Category: Fantasy

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Showcase Presents Tales of The Unexpected volume 1


By Jack Miller, Bernard Baily, Bill Ely, Jack Kirby, Mort Meskin, Sheldon Moldoff, Ruben Moriera, George Papp, John Prentice, Leonard Starr & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3520-8

American comicbooks started rather slowly until the invention of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and established a new entertainment genre. Implacably vested in World War Two, the Overman swept all before him (occasional her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional themes and heroes resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Whilst a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership, and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

As well as Western, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of those cyclical revivals of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly addictive horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (the Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens of others), but these had been victims of circumstance: the Unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering the reader.

Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948.

Technically speaking, Adventures Into the Unknown was pipped at the post by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before reviving the title by launching a regular series in 1951. All the meanwhile, however, parents’ favourite Classics Illustrated had long been milking the literary end of the genre with adaptations of the Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

As long as we’re keeping score, this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and invented the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

The company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery. Its success led to a raft of such creature-filled fantasy compendiums in the years that followed such as Sensation Mystery, My Greatest Adventure, House of Secrets and, in 1956, Tales of the Unexpected…

A hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings (check out Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April- June 1954 on your search engine of choice) was derailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of draconian self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis and emblem of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, even though the market’s appetite for suspense and the uncanny was still high…

Stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which dominated until the 1960s when super-heroes (which had begun to creep back after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them.

This mammoth monochrome compilation offers a stunning voyage to the fantastic outer limits of 1950s imagination, collecting the first 20 issues of the charmingly enthralling anthology – produced under the watchful eyes of the Comics Code Authority – cover dates February/March 1956 to December 1957 and starts with a quartet of intriguing, beautifully rendered pocket thrillers.

Sadly for me and you records are spotty and many of the authors remain unsung (although possible candidates include Dave Wood, Bill Finger, Ed Herron, Joe Samachson, George Kashdan, Jack Miller and Otto Binder and I’ll just guess whenever I’m more than half-certain) but the pictorial pioneers at least can be deservedly celebrated…

Behind a captivating cover by Bill Ely, Tales of the Unexpected #1 begins the uncanny excursions with ‘The Out-of-The-World Club’, drawn by the astoundingly precise John Prentice, which detailed the unearthly secret of a night-spot offering truly original groovy sounds, whilst ‘The Dream Lamp’, limned by Leonard Starr, took a bucolic glance at a device which seemed able to perform impossible feats.

Jack Miller, Howard Purcell & Charles Paris then ironically revealed ‘The Secret of Cell Sixteen’ which fooled yet one more prisoner in the Bastille, after which the debut issue ended with a bleak alien invasion fable in ‘The Cartoon that Came to Life’ by Otto Binder & Bill Ely.

Issue #2 offered the uncredited conundrum of ‘The Magic Hats of M’sieu La Farge’ (art by Ruben Moreira) which saw ordinary folk impelled to perform extraordinary feats when wearing the titfers of famous dead folk, whilst ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ (drawn by Bill Draut & Mort Meskin) disclosed how an obsessive rivalry brought destruction upon a man forever relegated to second best behind his exceptional best friend…

‘The Record of Doom’ (Ely art) apparently drove listeners to suicide until a canny cop uncovered the truth, but ‘The Gorilla who Saved the World’ (Starr) was as incredible and alien as you’d expect in a tale of sharp sci-fi suspense…

Issue #3 opened with Purcell’s ‘The Highway to Tomorrow’ wherein a motorway through Native American sacred lands almost resulted in a new uprising, after which Meskin’s ‘The Man Nobody Could See’ revisited the old plot of an invisible criminal. ‘I Lost My Past’ (illustrated by Mort Drucker) recounted an implausibly complex scheme to cure an amnesiac before ‘The Man with 100 Wigs’, by Miller & Prentice, featured a genuinely compelling mystery about a petty thief who stole a sorcerer’s chest filled with hairpieces imparting uncanny power to the wearer…

The mix of cop stories, aliens and the arcane acts clearly struck a chord as, with Tales of the Unexpected #4, the comic was promoted to monthly.

‘Seven Steps to the Unknown’ (Ely) continued the eclectic winning formula through a perilous puzzle regarding a group of complete strangers inexplicably linked and targeted for murder, whilst ‘The Day I Broke All Records’, illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff, followed a top athlete who gained something “extra” after finding an elixir once favoured by unbeatable Roman gladiator Apulius…

Then a murderer was brought to justice after becoming obsessed with ‘The Flowers of Sorcery’ (Starr) whilst ‘The House Where Dreams Come True’ (Prentice) offered a far kinder tale of human generosity that will melt the heart of the most jaded reader.

In #5 ‘The Man Who Laughed at Locks’ (Moreira) disclosed the inevitable fate of a cheat when rival inventors clashed, ‘I Was Bewitched for a Day’ (Ely) revealed how easily domestic reality can be overturned and Moldoff portrayed the bewilderment of an Art Investigator faced with ‘The Living Paintings’ before Miller & Prentice again triumphed with the tale of an actor literally possessed by his role in ‘The Second Life of Geoffrey Hawkes’…

TotU #6 opened with ‘The Telecast from the Future’ (drawn by George Papp) as a technician foolishly convinced himself that his gear hadn’t really opened a peephole into tomorrow, whilst Ely’s ‘Dial M for Magic’ focussed on a prestidigitator’s club that auditioned an amazing applicant who didn’t just do “tricks”…

‘The Forbidden Flowers’ (Moldoff) then exposed a killer who thought himself safe, after which Moreira’s ‘The Girl in the Bottle’ led an unsuspecting oceanographer into fantastic peril and another incredible criminal scam.

Golden Age great Bernard Baily joined the rotating art crew with #7 as ‘The Pen that Never Lied’ visited a number of people, dispensing justice through unvarnished truth, after which ‘Beware, I Can Read your Mind!’ (Moldoff) saw a truth telepath discover the overwhelming cost of his gift.

When a miner found a talking talisman, it promised anything except ‘The Forbidden Wish’ (George Roussos). Tragically it was the only thing the weak-minded man wanted…

This issue ended with the art debut of the astounding Nick Cardy who lovingly detailed the fate of a murderous thug who refused to listen to the sage advice of ‘The Face in the Clock!’

Tales of the Unexpected #8 opened with fantastic fantasy as ‘The Man Who Stole a Genie’ (Meskin) slowly succumbed to greed and mania, whilst ‘The Secret of the Elephant’s Tusk’ (Ely art) followed the trail of death that resulted after a poacher killed a sacred pachyderm. Roussos’ ‘The Four Seeds of Destiny’ chillingly revealed the doom that came to a TV reporter who stole relics from a Pharaoh’s tomb before ‘The Camera that Could Rob’ (Starr) proved that, even for a thief with an unbeatable gimmick, mistreating a cat never ends well…

In issue #9 ‘The Amazing Cube’ (possibly scripted by George Kashdan and definitely limned by Baily) saw an unscrupulous gambler fall foul of his own handmade dice, whilst a killer conman got his comeuppance courtesy of ‘The Carbon Copy Man’ (Papp). ‘The Day Nobody Died’ by Roussos is a classic of moody mystery wherein a doctor pursues a dark stranger and regrets catching him, after which a little lad saves the world from alien invasion and know-it-all adults in ‘The Man Who Ate Fire’ (illustrated by Starr).

The tone of the time was gradually turning and sorcerous supernature was slowly succumbing to the Space Age lure of weird science as TotU #10 proved with ‘The Strangest Show on Earth’ (art by Jim Mooney) wherein a bankrupt showman stumbled over a Martian circus. Sadly the bizarre performers had their own agenda to adhere to…

‘The Phantom Mariner’ (Moldoff) followed an obsessed sea captain to his inescapable fate, after which a scientist faced a deadly dilemma after creating ‘The Duplicate Man’ (Ely) and Meskin revealed how an antique collector’s compulsion endangered his life in ‘I Was Slave to the Wizard’s Lamp’…

A criminal inventor paid the ultimate price for his venality in ‘Who Am I?’ by Baily which opened Tales of the Unexpected #11, whilst ‘I Was a Man from the Future’ (Cardy) saw an American mountaineer stumble through a time-warp into adventure and romance in15th century France and ‘The Ghost of Hollywood’ (Ely) confounded the special effects designer determined to debunk it.

