Category: Fantasy

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Marie Antoinette: Phantom Queen


By Rodolphe & Annie Goetzinger translated by Peter Russella (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-029-4

As I’ve previously stated, like so much European art and culture, French language comics (I’m controversially including Belgium and Swiss strips in this half-baked, nigh-racist, appallingly sweeping statement) often appear as a triumph of style over content.

That doesn’t mean they’re bad – far, far from it – but rather that sometimes the writing and plotting isn’t as important to the creators – or readers – as the way it looks on a page and in a book, and complex characterisation isn’t always afforded the same amount of room that scenery, players, fighting or sex gets.

That is not the case in this sublimely evocative and eerily placid episode by eminent Bande Dessinée scenarist Rodolphe D. Jacquette (Le Conservateur, Raffini, Cliff Burton) and former fashion artist turned comics creator supreme Annie Goetzinger (Girl in Dior, Casque d’Or, Aurore, L’Agence Hardy) which seamlessly blends the tone and timbre of two iconic eras in French history in a tale of mystery, imagination and rather indolent intrigue…

First seen in 2011 as Marie Antoinette, La Reine Fantome the translated wonderment follows an enlightening Introduction from Rodolphe, describing the origins and provenance of the story before co-writer and sole illustrator Goetzinger introduces us to artist Maud as she sits in the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles.

It’s October 5th 1934 and her sketching of the scene is a brief yet welcome escape from her problems. Her beloved but far older husband is recently dead, leaving her a vast fortune which her stepson son covets.

Remy constantly pesters her to marry him, but she knows he’s as likely to kill as wed her to get his hands on the inheritance…

Things take a strange turn when her dog breaks loose and scampers away. He is quite the hit with the ladies of the Court when he bounds into a grand building, just as a frantic footman warns Queen Maria Antoinette that they must all retreat to the castle before the peasants besieging Versailles find them. It is still October 5th, but also so very long ago…

As her stepson’s attentions become more obnoxious and intolerable, Maud’s dreams are hunted by potent, tangible glimpses of the dead queen’s final days and close friends Suzy and Maggie convince her to try an oh-so-fashionable séance.

Also attending the affair is attractive psychiatrist Dr. Maurice D’Octrobre, a man of great charm and learning, possessed of a remarkably open mind…

Good thing too, as the ceremony allows Marie Antoinette to manifest, imploring Maud to find her remains and re-inter her so that the tragic queen might rest at last…

And so begins an utterly beguiling and entrancingly sophisticated, classically constructed ghost story with clever plot twists, genteel suspense and even a vile villain who sees his stepmother’s unsuspected psychic gifts as a stepping stone to having her committed and stealing her fortune…

Maud’s path is unswerving and her triumph never in doubt, but she never expected that in addition to the satisfaction of a job well done and a soul saved there would be such tangible rewards for her good deed…

Eerily comfortable and superbly satisfying; balancing melancholy shades of The Ghost and Mrs Muir with the poesy of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, Marie Antoinette: Phantom Queen is a superb step back into a lost world of elegant mystery and imagination: one no fantasy lover or mature comics reader should miss.
© Dargaud 2011. All rights reserved.

Marie Antoinette: Phantom Queen will be released on August 18th 2016. It can be pre-ordered now and is also available in all e-book formats.For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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The Phoenix Presents… Lost Tales


By Adam Murphy (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910989-19-7

The educational power of comic strips has been long understood and acknowledged: if you can make material memorably enjoyable, there is nothing that can’t be taught better with pictures. The obverse is also true: comics can make any topic or subject come alive and reveal how even the most ancient or alien of cultures is just people like us wearing different hats…

The same amiable ethos and graphic versatility that made Adam Murphy’s wonderful Corpse Talk collections such a treasure to read and learn with also informs this superb collection of visualised folk tales, gathered from distant, less-frequented corners of the world; ones not generally seen in our schools or nurseries.

In 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched an anthological weekly comic for girls and boys channelling the grand old days of British picture-story entertainment. Every issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material: a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy.

Since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the totally engaged kids and parents who read it. Inevitably the publishers have branched out into a wonderful line of superbly engaging graphic novel compilations, the latest of which will magically broaden every reader’s fantasy landscape…

This superb compilation of tales – first seen in The Phoenix – goes beguilingly beyond mythical borders established by generations of westernised kids reared primarily on the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, and offers tantalising flavours far fresher to the jaded fantasy palate.

