jersey to London, England learn that the green team don’t act like heroes when one of their own is imperilled.

Illo 2 here please


Limned by Mike Norton & Wayne Faucher ‘Greetings from Faraway Lands’ introduces super tech thief Dodger. As the team stalk the mastermind behind the botched hit on Ollie and abduction of dying Connor, this lovable rogue slowly graduates from an initially unwilling ally into something far more for one naively impressionable archer. With dubious intel now targeting global threat Ras Al Ghul as their foe and his League of Assassins as the murder weapon, ‘Haystack part 3: the Needle’ – by Winick, Norton & Rodney Ramos – exposes even more duplicity and misinformation as a rushed rescue mission successfully liberates a covert captive hero long gone but somehow unmissed…

Sadly for Ollie & Dinah, it’s the wrong one and a semi-delirious Plastic Man joins the expanding cast of hunters for new story arc ‘A League of Their Own’. Winick, Norton & Faucher’s opening chapter ‘Rubber and Glue’ introduces an alternative/impostor League of Assassins with their own outré agenda and incredible resources but as Team Arrow ‘Step Up to the Plate and Swing Away’ in ever stranger locales, it becomes increasingly clear that ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’ is not someone they regularly face.

In fact ‘The Son of the Father, the Father of the Son’ exposes a friend not an enemy behind the plot; albeit one motivated by tragedy and desperation and trapped in the vile manipulations of a true mad scientist mastermind’s vengeance-tinged plot and opportunistic attempts to build a super-powered slave army…

Unexpectedly defeated by the valiant acts of Team Arrow, the malign malefactor gets his comeuppance and a vastly changed, amnesiac but mostly cured Connor  rejoins his family in ‘Home Again, Home Again’ and as father and son seek to bond as they never could before, Oliver Queen realises that always ‘One Door Closes, Another Opens’…

To Be Continued…

The book concludes with a stunning and often hilarious variant cover gallery by Ryan Sook, Cliff Chiang, and Amanda Connor, reminding us that Green Arrow and Black Canary are characters who epitomise the modern adventure hero’s best qualities, even if in many ways they are also the most traditional of “Old School” champions. This witty and wild ride is a cracking example of Fights ‘n’ Tights done right and is well worth an investment of your money, time and emotional commitment.
© 2007, 2008, 2009, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Young Love


By Robert Kanigher, Jack Miller, Phyllis Reed, Lee Goldsmith, Barbara Friedlander, Julius Schwartz, John Romita, Bernard Sachs, John Rosenberger, Werner Roth, Bill Draut, Mike Sekowsky, Tony Abruzzo, Arthur Peddy, Dick Giordano, Sal Trapani, Jay Scott Pike, Gene Colan, John Giunta, Frank Giacoia & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3438-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in far less enlightened times.

As the escapist popularity of flamboyant superheroes waned after World War II, newer genres such as Romance and Horror came to the fore and older forms regained their audiences. Some, like Westerns and “Funny Animal” comics, had hardly changed at all but Crime and Detective tales were utterly radicalised by the temperament of the times. Stark, uncompromising, cynically ironic novels and socially aware, if not actually culturally nihilistic, movies that would become categorised as Film Noir offered postwar society a bleakly antiheroic worldview that often hit too close to home and set fearful, repressive, middleclass parent groups and political ideologues howling for blood.

Naturally, these new artistic sensibilities seeped into comics, transforming two-fisted gumshoe and Thud-&-Blunder cop strips of yore into darkly beguiling, even frightening tales of seductive dames, big payoffs and glamorous, sympathetically portrayed thugs and brutes. Sensing imminent Armageddon, America’s moral junkyard dogs bayed ever louder as they imagined their precious children’s minds under seditious attack…

Concurrent to the demise of masked mystery-men, industry giants and inveterate pioneers Joe Simon & Jack Kirby famously invented the love genre for comic books, crafting tastefully adult-oriented, beguiling, explosively contemporary social dramas equally focussed on the changing cultural scene and grown up relationships. However, even they began cautiously, with semi-comedic prototype My Date in early 1947 before plunging into the torrid real deal with Young Romance #1 in September of that year.