Starr then closed out the issue with ‘The Man Who Hated Green’, as an artist embarked on an extraordinary campaign of terror…

Issue #12 began with Cardy’s tale of a quartet of escaped convicts who terrorised three little old ladies and were cursed by ‘The Four Threads of Doom’, after which ‘The Witch’s Statues’ (Meskin) proved to be more scurrilous scam than sinister sorcery.

Following a downturn in the industry, Jack Kirby briefly returned to National/DC at this time: producing mystery tales and drawing Green Arrow all whilst preparing his newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force.

He also re-packaged for Showcase an original team concept kicking around in his head since he and Joe Simon had closed the innovative but unfortunate Mainline Comics. Blending explosive adventure with the precepts of mystery comics, Challengers of the Unknown became the pattern for the entire Silver Age superhero resurgence…

After years of working for others, Simon & Kirby had established their own publishing company, producing comics for a more sophisticated audience, only to find themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by the aforementioned anti-comic pogrom of US Senator Estes Kefauver and psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham.

Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, if less experimental, companies.

Here his run of short fantastic suspense tales commences with ‘The All-Seeing Eye’ wherein a journalist responsible for many impossible scoops realises that the ancient artefact he employs is more dangerous than beneficial…

The issue ends with Ely’s rousing thriller ‘The Indestructible Man’ wherein a stuntman with innate invulnerability decided to get rich quick no matter who gets hurt…

In #13 an amnesiac traced his lost past by seeking out ‘Weapons of Destiny’ (perhaps Binder with Ely art), whilst ‘The Thing from the Skies’ (Meskin) initially proved a boon but ultimately the downfall for a murdering conman. A ghostly ‘Second Warning’ (Papp) saved a tourist when he visited the battlefields of WWII, after which ‘I Was a Prisoner of the Supernatural’ (France E. Herron & Cardy) revealed how an actor escaped a deal with the devil before Herron & Kirby stole the show with a gripping crime-caper in ‘The Face Behind the Mask’…

Tales of the Unexpected #14 started with Meskin’s ‘The Forbidden Game’ as an embezzler played fast and loose with a wagering wizard, followed by ‘Cry, Clown, Cry’ (Baily) which saw a baffled son ignore his father’s injunction not to follow the family tradition to be a gag-man.

Papp pictured the fate of a swindler who wanted folk to believe he was ‘The Man Who Owned King Arthur’s Sword’ and Moldoff finished up proceedings as a crook was haunted by ‘The Green Gorilla’ created by his misdeeds.

Kirby led off in #15, his ‘Three Wishes to Doom’ proving that even with a genie’s lamp crime does not pay, after which ‘The Sinister Cannon’ (Baily) employed by an insidious alien infiltrator proved far more than it appeared. ‘The Rainbow Man’ (Roussos) was a scientific bandit who overestimated the efficacy of his camouflage discovery and ‘The City of Three Dooms’ by Meskin wrapped up things with a mesmerising time-travel romp starring Nazi submariners on a voyage to infinity…

There’s an inexplicable frisson in ‘The Magic Hammer’ by Kirby which opens #16 as the King of Comics relates how a prospector finds a mallet capable of creating storms and goes into the rainmaking business… until the original owner turns up…

That superb vignette is augmented by ‘I Was a Spy for Them’ (Meskin) as a canny physicist turned the tables on the star men who captured him, a crooked archaeologist gained unbeatable power from an ancient ring and became ‘The Exile from Earth’ (Dave Wood & Moldoff), and Moreira illustrated ‘The Interplanetary Line-Up’, wherein an actual Man from Mars gatecrashed a science fiction writer’s fancy dress party…

In #17 ‘Who is Mr. Ashtar?’ (Kirby) chillingly followed a hotel detective who knew there was something off about the new guest in Room 605, whilst ‘Beware the Thinking Cap’ (Ely) described the rise and fall of a crook who found the device which inspired all the geniuses of history. Baily illustrates how a lifer in jail used a unique method of escape in ‘The Bullet Man’, and the issue ends on ‘The Impossible Voyage’ (Mooney) as a couple of alien pranksters took earth suckers for a ride on what only looked like a fairground attraction…

Mooney takes the lead spot in #18 as ‘The Man Without a World’ rejected Earth only to learn that a life in space is no life at all, whilst ‘The Riddle of the Glass Bubble’ (Meskin) threatened to end all life until a little kid offered an unlikely solution. Cardy opened ‘The Amazing Swap Shop’, where humans could trade “junk” for impossibly useful gadgets before Kirby showed how a clever human saved us all by outwitting ‘The Man Who Collected Planets’.

By now thoroughly gripped in UFO fever, Tales of the Unexpected #19 began with ‘The Man from Two Worlds’ (Cardy) wherein evil Neptunians attempted to abduct an Earth scientist by guile, whereas ‘D-Day on Planet Vulcan’ (Mooney) saw embattled ETs beg our help to end a world-crushing crisis, after which a meteor turned a hapless technician into ‘The Human Lie Detector’ (Ely) and a dotty old eccentric surprised everybody by ending ‘The Menace of the Fireball’ (with art by Bob Brown).

This first terrific tome concludes with issue #20 where ‘The Earth Gladiator’ (Cardy) struggled to save his life and prove Earth worthy of continued existence, an engineer scuppered ‘The Remarkable Mr. Multiplier’ (Ely) before his invention wrecked civilisation and ‘I Was Marooned on Planet Earth’, by Baily, illustrated that every alien incursion was malign or dangerous.

Moreira then brings the cosmic catalogue to a close with ‘You Stole Our Planet’ wherein gigantic space creatures arrived with a strong claim of prior ownership…

Although certainly dated and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated suspenseful adventures are drenched in charm, gilded in ingenuity and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these fantastic exploits are nevertheless an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.

© 1956, 1957, 1958, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 1: 1937-1938


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-141-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal for anybody who ever dreamed or wondered… 10/10

Rightly reckoned one of the greatest comic strips of all time, the nigh-mythical saga of a king-in-exile who became one of the greatest warriors in an age of unparalleled heroes is at once fantastically realistic and beautifully, perfectly abstracted – an indisputable paradigm of adventure fiction where anything is possible and justice will always prevail. It is the epic we all want to live in…

On one thing let us be perfectly clear: Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is not historical. It is far better and more real than that.

Possibly the most successful and evergreen fantasy creation ever conceived, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13th February 1937, a glorious weekly, full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto a world that should have been. It followed the tempestuous life of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland of faraway Thule who persevered and, through tenacity, imagination and sheer grit, rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

As depicted by the incredibly gifted Foster, this noble scion would, over the years, grow to mighty manhood amidst a heady sea of wonderment; roaming the globe and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, cartoon series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on the feature – one of the few newspaper strips to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and counting) and even in these declining days of newspaper cartooning it still claims over 300 American papers as its home.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected to draw the feature. Foster carried on as writer and designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son took over scripting duties.

In 2004 Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artist Gary Gianni and writer Mark Schultz and latterly Thomas Yeates, conquering one more exotic land by making it onto various web locations.

This exquisite oversized hardback volume (362 x 268mm), reprints in glorious colour – spectacularly restored from Foster’s original Printer’s Proofs – the princely pristine Sunday pages from February 1937 to December 25th 1938: those formative forays of an already impressive tale which promised much and delivered far more than anybody might have suspected during those dim and distant days…

Before the drama begins, however, Brian M. Kane offers an informative picture and photo-packed potted history of ‘Harold Rudolf Foster: 1892-1982’ after which Fred Schreiber conducts ‘An Interview with Hal Foster’ – first seen in Nemo: The Classic Comics Magazine in 1984.

Moreover, after the superb Arthurian epic exploits of the quintessential swashbuckling hero which follows, this initial collection is rounded off by Kim Thompson’s discourse on the many iterations of reprints over the years and around the world in ‘A History of Valiants’…

The actual action-packed drama commences in distant Scandinavia as the King of Thule, his family and a few faithful retainers dash for a fishing boat, intent only on escaping the murderous intentions of a usurper’s army.

Their voyage carries them to the barbarous coast of Britain where they battle bands of wild men before securing a safe retreat in the gloomy fens of East Anglia. After many hard battles they reach an uneasy détente with the locals and settle into a harsh life as regal exiles…

The young Prince Valiant was but five years old when they arrived and his growing years in a hostile environment toughen the boy, sharpen his wits and give him an insatiable taste for mischief and adventure.

