Category: European

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Fists Raised – 10 Stories of Sports Star Activism


By Chloé Célérien & Karim Nedjari translated by Peter Russella (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-303-5 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-304-2

Having just recently endured the most nauseating and crass example of sports-washing I can think of – and I’m including the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 in that statement – here’s a wonderful comics counterpoint and riposte, detailing the power of sports to do good.

Sadly – and as seems quite usual now – it’s generally cases of well-meaning individuals working against the advisement and wishes of their own sporting governing bodies and governments. It’s almost as if the people running the show care more about money and power than honour, history, achievement or the fans that pay their wages…

It seems there’s nothing you can’t craft compelling comics about if you’re talented and inspired, as seen in this spellbinding celebration of sports stars weaponising their fame and glory to change the world in ways that truly matter.

Originally released au Continent in 2021 as Générations Poing Levé, quand le sport percute l’histoire, this beguiling and amusingly infuriating book blends history, biography and social commentary thanks to scripter Karim Nedjari (French pundit, journalist and CEO of Radio Monte Carlo and RMC Sport) who teams up with sports-mad cartoonist Chloé Célérien to précis the lives and careers of ten true champions.

These noteworthy stars have all used their celebrity to call out hypocrisy and injustice, fighting to better the lives of the Poor, Disenfranchised, Oppressed or otherwise Othered our rulers choose to ignore or outlaw…

Sports and public competition have always enraptured the masses: eternally viewed as a great and unifying leveller. Even the most lowly and downtrodden can derive joy from playing or participating and, for the impoverished, excellence has always offered a means of escape: a way to turn their talents into a kind of liberty and agency.

It has never, however, been enough to make players into billionaires. Even the greatest can’t make the leap from “player” to “owner”. That takes generational wealth…

Moreover, we haven’t changed much from ancient times. Women are still excluded or simply included on arbitrary male terms and there’s little difference in the status and treatment of a top footballer and a champion racehorse, a boxer or a show dog: ultimately they’re all property of an elite that runs the game and makes – and changes – the rules.

Even so, some modern-day gladiators risking themselves for the benefits granted by cunning commerce and contemporary Caesars may have personal Spartacus moments: telling the powers-that-be when, how, how much and how often they are betraying the people they smugly lord over…

That’s certainly the case in the brief biography of ‘Marcus Rashford – Big Brother to the Poor (1997, soccer, England)’. He’s a young black athlete who translated his astounding footballing triumphs into a very public war of wills with the entire British Government, and especially inept, pitifully attention-addicted prime minister Boris Johnson.

Émigré comedian Henning Wenn summed it up best when he said “We don’t do charity in Germany. We pay taxes. Charity is a failure of Government’s responsibilities…”

A grateful beneficiary of free school meals as a child, Rashford used his elevated public position to school the ruling Conservative party – who had near-unanimously voted AGAINST FEEDING STARVING CHILDREN – in a media campaign that resulted in Johnson repeatedly bowing to the footballer’s gadfly “suggestions”.

In a backward-looking Britain that has adopted the dogma that money is more important than people, the toxic policies of the Tories had never been more powerfully or effectively opposed than in this case of a working-class hero who never forgot where he came from…

‘Muhammad Ali – The Greatest (1942-2016, boxing, United States)’ recalls the career of another icon. Ali was a sporting superstar who evolved into a paragon of black liberation and human equality, and global symbol of power, endurance and dignity.

American prize fighter Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., found his true name and purpose after years of social othering, where he was readily permitted to entertain millions of Americans, but only to eat, sleep or share space where white people said he could…

Born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17th 1942, Clay began boxing at age 12. He won titles and acclaim and notoriety, not simply for his incredible sporting achievements but for his quick wit, cultural savvy and moral standing. Gold medal Olympian, World heavyweight champion, critic, pundit and street poet, in 1966 Clay took on the American government and paid a high personal price for refusing to fight a “white man’s war” in Vietnam.

Originally declared 4F due to dyslexia, he was abruptly re-classified and called up after becoming a voice of the Civil Rights Movement. Many still believe he was only drafted to shut him up… a tactic repeated over and over again throughout modern history.

A lifelong equal rights advocate, in 1964, the forceful Conscientious Objector had converted to Islam and formally renounced his “slave name”, adopting new appellation Muhammad Ali.

A living symbol of black pride, Ali retired from boxing in 1981 to concentrate on commercial, social, political and philanthropic works. He was declared Sportsman and Sports Personality of the (20th) Century by Sports Illustrated and the BBC respectively, and died in June 2016 from complications associated with Parkinson’s disease. Like Pelé, he changed the way the world saw colour…

Such was also the case with ‘Surya Bonaly – Black Blades (1973, figure skating, France)’: a black female skater who overcame all odds, broke records and revolutionised her sport, only to be denied its greatest awards and rewards thanks to constant gaslighting and the immovable forces of institutionalised racism. Her fight to correct those injustices for all who followed in her spectacular footsteps comprises the greater part of her entry here.

The same is true for the now largely anonymized icon whose very stance and image gave rise to the concept of sport as symbolic culture weapon.

‘Tommie Smith – The Black Clenched Fist of America (1944, track and field, United States)’ overcame poverty and entrenched bias to win gold at the 1968 Olympics, educating himself to the rank of college professor

His actions particularly outraged closet racist and antisemite and President of the Olympic Committee Avery Brundage (you should look up his sterling record…): a man whose influence tainted sport for generations from his apologist stance at the 1936 “Nazi Olympics” all the way through to the terrorist-blighted 1972 Munich games. He’s worthy of his entry if not book, but it wouldn’t be very complimentary…

How Tommie Smith willingly surrendered everything to make the political statement he believed more important than his own future, and how not just he and black teammate John Carlos (bronze medallist) but also white Australian silver medallist Peter Norman (who contributed a crucial twist to the Raised Fist incident) were punished for the visual statement is something every sports lover should be ashamed of and outraged by…

This chapter also carefully deconstructs the events and planning leading to that moment and the carefully conceived symbolic assault on the Establishment. Here we see Smith enduring decades of FBI surveillance in the aftermath. Moreover, he was designated one of ten athletes considered “a threat to America”, but ended on a triumphal high as the man who inspired Colin Kaepernick’s latterday protest, the Black Lives Matter movement and the career of Barack Obama finally received the acclaim he deserved…

Just as ingrained and unassailable was the attitude to women in sport and ‘Megan Rapinoe – An American Feminist (1985, soccer, United States)’ traces a painfully similar and oft-rerun path. Rapinoe was born to a poor white staunchly Republican family, and endured a different kind of bigotry. She and her siblings employed sport – or petty crime – to escape their stifling social problems, but Megan’s unique triumphs in soccer made her a global icon.

World Cup winner, Gold-winning Olympian, openly gay and a media megastar, she used her fame to champion pay inequality in US sport and constantly battled racial, sexual and gender bias. She was the first sports professional to support and emulate Colin Kaepernick’s stance and gesture, and proudly basked in the wrath of one-time President Donald Trump: constantly doubling down in a personal campaign to “smash the Patriarchy”, against the express wishes of much of her family. She too was celebrated and encouraged by more rational American Presidents and continues her forthright war on repressive conservatism…

‘Caster Semenya – The Woman Who Ran Too Fast (1991, track and field, South Africa)’ relates the shameful treatment of an African Olympian whose actual biology was considered aberrant and unwelcome. Targeted by (some) fellow competitors as well as international sporting authorities, the World Champion runner’s achievements and gender were constantly and repeatedly questioned. She was accused of being a man unfairly competing against women, and that man Brundage had plenty of unpleasant, unhelpful things to say on this issue too…

Her struggle for personal validation encompassed and overcame many official attempts to reclassify the sporting definitions of gender, and her later life has been dedicated to championing the rights of intersex women across the world…

‘Arthur Ashe – Humanitarian Aces (1943-1993, tennis, United States)’ was a world-shaking trailblazer who broke a monopoly. As seen above, sporting success has always been the only real weapon poor people have in a world tailored to accommodate the wealthy – usually white – and their offspring. A descendent of slaves, second class Virginian citizen Ashe shattered an age-old State colour bar preventing “his kind” playing tennis against white players. He fought hard and progressed, going on to become a global superstar: the first black man on UCLA’s team, first to play on the USA’s International (Davis Cup) team and first to win a prestigious Wimbledon tournament (where he controversially raised a Tommie Smith style fist after beating ferocious rival and Great White Hope Jimmy Connors).