Not since the invention of Superman has a single comic book generated such a frantic rush of imitation and flagrant cashing-in. It was a monumental hit and the team quickly expanded: releasing spin-offs such as Young Love (February 1949), Young Brides and In Love. Simon & Kirby presaged and ushered-in the first American age of adult comics – not only with their creation of the Romance genre, but with challenging modern stories of real people in extraordinary situations. Sadly, they also saw it all disappear again in less than eight years. Produced for a loose association of companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines, their small stable of magazines blossomed and wilted as the industry contracted throughout the 1950s.

All through that turbulent period, comic books suffered impossibly biased oversight and hostile scrutiny from hidebound and panicked old guard institutions such as church groups, media outlets and ambitious opportunistic politicians. A number of tales and titles were cherry-picked and garnered especial notoriety from those social doomsmiths, whilst hopeful celebration and eager anticipation amongst tragic, forward-thinking (if psychologically scarred comics-collecting) victims was quashed when the industry instigated a ferocious Comics Code castrating the creative form just when it most needed boldness and imagination.

We lost and comics endured more than a decade and a half of savagely doctrinaire, self-imposed censorship. Those tales from a simpler, more paranoid time (much like right now), exposed a society in meltdown and suffering cultural PTSD, but are mild by modern standards of behaviour, and the sheer quality of art and writing make those pivotal years a creative highpoint long overdue for a thorough reassessment.

The first Young Love ran for 73 issues (1949-1956) before folding and being relaunched in a far more anodyne, CCA-approved form as All For Love in Spring 1957. Unable to find an iota of its previous and hoped-for audience, it disappeared after 17 issues in March 1959 before resurrecting as Young Love a year later. Starting with #18, the title ran steadily but unremarkably until June 1963 when the experiment and company died with #38. Crestwood sold its remaining landmark, groundbreaking titles and properties – Young Romance, Young Love and Black Magic being the most notable – to National/DC before fading from sight. The new editors released their first edition in the autumn of 1963 as part of their own small, shy, unassuming romance ring: carrying on with it and similar titles targeting teenaged girls (for which, read aspirational, imaginative 8-12 year-olds) for the next 15 years.

In the 1970s a sharp decline in all comic book sales finally killed the genre off. Young Love was one of the last; ending at #126 (cover-date July 1977). This monumental monochrome miscellany gathers DC’s first 18 issues (#39-56) spanning September/October 1963 – July/ August 1966) but, although beautiful to look upon, it is sadly plagued with twin tragedies.

The first is that the stories soon become fearfully formulaic – although flashes of narrative brilliance do crop up with reassuring regularity – whilst the second is an painfully inaccurate listing of creator credits. Many fans have commented and suggested corrections online, and I’m adding my own surmises and deductions about artists whenever I’m reasonably sure, but other than the unmistakable, declamatorily florid flavour of Robert Kanigher, none of us in fandom are that certain just who was responsible for scripting these amatory affairs. However, research continues and sources like Grand Comicbook Database, Lambiek and DC.fandom.com are continually amending history for us. Here, likely anonymous creative contenders include Dorothy Woolfolk, George Kashdan, E. Nelson Bridwell and Morris Waldinger, but I’m afraid we may never really know.

C’est l’amour… et la vie

On these anthological pages, the heartbreak and tears begin with the introduction of a soap-opera serial undoubtedly inspired by romantic antics of television physicians such as Dr. Kildare (1961-1966) and Ben Casey (1962-1966). Written in an uncomfortably macho “me Dr. Tarzan, you Nurse Jane” style by Kanigher and illustrated with staggering beauty by John Romita, ‘The Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N.’ follows the painful journey and regularly recurring heartache of a nurse dedicated to her patients, all whilst fighting her inbuilt need to “settle down” with the man of her dreams, whoever he may be.

