Fantasy – Page 49 – Now Read This!

September 23, 2013September 24, 2013

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 â€œroofiedâ€ 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 â€“ 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 scriptsâ€¦

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 Rollâ€¦

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 skewedâ€¦

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 â€œcreators’ remorseâ€.

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.

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

September 20, 2013September 24, 2013

Mark Shultz: Carbon volume 1

By Mark Shultz (Flesk)
ISBN: 978-1-933865-54-6

After everything is said and done the most immediate response to narrative art is inevitably visceral and visual.

We take and tell our stories in picture form, and the sheer ability to express emotion and put the impossible on paper always captivates and leaves us wondering â€œhow did he/she do thatâ€?

It’s the reason why collections of comics art always have such amazing impact. We get to marvel at spectacular pretty pictures whilst stealing a furtive glimpse behind the curtain at the working of wonderment.

One maestro more than happy to share his secrets is Mark Shultz. The writer/artist shot to stardom after his 1986 EC Comics-inspired Xenozoic Tales (a magnificent blend of pulp fiction, Fifties automobile chic and honking great dinosaurs) hit an instantly addictive chord with the comics-buying public.

The publication spawned an animated TV series, assorted arcade, video and role-playing games, trading cards, action figures, candy bars and a succession of reprints (comics and graphic novel collections) from Kitchen Sink, Marvel and Dark Horse – mostly under its showbiz title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

Since then Schultz has become one of the industry’s biggest stars: tackling Superman, Batman and high-profile movie properties such as Aliens and Predator whilst always pursuing his great love: classic adventure archetypes like Tarzan, Conan and Doc Savage. Since 2004 he has been the writer of the Prince Valiant Sunday strip.

This particular oversized (305 x 232mm) collection of sketches, working drawings and finished pieces concentrates on a procession of his most pulchritudinous pulp princesses, lusty he-men and fantastic beasts in incredible unworldly locations: offering astounding insight into his creative process through breathtaking gatefolds displaying the progression from idea to full-painted finished art.

This compelling compendium of captivating heroines, bombastic barbarians, jungle kings and queens, space heroes, Martian Princesses, savage beasts, two-fisted types, what looks to me like DC’s iconic war heroes The Losers and so many wonderful dinosaurs also includes many scenes from Xenozoic Tales, sketches from forthcoming works and a tremendous informative bonus feature.

Schultz is as much science buff as fantasy aficionado and kicks off this book with the heavily illustrated inside story of how he was asked by pal and top bone-boffin Dr. Michael J. Ryan to produce the first visual representations of a newly-discovered dinosaur in ‘Introducing Xenoceratops‘ (or Xenoceratops Foremostensis, to give it the full formal title)â€¦

Flesk Publications specialises in art books and the lavish tomes they produce are dedicated to the greats of our industry, with volumes on sequential narrative and fantasy illustration starring Steve Rude, Al Williamson, James Bama, Gary Gianni, Franklin Booth, William Stout and Joseph Clement Coll and many, many more.

The beautifully intimate glimpses of a master at work, with full-colour reproduction capturing every nuance of those gorgeous pencil or brushstrokes, make this a book a vital primer for anybody dreaming of drawing for a living, and the stirring lavish material revealed here will enthral and entice every fan of wondrous worlds and fantastic forgotten realms.

September 16, 2013September 24, 2013

The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley

By Kim Deitch (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-631-7

Since the 1960s Kim Deitch has been one of most consistently effective stars of America’s Commix Underground, although as with Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, it is only relatively recently that he has won wider acclaim. This has been primarily through a series of interconnected prose-and strip fantasies such as Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Shadowland, The Search for Smilin’ Ed and other multi-layered alternative history/faux biographies such as the book under review here.

For the past two decades he has been producing occasional short stories about a down-at-heel carnival and the shabby, eccentric no-hopers who have populated it throughout the 150 years of its existence, the eerie aliens who have preserved its posterity and, of course, the immortal Waldo the Cat.

That saga organically grew into explorations of the minor characters they encountered and soon a great big narrative snowball started rollingâ€¦

In The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley, we return to the increasingly formalised, craftily chronicled Deitch Universe, albeit tangentially, wherein the author focuses on other members of his inexhaustible cast all the while tellingly revealing lost secrets of American history through a lens of scholarly examination and conspiracy theory woven through popular culture scenarios of the past.

Notionally picking up on a minor player last seen in Deitch’s Pictorama, the story here explores the incredible life of an unprepossessing little old lady, as disclosed in a letter left as part of a bequestâ€¦

The story-within-a-story begins in the grotty logging town of Lumberton, New York State in 1908, when demure Katherine Whaley, after failing as librarian and school teacher, took a job playing piano in the brand new movie theatre operated by old man Braunton as just another way to deprive lumberjacks and dissolute townies of their hard-earned cash.