Ashe was also a self-educated intellectual, a pacifist, a fashion icon and born social warrior who happily made waves. He too was classified as fodder for Vietnam, but his brother – a veteran – volunteered to take his place, leaving Arthur to continue his campaigns against injustice and intolerance, such as his early opposition to Apartheid in South Africa.

The crusader seemed born under an unlucky star: his sporting career ended early after a massive heart attack, and he survived quadruple bypass surgery to become a tennis coach who numbered John McEnroe amongst his protégés. His influence inspired many players of colour, from Yanick Noah to Venus and Serena Williams …

A second heart attack led to an agonisingly slow decline and dictated the course of his last crusade. Blood used during another heart operation had been contaminated with HIV and infected Ashe with AIDS. Diagnosed in 1988 with the mystery disease then decimating gay and black communities – and whilst writing a definitive history of black sportsmen and women in America – Ashe became the spokesman for AIDS sufferers everywhere after blackmailers threatened to expose his condition.

Instead, he went public, frustrating the criminals, demystifying the modern bête noir and becoming a UN consultant on HIV/AIDS until his death in February 1993. He lived long enough to see Apartheid end and meet his idol Nelson Mandela…

An unending fight for personal freedom and autonomy follows in the history of ‘Nadia Comaneci – The Dictator’s Doll (1961, gymnastics, Romania)’. Raised in the Soviet satrapy of Romania, determined sportswoman and legendary Olympic gymnast Comaneci fell under the absolute control of monstrous dictators and deranged personality cultists Nicolae and Elena Ceau?escu. Henceforth, her astounding accomplishments (first ever to achieve maximum possible scores and youngest athlete to win gold) became just like her pay, awards and prizes: property of the State as manifested in Mrs & Mrs Ceau?escu – whose many insane edicts included classifying sex education as a state secret and establishing Menstruation Police to enforce a population boom the bankrupt nation could not support…

Nadia’s abuse, struggle, flight to freedom in the West and subsequent bondage to a coercive controller is the stuff of nightmares and her eventual triumph and loving later life an utter cathartic joy.

Even for a nation that has produced many messianic footballers ‘Sócrates – Half Plato, Half Pelé (1954-2011, football, Brazil)’ is a remarkable figure. Another poor, talented and self-educated soccer star drawn from the underclasses, his struggles against addiction (“beer, cigarettes and women”) and the toxic allure of celebrity fed a fierce desire to be the best, but never affected his aims to help the people through socialism, medicine and ultimately political power. His early death might have robbed the world of a force for change, but his admirers’ and followers’ successful struggles against the Right – as manifested in dictatorial President Jair Bolsonaro – prove that his legacy ranges far beyond his sporting miracles…

Ending this potent exploration of individual achievement lifting all boats is the inspirational story of ‘Hiyori Kon – Little Miss Sumo (1997, sumo wrestling, Japan)’.

A resolute Japanese girl of lowly origin, she was early besotted by the national sport and battled two millennia of entrenched chauvinism and anti-female prejudice in a paradoxically forward-looking but hidebound society where many male and female roles are backed up by draconian laws and ironclad cultural conditioning. Even today Japan is one of the most gender-restricted societies on Earth (ranked 121st of 153 in terms of gender inequality by the World Economic Forum). The very term “feminism” equates with “hate” and “hysteria”…

Hiyori’s battles to compete as a female sumo wrestler were the stuff of legend, taking her across the country and the world as both competitor and coach for a sport growing evermore popular amongst women everywhere but in its nation of origin.

She has won medals everywhere but Japan, where the National Olympic governing body actually excluded the sport/discipline from their own (Covid-delayed) 2021 games because all events in any Olympiad must be open to male and female competitors…

Nevertheless, as part of a growing, inexorable tide of resolute women working for change, Hiyori has started a wave of reform and her crusade continues to this day…

These days a seemingly infinite variety of subjects fit under the umbrella of modern graphic novels – everything from superheroes, sci fi and the supernatural to philosophy, journalism and education. Thanks to their global reach and outlook, NBM are at the forefront of this welcome revolution, bringing a range of visions to the English-speaking table that apparently daunt most mainstream publishers here and in America.

Today’s book is a perfect case in point: a sequence of visual adaptations of some of the world’s most celebrated role models, chosen not only for their scintillating accomplishments but also the force of their convictions. The result is an utterly enticing graphic treasure, and there’s not a single tragic supervillain in sight… unless you count assorted governments, individual politicians, scurrilous administrators and business owners…

NBM’s library of graphic biographies are swiftly becoming the crucial guide to the key figures of modern history and popular culture. If you haven’t found the answers you’re seeking yet, then you’re clearly not looking in the right place…
© Hatchette Livre (Marabout) 2021. © 2022 NBM for the English translation. All rights reserved.

Fists Raised – 10 Stories of Sports Star Activism will be released on January 12th 2023 and can be pre-ordered now in both print and digital editions.

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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White All Around


By Wilfrid Lupano & Stéphane Fert, translated by Montana Kane (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only edition

When we actually get to hear it, history is an endlessly fascinating procession of progress and decline that plays out eternally at the behest of whoever’s in power at any one time. However, don’t be fooled. It’s never about “opinions” or “alternative facts”: most moments of our communal existence generally happened one way with only the reasons, motivations and repercussions shaded to accommodate a preferred point of view.

The best way to obfuscate the past is to tell everyone it never happened and pray nobody goes poking around. So much you never suspected has been brushed under a carpet and erased by intervening generations proceeding without any inkling…

Entire sections of society have been unwritten in this manner but always there have been pesky troublemakers who prod and probe, looking for what’s been earmarked for forgetting and shine a light on the history that isn’t there.

One such team of investigators are Wilfrid Lupano & Stéphane Fert who in 2020 released a sequential graphic narrative account of a remarkable moment of opportunity that was quashed by entrenched bigotry, selfish privilege and despicable intolerance…

The translated Blanc autour is available to English-reading audiences only in a digital format thus far and opens with a context-filled Foreword before we meet servant girl Sarah Harris as she is tormented by ruffian child Feral, reading to her from an infamous new book…

Set one year after Nat Turner’s doomed black uprising of August 21st 1831 (in Southampton County, Virginia), this true tale took place in a land still reeling and terrified.

New preventative measures to control and suppress the slave population included banning black gatherings of three or more people, an increase in public punishments like floggings, lynchings and ferocious policing if not outright outlawing of negro literacy. The posthumous publishing of Thomas R. Gray’s The Confessions of Nat Turner had created a best seller that further outraged and alarmed Americans…

Even in 1832, and hundreds of miles north in genteel Canterbury, Connecticut black people were careful to mind their place. It might be a “Free State”, where slavery was illegal but even here Negros were an impoverished underclass…

Sarah, however, is afflicted with a quick, agile and relentlessly questioning mind. She craves knowledge and understanding the way her fellow servants do food, rest and no trouble. One day, fascinated by the way water behaves, she plucks up her courage and asks the local school teacher to explain.