He befriends a local shepherd boy and together their escapades include challenging the marauding ancient dinosaurs which infest the swamp, battling a hulking man-brute and bedevilling a local witch. In retaliation the hag Horrit predicts that Val’s life would be long and packed with incredible feats but always tainted by great sorrow.

All that, plus the constant regimen of knightly training and scholarly tuition befitting an exile learning how to reclaim his stolen kingdom, make the lad a veritable hellion, but everything changes when his mother passes away. After a further year of intense schooling in the arts of battle, Valiant decides to leave the Fens and make his way in the dangerous lands beyond…

Whilst sparring with his boyhood companion, Val unsuspectingly insults Sir Launcelot who is fortuitously passing by. Although the hero is sanguine about the cheeky lad’s big mouth, his affronted squire attempts to administer a stern punishment but is rewarded with a thorough drubbing. Indeed, Launcelot has to stop the Scion of Thule from slitting the battered and defeated man’s throat.

Although he has no arms, armour, steed or money, Valiant swears that he will become a Knight…

Luck is with the Pauper Prince. After spectacularly catching and taming a wild stallion his journey is interrupted by the gregarious paladin Sir Gawain, who shares a meal and regales the boy with tales of chivalry and heroism. When their alfresco repast is spoiled by robber knight Sir Negarth who unfairly strikes the champion of Camelot, Val charges in and Gawain regains consciousness to find the threat ended, Negarth hogtied and his accomplice skewered…

Taking Val under his wing, wounded Gawain escorts the boy and his prisoner to Camelot but their journey is delayed by a gigantic dragon. Val kills it too – with the assistance of Negarth – and spends the rest of the trip arguing that the rogue should be freed for his gallantry…

He is still stoutly defending the scoundrel at his trial before King Arthur, and is rewarded by being appointed Gawain’s squire. Unfortunately Val responds badly to being teased by the other knights-in-training and finds himself locked in a dungeon whilst his tormentors heal and the Knights of the Round Table ride out to deal with an invasion of Northmen…

Whilst the flowers of chivalry are away, a plot is hatched by scheming Sir Osmond and Baron Baldon. To recoup gambling debts they intend to capture and ransom Gawain, but have not reckoned on the dauntless devotion and ruthless ingenuity of his semi-feral squire.

Easily infiltrating the bleak fortress imprisoning the hero, Val liberates his mentor through astounding feats of daring and brings the grievously wounded knight to Winchester Heath and Arthur…

As Gawain recuperates, he is approached by a young maiden. Ilene is in need of a champion and, over his squire’s protests, the still gravely unfit knight dutifully complies. Val’s protests might have been better expressed had he not been so tongue-tied by the most beautiful girl he has ever seen…

The quest to rescue Ilene’s parents is delayed when an unscrupulous warrior in scarlet challenges them, intent on possessing the lovely maiden. Correctly assessing Gawain to be no threat, the Red Knight did not live long enough to revise his opinion of the wild-eyed boy who then attacked him…

Leaving Ilene and the re-injured Gawain with a hermit, Valiant continues on alone to Branwyn Castle, recently captured by an “Ogre” who is terrorising the countryside. Through guile, force of arms and devilish tactics he then ends the threat forever.

This is an astonishing tour de force of graphic bravura that no fan could ever forget. Aspiring cartoonist Jack Kirby certainly didn’t: he recycled Val’s outlandish outfit used to terrorise the Ogre’s soldiers as the visual basis for his 1970s horror-hero Etrigan the Demon…

Having successfully routed the invaders and freed Ilene’s family, Val began earnestly courting the grateful girl. His prophecy of lifelong misery seemed assured however, when her father had to regretfully inform him that she was promised to Arn, son and heir of the King of Ord…

Even before that shock could sink in, Valiant was called away again. Ailing Gawain had been abducted by the sorceress Morgan le Fey, who was enamoured of the knight’s manly charms…

When Val confronts her she drugs him with a potion and he endures uncounted ages in her dungeon before affecting his escape. Weak and desperate, the lad makes his way to Camelot and enlists Merlin in a last-ditch ploy to defeat the witch and save his adored mentor…

In the meantime events have progressed and Val’s bold plans to win Ilene are upset when invitations to her wedding arrive at Camelot. Initially crushed, the resilient youth determines to travel to Ord and challenge Prince Arn for her hand.

Their meeting is nothing like Val imagined but, after much annoying interference, he and the rather admirable Arn finally begin their oft-delayed death-duel only to be again distracted when news comes that Ilene has been taken by Viking raiders…

What follows is another unparalleled moment of comics magnificence as Valiant sacrifices everything for honour, gloriously falls to superior forces, wins possession of Flamberge (the legendary Singing Sword which is brother to Excalibur) and is captured and reunited with Ilene… only to lose her again to the cruellest of fates…

After escaping from the Vikings and covering himself with glory at the Lists in Camelot – although he doesn’t realise it – the heartsick, weary Prince returns to his father in the melancholy Anglian fens, again encountering ghastly Horrit and nearly succumbing to fever.

When he recovers months later he has a new purpose: he and his faithful countrymen will travel to Thule and rescue the nation from the cruel grip of the usurper Sligon.  Unfortunately during the preparations Valiant discovers the countryside has been invaded by Saxons and is compelled by his honour to race to Camelot and warn Arthur…

To Be Continued…

Prince Valiant is a hurtling juggernaut of action and romance, blending hyper-realistic fantasy with sardonic wit, and broad humour with unbelievably stirring violence, all rendered in an incomprehensibly lovely panorama of glowing art.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, Foster’s magnum opus is a World Classic of storytelling, and this magnificent deluxe edition is something no fan can afford to be without.

If you have never experienced the majesty and grandeur of the strip, this breathtaking premium collection is the best possible way to start and will be your gateway to a staggering world of wonder and imagination…

All comics material © 2009 King Features Syndicate except Tarzan page, © 2009 ERB Inc. All other content and properties © 2009 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

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Papyrus volume 1: The Rameses’ Revenge


By Lucien De Geiter, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebooks)
ISBN: 978-1- 905460-35-9

British and European Comics have always been keener on historical strips than our American cousins, and the Franco-Belgian contingent in particular have made an art form out of combining the fascinations of past lives with drama, action and especially broad humour in a genre uniquely suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes.

One ideal example of this is the long-running Papyrus by Belgian cartoonist Lucien de Gieter, which began in Spirou in 1974. It subsequently spawned more than 30 collected albums, a wealth of merchandise, a TV cartoon series and a video game through its progression of light fantasy adventures starring a simple child fisherman favoured by the gods who became the hero of Egypt and a friend to Pharaohs.

De Gieter was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on September 4th 1932 and, after attending Saint-Luc Art Institute in Brussels, worked as an industrial designer and interior decorator before moving into comics in 1961.

Initially he worked on inserts (fold-in half-sized-booklets known as ‘mini-récits‘) for Spirou, such as the little cowboy ‘Pony’, and produced scripts for established Spirou creators such as Kiko (Roger Camille), Jem (Jean Mortier), Eddy Ryssack and Francis (Bertrand) before joining Peyo’s (Pierre Culliford) studio as inker on ‘Les Schtroumpfs’ – which you’ll know as The Smurfs – and soloed on long-running newspaper comic cat strip ‘Poussy’.

After creating mermaid strip ‘Tôôôt et Puit’  in 1966 and seeing Pony graduate to the full-sized pages of Spirou in 1968, De Gieter relinquished his Smurfs gig, but kept himself busy producing work for Tintin and Le Journal de Mickey. From 1972-1974 he assisted Flemish cartooning legend Arthur Berckmans (AKA Berck) on comedy science-fiction series ‘Mischa’ for the German Rolf Kauka Studios magazine Primo, whilst he prepared the creation which would occupy his full attention – and millions of avid fans – for the next four decades.

The stories of Papyrus encompass a vast range of themes and milieus, blending boys-own adventure with historical fiction and living mythology, gradually evolving from a traditionally welcoming and inclusive “Bigfoot” cartooning content towards a more realistic, dramatic and authentic iteration.

That’s not a concern in this first Cinebook translation as The Rameses’ Revenge (actually the seventh collected album, originally released in 1984 as La Vengeance des Ramsès) finds Papyrus en route to the newly finished temple at Abu-Simbel on a royal barge, part of a vast flotilla destined to commemorate the magnificent Tomb of Rameses II.