The early 20^th century was a time of immense and radical social change and after a brush with movie stardom – courtesy of a roving chapter-play Production Company – Katherine makes the acquaintance of the charismatic Charles Varnay and his super-intelligent dog Rousseau, whose esoteric and beguiling beliefs in the nigh-mystical powers of â€œEnlightenmentâ€ carry her off her on an odyssey of self-discovery…

Varnay sees her as the personification of that noble conceptual ideal and wants her to star in a movie serial that will spread his life-changing philosophy to the world’s masses. Naturally, much of her part as The Goddess of Enlightenment involves acting in the nudeâ€¦

Covering the major cultural landmarks of the early century, from movie mania, the Jazz Age, the Great War and Prohibition, Katherine’s account swings between dubious memoir to laudatory manifesto as her perceptions and opinions of the mysterious Varnay swing from philandering charlatan to messianic superman.

Whilst she might find it hard to accept that the philosopher possesses actual recordings of Jesus Christ delivering his teachings, undiluted by millennia of obfuscating organised religion, there is no doubt that Varnay has great power: after all he stopped her aging and may himself be more than 200 hundred years oldâ€¦

The beauty of this tale is the complex detail with which it unfolds: the grace and wit with which Deitch overlays historical fact with brilliant fabrication. Thus, I’m certainly not going to spoil the sheer revelatory enchantment for you by giving anything awayâ€¦

With this surreal historiography of the little-known peripheries of the birth of cinema, Deitch has concocted another utterly unique and absorbing graphic treat – printed in a lavish widescreen format in this stunning monochrome hardback – again sharing the intoxicating joys of living in the past and dwelling in shared social memories.

Combining science-fiction, conspiracy theory, pop history, fact and legend, show-biz razzmatazz and the secret life of Beavers with a highly developed sense of the absurdly meta-real, the author once more weaves an irresistible spell that charms, thrills and disturbs whilst his meticulous drawing holds the reader in a deceptively loose yet inescapable grip.

Follow the secret saga of the World According to Deitch and you too will succumb to the arcane allure of his ever-unfolding cartoon parade revealing the â€œAmericana Wayâ€. In Fact – or Fiction – you might already be there, but you’ll never know unless you lookâ€¦

September 15, 2013September 24, 2013

Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 7: 1949-1950

By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-645-4

Arguably the most successful comic strip fantasy ever conceived, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched as a Sunday page feature on February 13th 1937, a luscious full-colour weekly window onto a perfect realm of perfect adventure and romance.

The strip followed the life and exploits of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world and rose to a paramount position amongst the mightiest heroes of fabled Camelot.

Written and drawn by sublime master draftsman and storyteller Harold â€œHalâ€ Foster, the epic followed the little princeling through decades of thrilling exploits as he matured into a clean-limbed warrior and eventually family patriarch through a heady sea of wonderment, visiting far-flung lands 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, animated series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on the strip – one of the few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 3900 episodes and counting) – and even in these declining days of the newspaper narrative strip as a viable medium, it still claims over 300 American papers as its home. It has even made it into the very ether with an online edition.

Foster ceaselessly produced the strip, one enchanting page per week until 1971 when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt illustrator John Cullen Murphy was chosen to succeed him as illustrator. Foster continued as writer and designer until 1980, after which he retired and Cullen Murphy’s daughter Mairead took over colouring and lettering whilst her brother John assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has since soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artists Gary Gianni and latterly Thomas Yeates, with Mark Schultz scripting.

Restored from Foster’s original Printer’s Proofs, this seventh spectacularly luxurious oversized (362 x 264mm) full-colour hardback volume reprints the pages from January 2^nd 1949 to 31^st December 1950 (#621 to 725 if you’re counting).

What has Gone Before: after an extended sojourn in an incredible New World, Valiant and Aleta have brought their newborn son back to Britain and sought out the warrior’s old comrade Prince Arn to be the child’s Godfather. Val is astounded that the bluff solitary hero is also a husband and currently searching for Godparents for his own newborn son and heirâ€¦

Before the Dark Ages delights resume, latest illuminator Thomas Yeates delivers a remarkable introductory essay discussing ‘The Long Shadow of Hal Foster’ and the innumerable artists who owe him a creative debt, after which the never-ending saga picks up with the Princes and their families travelling back to fabled Camelot for a double Christening, presided over by King Arthur himselfâ€¦

Soon however duty calls again and Valiant, Sir Gawain and hapless, bumbling hedge-wizard Oom Fooyat are dispatched to the wilds of Wales to investigate a nest of vile black magic. Seamlessly blending thrills and grandeur with broad comedy, Foster delivers an enchanting light-hearted romantic romp wherein level-headed Val exposes the macabre happenings at Illwynde Castle and plays matchmaker to more than one of his faithful retinueâ€¦

Job done and the fief secure, Gawain and the Prince of Thule return to Camelot, picking up en route a boy with chivalric intentions and the determined courage of a lion. The enigmatic Geoffrey is desperate to win his spurs, but when Valiant introduces the lad to Aleta, the prospective page boy is gripped by a ferocious, life-changing, all consuming crushâ€¦