However, when you look closer, you’ll soon see that the themes, problems and solutions don’t vary that much and might well be universal…

Opening proceedings is ‘Strong Wind and Little Scabs’ which comes from the Mi’kmaq tradition of North America, detailing how a poor girl brutalised and maltreated by her older sisters becomes the wife of a god-like hero, after which ‘The Gifts of Wali Dad’ takes us to the ancient Punjab where a poor yet virtuous man finds his harmony and inner peace disrupted by too much wealth…

An old Romani legend becomes ‘Lucky Jim and the Golden Hair of the Sun’ as a vile king learns his daughter is fated to marry a simple gypsy peasant. His many scandalous attempts to thwart fate are futile and bring about his own doom, whilst a tale of avarice and guile defeated by honesty and ever sharper wits is revealed in ‘Two Merchants’, which comes from the lost Central African kingdom of Kanem-Bornu…

An honest, adoring but extremely simple peach-seller once married a beautiful and smart woman who gave him a drawing of her to keep him always happy. When he lost ‘The Picture Wife’ she was then compelled to orchestrate his rise to the heights of society in feudal Japan, before Brazil brings us a heartbreaking tragedy of sea-monsters, broken friendships and shallow, forgetful princesses which explains ‘Why the Sea Moans’…

The high price of casual ingratitude informs the Russian fable of ‘The Snow Daughter’ who was magically bestowed upon a childless old couple and this fabulous lexicon of international wonders closes far closer to home with a Scottish tale of greedy, gullible and ultimately evil landowners who covet the precious few passions of a poor crofter. Thankfully, the old farmer has wits far surpassing the money and vicious intentions of his adversaries and ‘Riben, Robin and Donald McDonald’ has a happy ending with just deserts liberally served all around…

Witty, welcoming and utterly beguiling, The Phoenix Presents… Lost Tales seductively introduces readers to the myths of a wider world, and is also a fabulously fun read no parent or kid could possibly resist.
Text and illustrations © Adam Murphy 2015. All rights reserved.

The Phoenix Presents… Lost Tales will be released on August 4th 2016 and is available for pre-order now.
Why not check out the Phoenix experience at https://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/ and see what Adam’s up to at http://adammurphy.com/portfolio/comics/

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Krazy & Ignatz volume 2 1919-1921: A Kind, Benevolent and Amiable Brick


By George Herriman, edited by Bill Blackbeard (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-364-4

The cartoon strip starring Krazy Kat is unquestionably a pinnacle of graphic innovation, a hugely influential body of work which shaped the early days of the comics industry and became an undisputed treasure of world literature.

Krazy and Ignatz, as it is dubbed in these glorious commemorative collected tomes from Fantagraphics, is a creation which can only be appreciated on its own terms. It developed its own unique language – at once both visual and verbal – and dealt with the immeasurable variety of human experience, foible and peccadilloes with unfaltering warmth and understanding without every offending anybody.

Sadly however it baffled far more than a few…

It was never a strip for dull, slow or unimaginative people who simply won’t or can’t appreciate the complex multilayered verbal and pictorial whimsy, absurdist philosophy or seamless blending of sardonic slapstick with arcane joshing. It is the closest thing to pure poesy that narrative art has ever produced.

Some brief background then: Herriman was already a successful cartoonist and journalist in 1913 when a cat and mouse that had been cropping up in his outrageous domestic comedy strip The Dingbat Family/The Family Upstairs graduated to their own feature. Krazy Kat debuted in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal on Oct 28th 1913 and mainly by dint of the publishing magnate’s overpowering direct influence spread throughout his vast stable of papers.

Although Hearst and a host of the period’s artistic and literary intelligentsia (notably but not exclusively e.e. Cummings, Frank Capra, John Alden Carpenter, Gilbert Seldes, Willem de Kooning, H.L. Mencken and Jack Kerouac) adored the strip, many local and regional editors did not; taking every potentially career-ending opportunity to drop it from the comics section.

Eventually the feature found a home in the Arts and Drama section of Hearst’s papers. Protected there by the publisher’s heavy-handed patronage the Kat flourished unharmed by editorial interference and fashion, running generally unmolested until Herriman’s death in April 1944.

The basic premise is simple: Krazy is an effeminate, dreamy, sensitive and romantic feline of indeterminate gender hopelessly in love with Ignatz Mouse: rude crude, brutal, mendacious and thoroughly scurrilous.