The worthy peasant had been given a magic sword by the daughter of crocodile-headed god Sobek to free Horus from imprisonment in the black pyramid of Ombos and restore peace to the Two Kingdoms – but that’s a tale for another tome. The lad was also charged with being lifelong protector of wilful Pharaoh’s daughter Theti-Cheri …

Here his sedate Nile journey is plagued with frightful dreams but good friend Imhotep tells him not to worry. Nevertheless the boy hero consults a priest and is deeply worried when the sage declares the dreams are a warning…

That tension only grows when headstrong, impatient Theti-Cheri informs him that she has permission to go on ahead of the Pharaoh’s retinue in a small, poorly-armed skiff. Unable to dissuade her, Papyrus is ordered to remain behind. The Princess and Imhotep are blissfully unaware that a member of her small guard has been replaced by a sinister impostor…

The vessel is well underway before they discover Papyrus has stowed away, but before the furious girl can have him thrown overboard, the boat is hit by an impossibly sudden storm and attacked by a pair of monsters.

Although the boy hero drives them away with his sword, Theti-Cheri sees nothing, having been knocked out in the storm. Still seething, she refuses to believe him or Imhotep and orders them onward to Abu-Simbel. The next morning Papyrus and the guards are missing…

Pressing on anyway, the Princess and her remaining attendants reach the incredible edifice only to be seized by the band of brigands who have captured it. They want the enormous treasure hidden within the sprawling complex and already hold Papyrus prisoner.

If Theti-Cheri or the hostageTemple Priests don’t hand it over the boy will die horribly…

The repentant Princess cannot convince the clerics to betray their holy vows, however, and in desperation declares that she will hand herself over instead. Appalled and moved by her noble intention, High Priest Hapu determines that only extreme measures can avenge the bandits’ sacrilegious insult and calls on mighty Ra to inflict the vengeance of the gods upon them…

The astounding, spectacular, terrifying result perfectly concludes this initial escapade and will thrill and delight lovers of fantastic fantasy and bombastic adventure. Papyrus is another superb addition to the all-ages pantheon of continental champions who combine action and mirth with wit and charm, and anybody who has worn out the Tintin and Asterix collections would be well rewarded by checking out these epic tales.

© Dupis, 1984 by De Gieter. All rights reserved. English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

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A1: The World’s Greatest Comics


By various (Atomeka/Titan Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-78276-016-0

A1 began in 1988 as an anthology showcase for comics creativity, free from the usual strictures of mainstream publishers, consequently attracting many of the world’s top writers and artists to produce work at once personal and experimental, comfortingly familiar and, on occasion, deucedly odd.

Editors Garry Leach and Dave Elliott have periodically returned to their baby and this year the title was resurrected under the aegis of Titan Comics to provide more of the same.

Always as much committed to past excellence as future glories (you should see the two page dedication list here) and following the grandest tradition of British comics, the new title already has a great big hardback annual and it offers the same eclectic mix of material old and new…

After that aforementioned thank you to everyone from Frank Bellamy to Faceache in ‘The Dream Day’s are Back: The One’s Especially For You…’ the cartoon carnival commences with a truly “Golden Oldie” as Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (inked by Al Williamson) provide the science fiction classic ‘Island in the Sky’ – which first surfaced in Harvey Comic’s Race for the Moon #2 September, 1958 – wherein an expired astronaut returns from death thanks to something he picked up on Jupiter…

Each tale here is accompanied by fulsome creator biographies and linked by factual snippets about most artists’ drug of choice.

These photographic examples of coffee barista self-expression (with all ‘Latte Art’ throughout courtesy of Coffee Labs Roasters) are followed by illustrator Alex Sheikman & scripter Norman Felchle’s invitation to the baroque, terpsichorean delights of the ‘Odd Ball’.

The fantastic gothic revisionism resumes after another coffee-break as the sublime Sandy Plunkett details in captivating monochrome the picaresque perils of life in a sprawling urban underworld with his ‘Tales of Old Fennario’

‘Odyssey: A Question of Priorities’ by Elliot, Toby Cypress & Sakti Yuwono is a thoroughly up-to-date interpretation of pastiche patriotic avenger Old Glory, who now prowls modern values-challenged America, regretting the choices he’s made and the timbre of his current superhero comrades…

‘Image Duplicator’ by Rian Hughes & Dave Gibbons is, for me, the most fascinating feature included here, detailing and displaying comics creator’s admirable responses to the appropriation and rapine of comic book images by “Pop” artist Roy Lichtenstein.

In a move to belatedly honour the honest jobbing creators simultaneously ripped off and denigrated by the “recontextualisation” and transformation to High Art, Hughes and Gibbons approached a number of professionals from all sectors of the commercial arts and asked them to re-appropriate Lichtenstein’s efforts.

The results were displayed in the exhibition Image Duplicator and all subsequent proceeds donated to the charity Hero Initiative which benefits comic creators who have fallen on hard times.

In this feature you can see some of the results of the comicbook fightback with contributions from Hughes, Gibbons, FuFu Frauenwahl, Carl Flint, Howard Chaykin, Salgood Sam, Mark Blamire, Steve Cook, Garry Leach, Dean Motter, Jason Atomic, David Leach, Shaky Kane, Mark Stafford, Graeme Ross, Kate Willaert & Mitch O’Connell.

Master of all funnybook trades Bambos Georgiou then offers his 2011 tribute to DC’s splendidly silly Silver Age in the Curt Swan inspired ‘Weird’s Finest – Zuberman & Batguy in One Adventure Together!’ and Dominic Regan crafts a stunning Technicolor tornado of intriguing illumination as Doctor Arachnid has to deal with cyber Psychedelia and a divinely outraged ‘Little Star’…

‘Emily Almost’ by Bill Sienkiewicz first appeared in the original A1 #4, a bleak paean to rejection seen here in muted moody colour, after which Scott Hampton revisits the biblical tale of ‘Daniel’ and Jim Steranko re-presents his groundbreaking, experimental multi-approach silent story ‘Frogs!’ and follows up with ‘Steranko: Frogs!’  – his own treatise on the history and intent behind creating the piece thirty years ago…

‘Boston Metaphysical Society’ is a prose vignette of mystic Steampunk Victoriana written by Madeleine Holly-Rosing from her ongoing webcomic, ably illustrated by Emily Hu, whilst ‘Mr. Monster’ by Alan Moore & Michael T. Gilbert (with inks from Bill Messner-Loebs) is a reprint of ‘The Riddle of the Recalcitrant Refuse!’

First found in #3 (1985) of the horror hunter’s own series, it recounts how a dead bag-lady turns the city upside out when her mania for sorting junk transcends both death and the hero’s best efforts…

‘The Weirding Willows: Origins of Evil’ by Elliot, Barnaby Bagenda & Jessica Kholinne is one of the fantasy features from the new A1 – a dark reinterpretation of beloved childhood characters such as Alice, Ratty, Toad and Mole, which fans of Bill Willingham’s Fables should certainly take notice of…

‘Devil’s Whisper’ by James Robinson & D’Israeli also comes from A1 #4, and features Matt Wagner’s signature creation Grendel – or does it?

Stechgnotic then waxes lyrical about Barista art in ‘The Artful Latte’ after which ‘Melting Pot – In the Beginning’ by Kevin Eastman, Eric Talbot & Simon Bisley ends the affair by revisiting the ghastly hellworld where the gods spawned an ultimate survivor through the judicious and repeated application of outrageous bloody violence.

Of course it’s a trifle arrogant and rather daft to claim any collection as “The World’s Greatest Comics” and – to be honest – these aren’t. There’s no such thing and never can be…

However this absorbing, inspiring oversized collection does contain a lot of extremely good and wonderfully entertaining material by some of the best and most individualistic creators to have graced our art form.

What more can you possibly need?

A1 Annual © 2013 Atomeka Press, all contents copyright their respective creators. ATOMEKA © 2013 Dave Elliott & Garry Leach.

Anyone wishing to learn more or donate to Hero Initiative can find them at www.heroinitiative.org

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P. Craig Russell’s Opera Adaptations Hardcover Set


By P. Craig Russell & various (NBM)
Set ISBN: 978-1-56163-755-3
Vol. 1 ISBN: 978-1-56163-350-0
Vol. 2 ISBN: 978-1-56163-372-2
Vol. 3 ISBN: 978-1-56163-388-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Startling, seductive and sublime… 10/10

Here’s a tremendous opportunity and irresistible bargain for aficionados of magnificent Art and Grand Spectacle…

P. Craig Russell began his illustrious career in comics during the early 1970s and came to fame early with a groundbreaking run on science fiction adventure series Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds. His fanciful, meticulous classicist style was derived from the great illustrators of Victorian and Edwardian heroic fantasy and was greatly at odds with the sausage-factory deadlines and sensibilities of the mainstream comicbook industry.