Whilst the well-meaning kid perpetually embarrasses himself in his drive to impress his master’s wife, Arthur despatches Valiant and a small band of knights to Scotland to inspect the wall which keeps the northern savages at bay. Aleta then attempts to keep Geoffrey out of trouble by ordering the puppy to follow and keep her husband safeâ€¦

It’s an unlucky decision: as Valiant and his inspection force discover when they see that Hadrian’s Wall has been breached and hundreds of Picts are ravening southwardâ€¦

Confronted with an impossible situation the Prince again resorts to unconventional tactics and traps the huge barbarian army on the English side whilst sending Geoffrey back to Camelot with a message for Arthurâ€¦ and to save the hero-struck boy from dying in the unwinnable battle to comeâ€¦

Breaking all the rules of knighthood for the noblest of reasons, Geoffrey speedily delivers his message and is astounded when Aleta rushes off to join Valiant in Scotland. Again disregarding consequences and probably relinquishing forever his dream of knighthood, the boy follows her northwardsâ€¦

Their arrival precipitates an unexpected and nigh-miraculous end to the war, but Valiant is close to death. After tending his hurts Aleta decides that she will take her husband back to his Scandinavian homeland, and dispatches the now-exhausted Geoffrey back to Camelot to inform her handmaiden Katwin and nurse Tillicum to obtain a ship and meet her with baby Arn at the village of Newcastleâ€¦

Despite dreading the judgement awaiting him at Court, the boy thunders back and, after arranging for his wounded master’s (wonderful wife’s) wishes to be carried out, surrenders himself to his fateâ€¦

Of course the King is no fool and a great respecter of honour and courage. He summarily condemns the boy to banishment: for a year and a day Geoffrey must not set foot on English soilâ€¦

Mind in a whirl the redoubtable boy is taken to a barge secured by Katwin and sails to Caledonia with the family party to a reunion with Valiant and Aletaâ€¦

Soon the group are headed to Thule, bolstered by the bombastic reappearance to boisterous far-larger-than-life Viking Boltar: a Falstaff-like rogue and â€œhonest pirateâ€ not seen since volume 3â€¦

The excitable old rogue ferries the extended family to Val’s cold homeland – with a few unplanned, profitable but dangerous stops along the way – but soon finds himself smitten by the love bug tooâ€¦

One mystery has been solved, however, as a chance meeting with an old cleric discloses the faithful squire to be actually called Arf, forced from his home when his father Sir Hugo Geoffrey took a new young bride who didn’t want an annoying stepson underfoot. Now she is gone and the boy can return home if he wishesâ€¦

Eventually the expanded party reaches the chilly castle of King Aguar and settles in to a long period of snowbound rest and recuperation â€“ until boisterous Jarl Egil makes an inappropriate advance on Aleta and hotheaded Arf dashes to her defenceâ€¦

Soon the encounter has escalated and Valiant is forced into an utterly unnecessary duel of honour which can only end in pointless tragedyâ€¦

Happily the repentant Arf finds a way to satisfy honour all around but the King is plagued by a knotty problem wit cannot solve. Aguar has been seriously considering converting his Norse realm to Christianity, but the many devout missionaries roaming the land are cantankerous idiots all preaching their own particular brand of faith – when not actively fighting each other.

Thus in Spring, he tasks the fully fit Valiant with an embassage to Rome to ask the Pope to send priests and teachers who actually carry the true and official Word of God. Restless and eager Val promptly sets out, accompanied by Arf, the doughty Rufus Regan and new comrade Egil. Their mission coincides with the planting season when Aguar’s men return to their homes to sow the crops for the coming yearâ€¦

No sooner have they departed however than vassal king Hap-Atla, seething from an old slight delivered to his deceased sire, rebels and besieges Arguar’s castle. With manpower dangerously depleted the situation looks grim until wily Aleta takes control of the situation and scores a devastating victory that contravenes all the rules of manly warfare.

Unseen for three months, Valiant and his companions at last reappear as they land in Rouen to begin the arduous overland trek to the HolyCity. The journey is full of short bursts of violence and outrageous incidents as, since Rome fell to the Vandals, Europe has become a seething mass of lawless principalities.

Most of these improvised kingdoms are run by brigands or worse, all seeking to fill their coffers at any unwary traveller’s expenseâ€¦

In one unhappy demesne the quartet dethrone a robber baron and nearly end up married to his daughters (young Arf particularly caught the imagination of the decidedly dangerous and ambitious teenager Ollie), whilst in another Val gets hold of an alchemist ruler’s horrific black powder and is almost blown to smithereens.

Eventually however they arrive at the castle of welcoming noble Ruy Foulke and enjoy a pleasant night’s rest – only to awaken and find the place under attack by heinous villain Black Robert and his savagely competent forcesâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Also included in this striking compendium is an intoxicating glimpse at the author’s virtuosity in ‘â€œSee America Firstâ€: Hal Foster’s Union Pacific Paintings’, a series of painted advertising landscapes compiled and discussed by Brian M. Kane.

Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop rollercoaster of boisterous action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending human-scaled fantasy with dry wit and broad humour, soap opera melodrama with shatteringly dark violence.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, the strip is a World Classic of fiction and something no fan can afford to miss. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the best way possible to do so and will be your gateway to an eye-opening world of wonder and imaginationâ€¦

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal for anybody who ever strived or dreamed or wishedâ€¦ 10/10Â

September 12, 2013September 14, 2013

Astounding, Mysterious, Weird & True Volume 1: The Pulp Art of Comic Book Artists

By Steven Brower & Jim Simon (SB Studio Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4820-3313-7

Once upon a time, literacy was at an all-time high in the English-speaking world. A determined push to educate all and sundry took reading out of the hands of a moneyed intelligentsia and made it a tool of the working man, just as print technology was finding cheaper and more effective ways for creators and purveyors to disseminate their wares to growing markets.

Moreover, what everybody in the publishing world knew was what working folk needed more than anything (even religion) was cheap entertainment – the less wholesome and salutary the betterâ€¦

In Britain we had newspapers, a burgeoning comics sector, â€œblood and thunderâ€ periodicals and story magazines. In America they had â€œThe Pulpsâ€â€¦

The first was indisputably The Argosy, created by Frank A. Munsey in 1896 and largely superseding most types of the infamous â€œDime Novelâ€ which had, with untrammelled sensationalism, ruled the periodical markets since 1860.

Argosy and its end-of-the-century imitators dominated and inspired a publishing phenomenon which eventually covered every genre – or blend of genres – in an industry niche which lasted well into the 1990s, albeit in a much reduced and rarefied form.

As well as spectacular colour covers, almost all pulps had black and white interior illustrations – spots, splashes and spreads – and some even had their own comic strip serials.

There were pulps for every possible taste and topic from romance to mystery to all-out action – including racier â€œmen’s adventuresâ€: two-fisted exotic action-thrillers heavy on mildly fetishistic sadism and bondage themes, with Rugged American men coming to the rescue of white women in peril from thugs and foreigners, saving them (the white women, of course) from â€œfates worse than deathâ€, but only just in time and never before they had lost most of their clothes (the girls, and often many of the Rugged Americans tooâ€¦).

One publisher in particular specialised in this niche market, producing a range of saucy genre thrillers all graced with a defining appellative: Spicy Detective, Spicy Western, Spicy Mystery and Spicy Adventure Stories. This was printer-turned-publisher Harry Donenfeld, who occasionally assumed control of companies who couldn’t pay their print bills. In 1934 and knowing pretty well what readers liked, he created a â€œMen’s Magâ€ mini empire under the twin banners of Culture and Trojan Publications. Of course, that’s also how he assumed control of the company that became DC Comics less than a decade laterâ€¦

In 1943 the pressure exerted by various censorious elements in America became too much and Trojan/Culture changed tack and â€œSpicyâ€ overnight evolved into â€œSpeed Detectiveâ€, â€œSpeed Westernâ€ and so forth. Perhaps the fact that Donenfeld was sitting on a wholesome family goldmine of comicbook characters such as Superman and Batman had something to do with thatâ€¦

The story of how Max Gaines turned freebie pamphlets containing reprinted newspaper strips into a discrete and saleable commodity (thereby launching an entire industry, if not art-form) has been told far better elsewhere, but undoubtedly the influence of eye-grabbing pulp pictures as much as those reformatted strips influenced the growth and iconography of comicbooks.

Moreover, with thematic similarities and the same few owners hiring illustrators (and writers), naturally the creatives of one market frequently worked in both – and occasionally all three – arenas.

Now at long last, with comicbooks the indisputable major force in today’s illustrated fiction, comes a superb collection of images gathered together by writer/designer Steven Brower and novelist Jim Simon which shines a welcome light on those artists whose talents were to be found in all areas of popular printed fictionâ€¦

This superb gallery begins with ‘Diamonds and Rust’ by Simon; an efficient and studious overview of the history, artists and characters that thrived in those bygone days of wonder before the sublime and stunning panoply of pictures – all accompanied by incisive and revelatory potted biographies – commences.

The images are all culled from such evocative titles as Astounding, If, Courage, Super Science Stories, Weird Tales, Marvel Stories, Galaxy, Nick Carter, Detective, Basketball Stories, Wonder Stories, Big Book, Detective Short Stories, Planet Stories, Adventure, World’s News, Speed Detective, Sky Fighters, Dime Western and many moreâ€¦

The many artists whose work features in this initial volume can be broken into roughly three categories. The first is pulp masters who also worked in comicbooks such as Edd Cartier, Charles Coll, Virgil Finlay, Kelly Freas, Roy G. Krenkel, Gray Morrow and Alex Schomburg whilst the second is jobbing artists equally at home in newspapers comicbooks, pulps and eventually commercial art.