Prudence Crandall is a well-respected and dedicated educator diligently shepherding the young daughters of the (white) citizenry to whatever knowledge they’ll need to be good wives and mothers, but when the brilliant little servant girl quizzes her, the teacher is seized by an incredible notion…

When a new term starts Sarah is the latest pupil, and despite outraged and increasingly less polite objections from the civic great and good – all proudly pro negro advancement, but not necessarily here or now – Miss Crandall is adamant that she should remain. When parents threaten to remove their children, she goes on the offensive, declaring the school open for the “reception of young ladies and little misses of color”…

Her planned curriculum includes reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, natural and moral philosophy, history, drawing and painting, music on the piano, and the French language, and by sending it along with her intentions to Boston Abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, Crandall declare war on intolerance and ignorance in her home town. Sadly, her proud determination unleashes an unstoppable wave of sabotage, intimidation, sly exclusion, social ostracism and naked hatred against herself and her negro student…

She even tried to defend the move at the Municipal Assembly, only to learn that only men were allowed to speak there…

Crandall’s response is to make her Canterbury Female Boarding School exclusively a place for a swiftly growing class of black girls. All too soon, politicians and lawmakers got involved and harassment intensified to the point of terrorism and murder. Connecticut even legislated that it was illegal to educate coloured people from out of State…

The school became another piece in the complex political game between abolitionists and slave-owing states but still managed to enhance the lives and intellects of its boarders, until 1834 when Prudence Crandall stood trial for the crime of teaching black children. When she was exonerated, the good people of Canterbury took off the kid gloves…

Although this war was never going to be won, Crandall’s incredible stand for tolerance, inclusivity and universal education was a minor miracle of enlightenment, attracting students from across America and countering the long-cherished “fact” that blacks and females had no need or even capacity for learning. Moreover, though the bigots managed to drive her out, she and her extraordinary pupils retrenched to continue the good work in another state: one more willing to risk the status quo…

This amazing story is delivered as a fictionalised drama made in a manner reminiscent of a charming and stylish Disney animated feature, but the surface sweetness and breezy visuals are canny subterfuge. Scripter Wilfred Lupano (Azimut; Little Big Joe; Valerian & Laureline: Shingouzlooz Inc.; The Old Geezers; Vikings dans la brume) and illustrator Stéphane Fert (Morgane; Axolot; Peau de Mille Bêtes) deploy a subtle sheen of beguiling fairy tale affability to camouflage their exposure of a moving, cruel and enraging sidebar to accepted history: one long overdue for modern reassessment.

The creators also wisely leaven the load with delightful, heart-warmingly candid moments exploring the feelings and connections of the students, and balance tragedy with moments of true whimsy and life-affirming fantasy: but please beware – it does not end well for all…

The book also includes an Afterword by Joanie DiMartino – Curator of the Prudence Crandall Museum – tracing in biographical snippets, the eventful lives, careers and achievements of eleven of the boldly aspirational scholars of the Crandall School’s first class.

White All Around is a disturbing yet uplifting story that every concerned citizen should read and remember. After all, learning is a privilege, not a right… unless we all defend and advance it…
© 2021 DARGAUD BENELUX, (Dargaud-Lombard s. a.) – LUPANO & FERT. All rights reserved. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin


By Émilie Plateau, with Tania de Montaigne, translated by Montana Kane (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only edition

Sometimes history doesn’t just happen. On occasion – and for the grandest and noblest of reasons – it has to be manufactured…

On December 1st 1955, Rosa Parks rode the bus home. She had taken said public transport vehicle many times before and until that moment had always followed the rules. This was in Montgomery, Alabama, where “Jim Crow” laws had been continually clawing back from black citizens every vestige of freedom and precious personal liberty won with shot and shell during the War Between the States, almost from the moment the shooting stopped…

Thus, on those commuter routes – as everywhere else – white people had priority, and if a black person was seated, they had to get up and literally move to the back of the bus to let “their betters” sit.

On that evening, weary Rosa refused to give up her seat, even when told to by the white bus driver. She knew there would be consequences, anticipated them and was ready for them. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as sure where that act of passive defiance would take her and the entire country…

That moment is as much part of mythology as history, but we know today that her action wasn’t the spontaneous, world-changing act of rebellion it has become mythologised as. The struggle for equality and to end segregation in America was a calculated, carefully planned campaign, with white and black people working in tandem to overturn a racist, supremacist power structure that had entrenched the principle that some human beings were less than others based on the colour of their skin.

There was always a goal, and often a plan, but the leaders of the cause were savvy and agile enough to understand that they must capitalise on random events as they happened…

Colored is a graphic novel encapsulating and re-examining events you might not know of, delivered in simple terms and enticing pictures any bright child can grasp. Mimicking a kid’s book, it’s delivered in bold two-toned (black and browns on white) images and opens with a reprise of the then current situation in America…

Montgomery in the 1950s. Interracial marriage is illegal. Social and even workplace mixing between black and white is discouraged: reinforced by laws preventing them sitting together, eating in the places and even using the same toilets. In every location and situation black skin defers to white privilege and exclusion is a fact of life. In spaces where mixing is unavoidable draconian rules apply. Separate stores and eating places. To travel, black customers have to buy tickets from drivers at the front of buses, but must then get off the vehicle and reboard at the back using a separate door…

There was understandable tension to everyday life but the 1950s was the era of rebellion and change was coming.

Claudette Austin was born black in 1939. Her wandering father only stayed around long enough to father her little sister Delphine, before vanishing forever. Their mother Mary Jane sent them to live with great aunt Mary Ann and husband Q.P. Colvin in King Hill: one of the most deprived parts of Montgomery. Despite hardship and early tragedy, Claudette was a good student and hoped to become a lawyer, but those dreams ended on March 2nd 1955. After school, the 15-year old boarded the bus home in the approved manner, but today, as it filled up, she refused to surrender her seat to a white woman and drew down upon herself the full force and brutality of the law…

Beaten, abused and sent to adult jail, Claudette’s case came to the attention of crusading groups. Black lawyer Fred Gray, Jo An Gibson Robinson of The Women’s Political Council and NAACP representative Rosa Parks considered pleading her cause at the federal level to challenge Segregation laws. However, crucial local support necessary to carry the program of resistance – which included a bus boycott – faded away as local residents questioned her age, experience, resilience and especially reputation.

Eventually a council of concerned elders including E.D. Nixon of the NAACP and activist reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. met with police and civic authorities, bargaining over her upcoming trial. On her day in court, she was convicted of Disorderly Contact, Violation of the Segregation Laws and Assaulting Police Officers.

Fearing she could never be a lawyer, Claudette agreed to an appeal, and was vindicated of the first two verdicts. The Assault charge stood however, and in the aftermath the crusading advisors moved on to the next cause leaving her life and dreams in tatters. A sexual scandal followed, and although Claudette was a minor and probably a victim of abuse, it was hushed up by the Colvins, who shipped her off to distant relatives.

At that time Rosa Parks got on her bus and the desired scenario finally began unfolding the way it was supposed to. The initial response had been organised by The Women’s Political Council, but they were soon edged away from all decision making by male-dominated activists led by King and Nixon. To keep the impetus and hone focus, it was decided that Colvin – and five other women who challenged Segregation laws and been brief candidates for the role of inspirational figurehead – would be forgotten.