By the 1980s he had largely retired from the merciless daily grind, preferring to work on his own projects (generally adapting operas and plays into sequential narratives) whilst undertaking the occasional high-profile Special for the majors – such as Dr. Strange Annual 1976 (totally reworked and re-released as Dr. Strange: What Is It that Disturbs You, Stephen? In 1996) or Batman: Robin 3000.

As the industry grew up and a fantasy boom began he returned to comics with Marvel Graphic Novel: Elric (1982), further adapting Michael Moorcock’s iconic sword-&- sorcery star in the magazine Epic Illustrated and elsewhere.

Russell’s stage-arts adaptations had begun appearing in 1978: first in the independent Star*Reach specials Night Music and Parsifal and then from 1984 at Eclipse Comics where the revived Night Music became an anthological series showcasing his earlier experimental adaptations; not just operatic dramas but also tales from Kipling’s Jungle Books and others.

In 2003 Canadian publisher NBM began a prodigious program to collect all those music-based masterpieces into The P. Craig Russell Library of Opera Adaptations: first as the luxurious clothbound hardcovers under discussion here and eventually in more affordable trade paperback albums.

Now all three of the sturdy originals are available again as a lavish economical shrink-wrapped set no fan of the comic arts could possibly resist.

Completed in 1990, the first huge volume (300 x210mm) features an epic rendering of Mozart’s lush fairytale romance The Magic Flute (from Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto) wherein valiant if lackadaisical Prince Tamino and his unwelcome but supremely practical bird-catcher sidekick Papageno are tricked by the Queen of Night into rescuing her daughter Pamina from the wicked sorcerer Sarastro.

To aid them she gave the Prince a Magic Flute and the oafish dullard a set of enchanted bells, but she had not told them the true nature of the victim or their opponents…

A glorious panorama of love, betrayal, duplicity, enchantment and comedy – and dragons! – this is a fabulous example of the artist’s visual virtuosity.

Volume 2 is comprised of shorter works, beginning with the aforementioned Parsifal, realised from the Second Act of Richard Wagner’s opera, with a script adapted by long-term collaborator Patrick C. Mason, who also provides an Introduction and erudite commentary.

The work is the earliest represented in the collection and still contains stirring remnants of Russell’s action-hero style as the pure and heroic knight (a “germanised” version of Camelot’s Sir Percival in quest of the Holy Grail) finds the doughty and beautiful seeker undertaking ‘His Journey’, facing the seductive wiles of the debased siren Kundry and her Flower-Maidens in ‘His Temptation’ before eventually achieving ‘His Victory’ over malign magic and the weaknesses of the flesh…

Letitia Glozer’s Introduction to Songs by Mahler precedes two powerful evocations of ferocious imagination as ‘The Drinking Song of Earth’s Sorrow’ (with a script by Mason) and the idyllic Arcadian pastel dreamscape of ‘Unto This World’ bemuse the reader until the opening of dark fairytale horror with ‘Ariane & Bluebeard’.

As revealed in Olivier Messiaen’s Introduction, Maurice Maeterlinck’s poem became a stunning symbolist opera scored by Paul Dukas, and Russell’s adaptation maintains the philosophical underpinnings whilst deftly telling of a township in revolt as the brutal lord of the manor brings his sixth bride to his castle.

The peasants are determined that the killer will not destroy another maiden but strong-willed Ariane has her own opinions and will determine her own fate…

Russell himself provided the Introduction for the final work in this volume. ‘The Clowns’ is crafted in stark and memorable monochrome, eschewing the vibrant colours of the previous pieces for a horrific interpretation of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci – a play-within-a-play of the new “Verismo” school of operatic storytelling which abandoned fantasy for tales of ordinary people and tawdry, sordid realism.

Pencilled by Galen Showman over Russell’s layouts and under the master’s inks and tones, it concerns a band of travelling players, who find that close proximity breeds boredom not fidelity, and proves that sinful passions indulged cannot help but lead to jealousy and murder…

The wide-eyed full colour wonderment wraps up in the third P. Craig Russell Library of Opera Adaptations, which features Pelleas and Melisande, Salome, Ein Heldentraum and Cavalleria Rusticana.

Mason’s informative Introduction to Maeterlinck’s masterpiece of forbidden love and familial injustice (as set to music by Claude Debussy) precedes a superb adaptation by Russell and scripter Barry Daniels, which relates how gruff widower Prince Golaud finds a strange, forlorn young woman whilst out hunting and, smitten with the sad, beautiful creature, marries her. He was supposed to wed distant Princess Ursula whose alliance might have saved the impoverished and slowly starving kingdom…

Melisande doesn’t really care. She seems to carries a mysterious secret within that manifests as a quiet compliance. She only really appears to display any passion for life after her new husband’s brother Prince Pelleas returns to court. As the two young people spend time together, Golaud is wracked with growing suspicion and when his bride loses her wedding ring the scene is irretrievably set for tragedy…

Scripted by Mason again, ‘Ein Heldentraum’ (A Hero’s Dream) is a short piece completed for this volume, visualising a bleak Lied or Art Song by German composer Hugo Wolf – a minor epic of fantastic imagination with just the hint of a potential happy ending.

That can’t be said of the next tale. ‘The Godfather’s Code’ is also new: a cruel, grim tale of death and broken promises taken from the Cavalleria Rusticana (rustic or peasant’s chivalry) by Pietro Mascagni from the libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci as originally adapted from a play and short story written by Giovanni Verga.

It was the first great example of the Verismo opera and is also one of Russell’s most effective adaptations.

Depicted in the bright, vivid colours of an Italian Easter, the story concerns vivacious Lola who revels in the first flowering of a new romance, even as fallen woman Santuzza desperately seeks the man for whose attentions she gave her virtue and now stands excommunicated by the Church and damned by her own conscience…

The outcast kneels in prayer outside the chapel, hungry for a glance of her adored Turridu, but she knows in her heart he has abandoned her for his first love.

When at last he arrives, the cad discards her whilst hypocritical Lola mocks. Thus Santuzza is driven to do the unpardonable: tell proud carter Alfio what his wife and best friend do whilst he works away from home…

The grandeur and tragedy all concludes with the biblical horror story of ‘Salome’ transformed from Oscar Wilde’s play into Richard Strauss’ opera of “shocking depravity” and thus perfect meat for comics cognoscenti.

In ancient Judea, the Tetrarch Herod rules by the grace of Rome, in a Court of utter decadence and indulgence. His wife is the debauched wanton Herodias, but lately even she has paled in the King’s eyes as her daughter Salome has blossomed.

The queen’s every blandishment is useless as her husband becomes more and more obsessed with the virginal sixteen year old…

Have grown up in the most debased place on world Salome is under no illusions as to Herod’s attentions or intentions, but her mind is preoccupied by the strident prisoner pent in the hole beneath the palace floor. Jokanaan condemns everything about the Court and warns all who hear of the messiah to come, heedless of the danger to himself. He is also exceedingly beautiful, as wilful Salome discovers when she forces a besotted guard to let him out so that she can see him. The precocious child has never met anyone who did not want her and John the Baptist’s indifference enflames her. The prophet is someone worthy of her body and chastity so she throws herself at him, but is roundly rejected.

Her passions aroused and rebuffed, the furious, confused girl decides to do anything she must and give everything she is if it will punish her tormentor…

The astounding strips and stories contained here are an indisputable high point in the long, slow transition of an American mass market medium into a genuine art form, but they are also incredibly lovely and irresistibly readable examples of comics on their own terms too.

This collection is a grand spectacle all lovers of picture storytelling would be crazy to miss.
© 1977, 1978, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1990 1998, 2004, 2013 P. Craig Russell. All rights reserved.

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Brahma Dreaming


By John Jackson, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzina (JJBooks)
ISBN: 978-0-9569212-8-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Lavish, luxurious and utterly special – a book the entire family will adore … 10/10

I love books. I always have. I also had tremendously understanding parents.