Those include Benjamin â€œStookieâ€ Allen, D, Bruce Berry, Jack Binder, Jon L. Blummer, J. C, Burroughs (son of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs), Harry Campbell, Paul Cooper, Harvey Eisenberg, Elton Fax, Harry Fisk, Dan Heilman, Ray Isip, Jeff Jones, Jacob Landau, D.H. Moneypenny, Lou Morales, Leo Morey, Norman Nodel, Neil O’Keefe, George Olesen, Paul Orban, H.L. Parkhurst, Louis Ravielli, Rod Ruth, John Styga, Riley Thomson, Elmer Wexler, Chuck Winter and Cedric Windas.

Finally there are fascinating examples of non-narrative illustration by legendary stars of comics such as Dan Adkins, Murphy Anderson, Dick Ayers, Matt Baker, Dan Barry, C.C. Beck, Pete Constanza, Stan Drake, Bill Draut, Will (or Bill) Ely, Creig Flessel, Dick Fletcher, John Forte, Matt Fox, Dick Giordano, John Giunta, Jerry Iger, Graham Ingels, Jack Kirby, George Klein, Alex Kotsky, Alden McWilliams, Mort Meskin, Irving Novick, Rudy Palais, Alex Raymond, Paul Reinman, Syd Shores, Joe Simon and Wally Wood.

There even a few British superstars included, such as Norman Petit (creator of legendary strips Jane and Susie), Brian Lewis (Dan Dare, Suki, Starlord, 2000AD, House of Hammer) and the inimitable Don Lawrence, artist on Storm, Trigan Empire, Marvelman, Olac the Gladiator, Buffalo Bill and so many moreâ€¦

Also included in this wonderful celebration is an intriguing selection of Prototypes, displaying potential pulp antecedents of comics characters such as the Joker and Mr. Mxyzptlkâ€¦

If you’re of a nostalgic bent or simply a lover of magnificent art and illustration, Astounding, Mysterious, Weird & True is a compendium that will amaze and delight you.

Astounding, Mysterious, Weird & True was made via the CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

September 11, 2013September 14, 2013

Eye of the Majestic Creature volume 2

By Leslie Stein (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-672-0

Help Wanted: Girl cartoonist seeks meaning of contemporary existence and like minded individuals to share bewilderment and revelations with.

Interests/Hobbies include: drinking, counting sand, growing stuff, antiquing for pop culture â€œtrashâ€, drinking, meaningful conversations with musical instruments, playing board games with same, recreational herbal intoxicants, reminiscing about wild-times with gal-pals and old cronies, drinking, visiting difficult relatives.

Employment: unwanted but regrettably necessary. Although a newcomer to the BigCity, is extremely adaptable and willing to do anything â€“ unless it’s hard, boring or she sucks at itâ€¦

After graduating from the New York School of Visual Arts, Leslie Stein began producing unbelievably addictive cartoon strips in the self-published Yeah, It Is. Winning a Xeric Grant for her efforts, she then started the even better comicbook Eye of the Majestic Creature, miraculously blending autobiographical self-discovery, surreal free-association, philosophical ruminations, nostalgic reminiscences and devastatingly dry wit to describe modern life as filtered through her seductive meta-fictional interior landscape. Here at play is a creator who sees things as they really aren’t – but makes them authentic and even desirable to everyone willing to pay attentionâ€¦

This long-awaited second collected volume (gathering issues #5-7) resumes the airy, eccentric and addictive pictorial mood-music as the mythologized autobiography continues to reveal the history of Larrybear – a girl deliberately and determinedly on her own, trying to establish her uniquely singular way of getting by.

Eschewing chronological narrative for an easy, breezy raconteur’s epigrammatic delivery, all illustrated in loose, flowing line-work, detailed stippling, hypnotic pattern-building or even honest-to-gosh representational line-drawing, Stein operates under the credo of â€œwhatever works, worksâ€ â€“ and she’s not wrongâ€¦

Larrybear makes friends easily. Bums, winos, weirdoes, dropouts, misfits and especially inanimate objects – her BFF is her talking guitar and flatmate Marshmallow – all aggregate around her, sharing her outrÃ© interests and ambitions (of a sort) but she just doesn’t want an average life, just more experiences, less hassle and good companions to share it all with â€¦

Delivered in mesmerising, oversized (292 x 202mm) monochrome snippets, these incisive, absurdist, whimsically charming and visually intoxicating invitations into a singularly creative mind and fabulous alternative reality begin with the delightful story of how the country girl hit the untamed New York metropolis and found a job in a clothes shop.

‘Sister Carrie’ is a partly pantomimic tour de force underpinned by pertinent extracts from American Naturalist author Theodore Dreiser’s novel of the same name, revealing how Larrybear’s debilitating daily toil is leavened by new friends, odd customers, alcohol and second-hand sand-counting memorabiliaâ€¦

Issue #6 takes a ride on the Wayback Machine to the 1980s; disclosing childhood fun and traumas as Larry’s mom meets a guy in a bar and invites the freewheeling Jonathan to join them on a visit to Disneyworld Orlando.