Gaslighting began at once. Claudette was called “mentally unstable” and immoral: giving the movement a very negative image. When she returned to Montgomery after delivering her baby, she moved back in with her mother. Meanwhile Rosa Parks went to trial and was successfully convicted of Disorderly Contact, Violation of the Segregation laws and Assaulting law enforcement officers. The entire black community rallied around her and a devasting boycott began…

Claudette tried to join them but was silently excluded from events and activities, yet still suffered daily threats and actual retaliation from thugs belonging to the racist opposition of The White Citizens Council. And then, the cautious strategists had another idea, and Claudette and those other possible martyrs became a crucial tool in their next campaign tactic and won their day in federal court. Here Claudette won her moment and shone…

On December 20th 1956 the boycott ended with a Supreme Court ruling that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. The decision was the death knell of the practise across the South.

Thus is told a revelatory tale of how an impetuous, wayward girl changed the world: how she became pawn and part of a studied, thoughtful plan, sacrificed to an inarguably greater good. Happily this wonderful story also traces her life beyond The Boycott, hopefully showing that being part of men’s ruthless, political “Cold Equations” isn’t all there is for women…

Released in France in 2019, this graphic novel is based on Tania de Montaigne’s 2015 book Noire, who here contributes a selection of Historical Notes, explaining how Jim Crow Laws came about and operated. Also provided are biographies and crucial details on the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People), WCC (White Citizens’ Council), WPC (Women’s Political Council), and the key minor players in the political drama: Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Fred Gray, Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon, William A. Gayle, Martin Luther King, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese.

Devastatingly powerful thanks to its primal and cunningly devised simplicity of execution, Colored takes a hard second look at the defining events and mythology of an oppressed minority, but does so through the eyes of the other downtrodden underclass dominated by both white and black men. Forthright, disturbing and necessary, it shows that even the most noble of causes needs to police itself and beware its own bias and intolerances, if we truly want everybody to be free and equal.
© 2019 – DARGAUD – Émilie Plateau. All rights reserved. This graphic novel is based on the book Noire, by Tania de Montaigne. © Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2015.

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Illegal


By Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano & lettered by Chris Dickey (Hodder Children’s Books)
ISBN: 978-1-444-93400-7 (HB) 978-1-444-93169-3 (Digital edition)

Former primary school teacher Eoin Colfer is an award-winning author who written stories about everything. Most renowned for his Artemis Fowl books, he’s crafted many other novels and series, including Benny and Omar, Highfire, W.A.R.P. (Witness Anonymous Relocation Program), The Supernaturalist, Iron Man: The Gauntlet, Half Moon Mysteries and more.

Acclaimed Irish raconteur Colfer also penned the first official sequel in Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy sequence and served from 2014-2016 as the Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Laureate). It’s safe to say he knows what kids like and how they think…

Almost all of his works end up as sequential narratives and his long-term partners in adapting the Fowl series into graphic novels are writer Andrew Donkin (The Terminal Man, The Valley of Adventure, My Story: Viking Blood, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Doctor Who) and Italian illustrator Giovanni Rigano (Daffodil, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles). In 2017, in the face of an escalating international crisis, they harnessed their powers for good to produce an evocative fictionalised account of the forces in play compelling migrants to risk slavery and death, to leave their own homelands in search of – if not a better life – at least one less lethal and hopeless …

Following a Dedication and poignant, pertinent quote from Noble Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel a saga simultaneously unique and shamefully ubiquitous unfolds. Across 17 chapters flipping between recent flashbacks and immediate peril, we get to know Ebo: a 12-year-old from Ghana trying to reunite with his sister…

The now is midnight in the middle of the Mediterranean. Ebo is one of 14 scared voyagers currently overloading a rubber raft built intended for 6. Hours earlier he, brother Kwame and new friend Razak were – at gunpoint – forced into the “balloon boat” by people-smugglers who had been paid and didn’t want anything else to do with their “clients”…

As they rock in the salty darkness – hopefully heading towards Italy – Ebo’s mind washes back 19 months to the village in Niger. It was just him and Kwame since their mother died and sister Sisi left for Europe where she could earn money to feed them…

One morning, Kwame also disappeared, and Ebo instantly followed, tracing well-established routes across the sands to Agadez in Niger: a city of survivors in transit. Hardworking and smart he found ways to survive, dodging human predators, before miraculously finding his brother. Together they scraped together enough cash for a desert crossing, paying the bandits who trafficked drugs, cigarettes and other contraband like the desperate…

Despite incredible odds, the brothers survived the ordeal and retrenched in Libya. Even though Tripoli sees migrants as unwelcome parasites, many work illegally in the city until they have enough money to buy passage across the waters. Overcoming appalling hardship, the brothers make new friends and are soon ready to leave…

History is intercut with the failing sea-crossing, and more details emerge as the raft founders. The travellers universally lament never learning how to swim as realisation comes that they are all about to die. Ebo recalls friendly people he met along the way and suddenly, after accepting death, the paddlers are rescued from doom. However, the respite proves to be even more awful than their near-death escape. Even this chance event will end badly for all of them…

At all stages sheer luck had been their friend, but always an awful price was exacted. That proves horrifically true again when the weary voyagers are located by the Italian navy and ghastly human error triggers a disaster…

Supplementing this agonisingly current affair is a map of  ‘Ebo’s Journey’ and a ‘Message From the Creators’ appealing for common sense, understanding and human decency in handling this ongoing global calamity. Following them is ‘Helen’s Story’: an account of one girl’s experience provided by Women for Refugee Women and adapted by Colfer, Donkin & Rigano, after which the usual ‘Acknowledgements’ and information ‘About the Creators’ accompanies a superbly enthralling glimpse at the artist’s ‘Sketchbook’.

This story is constructed from many actual accounts and despite being for a general audience – particularly school-aged children – pulls no punches. This kind of targeted reportage can liberate young minds and has frequently changed the world in the past. Let’s hope that’s the case here too, and that the next generation of leaders can see their way clear to dealing with economics and political problems with warmth and understanding, and not thinly-veiled racist rhetoric, dog-whistle exceptionalism and parsimonious patriotism…

Shocking harrowing enlightening and rewarding, this is a children’s book every grown-up should read.
Text © Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin2017. Illustrations © Giovanni Rigano 2017. All rights reserved.

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Luisa: Now and Then


By Carole Maurel, adapted by Mariko Tamaki & translated by Nanette McGuiness (Humanoids/Life Drawn)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-643-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Beguiling Fantasy Unwrapped… 9/10

The concept of time travel is infinitely appetising and irresistibly seductive. The literary conceit offers limitless potential for stories ranging from colossal cosmic Armageddons to last-chance salvation gambits; all of history and the imagination as playground and stage; the use of past and future as a Petrie dish for social satire and cultural exploration, and even fantastical magical quests course-correcting lives and providing deeply personal, painfully intimate second chances for the confused, bewildered or simply lovelorn.

Luisa, Ici et là is one of the latter: a compelling and beguiling small story and little miracle by Carole Maurel that first appeared in 2016 and finds us English-speakers courtesy of Humanoid’s Life Drawn imprint.

It’s a sweet and oft-told tale given a stylish and welcoming contemporary gloss thanks to its wonderfully engaging lead character(s) who transforms a regulation coming-of-age parable into a heart-warming plea for understanding and – where necessary – forgiveness.

It begins as 15-year old Luisa Arambol gets off a bus. Exhausted and frustrated by discord at home in Chartres, she’s fallen asleep, missed her stop and awoken in Paris. She’s not aware of it yet, but she’s also journeyed from 1995 to 2013…

Across town, 33-year old Luisa Arambol is bitching to friend and workmate Farid. He’s heard it all before: the job sucks, she’s getting old, she drinks too much and has accomplished nothing. Worst of all, yet another man didn’t work out…

After panicking whilst trying to buy a phonecard – even the money is different here and everyone has a phone in their pocket now! – young Luisa is rescued by concerned observer Sasha who tries to help out the increasingly distressed kid. The child wants to ring her mother but cannot get through and is spiralling…

Hearing her talk and seeing what she’s wearing and carrying, Sasha soon suspects something incredible has occurred. After all, what teenager doesn’t recognise a computer tablet?