It’s usually a big-headed, know-it-all medic with no time to waste on settling anything or anywhere…

The serial opened with 2-part novelette ‘No Cure for Love’, in which a newly-qualified Registered Nurse starts her career in the OR at County General Hospital, instantly arousing the ire of surly surgeon Will Ames whose apparent nastiness is only a mask for his moody man-concern over his poor benighted patients – but never their billables…

However, even as he romances Mary and she dares to dream, the good doctor soon proves that medicine will always be his first and only Love.

I’m not sure of the inker but the pencils on stand-alone back-up ‘You’ve Always Been Nice!’ look like Werner Roth in a novel yarn of modern Texans in love that pretty much sets the tone for the title: Modern Miss gets enamoured of the wrong guy or flashy newcomer until the quiet one who waited for her finally gets motivated. ‘The Eve of His Wedding’ – by Bernard Sachs – goes with the other favourite option: a smug, flashy girl who loses out to the quiet potentially Trad-wife heroine waiting patiently for true love to lead her man back to her…

In #40, Kanigher & Romita ask Mary Robin ‘Which Way, My Heart?’ and she answers by letting Dr. Ames walk all over her before transferring to Paediatrics. She still found time to fall in love with a thankfully adult patient – but only until he got better… Filling out the issue are ‘Someone to Remember’ (illustrated by Bill Draut) which sees sensible Judy utterly transform herself into a sophisticated floozy for a boy who actually prefers the old her, and ‘The Power of Love’ (incorrectly attributed to Don Heck but perhaps Morris Waldinger or John Rosenberger heavily inked by Sachs?) wherein Linda competes with her own sister over new boy Bill.

Although retaining the cover spot, the medical drama was relegated to the end of the comic from #41 on, and complete stories led, starting on ‘End With A Kiss’ (Mike Sekowsky & Sachs), wherein calculating Anna almost marries wrong guy Steve, until good old Neil puts his foot down, whilst for a girl who dates two men at the same time, ‘Heartbreak Came Twice!’ – a tale that was almost a tragedy. Mary Robin then cries – she cried a lot – ‘No Tomorrow for My Heart!’ as Will Ames continues calling when he feels like it as she somehow finds herself competing with best friend Tess for both him and a hunky patient in their care. Mary even briefly quits her job for this man of her dreams…

The always superb John Rosenberger inking himself – mistakenly credited throughout to Jay Scott Pike – opens #42 with ‘Boys are Fools!’ wherein young Phyllis is temporarily eclipsed by her cynical, worldly older sister Jayne; until a decent man shows them the error of their ways. Vile Marty then uses unwitting Linda as a pawn in a battle of romantic rivals for ‘A Deal with Love!’ (Rosenberger or maybe Win Mortimer & Sachs?). I don’t have any corroborating proof, but a custom of the era was for artists to trade pages or anonymously collaborate on some stories; making visual identification a real expert’s game…

With a ‘Fearful Heart!’, Mary Robin closes up the issue by accidentally stealing the love of a blinded patient nursed by her plain associate. When the hunk’s sight returned, he just naturally assumes the pretty one was his devoted carer…

Young Love #43 opened with the excellent ‘Remember Yesterday’ (Tony Abruzzo & Sachs) in which Gloria relives her jilting by fiancé Grant before embarking on a journey of self-discovery and finding her way back to love. Then the Sekowsky/Sachs influenced ‘A Day Like Any Other’ and ‘Before it’s Too Late’ disclose the difficulties of being a working woman and temptations of being left at home all alone…

After that, Kanigher & Romita end the affairs by sharing the childhood days of Mary Robin and just why she turned to nursing when her childhood sweetheart becomes her latest patient in ‘Shadow of Love!’ YL #44 declares ‘It’s You I Love!’ (Abruzzo & Frank Giacoia) as wilful Chris foolishly sets her cap for the college’s biggest hunk, whilst in ‘Unattainable’ Lorna learns she just isn’t that special to playboy Gary before Mary Robin endures ‘Double Heartbreak!’ when her own sister Naomi sweeps in and swoops off with on-again, off-again Dr. Ames.