When I was kid each birthday and every Christmas brought fantastic volumes that assaulted all the senses my podgy young body was prey to. The 1960s were a golden age for fabulous books for kids or adults…

The feel of shiny, sturdy card-covers and solidly reliable paper pages, the reassuring weight of a tome, the smell of printers ink and faint crack of a thick, solid spine opening for the very first time always overwhelmed me with each fresh acquisition. (I quickly got over licking my books – it made the pages soggy and smoosh together…)

Most important of course were the contents: words and pictures which could transport a reader to worlds ancient, modern or even futuristic, comfortably familiar and fantastically alien.

Like most of my compatriots I consumed everything, but I always harboured a particular affinity for stories about mythical Heroes, Gods and Monsters…

Now decades later, after a seeming eternity of books getting gradually smaller, duller, flimsier – but certainly not cheaper – the good old days seem to be returning. It’s obviously the time and season for books that look and feel like something special…

Case in point is this magnificent construction – a colossal 304 x 216mm, 248 page monochrome prose-&-illustration hardback from advocate, barrister, businessman, campaigner and writer-turned-publisher John Jackson.

Between nostalgically welcoming substantial card covers rests a captivatingly retelling of tales from the Hindu Holy Trinity the Trimurti, augmented and embellished with 50 spectacular full and double-page ink illustrations by Italian artist Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzina (A Little Piece of England, Animals Marco Polo Saw, Tales for Great Grandchildren: Folk Tales from India and Nepal and others).

Her stark, lush style is reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley, Sidney Sime, Edmund Dulac and other past masters of elegant fantasy and will instantly transport you to places long away and far ago…

The captivating recapitulations begin in Tales of Creation: dealing with the earliest days of the universe when the grand cosmic sound Aum echoed in the void and brought forth the Lords of Creation Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer.

In ‘The Beginning’, we learn how, after dreaming, Brahma brought forth Seven Wise Men and their wives. From these came the races of Gods and Demons. After this Brahma dreamed again and the First World was created, populated with animals and mankind.

When Wise Man Durvasas brought his haughty nephew Indra, King of the Gods a gift it was unappreciated and resulted in ‘The Curse’ which tipped the balance in the eternal war between Gods and Demons. The deities beseeched Brahma to intercede, and the Lord of Creation delegated the task to Vishnu who revealed all could be made well if the Gods found a way to churn ‘The Milk Ocean’…

‘The Lie’ tells of Kadru, the Mother of all Snakes and her sister Vinata, revealing the dangers of excessive pride and arrogance, whilst in ‘The Sons of King Sagara’ a king with no heirs consults the Wise Man Bhrigu with spectacular results.

Indeed Sagara and his wives Kerini and Somati then begat so many sons that, as an army, they could conquer the Earth and challenge Indra himself…

As everyone knows, the First World ended in a mighty flood with only the healer Manu warned in time to preserve the Seven Wise Men and all the seeds of life and knowledge in a great boat. To ensure the Second World after the deluge Brahma became ‘The Fish’ which guided them all to safety on Mount Himavan…

Tales of Destruction deals with the harsh existence of Shiva the Destroyer, beginning with the lonely, unlovable bachelor’s search for a wife in ‘Sati’. That brief happy union was destroyed by the callous pranks of Wise Man Narada whose meddling tongue led to the bride’s death of ‘Burning Love’ – and the fiery vengeance of Shiva…

It also resulted in more celestial war, but the overwhelming campaign of the demon warlord ‘Taraka’ produced in turn a rebirth of the Destroyer’s wife in the young goddess ‘Uma’…

The Destroyer was, however, unable to create a child even though it was prophesied that such a paradoxical progeny was the only being who could win the Demon War and kill Taraka. It took the inspired intercession of Fire God Agni to finally quicken the saviour child who would be ‘Kartikeya’ God of War…

The fallout of this impossible conception was fury on behalf of Shiva’s second wife. The betrayed goddess showed hidden strength by losing her temper and, in a special dance, revealing her terrifying submerged aspect as Kalee, Destroyer of Time before finding proper stability in ‘How Uma Became Parvati’…

The grisly origins and acts of ‘Ganesha’ the Elephant-headed god then lead us into an astounding story of passion and devotion in ‘Yama and the Love Girl’. Then the convoluted tale of how prankster sky-maiden Anjana was turned into a monkey before she and Wind God Vayu conceived the mighty ‘Hanuman’ takes us full circle when easily-slighted Ganesha takes vengeance on the cruelly teasing Moon God in ‘Chandra’s Shame’…

This staggering and enthralling compendium concludes with some exploits of Vishnu in Tales of Preservation, beginning with the story of his manifested earthly aspect Krishna – ‘The Blue Boy’…

The boy’s aunt was blessed – or cursed – with a complex divinely-orchestrated fate and ‘The Loves of Queen Pritha’ details how the poor woman bore five children by different gods and became the root cause of a tragic and appalling war between families.

The epic search that reunited ‘Rama and Sita’ also includes the last great exploit of Hanuman, after which ‘The City of Dwaraka’ reveals how Krishna grew into a mighty hero and demon killer, although even he struggled to quell the all-encompassing strife between Pritha’s warring offspring the Kauravas and Pandavas…

Retired in Dwaraka, Krishna had many children. When one of them, Samba, annoyed a Yogi with his mischief the wayward boy was repaid in brutal kind by “giving birth” to ‘The Iron Rod’ which ended his father’s life…

The fable of ‘Little Gopala’ ends our mythological voyage, relating how a small and very ordinary boy became blessed of a ghostly brother with skin the colour of the sky, and the wheel turns full circle with The End describing how works of The Lords of Creation are with us still…

Epic, engaging and astonishingly enthralling, this is the kind of book entire families read; and yours should be one of them…
© 2013 John Jackson. All rights reserved.

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Tropic of the Sea


By Satoshi Kon, translated by Maya Rosewood (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-939130-06-8

In the West we’re used to single manga stories filling entire bookcases: epic sagas filling thousands of pages with brilliant, lovely, exciting but generally very long tales on every theme and subject under the sun.

Every so often, however, something comes along which is more familiar to English sensibilities, such as this short, sharp, sinister shocker from screenwriter, artist, animator and Director Satoshi Kon.

The author was born in Kushiro Subprefecture, Hokkaido in 1963 and after High School attended MusashinoArtUniversity’s Graphic Design department from 1982-1987. Whilst there he spent a lot of time studying foreign film.

Whilst still a student he released the short manga Toriko and became an assistant to Katsuhiro Otomo, dividing his time between comics and animation. In 1990 he produced the single volume Kaikisen we’re concentrating on here, before graduating more fully toward film as scripter, layout artist and animator.

Amongst his credits are World Apartment Horror, Roujin Z, Patlabor 2: The Movie, Magnetic Rose, Perfect Blue Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and others. What would have certainly been a stellar career in either or both art forms was cruelly cut short in 2010 when he died tragically young from pancreatic cancer.

As Shinsouban Kaikisen, this eerie yarn was first serialised in Kodansha’s Young Magazine in 1990: eleven episodes between issues #17 and 29, thereafter collected in tankōbon form and again as a Bijutsu Shuppan edition in 1999. That commemorative tome provides the informative Afterword which ends this book describing the author’s path from mangaka to animator.

Tropic of the Sea opens on a secluded beach where teenager Yosuke and his dog Fujimaru play before the dutiful son climbs to a hilltop shrine to enact a centuries-old ritual. His joyful morning is then disturbed when his father brings a TV crew into the sacred area.

Yozo Yashiro is the 23rd Head Priest of the Hiratsu Shrine; a thoroughly modern man keenly supporting a major consortium’s ambitious plans to turn the sleepy fishing village of Ade into a modern luxury resort. As such he’s keen on publicity and is happy to disturb the Mermaid’s Egg within the shrine and show it to all the viewers whilst explaining the silly but charming legend attached to it.

Long ago his ancestor found another such egg and promised a mermaid to respectfully care for it. After six decades the egg was returned to the sea and another egg left. In return the sea matron guaranteed calm waters and abundant fishing. This current egg was deposited in the shrine almost exactly sixty years ago…

The televised lecture is interrupted by Yosuke’s furious grandfather who has dragged himself out of hospital to stop the travesty he has just seen. Again the bitter argument begins. Grandfather is a fierce opponent of the proposed resort, whereas the current priest is no believer in his duties, nor the sacrosanct pact between the fishermen and the nonsensical sea-woman.

He does however realise the tourist potential of a Mermaid’s Egg theme park…

The village too is divided into warring camps on the issue. The fishermen see their ancestral livelihoods threatened by the proposed tourist trap whilst shopkeepers imagine thousands of new customers flocking in daily.