‘Brown Heart’ dips into even more intimate territory as precocious doodler Larrybear accompanies her mom to AA meetings whilst ‘That Sticky Machine’ recounts the girl’s tragic relationship with a gumball machineâ€¦

Larry’s brief flirtation as a thirteen year guitarist with politically aware – and older -grunge band Lithium in Chicago neatly segues into a family reunion and Jonathan’s departureâ€¦

The final portion of the chronicle opens with ‘A Better Intoxication: the Subconscious Noodle’ as in contemporary New York Larrybear, Marshmallow and drinking buddy/life guru Boris renew their relationship with booze, whilst in ‘Soup’ her new boyfriend Poppin the Flower grows closer after she meets his incredibly difficult dad over a memorable Thanksgiving dinnerâ€¦

The memories lane ramble then concludes with ‘Who Are You?‘ as after finding an iconic pop culture mask (Booji Boy from Devo, hipsters and post-punks!) Larrybear at last finds the drive and initiative to quit her jobâ€¦

With additional art and info-features on Dreiser and Booji Boy, this exceptional wander on the wild side is a gloriously rewarding and enticing cartoon experience and one no serious fan of fun and narrative art can afford to miss.

September 3, 2013September 3, 2013

Walrus (Brandon Graham’s All Bum Album â€“ from Tusk ‘Till Dawn)

By Brandon Graham (PictureBox)
ISBN: 978-0-9851595-9-7

Autumn is officially here, with its fire-storms, droughts and sunburns, so it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Holiday Season is inescapably close. After all, the Christmas films have been playing on Sky Movies since early Marchâ€¦

Seriously though, if you’re prudent, it is time to start looking at gifts for your loved ones or family, and here’s one of the prettiest and most intriguing comics art-books I’ve seen in many a yearâ€¦

Brandon Graham was born in Oregon in 1976, an inveterate graffiti artist who seamlessly turned his graphic gifts and narrative flair to comicbook storytelling, beginning with Ameri-manga publisher Antarctic Press (October Yen) in 1996, dividing his time with Alternative or Independent Publisher projects and gracing the mainstream with work for Image, NMB, IDW and Vertigo.

He is a founder member of artistic collective MeatHaus, and if you like comedy, science fiction, erotica, manga and Moebius, you might want to seek out collections such as King City, 24Seven, Escalator, Multiple Warheads, Perverts of the Unknown and others – as well as this bookâ€¦

Walrus is a monochrome and colour compendium of â€œDrawings and Sketchbook Comics from 2009-2011â€, featuringÂ artworks, working roughs, calligraphy, rendered thoughts and idle musings, finished pieces and found imagery that serve to introduce viewers into a beguiling world of fantastic futurity and mesmerising wonderment â€“ and there are weird critters and hot chicksâ€¦

A roughly comicbook-sized paperback (112 pages, 240x173mm) with a beautiful gatefold cover, this marvellous compendium comprises snippets of reportage, designs, roughs and layouts from finished stories.

There are moments of tenderness and intimacy, peeks into the creative process, bizarre moments of communal reality, caricatures, gags, spoofs of and tributes to comics and movies (such as Fantastic Four #9, Dirty Pair, Conan and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly), a commemoration of Moebius (The Long Goodbye), deliciously funny and whimsical gags, complete stories such as ‘Far North’, ‘Work Weak’ and ‘Today in the Life’ plus a preponderance of pages dedicated to evocative, seductive post-modern glamour art.

Punky, funky, enduring, enchanting and sublimely entertaining, this is another perfect example of the kind of book that makes the reader hungry to get out and draw stories now! Now!! NOW!!!

â€¦As well as being just plain wonderful to see.

August 30, 2013August 29, 2013

Sidney Sime: Master of the Mysterious

By Simon Heneage & Henry Ford (Thames and Hudson)
ISBN: 0-500-27154-2

A little while ago I mentioned with due reverence the wonderful illustrator Sidney Herbert Sime: late Victorian, Edwardian and latterly Georgian master of fantasy art whose stunning and imaginative pictorial forays into the realms of fable, myth and literary romanticism influenced two generations of readers and creators, but who is these days all but forgotten.

Not On My Watchâ€¦

Sime is archetypal of the rag-to-riches-to-obscurity fate which befell so many talented individuals of this period (for instance, do you know who Arthur Machen, William Hope Hodgson or even William Friese-Greene were?). After pulling himself up by his bootstraps, Sime became a celebrated and notable society figure thanks to his unique creations before changing modes and his own uncompromising nature isolated him from rapidly evolving times and tastes.

There aren’t too many tomes celebrating his work (this one is still available through a few internet dealers, though) but you can still see many of his original works if you visit the Sidney Sime Memorial Gallery in Worplesdon, near Guildford in Surrey.

After Acknowledgements and an Introduction, a short, erudite essay – packed with supporting artworks – describes the artist’s beginnings in ‘The Early Years’, disclosing that we don’t really know when he was born (sometime between 1865-1867 in Hulme, Greater Manchester) before going on to describe how the second son of six fathered by a warehouseman worked as a child in coal mines, as a linen draper, in a bakery, barbers and a shoemakers: voraciously self-educating, busking music and creating pictures to sell in his off-hours.