A quiet chat stabilises the kid long enough for Sasha to learn that Luisa has an aunt living in the same building she’s just moved into. It turns out Aurelia Arambol’s fifth floor flat is directly opposite Sasha’s new home, but it’s no longer occupied by the odd, ostracised single lady nobody back home will ever talk about. Little Luisa gets a big shock when that door opens and she meets her world-weary, dream-crushed, spinster older self.

Moreover, both versions instantly and instinctively realise who the other is…

Once upon a time an ambitious schoolgirl had dreams of being an art photographer but life has whittled that dream down to something far more mundane. Full grown her was left the flat by Aurelia – for reasons she still can’t fathom – and her spiky, frosty, naturally defensive state is inexplicably heightened by Sasha. Despite herself, older Luisa can’t stop staring at her new neighbour, even taking covert pictures of her, and is deeply troubled by an erotic dream featuring her…

When the object of her fascination is abruptly called away, Luisa reluctantly takes charge of the underage runaway and the situation worsens. Shared stories of mutual pasts and futures take a wild turn as aspects of their so-different personalities begin to transfer. Now-Luisa rediscovers her endless, long-vanished joie-de vivre and party spirit – and even 20-20 vision – and seems to look younger every day, just as Then-Luisa becomes sullen, responsibility-burdened, grey-haired, morose and short-sighted. Moreover, when they touch, their bodies seem to merge and coalesce…

And so begins a clash of wills and resolution of long-unfinished business found to have started on the day teen Luisa cruelly spurned an innocently impulsive overture from “out” and persecuted classmate Lucy.

That event was exacerbated by increased bullying at school and brutally reinforced at home by her own mother’s rigorous rejection of such shocking deviant behaviour as utterly unnatural, sparking a decades-long crusade to find Luisa a man…

Confused and upset, little Luisa acted up, got on a bus and ended up now while her older self just lived a lie for years…

The merging and trading of characteristics lends urgency to affairs before a long-deferred and dreaded confrontation with the Luisas’ mother generates surprising revelations about Aurelia, exposes the unknown fate of Lucy and prompts a complete revision of those attitudes that have shaped and repressed the modern-day doppelganger…

Addressing her family’s ingrained bigotry and intolerance and at last acknowledging and accepting she doesn’t just like boys or have to settle for a man is merely the first step in Luisa’s reunification and readjustment, auguring massive changes for all and forever that will begin when her fresher self at last boards a bus for home…

Refreshingly honest, charmingly blunt and captivatingly funny whist maintaining a sensitive neutrality of opinion – or prejudice – over sexuality and choices, Luisa: Now and Then sparkles with wit and charm: a sophisticated yet simple saga of self-examination that will delight all who read it, embracing the fanciful whimsy of cinema classics like The Enchanted Cottage or the Peter Ustinov’s 1948 film Vice Versa.
Luisa, Ici et là © 2016 La Boîte à Bulles et Carole Maurel. All rights reserved.

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Ducoboo volume 1 – King of the Dunces


By Godi & Zidrou, coloured by Véronique Grobet & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-15-1 (Album PB/Digital edition)

School stories and strips of every tone about juvenile fools, devils and rebels are a lynchpin of modern western entertainment and an even larger staple of Japanese comics – where the scenario has spawned its own wild and vibrant subgenres. However, would Dennis the Menace (ours and theirs), Komi Can’t Communicate, Winker Watson, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Power Pack, Cédric or any of the rest be improved or just different if they were created by former teachers rather than ex-kids or current parents?

It’s no surprise the form is so evergreen: school life takes up a huge amount of children’s attention no matter how impoverished or privileged they are, and their fictions will naturally address their issues and interests. It’s fascinating to see just how much school stories revolve around humour, but always with huge helpings of drama, terror romance and an occasional dash of action…

One of the most popular European strips employing the eternal basic themes and methodology began in the last fraction of the 20th century, courtesy of scripter Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) and illustrator Godi.

Drousie is Belgian, born in 1962 and for six years a school teacher prior to changing careers in 1990 to write comics like those he probably used to confiscate in class. Other mainstream successes in a range of genres include Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, African Trilogy, Shi, Léonardo, a revival of Ric Hochet, and many more. However, his most celebrated and beloved stories are the Les Beaux Étés sequence (digitally available in English as Glorious Summers) and 2010’s Lydie, both illustrated by Spanish artist Jordi Lafebre.

Zidrou began his comics career with what he knew best: stories about and for kids, including Crannibales, Tamara, Margot et Oscar Pluche and, most significantly, a feature about a (and please forgive the charged term) school dunce: L’Elève Ducobu…

Godi is a Belgian National Treasure, born Bernard Godisiabois in Etterbeek in December 1951. After studying Plastic Arts at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels he became an assistant to comics legend Eddy Paape in 1970, working on the strip Tommy Banco for Le Journal de Tintin whilst freelancing as an illustrator for numerous comics and magazines. He became a Tintin regular three years later, primarily limning C. Blareau’s Comte Lombardi, but also working on gag strip Red Rétro by Vicq, with whom he also produced Cap’tain Anblus McManus and Le Triangle des Bermudes for Le Journal de Spirou in the early 1980s. He soloed on Diogène Terrier (1981-1983) for Casterman.

He then moved into advertising cartoons and television, cocreating with Nic Broca the animated TV series Ovide. He only returned to comics in 1991, collaborating with newcomer Zidrou on L’Elève Ducobu for magazine Tremplin. The strip launched in September 1992 before transferring to Le Journal de Mickey, and collected albums began in 1997 – 25 so far in French and Dutch, 8 for Turkish readers, and 6 for Indonesia.

When not immortalising modern school days for future generations, Godi latterly diversified, co-creating (1995 with Zidrou) comedy feature Suivez le Guide and game page Démon du Jeu with scripter Janssens.

The series has spawned a live action movie franchise, a dozen pocket books plus all the usual attendant merchandise paraphernalia. and we English-speakers’ introduction to the series (5 volumes thus far) came courtesy of Cinebook with 2006’s initial release King of the Dunces which was in fact the 5th European collection L’élève Ducobu – Le roi des cancres.

The format is loads of short – most often single page – gag strips starring a revolving cast who are all well established by this point, but also fairly one-sided and easy to get a handle on.

Our star is a well-meaning, good natured young oaf who doesn’t get on with school. He’s sharp, inventive, imaginative, inquisitive, personable and just not academical at all. We might today put him on a spectrum or diagnose a disorder like ADHD, but at heart he’s just not interested and has better things to do…

Dad is a civil servant and Mum left home when Ducoboo was a baby, but then there’s a lot of that about. Leonie Gratin – from whom he constantly copies answers – only has a mum.