Ignatz is muy macho; drinking, stealing, neglecting his wife and children and always responding to Krazy’s genteel advances by smiting the Kat with a well-aimed brick (obtained singly or in bulk from noted local brickmaker Kolin Kelly). A third element completing an animalistic eternal triangle is lawman Offissa Bull Pupp, utterly besotted with Krazy, well aware of the Mouse’s true nature, yet bound by his own amorous timidity and sense of honour from removing his rival for the foolish feline’s affections. Krazy is blithely oblivious of Pupp’s dilemma…

Also populating the ever-mutable stage are a stunning supporting cast of inspired bit players such as deliverer of babies Joe Stork, hobo Bum Bill Bee, unsavoury Don Kiyoti, busybody Pauline Parrot, pompous Walter Cephus Austridge, Chinese mallard Mock Duck, Joe Turtil and a host of other audacious characters – all equally capable of stealing the limelight and even supporting their own features. The exotic quixotic episodes occur in and around the Painted Desert environs of Coconino (based of the artist’s vacation retreat Coconino County Arizona) where the surreal playfulness and fluid ambiguity of the flora and landscape are perhaps the most important member of the cast.

The strips are a masterful mélange of unique experimental art, strongly referencing Navajo art forms and utilising sheer unbridled imagination and delightfully expressive language: alliterative, phonetically and even onomatopoeically joyous with a compelling musical force (“He’s simpfilly wondafil”, “A fowl konspirissy – is it pussible?” or “I nevva seen such a great power to kookoo”).

Yet for all that, the adventures are poetic, satirical, timely, timeless, bittersweet, self-referential, fourth-wall bending, eerie, idiosyncratic astonishingly hilarious escapades encompassing every aspect of humour from painfully punning shaggy dog stories to riotous slapstick.

There have been an absolute wealth of Krazy Kat collections since the late 1970s when the fondly remembered strip was generally rediscovered by a far more accepting audience and this particular compendium continues a complete year-by-year series begun by Eclipse and picked up by Fantagraphics when the former ceased trading in 1992. This specific and fabulous monochrome volume – A Kind, Benevolent and Amiable Brick – re-presents the years 1919-1921 in a reassuringly big and hefty (231 x 15 x 305 mm) softcover edition.

Within this magical atlas of another land and time the unending drama plays out as usual, but with some intriguing diversions, such as recurring tribute’s to Kipling’s “Just So Stories” as we discover how the Kookoo Klock works, why bananas hang around in bunches and why Lightning Bugs light up.

Joe’s natal missions go increasingly awry, disease, despair and dearth of alcoholic imbibements take their toll in the years of Prohibition, the weather thinks it’s a comedian and the value of the common brick rollercoasters from low to high and back again.

We also meet a few trans-species alternates of our triangular stars and even peer into the misty past to see Kwin Kleopatra Kat and Marcatonni Maus whilst exploring the ever-changing seasons in a constant display of visual virtuosity and verbal verve…

Frontloading Added Value to the romantic tribulations are fascinating articles and background features such as ‘A Mouse by any Other Name: Krazy and Ignatz’s Early Life Under the Stairs’ by Bill Blackbeard, intimate photo portraits and the mesmerisingly informative ‘Geo. Herriman’s Los Angeles’ by Bob Callahan.

At the far end of the tome you can enjoy some full-colour archival illustration and another batch of erudite and instructional ‘Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Pages’, providing pertinent facts, snippets of contextual history and necessary notes for the young and potentially perplexed…

Herriman’s epochal classic is a remarkable one-off: in all the arenas of Art and Literature there has never been anything like these comic strips which have shaped our industry and creators, inspired auteurs in fields as disparate as prose fiction, film, dance, animation and music whilst delivering delight and delectation to generations of wonder-starved fans.

If however, you are one of Them and not Us, or if you actually haven’t experienced the gleeful graphic assault on the sensorium, mental equilibrium and emotional lexicon carefully thrown together by George Herriman from the dawn of the 20th century until the dog days of World War II, this glorious compendium is the most accessible way to do so. Don’t waste the opportunity…
© 2011 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Angel Claws (Limited Edition)


By Moebius & Jodorowsky, translated by Thierry Nantier (Humanoids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-012-3

Like vaudeville and comedy, the world of comics has been blessed with some incredible double-acts: seasoned professionals capable of astounding works individually but in close combination, fuelling and feeding each other until elevated to a sublime peak of invention and application.