As Yosuke and best buddy Tetsu discuss the potential influx of college girls and summer days, they watch a limousine full of Ozaki Construction bigwigs arrive to inspect the monstrous Hotel growing like a giant tumour on the beach, and feel a pang of apprehension…

The egg is now common knowledge and billboards proclaiming “Welcome to Mermaid Country” are everywhere, but the boys’ minds are on more mundane things… but only until they take a dinghy out to the sacrosanct offshore islet Kamijima and catch a tantalising glimpse of something impossible in the water…

It turns out to be only old school friend Nami, back from Tokyo for the summer mermaid festival and taking a playful swim, but Yosuke is still uneasy and oddly unsettled…

With Ade becoming a bustling, money-mad boomtown and the priestly Yozo vigorously pushing villagers into selling their land to the developers, grandfather – despite his illness – is determined to honour the family’s ancient promise, and things take a decidedly dark turn when ambitious corporate development head Kenji Ozaki starts taking an unhealthy interest in the Egg. He also lets slip that Kamijimi will be razed and turned into Marine Land theme park…

He’s too late: by the time his team get to the hilltop shrine the Mermaid’s treasure has vanished. The trail leads to Kamijima where Nami and the boys find grandpa with the Egg in a submerged grotto. It’s the place where the mermaid has come every sixty years to pick up her hatchling and leave a new egg and grandpa has almost killed himself getting it here. Hard on the kids’ heels, however, come Ozaki and his goons.

As the businessman tries to appropriate the gleaming globe a strange waterspout erupts and in the tumult Yosuke badly cuts his hand. The drama soon subsides though, and as they all return to Ade in Ozaki’s launch, the boy is amazed to realise that when he picked up the Egg his wound completely healed…

There’s even stranger news to come as tensions over the Corporation’s full building schemes leak out. In the hospital the doctors cannot understand how grandpa’s terminal stomach cancer has completely gone…

Days pass and already the first wave of tourists are despoiling the previously quiet seaside atmosphere. Nami and Yosuke – no longer sceptical about the Egg – are making plans, but Ozaki is also convinced that the object has some mysterious power and takes steps to claim it for the company even as his bulldozers begin to clear Kamijima.

The fishermen are furious. Their once-abundant catches have dried up and the Mermaid’s Egg festival, crowded with suits and tourist interlopers, degenerates into a massive riot. In the melee, with Yozo’s compliance, Ozaki takes the artefact into his safekeeping, and the stunned, betrayed Yosuke thinks he sees a figure on a rock, waiting in vain for her child to be returned…

As Ozaki’s technicians poke and probe the Egg, the traditional day of surrender comes and goes. Yosuke barely survives an uncanny contact with something beyond the scope of science and, with Nami and Tetsu, determines to retrieve the Egg and return it to its true owner whatever the risk…

A tense clash on a bridge finds the kids surprisingly victorious but it’s too late. The Egg hatches in Yosuke’s hands and at the beach the sea vanishes. It can mean only one thing. A tsunami is coming: a wall of angry wild water to wipe away all the foul fabrications of double-dealing, oath-breaking mankind…

Brooding and pensive, this superb supernatural thriller builds tension with masterful dexterity in beguilingly understated style and Kon’s superb draughtsmanship and meticulous pacing keeps the suspense simmering until the spectacular denouement snatches your breath away. A cracking tale no fiction fan or comics collector should miss – especially as the book also includes a gallery of the beautiful title pages which accompanied the original Young Magazine serialisation.

Tropic of the Sea is a minor masterpiece of modern fantasy fiction and a perfect spooky epic movie in waiting…

© 2013 KON’STONE Inc. All rights reserved.
This book is printed in ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

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The Squirrel Machine


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-646-1

Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in many different arenas since the 1990s, beginning with self-published mini-comics before graduating to full-sized, full-length epics such as Kill, Kill, Kill. He has also worked in film, music, gallery works and performance art.

A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with the controversial graphic novel Chloe, and has since spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals such as The Stranger, creating webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology periodical Chrome Fetus.

A keen student of dreams, Rickheit has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered and open to wide interpretation. His preferred oeuvre is the recondite imagery and sturdily fanciful milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which proved such rich earth for fantasists such as Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, whilst his fine, studied, meticulously clear line is a perfect, incisive counterpoint to the cloud of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion engendered by the protagonists of his most successful book.

The brothers Edmund and William Torpor abide in a secluded 19th century New England town but have never been part of their community. Raised alone by their artist mother they are very different from other kids, with Edmund especially obsessed with arcane engineering and the assemblage of one-of-a-kind musical instruments from utterly inappropriate components.

Fantastic dream-like journeys and progressions mark their isolated existence, which is far more in tune with a greater metaphysical cosmos, but as puberty gradually moves them to an awareness of base human sexuality they find the outside world impacting their private one in ways which can only end in tragedy and horror…

Moreover, just where exactly did the plans for the ghastly Squirrel Machine come from…?

Visually reminiscent of the best of Rick Geary, this is nevertheless a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill and upset and possibly even outrage many readers.

It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky and nigh-impossible to forget. As long as you’re an adult and braced for the unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this century – or any other…

Out of print since 2009, The Squirrel Machine has now been remastered and released in an accessible paperback edition, just in time to disturb the sleep of a new generation of fear fans just as the winter nights draw in…

© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Contents © 2009 Hans Rickheit. All Rights Reserved.

Win’s Perfect Present Alert: For him or her or even “it” as long as they’re mature enough to handle it…10/10

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Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives volume 2


By Bill Everett and others, edited and complied by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-600-3

Thanks to modern technology there is a superabundance of collections featuring the works of too-long ignored founding fathers and lost masters of American comic books. A magnificent case in point is this second superb chronicle revisiting the incredible gifts of one of the greatest draughtsmen and yarn-spinners the industry has ever seen.

You could save some time and trouble by simply buying the book now rather than waste your valuable off-hours reading my blather, but since I’m keen to carp on anyway feel free to accompany me as I delineate just why this tome needs to join the books on your “favourites” shelf.

He was a direct descendent and namesake of iconoclastic poet and artist William Blake. His tragic life and awe-inspiring body of work – Bill was possibly the most technically accomplished artist in US comicbook industry – reveals how a man of privilege and astonishing pedigree was wracked by illness, an addictive personality (especially alcoholism) and sheer bad luck, nevertheless shaped an art-form and left twin legacies: an incredible body of superlative stories and art, and, more importantly, saved many broken lives saved by becoming a dedicated mentor for Alcoholics Anonymous in his later years.

William Blake Everett was born in 1917 into a wealthy and prestigious New England family. Bright and precocious, he contracted Tuberculosis when he was twelve and was dispatched to arid Arizona to recuperate.

Thus began a life-long affair with the cowboy lifestyle: a hard-drinking, smoking, tall-tale telling breed locked in a war against self-destruction, described in the fact-filled, picture-packed Introduction by Blake Bell which covers ‘The Early Years of Comics: 1938-1942’, ‘The Birth of Marvel Comics’ and ‘The Comic Book Production System’, before ‘The Heroes’ precedes a full-colour selection of incredible prototypical adventure champions with a brief essay on the set-up of Centaur Comics, Novelty Press, Eastern Color Printing, Hillman and Lev Gleason Publications…

Accompanied by the covers for Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 2 #3, 5 and 6 (March, May & June 1939, Centaur) are three outer space exploits of futuristic trouble shooter Skyrocket Steele, whilst Tibetan-trained superhero Amazing-Man offers a transformative triptych of titanic tales spanning war-torn Europe, augmented by the covers to Amazing-Man Comics #9-11 February-April 1940.

Everett’s deeply held western dreams are covered next with a brace of rootin’ tootin’ yarns starring Bull’s-Eye Bill from Novelty Press’ Target Comics #3-4 (April & May 1940) whilst from #7-9 (August-October 1940), the author smoothly switched to sophisticated suspense with master of disguise The Chameleon crushing contemporary criminals in scintillating escapades from Target Comics’ answer to The Saint, the Falcon and the Lone Wolf.