The boy and his class colleagues attend Saint Potache School and are mostly taught by draconian Mr Latouche who’s something of humourless martinet. Thanks to him, Ducoboo has spent so much time in the corner with a dunce cap on his head that he’s struck up a friendship with the biology skeleton. He calls himself Neness and is always ready with a theory or suggestion for fun and frolics…

In this volume, after being caught cheating again, Latouche applies what he calls “truth serum” to the squabbling kids. The wild kid fakes taking it, but Leonie is an obedient child and soon can’t help blurting out her hidden feelings for the class outlaw – thereby ensuring he voluntarily tries keeping his distance for some time after …or at least until the next test or exercise…

On view are fresh riffs on being late and missing class; roll calls and registers; new and old class furniture; novel ways to copy answers; writing lines and how to hack the system; the power of art; collecting educational stickers; yawning in class; grammar and grandmas, punctuation, warring student radio stations; the restorative blessings of short naps whilst working; the ultimate futility of bad boys actually working and still being called a cheat and always, always cheating, copying and guessing answers…

Also encountered are jaunts to a circus, educational psychologists, Teachers’ changing pay and conditions, new ways to learn, the origins of his skeletal comrade, Nativity plays and mistletoe mischief, classical poetry – like ‘The Nitwit and the Trickster’ by bony scribe Nessy de la Fontanelle, dress codes for kids from other cultures (especially fascinating new girl Fatima and her lovely chador), new romantic fancies and classroom exoticism, outrageous example test papers and – as a main event – the educational crucible of April Fool’s Day and its cumulative effect on Latouche…

Wry, witty and whimsical whilst rehashing evergreen childhood themes, Ducuboo is an up-tempo, upbeat addition to the genre that any parent or pupil can appreciate and enjoy. If your kids aren’t back at school quite yet, why not keep them occupied a little longer with the King of the Dunces – whilst thanking your lucky stars that he’s not yours?
© Les Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard) 2000 by Godi & Zidrou. English translation © 2006 Cinebook Ltd.

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Alice Guy: First Lady of Film


By Catel & Bocquet, translated by Eward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-03-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

I’ve reached a ripe – really, really ripe – old age and only learned one true thing: Men should not be allowed to be in charge of history. We have a very nasty and juvenile tendency to balls it up and – I’m going to say – “forget” stuff that women actually did.

I’m not going to embarrass us all with a list of female accomplishments and discoveries excised from the record, but I might wax quite a bit wroth whilst reviewing this superb graphic biography that joins the movement to redress the wrongs done to an extraordinary talent who shaped the primary entertainment medium of the last century and was then made to be forgotten…

Alice Ida Antoinette Guy-Blaché was born on July 1st 1873 and is officially the world’s first female Film Director as well as. by most metrics, the first person to add narrative to the nascent scientific diversion and tent show phenomenon of Cinema. Where once the spectacle of objects moving, ordinary people walking about and trains entering stations was the sum total of creative endeavour, she added storytelling and birthed a whole new world.

However, her legacy was almost erased in the years after she stopped working. At one stage none of her films were officially registered anywhere and to this day no complete archive of her works exists or even a complete record of how many motion-pictures she made…

A well-travelled, well-read daughter of educated parents (her father owned bookshops and a tri-national publishing house in Chile, before war and natural disasters destroyed their fortune), Alice Guy’s connection to photography began in 1894, when she joined a photographic instruments business that would become the mighty Gaumont Cinema empire. She started as a stenographer (possibly the first ever in France), and quickly – pretty much sans any acknowledgement – became company secretary, business manager and – when the explosion of individual technical discoveries converged to make a scientific oddity into an unexpected entertainment phenomenon – the company’s foremost maker of films for public consumption.

Initially indulged and soon eagerly supported and encouraged by (most of) the men in charge Alice Guy wrote the first scripted films, beginning in 1996 with a charming fantasy about where babies come from.

La Fée aux Choux (The Fairy of the Cabbages or, in at least two later remakes benefitting from her technological and narrative inventions, The Birth of Children) was huge hit with the public and resulted in her scripting and/or directing hundreds of further films of varying lengths. A passionate pioneer, she blended strong, visually arresting narratives and constant examination of social inequity and inequality with cutting edge and innovative technology, art direction and set making.

At the turn of the century, Guy made many dozens of sound-enhanced films in the now all-but forgotten “Chronophone” system (synchronising phonographic recordings with projected film decades before 1927’s “Talkies” revolution); championed and perfected location shooting; devised new special effects; instituted purpose-built studios and specialised sets and experimented with colour-tinted film.

In 1906, Guy invented historical/biblical epics and chapter serials with La vie du Christ (The Life of Christ): a 25 part extravaganza employing 300 actors and in 1912 – after moving to America to found her own studio Solax – made the first film with an all-black cast.

Minstrel comedy A Fool and his Money would have had only one African American character and loads of white guys in traditional and popular “blackface”, but when her established white American actors refused to work beside even one actual negro – vaudeville comedian James Russell – she let them all go and hired Russell’s fellow performers instead…

In 1913, she directed The Thief: the first script sold by Harvard student William Moulton Marston, eventual polygraph pioneer and creator of Wonder Woman…

Guy also created groundbreaking feminist satires, and used her films to explore women’s rights and champion birth control politics. She made international dance and travelogue films in incredibly successful “one-reelers” dedicated to sharing the wonders of terpsichorean movement across borders, and always looked for the next new thing, but her rising star burned out after moving to America and ending her marriage to a faithless man who speculated away all their money amidst the chaos of changing economic systems, Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression. Sounds like a classic movie plot, right?

Guy directed her last film – Tarnished Reputations – in 1920, and began an inexorable descent into poverty and obscurity, spending her days seeking to find copies of any of the hundreds of features she had created.

Alice Guy died in 1968, just as other, more appreciative truth-seekers who had taken up her later-life struggle to re-establish her  place in history were finally making headway and returning her to the annals of cinema history.

Written after WWII, her autobiography had languished on a publishers desk for decades before finally being posthumously published in 1976. Since then, a veritable Who’s Who of academics, historians and industry greats have toiled to overturn her erasure. Alice is now getting the acclaim and appreciation she earned incognito. As always, it appears to be one more case of Too Little, Too Late…

All that achievement, accomplishment, disillusionment and ultimate abandonment by her own colleagues and the public she invisibly captivated has been given a sublimely moving human face in this chronological, episodic, dramatized narrative from award-winning graphic novelist Catel Muller (Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult, Adieu Kharkov, Lucie s’en soucie, Le Sang des Valentines, Kiki de Montparnasse, Joséphine Baker, Olympe de Gouges) and crime novelist, screenwriter, biographer and comics writer José-Louis Bocquet (Sur la ligne blanche, Mémoires de l’espion, Panzer Panik, Kiki de Montparnasse, Joséphine Baker, Olympe de Gouges, Anton Six). Here, Alice’s life is traced from cradle to grave in black-&-white “shorts”, concentrating on her family life and relationships, with her astounding energy, creativity and catalogue of innovations and successes acting as a mere spine to form an impression of the woman whose guiding motto was always “be natural”.

Entertaining, engaging and subtly informative, the book is supplemented by a vast supporting structure of extras, beginning with a heavily illustrated and highly informative ‘Timeline for Alice Guy’ incorporating pivotal events in the invention of cinema. That’s further augmented by ‘Biographical Notes’: 32 character portraits in prose and sketch form of the historical figures who also feature in this epic saga, as well as a Filmography of the movies researchers have since confirmed and acknowledged, and a Bibliography of films, documentaries and books about her.

If you love film, or comics, justice triumphant or just great stories, you really need to set some records straight and read this book.
© Casterman 2021. All rights reserved.

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Lonesome volume 1: The Preacher’s Trail


By Yves Swolfs, coloured by Julie Swolfs; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-000-5 (Album PB/Digital edition)

In comics, Western skies are at their most moody and iconic when seen through European eyes.

On the Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics. They collectively recognise what too many here still dismiss as “kids’ stuff” as having academic and scholarly standing, as well as meritorious nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as a true art form.

Myths and legends of the American Old West have fascinated Europeans virtually since the actual days of stagecoaches and gunfighters. Hergé and Moebius were passionate devotees of cowboy culture and stand at the forefront of the wealth of stand-out Continental comics series. These range from Italy’s Tex Willer to such Franco-Belgian classics as Blueberry, Comanche and Lucky Luke, and tangentially even children’s classics like Yakari or colonial dramas such as Pioneers of the New World and Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt’s superbly evocative Indian Summer.