You’ll have your own candidates, but for me Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Goscinny & Uderzo, Lee & Kirby, Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima and RosiÅ„ski & Van Hamme all resonate as individual masters who respond to certain collaborations and combinations with unmatched brilliance…

One of European comics most impressive and controversial pairings was always Moebius & Jodorowsky and this recently revived dark confection is possibly their most daring and audacious co-creation…

Born in Tocopilla, Chile in 1929, Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, world traveller, philosopher, spiritual guru and comics writer.

The acclaimed polymath is most widely revered for such films as Fando y Lis, El Topo, The Holy Mountain, Sante Sangre, The Rainbow Thief, The Dance of Reality and others, plus his vast and influential comics output, which includes Anibal 5, Le Lama blanc, Aliot, The Meta-Barons, Borgia, Madwoman of the Sacred Heart and so many more, created with many of South America and Europe’s greatest artists.

His decade-long collaboration with Moebius on Tarot-inspired fantasy epic The Incal (1981-1989) completely redefined and reinvented what comics could aspire to and achieve.

Acclaimed for violently surreal avant-garde films, loaded with highly-charged, inspired imagery – blending mysticism and what he terms “religious provocation” – and his spiritually-informed fantasy and science fiction comics, Jodorowsky is also fascinated by humanity’s inner realms and has devised his own doctrine of therapeutic healing: Psychomagic, Psychogenealogy and Initiatic massage.

He remains fully engaged and active in all these creative areas to this day.

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was born in the suburbs of Paris on May 8th 1938 and raised by grandparents after his mother and father divorced in 1941. In 1955, he attended Institut des Arts Appliqués and became friends with Jean-Claude Mézières who, at 17, was already selling strips and illustrations to magazines such as Coeurs Valliants, Fripounet et Marisette and Spirou. Giraud apparently spent most of his college time drawing cowboy comics and left after a year.

In 1956 he travelled to Mexico, staying with his mother for eight months, before returning to France and a full-time career drawing comics, mostly westerns such as Frank et Jeremie for Far West and King of the Buffalo, A Giant with the Hurons and others for Coeurs Valliants in a style based on French comics legend Joseph Gillain AKA “Jijé”.

Between 1959-1960 Giraud spent his National Service in Algeria, working on military service magazine 5/5 Forces Françaises before returning to civilian life as Jijé’s assistant in 1961, working on the master’s long-running (1954-1977) western epic Jerry Spring.

A year later, Giraud and Belgian writer Jean-Michel Charlier launched the serial Fort Navajo in Pilote #210, and soon its disreputable, anti-heroic lead character Lieutenant Blueberry became one of the most popular European strips of modern times.

In 1963-1964, Giraud produced a numerous strips for satire periodical Hara-Kiri and, keen to distinguish and separate the material from his serious day job, first coined his pen-name “Moebius”.

He didn’t use it again until 1975 when he joined Bernard Farkas, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Philippe Druillet – all devout science fiction fans – as founders of a revolution in narrative graphic arts created by “Les Humanoides Associes”.

Their groundbreaking adult fantasy magazine Métal Hurlant utterly enraptured the comics-buying public and Giraud again wanted to utilise a discreet creative persona for the lyrical, experimental, soul-searching material he was increasingly driven to produce: series such as The Airtight Garage, The Incal and the mystical, dreamy flights of sheer fantasy contained in Arzach…

To further separate his creative twins, Giraud worked his inks with a brush whilst the dedicated futurist Moebius rendered his lines with pens. After a truly stellar career which saw him become a household name, both Giraud and Moebius passed away in March 2012.

Griffes D’ange was first published in 1994, during a period when the deeply spiritual Moebius was especially concerned with purging, honing and redefining his creative soul and artistic vision. One result of his divinations was this collation of sexually hyper-charged images accompanied – as was the earlier collaboration Claws of the Cat – by evocative poetic musings from his brother-in-graphic exploration Jodorowsky…

Stunning monochrome plates – rendered in stark monochrome lines – counter-pointed and augmented by terse, challenging, intentionally disturbing descriptive statements reveal the innermost workings of a recently-bereaved young woman who throws aside all pretences of convention to embark on a quest of personal discovery and awakening. Where the search takes her is the stuff of dreams and nightmares…

Fetishistic, scary, sexually explicit, deeply symbolic, confrontationally transformative and – as previous stated – reportedly a therapeutic exercise for the creators, Angel Claws is a stunning assault on the senses and traditional mores and morality to appal and delight in equal amounts… depending, of course, upon what your own upbringing brings to the feast…

Available as an oversized (406 x 305 mm) hardcover coffee table tome and in digital editions, this is a visual milestone no consenting adult connoisseur of comics should miss.
Angel Claws and its logo are ™ Les Humanoides Associes SAS Paris (France). English version © 2012 Humanoids, Inc., Los Angeles (USA). All rights reserved.