Sekowsky & Sachs opened #45 with ‘As Long as a Lifetime!’ wherein poor April finds herself torn between and tearing apart best friends Tommy and Jamie, whilst ‘Laugh Today, Weep Tomorrow!’ (Phyllis Reed & Abruzo) has tragic Janet see her best friend Margot‘s seductive allure steal away another man she might have loved. ‘One Kiss for Always’ then shows Mary Robin as the patient after a bus crash costs her the use of her legs. During her battle back to health, and loss of the only man she might be happy with, the melodrama finally achieves the heights it always aspired to in a tale of genuine depth and passion.

Reed & Rosenberger lead in #46 as Maria and Mark conspire together to win back their respective intendeds and discover exactly ‘Where Love Belongs’, after which Mortimer reveals ‘It’s All Over Now’ (Reed & Arthur Peddy) for Merrill who only gets Cliff because Addie went away to finishing school. But then she came back…

This surprisingly mature and sophisticated fable is followed by Kanigher & Romita’s ‘Veil of Silence!’ in which Nurse Robin takes her duties to extraordinary lengths: allowing a patient to take her latest boyfriend in order to aid her full recovery…

YL #47’s ‘Merry Christmas’ (Rosenberger) shows astonishing seasonal spirit as Thea cautiously welcomes back sister Laurie – and gives her a second chance to steal her husband – after which secretary Vicky eavesdrops on her boss and boyfriend: almost finishing her marriage before it begins in ‘Every Beat of his Heart!’ (Reed & Peddy). Mary Robin’s ‘Cry for Love’ starts in another pointless fling with gadabout Ames and ends with her almost stealing another nurse’s man in a disappointingly shallow but action-packed effort, after which – in #48 – ‘Call it a Day’ (Lee Goldsmith & Peddy) finds an entire clan of women united to secure a man for little Alice, before Rosenberger limns ‘Trust Him!’ wherein bitter sister Marta‘s harsh advice to love-sick sibling Jill is happily ignored. Kanigher & Romita then explore Mary Robin’s ‘Two-Sided Heart!’ after Ames again refuses to consider moving beyond their casually intimate relationship. Of course, that shouldn’t excuse what she then does with the gorgeous amnesia patient who has a grieving girlfriend…

Young Love #49 led with Jack Miller & Rosenberger’s ‘Give Me Something to Remember You By!’, with Marge praying her latest summer romance turns into a something more. Waiting is a torment but ‘Your Man is Mine!’ (Goldsmith &Roth) shows what’s worse when sisters clash and Clea again tries taking what Pat has: a fiancé…

‘Someone… Hear my Heart!’ then unselfconsciously dips into the world of TV as Mary Robin dumps Dr. Ames for an actor and new career on a medical show. It doesn’t end well and she’s soon back where she belongs with bedpans and the man who can’t or won’t appreciate her…

Roth – or maybe Sekowsky & Jay Scott Pike – open #50 with ‘Second Hand Love’ as Debbie dreads that the return of vivacious Vicky will lead to her taking back the man she left behind, whilst ‘Come into My Arms!’ (Reed & Frank Bolle) sees Mary Grant visit Paris in search of one man, only to fall for another. Mary Robin then finds herself pulled in many directions as she falls for another doctor and one more hunky patient before yet again rededicating herself to professional care over ‘The Love I Never Held!’ She jumps back to the front in #51, discovering  ‘All Men are Children!’ (still Kanigher & Romita) when an unruly shut-in vindictively uses her to make another nurse jealous, after which Miller & Rosenberger delivers a stunning turn with ‘Afraid of Love!’ Here, after years of obsessive yearning, Lois finally goes for it with the man of her dreams. Romita then a took a turn at an stand-alone solo story, limning Miller’s ‘No Easy Lessons in Love’ wherein Gwen and Peter separately travel the world and make many mistakes before finally finding each other again.