Lonesome: La piste du prêcheur debuted in 2018, the first volume of a gritty, historically-grounded drama with supernatural overtones, similar in tone and mood to Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter.

It is crafted by veteran Belgian taleteller Yves Swolfs, who was born in April 1955 and – like most kids of that generation and geographical location – probably grew up surrounded by imported and home-generated cowboy culture.

He studied Literature and Journalism at Brussels’ Saint-Luc Institute before joining Claude Renard’s Atelier R comics studio, in 1978. His first stories were published in the studio’s own Le Neuvième Rêve magazine before stepping out into the field of commercial design and illustration. His first success was a western: Durango was published by Éditions des Archers in 1980 and ran for four decades, under various publishers. The feature was inspired by cinematic spaghetti westerns of the 1970s and served as  a staple source of income as Swolfs experimented with other genres: French Revolution-set historical drama Dampierre (1987); horror fantasy Le Prince de la Nuit (1991); dystopian sci fi thriller Vlad (2000) and contemporary thriller James Healer (2002).

Always busy, in 1999 Swolfs scripted western Black Hills 1890 for illustrator Marc-Renier and in 2003 wrote and drew medieval fantasy saga Légendes, amongst a host of other comics projects. He relaxes by playing in a rock band.

The Preacher’s Trail opens in 1861, with a solitary rider trekking through snow-enveloped wastes in the savage period of mounting tensions leading to the American Civil War. Newly-created territories Nebraska and Kansas have been a proxy battleground for the North and South since 1854, with slave-owners’ agents and radical Abolitionists clashing and stirring up the citizens for religious, political and commercial reasons. Blood has been spilled by anti-slavery “Jayhawkers” and Missouri’s “Border Ruffians” indiscriminately and the entire region is a powder keg waiting to explode.

Into this disaster-in-waiting rides the determined searcher. He’s hunting a proselytizing preacher, and easily overcomes the murderous bushwhackers Abolitionist Reverend Markham stationed in an isolated saloon to deter his enemies. However, before the last gunman dies, the stranger touches him and is granted a vision of where his target is heading…

In nearby township Holton City, the Reverend – surrounded by an army of gunslingers – stridently entreats the people to join his crusade against the abomination of slavery. Many are not roused or fooled, but all are keenly aware that the holy man care nothing for their lives…

The town banker/Mayor Harper may be throwing his support behind the rabblerouser, but local newspaper publisher Marcus has been doing some research and has reached a dangerous conclusion…

As the rider beds down for the night, his thoughts go back to the Indian medicine man who raised him after his family were murdered and he ponders his eerie gift. At that moment elsewhere, farming family the Colsons are being butchered by the Preacher’s acolytes. Markham has judged them to be immoral sinners, but the atrocities he personally inflicts upon the woman prove it’s no God driving his campaign of terror…

Next morning the rider stumbles across the massacre. By now, he’s fully conversant with the Preacher’s methods and ignores the faked “evidence” of South-supporting Border Ruffians, but is astounded and delighted to discover a survivor…

Taking the child to Holton, the stranger is unsurprised to see his accounts of the crime and description of the perpetrators ignored. He knows Markham always finds influential supporters like bankers and local politicians. The townsfolk are shaken though. First the newspaper office burns down and Marcus vanishes, and now a massacre…

After ignoring an unsubtle warning to mind his own business from Harper’s hired gun Clayton, the rider’s breakfast is interrupted by Sheriff Abel. He’s more inclined to believe stories about the Preacher, but knows who runs things, if not why…

When the rider leaves town in the morning, it’s with new knowledge gained through his strange gift and furtive conversations with bargirl Lucy, an ally of Marcus. Well versed in the brutal whims of men like Harper and Markham. Unfortunately, her allegiance is uncovered and she pays a heavy price after the stranger leaves…

On the trail, the stalker meets fugitive Marcus and hears what the idealistic journalist has uncovered of an international plutocratic plot to instigate war, but his sole concern is catching the Preacher. Debate distracts them and almost costs their lives when Clayton’s gang ambushes them after they stop at a friend’s cabin. The shootout leaves the stranger with Marcus’ notebook and the psychometrically derived knowledge of what Harper and Clayton did to Lucy, as well as a fierce determination to fix things in Holton before resuming his pursuit of Markham… and this time, the rider will be the one dictating how and where the final clash takes place…

Dark, uncompromisingly gritty, diabolically clever and lavishly limned in a style reminiscent of Jean Giraud’s Blueberry, this is as much conspiracy drama as revenge western with an enigmatic figure slowly discovering himself whilst derailing a plot to change the world. Here the inescapable war that’s looming is not due to a crusade of opposing beliefs but a devious scheme by commercial interests to foment war for profit and their own gain.

Before publication by Cinebook, Lonesome was initially released in digital-only English translation by Europe Comics, so if you don’t want to wait for later Cinebook editions, you can satisfy your impatience that way. Regardless, this is a superb example of a genre standard done right and if you like your west wild and wicked you won’t be sorry…
© Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 2018 by Yves Swolfs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists


By Robert Tressell; adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-910593-92-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Born in Dublin to unfavourable circumstances, Robert Croker – AKA Robert Noonan – (17 April 1870 – 3 February 1911) was a man of many parts. His short, globetrotting, eventful life ended with him a housepainter and signwriter (a skilled trade) dying of tuberculosis in The Liverpool Royal Infirmary in 1911.

In all likelihood nobody today would remember him if he hadn’t spent his off hours in the declining years of 1906 to 1910 writing a book. He failed to have it published in his lifetime, but his daughter Kathleen Noonan persevered and a first (heavily edited, highly abridged and politically redacted) version was released on April 23 1914 – four months before the Great War began. That clash resulted in a changed planet and the first socialist (sic) state…

The full manuscript didn’t reach the public until 1955. Even bowdlerized editions were potent enough to make it one of the most important books of the century. Released under the nom de plume Robert Tressell, the cultural satire and barely-disguised socialist polemic was The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

After reading the million plus-selling, never out-of-print pioneering prose opus of working class literature, you should research the times it was set in and read up on the author, if you want to see how a fascinating man responded to the injustice of his world. There’s a splendid Afterword by the creators in this hefty graphic novel to get you started…

A more jaded person might assume current businesses and governments have also studied the text, with a view to rolling back all the hard-won advances made since then, returning us to the days where workers toiled in a brutal gig economy without safety nets of social housing, medicine or pensions. Work or die was the way of world and it’s well on its way back…

The tale – masquerading, like a Thomas Hardy Wessex novel, as a peek at the lives of poor working folk – was a major influence on thinkers in the aftermath of WWI, and many of the civil rights and common benefits of civilisation that we’re gradually allowing to be taken from us were predicted in its more utopian moments…

Politics aside however, it’s also a sublime realisation and examination of the working classes in all their warty, noble, scurrilous, generous, mean-spirited, self-sacrificing, self-serving, gullible, aspirational, tractable, intractable, skiving, hard-working, honest and human glory: a state perfectly realized in this warm-hearted and supremely inviting comics adaptation by Sophie Rickard, illustrated with charm, simplicity and abiding empathy by Scarlett Rickard. You will also want to see Mann’s Best Friend and A Blow Borne Quietly and their eagerly-anticipated adaptation of suffragist Constance Maud‘s inspirational No Surrender…

The semi-autobiographical story detailed here closely follows a group of workers and their families over a year in the town of Mugsborough: proudly go-getting municipal powerhouse (closely based on Hastings, where Croker had worked) with the usual band of rich, mercantile bastards in charge and on the Council, feathering their own lavish nests with the approval and assistance of the local churches and clergy…

The 23 chapters span a year as seen through the eyes of skilled labourers at a time when jobs were scarce and cut-throat competition had the men who hire them fiercely undercutting each other to secure commissions. The artisans are currently refurbishing an ornate house on the cheap for a grasping boss, under the penny pinching eye of foreman Mr. ‘Unter.