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Bunny vs. Monkey Book Three


By Jamie Smart (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-84-1

Way back in 2012, Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a weekly comics anthology for girls and boys which revelled in reviving the grand old days of British picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

Still going strong, each issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material: a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. Since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the totally engaged kids and parents who read it…

The publishers naturally gathered their greatest serial hits into a line of fabulously engaging album compilations, the latest of which is a third contentious engagement in the dread conflict gripping a once-chummy woodland waif and interloping, grandeur-obsessive simian…

Concocted with feverishly gleeful inspiration by Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!), Bunny vs. Monkey has been a fixture in The Phoenix from the first issue: recounting a madcap vendetta between animal arch-enemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia which started out as a more-or-less mundane English Wood.

Book Three ramps up the tittering, tail-biting tension, detailing the ongoing war of wits and wonder-weapons over another half-year in the country. The obnoxious simian intruder originally arrived after a disastrous space shot went awry. Having crash-landed in Crinkle Woods – a scant few miles from his blast-off site – Monkey believes himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite the continual efforts of reasonable, sensible, genteel, contemplative Bunny. Despite patience, propriety and good breeding the laid-back lepine is increasingly compelled to wearily admit that the incorrigible idiot ape is a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating troublemaker…

Following the vivid Contents pages and a spectacular pinup double-spread, the month-by-month mayhem reports recommence with January and chilly snow blanketing the ground. In ‘Log Off!’ Bunny is in need of a little firewood, but should never have asked happily brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver to help…

Blithering innocents Weenie Squirrel and Pig take centre stage next as the baking-addicted tree-rodent reveals he has an imaginary friend. The mocking fools have no idea that ‘Lionel!’ is actually one of the ghastly Hyoomanz intent on the demolition of Crinkle Wood and the building of something called a motorway…

Monkey’s greatest ally is ostracised outcast and hairy mad scientist Skunky (a brilliant inventor with a bombastic line in animal-themed atrocity weapons and a secret agenda of his own) whose latest bovine-inspired stealth weapon ‘Ca-Moo-Flarj!’ promptly goes the way of most of his ghastly gimmicks, after which both furry factions catch gold fever in ‘The Quest for Blackbeard’s Treasure!’ Sadly the old map found in a tree trunk is of most recent vintage…

February opens with ‘T3-ddy!’ as Skunky’s colossal and devastating robo-bear is suborned and defeated by its own innate need for a cuddle, after which Bunny discovers a vast cavern under his food store. Aft first he thinks its just Skunky’s latest indiscretion, but even the evil mega-genius is surprised at the hideous thing ‘What Lies Beneath!’

‘Casa Del Pig!’ sees the woodland folk unite to make the porcine ingénue a home of his own after which ‘Meet Randolph!’ brings them all together to greet a visiting raccoon. The masked stranger claims to be the cousin of surly radical environmentalist and keeper of ancient secrets Fantastique Le Fox, and he can certainly handle himself in a crisis, as evidenced by the swift and efficient way he despatches Monkey and Skunky’s rampaging mechanical Helliphant…

March ushers in a not-so fragrant Spring as Skunky decides to weaponise his own natural defences, but ‘The Stench!’ proves yet again that his intellect far outstrips his common sense and any iota of self-restraint…

When an irrepressible yet lonely cyber crocodile finds a message in a bottle he unbends enough to ask Bunny for reading and writing lessons in ‘The Educating of Mister Metal Steve!’ Sadly his eventual RSVP proves that core-programming is hard to escape…

A rare victory for Evil is revealed through the creation of a giant beached flounder in ‘Fishy Plops!’ before nature reasserts itself in ‘Bad Crowd!’ wherein the tantrum-throwing Monkey meets some heretofore unknown woods-dwellers who terrify even him…

The Skunk scientist finally goes too far in his quest for knowledge and accidentally invents Boomantium, capable of creating ‘The Biggest, Mostest Enormousest Explosion in the World!’ Nobody expected dim-witted Action to find a solution to the imminent cacophonous catastrophe but as April opens ‘Billion Dollar Beaver!’ reveals that their crash-helmeted comrade is indestructible…

He should therefore be considered another actual ultimate weapon… unless, of course, you’re just a short-sighted, imagination-limited primate with delusions of grandeur…

Over the months the Woods have become home to an increasingly impressive variety of non-native species and an unsavoury crisis of explosive proportions is barely averted when ‘The Kakapo Poo Kaboom!’ defeats the ever-encroaching “Humans” but not the combined contemplative efforts of Bunny and Skunky.