The nurse finally got her man – and her marching orders – in #52’s ‘Don’t Let it Stop!’, but dashing intern Dan Swift only makes his move on Mary after being hypnotised! Hopefully, she lived happily ever after because, despite being advertised for the next issue, she didn’t appear again…

The abrupt departure was followed by vintage reprint ‘Wonder Women of History: Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch’ (by Julius Schwartz & John Giunta from Wonder Woman #55, September/October 1952), detailing the life of a crusading social campaigner before Roth & Sachs detail how a flighty girl stops chasing husky lifeguards and finds a faithful adoring ‘Young Man for Me!’ ‘The Day I Looked Like This!’ (by Dick Giordano & Sal Trapani) celebrates the day tomboy Judi finally starts gussying up like a proper girl and unhappily discovers she is the spitting image of a hot starlet…

Sporting a design makeover, Young Love #53 opens with ‘A Heart Full of Pride!’ (Abruzzo & Romita) as naïve Mib proves to herself that – just like in school – determination and perseverance pay off in romance, before Miller & Peddy show how standoffish Cynthia learns how she needs to play the field to win her man in ‘I Wanted My Share of Love’.

Miller & Romita describe the designs of Kathy, who discovers the pitfalls of her frivolous lifestyle in ‘Everybody Likes Me… but Nobody Loves Me!’ before Draut illustrates Miller’s lead feature for YL #54 as ‘False Love!’ exposes a case of painfully mistaken intentions when a gang of kids all go out with the wrong partners… until bold Nan finally speaks her mind.

Reed, Abruzzo & Sachs’ ‘Love Against Time’ shows schoolteacher Lisa that patience isn’t everything, after which ‘Too Much in Love!’(Miller & Romita) hints at a truly abusive relationship until Mandy‘s rival tells her just why beloved Van acts that way…

‘An Empty Heart!’ (Reed & Peddy) opens #55, revealing how insecure Mindy needs to date other boys just to be sure she can wait for beloved Sam to come back from the army, whilst in ‘Heart-Shy’ (Reed, Jay Scott Pike & Sachs) oblivious Della takes took her own sweet time realising self-effacing Lon is the boy for her, after which Pike limns Miller’s tale of Janie who finally defies her snobbish, controlling mother and picks ‘Someone of My Own to Love’.

The romance dance concludes here with #56 and ‘A Visit to a Lost Love’ (Miller & Gene Colan): a bittersweet winter’s tale of paradise lost and regained, after which perpetually fighting Richy and Cindy realise ‘Believe it or Not… It’s Love’ (Barbara Friedlander, Abruzzo & Sachs), and ‘I’ll Make Him Love Me!’ (Miller & Sachs) show how scary Liz stalks Perry until she falls for her destined soul-mate Bud…

As I’ve stated, the listed credits are full of errors and whilst I’ve corrected those I know to be wrong I’ve also made a few guesses which might be just as wild and egregious (I’m still not unconvinced that many tales were simply rendered by a committee of artists working in desperate jam-sessions), so I can only apologise to all those it concerns, as well as fans who thrive on these details for the less-than-satisfactory job of celebrating the dedicated creators who worked on these all-but-forgotten items.

As for the tales themselves: they’re dated, outlandish and frequently offensive in their treatment of women. So were the times in which they were created, but that’s no excuse.

However, there are many moments of true narrative brilliance to equal the astonishing quality of the artwork here, and by the end of this titanic torrid tome the tone of the turbulent times was definitely beginning to shift as the Swinging part of the Sixties began and hippies, free love, flower power and female emancipation began scaring the pants off the old guard and reactionary traditionalists.

Not for wimps or sissies but certainly an unmissable temptation for all traditionalist romantics and lovers of great comic art…
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