Thanks to his breakthrough Sub-Mariner sagas Everett was inextricably linked to water-based action, and Eastern Comics hired him to create human waterspout Bob Blake, Hydroman for the bimonthly Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics. Here, spanning issues # 6-9 (May-November 1941, with the covers for #6 and 7), are four spectacular, eerie, offbeat exploits, covering an extended battle against foreign spies and American Fifth Columnists, after which Red Reed in the Americas! (created by Bob Davis & Fitz) offers the first two chapters in a political thriller wherein a college student and his pals head South of the Border to fight Nazi-backed sedition and tyranny in a stunning tour de force first seen in Lev Gleason’s Silver Streak Comics #20 & 21 (April & May 1942).

A section of Miscellaneous and text illustrations follows, blending Western spot drawings with the eye-catching covers from Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 2 #18, Target Comics #5 and 6, Blue Bolt (vol. 1 #11, vol. 2 #1, 2 and 3) and Famous Funnies #85.

The Humorous and More describes Everett’s forays into other markets: niche sectors such as licensed comics, comedy and romance, and even returns to pulp and magazine illustration as he strove to stay one step ahead of a constantly shifting market and his own growing reputation for binges and unreliability.

‘What’s With the Crosbys?’ is a superbly rendered gossip strip from Famous Stars #2 (1950, Ziff-Davis) whilst a stunning monochrome girly-pin-up of ‘Snafu’s Lovely Ladies’ (from Snafu #3 Marvel, March 1956), and the cover of Adventures of the Big Boy #1 (also Marvel, from the same month) lead into the Back Cover of Cracked #6 (December 1958, Major Magazines) and other visual features from the Mad imitator as well as the colour cover to less successful rip-off Zany (#3, from March 1959).

Everett’s staggering ability to draw beautiful women plays well in the complete romance strip ‘Love Knows No Rules’ (Personal Love #24, November 1953 Eastern Color), and this section concludes with a gritty black and white title page piece from combat pulp War Stories #1, courtesy of Marvel’s parent company Magazine Management, September 1952.

The Horror concentrates on the post-superhero passion for scary stories: an arena where Bill Everett absolutely shone like a diamond. For over a decade he brought a sheen of irresistible quality to the generally second-rate chillers Timely/Atlas/Marvel generated in competition with genre front-runners EC Comics. It’s easy to see how they could compete and even outlive their gritty, gore-soaked competitor, with such lush and lurid examples of covers and chillingly beautiful interior pages…

Following a third informative background essay detailing his life until its cruelly early end in 1973, a choice selection of his least known and celebrated efforts opens with tale of terror ‘Hangman’s House’ (Suspense #5, November, 1950): a grim confrontation with Satanic evil, followed by futuristic Cold War shocker ‘I Deal With Murder!’ and a visit to a dark carnival of purely human wickedness in ‘Felix the Great’ (both culled from Suspense #6, January 1951).

Adventures into Weird Worlds #4 (Spring 1952) offered a laconic, sardonic glimpse into ‘The Face of Death’, whilst from the next issue (April 1952) ‘Don’t Bury Me Deep’ tapped untold depths of tension in a moodily mordant exploration of fear and premature burial. Hard on the heels of the cover to Journey Into Unknown Worlds #14 (December 1952) comes one of its interior shockers as ‘The Scarecrow’ helped an aged couple solve their mortgage problems in a most unusual manner.

The Marvel madness then concludes with a cautionary tale of ‘That Crazy Car’ from Journey into Mystery #20, December 1954, concluding a far too brief sojourn amidst arguably Everest’s most accomplished works and most professionally adept period.

This magnificent collection ends with a gallery of pages and one complete tale from the end of his career; selected from an even more uninhibited publisher attempting to cash in on the adult horror market opened by Warren Publishing with Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella.

Skywald was formed by industry veteran Israel Waldman and Everett’s old friend Sol Brodsky, tapping into the burgeoning black and white market with mature-reader and supernatural magazines Hell-Rider, Crime Machine, Nightmare, Psycho and Scream. Offered an “in” Everett produced incredible pin-ups (included here are three from Nightmare (#1, 2 & 4, December 1970-June 1971), ‘A Psycho Scene’ (Psycho #5, November, 1971) a stunning werewolf pin-up from Psycho #6 and one of revived Golden Age monstrosity ‘The Heap’ from Psycho #4.

Most welcome, however, is a magnificent 10-page monochrome masterpiece of gothic mystery ‘The Man Who Stole Eternity’ from Psycho #3, May, 1971.

Although telling, even revelatory and concluding in a happy ending of sorts, what this book really celebrates is not the life but the astounding versatility of Bill Everett. A gifted, driven man, he was a born storyteller with the unparalleled ability to make all his imaginary worlds hyper-real; and for nearly five decades his incredible art and wondrous stories enthralled and enchanted everybody lucky enough to read them.

© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Text © 2013 Blake Bell. All art © its respective owners and holders. All rights reserved.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for art lovers, Marvel Zombies and addicts of pure comics magic… 9/10

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Love and Rockets: the Covers


By Gilbert, Jaime & Mario Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-598-3

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the tired moribund, stereotypical and ghettoised ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. The iconic force most evidently shattering those comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine originally self-published in 1981which featuring intriguing, adventuresome larks and wildly different comic narratives that pretty much defied classification, all wrapped up in the sheen and ephemera of LA’s Hispanic and punk music scenes.

Stories varied from slick, sci-fi-soused hi-jinx starring punky young gadabouts and their extended eccentric circle of friends – or the heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies from the rural Central American paradise of Palomar.

Jaime Hernandez was always the most noticeable part of the graphic literary revolution: his sleek, seductive, clean black line and beautiful composition, impeccably rendered heroes and villains and the comfortingly recognisable – though thoroughly “roofied” comic book iconography – particularly appealing to readers raised on traditional Marvel and DC fare.

However his love of that material, as well as the influence of Archie Comics cartoonists (especially Sam Schwartz, Harry Lucey and Dan De Carlo), accomplished and enticing as it is, often distracted from the power of his writing, especially in his extended epics featuring of Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass – AKA Maggie & Hopey, Las Locas, something never true of Gilbert, whose simplified cartooning and subtle, reined-in graphics never overwhelmed the sheer magnetic compulsion of his scripts…

The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers, the exotica of American Hispanic pop culture and even German Expressionism. There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll…

The result was dynamite. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions but his galvanising energy informed everything – and his covers here display a fondness for those battered genres both tantalising and darkly skewed…

Jaime’s sleek, enticing visual forays explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild, and Gilberto created a hyper-real rural landscape macrocosm in Palomar: a playground of wit and passion and human imperfection in the quicksilver form of a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast created for his extended saga Heartbreak Soup.

Life, death, poverty, adultery, murder, boredom, magic, weird science and gossip shaped Palomar’s metafictional environs, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences in his deceptively addictive primitivist drawing style which blended his personal mythologies of comics, music, drugs, strong women, gangs, sex and family.

The denizens and survivors of Palomar still inform and shape Beto’s work, both directly and as imaginative spurs for spin-off stories.

Winning critical acclaim but little financial success, the brothers temporarily went their own ways in the mid-1990s, creating side projects and special series before creatively reuniting a few years back to produce annual collections of new material in their shared or, rather, intermittently adjacent pen-and-ink universes.

In more than three decades of groundbreaking creative endeavour, Los Bros Hernandez crafted a vast and magnificent canon of cartoon brilliance and literary enchantment and this truly spectacular art book presents all the eye-popping front and back covers from 1982-1996: fifty incredible issues which graced and lit up comic shop shelves, always looking nothing like any publication produced at the time.

This huge hardback (338x262mm) comes with a cool cover-cel overlay and re-presents each glorious, intriguing and occasionally controversial image, restored, re-mastered and de-cluttered to remove all extraneous, obfuscating text – such as barcodes and pricing information.

Moreover, also included are many pages of original pencils and inks, correction stages, production ephemera from each part of the art-to-finished-cover process, plus an extensive commentary section where Los Bros share their thoughts and intimate moments of “creators’ remorse”.

As well as the captivating magazine iterations by the guys as they mastered their craft, this astounding collection also includes 28 pages of covers from the numerous collected editions which propelled the mature creators to global comics stardom and contributed so much to the growth of today’s graphic novel market.

Mesmerising, breathtaking graphic wonderment and enticing pop art masterpieces; these incredible concoctions capture the spirit of subversive, intoxicating youthful vitality which changed the comic industry forever and comprise a truly essential catalogue of artistic excellence no lover of narrative art should miss.

© 2013 Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez. All rights reserved.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pretty, powerful, perfect picture magic… 10/10