He graduated to sign-writing and found the funds to attend Liverpool School (later College) of Art, then joined the University of Liverpool before moving to London, winning artistic awards and securing commercial commissions in many newspapers and especially ‘The Magazines’ such as Pick-Me-Up, Pall Mall Gazette, Eureka, The Idler (which he eventually purchased thanks to a wealthy relative’s bequest) and others.

As well as the enigmatic fantasy works he loved creating, Sime sold straight illustrations, humorous cartoons, political gags, topical portraits, theatrical sketches and all the other assorted images a picture-hungry public demanded in an era when photography was still in its infancy.

Almost all of Sime’s best works were created in black and white – although he crafted them in a bewildering melange of media which frequently aroused the ire of the printers and plate-makers who had to reproduce his work in the newspapers, magazines and books of the era.

His native brilliance soon found him a place amongst the artistic and intellectual intelligentsia where he moved easily beside the likes of Caran d’Ache, Max Beerbohm, Phil May, Arnold Golsworthy and Raven-Hill as ‘Painter and Clubman’â€¦

Sime is best remembered however for ‘The Illustrated Books’ – providing visual accompaniments for the burgeoning ranks of literary fantasists such as Golworthy (Death and the Woman), William Hope Hodgson (The Ghost Pirates), Machen (House of Souls) and more.

His most famous pieces resulted from a decades-long collaboration with Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. The young Irish writer and dramatist – who published under the name Lord Dunsany – was a huge fan who sought out Sime in 1904 and together they revolutionised popular literature with such unforgettable fables as The Gods of Pegana, The Book of Wonder, and The King of Elfland’s Daughter.

Changing tastes following the Great War saw a decline in sublimely ethereal fantasy and Sime pursued newspaper work once more in periodicals such as The Illustrated London News, The Sketch, Tattler and The Strand. In his later years he also moved into ‘Theatre Design’ – including a triptych of operas based on the Mabinogion – and even held successful one-man shows as detailed in ‘The Exhibitions of 1924 and 1927’ before gradually fading from public view.

Concentrating on oil painting and illustrating the Gospel of St. John during ‘Later Years at Worplesdon’, he lived quietly in a cottage he purchased for himself and bride Mary Susan Pickett. He died on May 22^nd 1941.

The ‘Conclusion’ and extensive ‘Bibliography’ suitably round things off here as an hors d’oeuvre to the visual main course here as The Plates: a Fantasy Portfolio offers a dozen fully annotated, full page Magazines Illustrations and 46 stunning masterpieces from the Dunsany books similarly presentedâ€¦

Included in this last section are astounding and captivating prints from The Gods of Pegana, Time and the Gods, The Sword of Welleran, A Dreamer’s Tales, The Book of Wonder, Tales of Wonder, The King of Elfland’s Daughter and My Talks with Dean Spanley, covering the period 1905 to 1936, after which a scholarly Index neatly concludes the affair.

Sidney Sime is an astonishing one-of-a-kind creator whose influence is still being felt today, and one who has been overlooked for far too long. Here’s hoping the current trend for spooky wonders tempts some enterprising publisher to produce the kind of laudatory deluxe chronicle his genius truly deservesâ€¦

Â© 1980 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London. All Rights Reserved.
The master of mystery does have his own gallery so please check out The Sidney Sime Gallery and then go see the astounding arts and crafts masterpieces for yourselfâ€¦

August 24, 2013August 23, 2013

Ghosts and Ruins

By Ben Catmull (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-678-2

If you know the works of Sidney Sime and Edward Gorey and the horror comics of Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta or love to peer through your locked fingers at the films of Tim Burton or the creepy backgrounds in Charles Addams cartoons, you’re clearly an aficionado of silly, spooky business and know mordant fantasy plays best when played for laughs.

With that in mind, you might be interested in a new black-&-white coffee-table art book from cartoonist Ben Catmull (Monster Parade, Paper Theater) which celebrates the stuff of nauseating, stomach-churning terror and sinister, creeping suspense in a series of eerie illustrated plates crafted in scratchboard on masonite for extra darkness!

All that arcane art is wedded to epigrammatic prose snippets to comprise tantalising skeletons of stories best left untold and consequences unimaginableâ€¦

This engrossing landscape hardback (268 x 222mm) combines gloomy gothic imagery with wry and witty updates on uncanny situations in a procession of locations best left well enough alone, beginning with six views of the dank domicile of diabolical ‘Drowned Shelley’ and a single glimpse of ‘The Buried House’.