In breaks and off moments the disparate crew – dispassionately at first – discuss the job, the way of the world and ever-present threat of work drying up again. Artisan painter/signwriter Frank Owen argues the greed and dishonesty of capitalism and enlightening sense of socialism to his highly resistant and openly hostile mates. Over many days, they all hotly debate ‘The Causes of Poverty’ and the Church’s complicity in maintaining an unfair status quo in ‘The Lord Our Shepherd’. Further discussion in ‘The Economists’ focuses on the impossibility of making do on ever-diminishing wages and ‘The Ever-Present Danger’ of being thrown away once a worker is no longer usable.

This is no pedant’s dry and dusty tirade. “Tressell’s” arguments are bolstered by the declining state of the wives, elders and children of the workers – most of whom still argue ferociously against improvement of their own conditions. As those above them reduce wages and increase hours, uncaring of the horrific repercussions of their parsimony, Frank and enigmatic associate George Barrington gradually convert many, but a resolute group cannot countenance any change to the old system.

That begins changing in ‘The Truth’, and revelation is heightened after the Church is exposed to ‘The Shining Light’, especially once Owen makes a breakthrough by explaining ‘The Money Trick’ underpinning Capitalism.

The damaging power of booze on the hopeless is witnessed after a night at ‘The Cricketers’, presaging work briefly pausing for ‘The Christmas Party’. A New Year exposes corporate skulduggery and public malfeasance by ‘The Council’ of Mugsborough…

Every opinion expounded by the painters can be seen here and now: echoed on modern TV vox-pop segments with today’s exploited, bread & circus sated citizens repeating that we should let the rich (our “betters”) do the hard job of making the big decisions for us, happily abrogating all responsibility for their own evermore parlous state…

Deepening personal crises auger greater tragedies as ‘The Beginning of The End’ finds a beloved friend condemned to the Workhouse as a cynically tongue-in-cheek glimpse at what the Establishment considers ‘The Solutions’ to poverty lead to a long look at ‘The Meetings’ inside the Municipal Council and how a glimmer of reform is crushed by the prestigious clique…

After a period of scarcity, fresh work at a lower wage comes in ‘The Summer’ before a turning point comes when Barrington challenges the Bosses on a rare day’s holiday jaunt in ‘The Beano’ (slang for “BNO” – Boys Night Out).

Again arguing – but with a much smaller and more vocal group of workmates – Owen and Barrington begin ‘The Great Oration’, overruling and disproving ‘The Objections’ of bellicose working class holdouts – the apologists and willing henchmen who happily betray their own sort for elevated status, extra pennies and the cheery disdain of the capitalists. However, grief has not ended and as talk of elections and the growth of a socialist Labour Party blooms, death comes again. Even here the rich and their lackeys find a way to make a profit in ‘The Rope’ and a sordid exhibition at ‘The Funeral’. After the worker’s death comes what we today call “the cover-up”…

Feelings of hope manifest in final chapters ‘The Will of the People’, ‘The Sundered’ and ‘The New Position’ as utopian ideals and practical solutions are leavened with home truths, and a concentration on making change happen…

Uplifting ending notwithstanding, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a major milestone in the west’s path to becoming truly civilised, and this beautifully accessible iteration – deliciously illustrated in the manner of an inviting children’s picture book – could not be more timely, both as a reminder and warning from history. It’s also a wonderfully human drama gauging the limitations and frailties of the most exploited and vulnerable in society and “a book that everyone should read”.

I didn’t write that, George Orwell did, in 1946. Who could argue with that? Class is class no matter what you think…
© 2020 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2020 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2020 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.

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Mickey All-Stars (The Disney Masters Collection)


By Giorgio Cavazzano & Joris Chamberlain and many & various: translated by David Gerstein & Jonathan H. Gray (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-369-1 (HB) eISBN 978-1-68396-422-3

Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, Mickey Mouse was first seen – if not heard – in the silent cartoon Plane Crazy. The animated short fared poorly in a May 1928 test screening and was promptly shelved.

It’s why most people who care cite Steamboat Willie – the fourth completed Mickey feature – as the official debut of the mascot mouse and his co-star and occasional paramour Minnie Mouse since it was the first to be nationally distributed, as well as the first animated feature with synchronised sound. The film’s astounding success led to the subsequent rapid release of its fully completed predecessors Plane Crazy, The Gallopin’ Gaucho and The Barn Dance, once they too had been given new-fangled soundtracks.

From those rather timid and tenuous beginnings grew an immense fantasy empire, but film was not the only way Disney conquered hearts and minds. With Mickey a certified, solid gold screen sensation, the mighty mouse was considered a hot property ripe for full media exploitation and he quickly invaded America’s most powerful and pervasive entertainment medium: comic strips…

In close to a century of existence, Walt Disney’s anthropomorphic everyman Mickey Mouse has tackled his fair share of weirdos and super freaks in tales crafted by gifted creators from every corner of the world. A true global phenomenon, the little wonder staunchly overcame all odds and pushed every boundary, and he’s always done so as the prototypical nice guy beloved by all.

He might have been born in the USA, but the Mouse belongs to all humanity now. Mickey has always been and is still a really big deal in Europe and thus, when his 90th anniversary loomed, a comics movement grew to celebrate the event in a uniquely comic strip way.

Invitations went out to creators with a connection to Disney endeavours from countries like Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Belgium, France and more. The rules were simple: each auteur or team would have a single page to do as they liked to, for and with Mickey and all his Disney pals, with the only proviso that each exploit must begin and end with the Mouse passing through a door. The whole affair would be framed by an opening and closing page from illustrator Giorgio Cavazzano and scenarist Joris Chamberlain…

The result is a stunning joyous and often wholesomely spooky rollercoaster ride through the minds of top flight artists all channelling their own memories, feelings and childhood responses to the potent narrative legacy of Mickey & Friends: a tumbling, capacious, infinitely varied journey of rediscovery and graphic virtuosity that is thrilling, beautiful and supremely satisfying.

This translation comes with an explanatory Foreword laying out the rules far better than I just did and ends with ‘The All-Star Lineup’ offering full and informative mini biographies of all concerned responsible for each page.

They are – in order of appearance – Flix, Dav, Keramidas, Fabrice Parme, Alfred, Brüno, Batem & Nicholas Pothier, Federico Bertolucci & Frédéric Brrémaud, Silvio Camboni & Denis-Pierre Filippi, Thierry Martin, Guillaume Bouzard, José Luis Munuera, Alexis Nesme, Fabrizio Petrossi, Jean-Philippe Peyraud, Pirus, Massimo Fecchi, Boris Mirroir, Godi, Florence Cestac, Éric Hérenguel, Marc Lechuga, Cèsar Ferioli, Tebo, Clarke, Dab’s, Pieter De Pootere, Antonio Lapone, Ulf K, Pascal Regmauld, Johan Pilet & Pothier, Mathilde Domecq, Nicolas Juncker, Jean-Christophe & Pothier, Mike Peraza, Arnaud Poitevin & Chamberlain, Olivier Supiot, Éric Cartier, Zanzim, Marco Rota, Paco Rodriguez, Sascha Wüsterfeld, and the aforementioned Giorgio Cavazzano & Joris Chamberlain.

Frantic, frenzied fun for one and all. Everything you could dream of and so much more…

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