A queasy quartet then divulges the doings of the ‘The Disgusting Garden’ after which one peek at ‘The Secluded House’ leads inexorably to a triptych revealing ‘The Woman Outside the Window’ and four frames of ‘Wandering Smoke’. ‘The Order of the Shadowy Finger’ – five in full – gives way to three glimpses of ‘The Lighthouse’, a visit to a domicile all ‘Hair and Earwigs’ and thence to numerous views of the masterpieces hewn by horrific revenant ‘The Sculptor’â€¦

A demonic carpenter once concocted a ‘Labyrinth of Junk’, but that was as nothing compared to the sheer terror of ‘The Crawling House’ and the ghastly practises of a ‘Lonely Old Spinster’â€¦

Mordantly blending bleak, spectral dread and anxious anticipation with classical scary scenarios, this terrifying tease is a sheer delight no lover of Dark Art could conceivably resistâ€¦

August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

Usagi Yojimbo Book 5: Lone Goat and Kid

By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-088-0

The wandering rabbit bodyguard Miyamoto Usagi began as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper before indomitably carving his own unique path to graphic glory.

Creative mastermind Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family moved to Hawaii two years later. After graduating from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, he pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California and started in comics as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer.

Eventually the cartoonist within resurfaced: blending his storytelling drive with a love of Japanese history and legend, and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can nameâ€¦

The addictive period epic is set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) but scrupulously mirrors the Feudal Edo Period of Japan – (the 17th century by our reckoning), simultaneously referencing classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla, whilst specifically recounting the life of a peripatetic masterless Samurai eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire).

As such, his fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – brave, noble, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering, conscientious and devoted to the tenets of Bushido, the heroic everyman bunny simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injusticeâ€¦

This fantastically funny fifth monochrome masterwork gathers tales from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #19-24 and offers a selection of complete adventures culminating in an unbelievably welcome and long-awaited spoof of Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima’s legendary samurai manga Kozure ÅŒkami, best known in the West as Lone Wolf and Cubâ€¦

Following a fulsome Introduction from Stan Lee, the restless Ronin takes on a paying gig with very little honour attached in ‘Frost and Fire’. On the recommendation of friend and occasional patron Lord Noriyuki, Usagi contracts with the cold and snobbish Lady Koriko to recover the priceless antique swords – but not the body – of her husband; recently expired in a distant village.

On arrival however Usagi finds a thorny dilemma: fallen and shamed samurai Nagao broke all class stricture and protocol by consorting with a peasant girl. Grief-stricken Atsuko wants to keep his family’s blades as the only reminder of the man she loved and who loved her in returnâ€¦

This impossible impasse is only broken when Atsuko’s greedy brother intervenes, more concerned with the blades’ monetary value than their sentimental worthâ€¦

‘A Kite Story’ is an enchanting agglomeration of connected vignettes divided into four visual epigrams beginning with ‘The Kite Maker’s Tale’ in which master craftsman Tatsusaburo describes his process and motivation in building the largest Odako ever to challenge the cloudsâ€¦

Next comes disreputable Hatsu who in ‘The Gambler’s Tale’ discloses how a long-eared Ronin exposed his cheating and ruined his business. Now, Yojimbo has returned and the games-man sees a way to pay him back, but fails in his scurrilous scheme due to the warrior’s ingenuity and the giant kite in ‘The Ronin’s Tale’ after which the elegant micro-saga comes full circle with ‘The Kite Maker’s Tale II’â€¦

Although telling short stories here, everything is a fragment of a greater mosaic. Sakai is gradually constructing a massive overarching history and in the 2-part ‘Blood Wings’ the wanderer stumbles upon a man cut to ribbons by a flying killer. He soon discovers a village plagued by Komori ninja – a clan of bats trained in all the deadly tactics of Chi no Tsubasa – killing silently from above on â€œwings of bloodâ€â€¦

Although Usagi succeeds in helping the desperate villagers he has no way of knowing how the sky killers will affect his future, as the Komori are actually striving to prove themselves worthy replacements for the decimated Neko ninjas who have fallen from the good graces of scheming Lord Hebi since the end of the Dragon Bellows Conspiracyâ€¦

In the next tale the Yojimbo meets martial legend General Oyaneko but is distressed to learn the aged warrior is dying of a wasting disease. He’s even more upset when the General attempts to kill him, wanting to earn a clean end in ‘The Way of the Samurai’â€¦

This volume concludes with ‘Lone Goat and Kid’ wherein former imperial official Yagi – who became an assassin after being framed by underlings of Lord Hirone – is tricked into fighting a certain rabbit Ronin who has no idea he is the latest pawn in a Machiavellian scheme to destroy the noble goat and his capable kid Gorogoroâ€¦

However, even though Usagi is tricked into fighting the doom-laden duo, the guilty impatience of the plotters soon reveals the true state of affairsâ€¦

Despite changing publishers a few times, Usagi Yojimbo has been in continuous publication since 1987, resulting in dozens of graphic novel collections and books to date. The Legendary Lepus has guest-starred in many other series and nearly had his own TV show â€“ there’s still time yet, and fashions can revive as quickly as they die outâ€¦

As well as generating a horde of high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi series and lots of toys to promote popularity, Sakai and his creation have deservedly won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny and scary, always moving, astoundingly visceral, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a cartoon masterpiece of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of â€œfunny animalâ€ stories and comics.
Text and illustrations Â© 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is Â® Stan Sakai. Book editions Â© 1992, 2005 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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