His evil dominance in decline, the invader anthropoid is blackmailed by Pig and Weenie into being their ‘Monkey Butler!’ before May blossoms and ‘The Big Eye Am!’ sees a gigantic laser-firing orb crashing through the verdure, closely followed by its previous owner…

‘On the Road!’ finds the animals trying to decide on how to stop the human motorway builders when the meeting is disrupted by cute running-toy addict Hamster 3000. This allows Skunky and Le Fox to resume their own private negotiations after which Monkey returns to his devious top form when subjecting the flora and fauna to the inundation of

‘The Purple!’

May becomes June during ‘The Weird, Weird Woods! (Part One and Two)’ as the animals invade the humans’ building site shed. They are furiously repelled and pursued by the bizarre and terrified creatures within, but their first foray is soon forgotten when Bunny wakes up in proposed paradise ‘Bunnyopia!’ only to discover it is a monstrous and frightening sham…

Skunky’s perpetual and wanton splashing about in the gene-pool results in terrifying travesty ‘Octo-Fox!’ and only Monkey’s arrant disregard for all rules and laws – including Nature’s – saves the day by one-upping the tentacled terror, after which ‘Weenie’s Big Adventure!’ gives the benign waif a day to remember after waking an oversleeping bear. A little later, however, a mind-swapping device in the wrong paws leads to a plague of chaotic ‘Brainache!’

With a seemingly quiet moment to spare the animals all consider the past and their futures in ‘Woodland Story!’, leading to our latest hiatus in this ever more convoluted mystery after Skunky’s new Clone-a-Tron generates ‘So Many Monkeys!’ that the dream of Monkeytopia seems a forgone conclusion, resulting in tantalising puzzle-feature ‘Masses and Masses of Monkeys’… after which guaranteed audience participation we can only assure you To Be Continued…

Absurdist adventure of the most enthralling kind, Bunny Vs Monkey is an absolute treasure-chest of weird wit, brilliant invention and superb cartooning: an utterly irresistible joy for youngsters of all ages.

Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2016. All rights reserved.
Bunny Vs Monkey Book Three will be released on 7th July 2016 and is available for pre-order now.

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Dreamworks Dragons – Riders of Berk volume 5: The Legend of Ragnarok


By Simon Furman, Jack Lawrence, Sara Richard & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-080-1

DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk and its follow-up Defenders of Berk are part of one of the most popular cartoon franchises around. Loosely adapted from Cressida Cowell’s engagingly energetic children’s books, the show is based upon and set between the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Of course if you have children you are almost certainly already aware of that already.

Wowing young and old alike across the globe, the series also spawned a series of comic albums. This fifth digest-sized collection features another epic encounter scripted by the ever-enthralling Simon Furman and ably illuminated Jack Lawrence, plus a delicious solo vignette.

In case you’re not absolutely au fait with the exhilarating world of the wondrous winged reptiles: brilliant but introverted boy-hero Hiccup saved his island people from being overrun by hostile dragons by understanding them. Now he and his unruly teenaged compatriots of the Dragon Rider Academy gleefully roam the skies with their devoted scaly friends, getting into trouble and generally saving the day.

When not squabbling with each other, the trusty teens strive to keep the peace between the vast variety of wondrous Wyrms and isolated Berk island’s bellicose Viking settlers.

These days, the dragons have all been generally domesticated, and the Riders’ daily duties generally involve finding, taming and cataloguing new species whilst protecting the settlement from attacks by far nastier folk such as Alvin the Treacherous and his piratical Outcasts and – all too often – fresh horrors and menaces…

As usual, before the comic confrontations commence there’s a brace of information pages reintroducing Hiccup and his devoted Night Fury Toothless, as well as tomboyish Astrid on Deadly Nadder Stormfly, obnoxious jock Snotlout astride his Monstrous Nightmare Hookfang, portly dragon-scholar Fishlegs on ponderous Gronckle Meatlug and the dim, jovially violent twins Tuffnut & Ruffnut on two-headed Zippleback Barf &Belch. Also afforded quick name-checks are Hiccup’s dad Chief Stoick, chief armourer/advisor Gobber and insidious arch-enemy Alvin too…

Completed by the colouring wizardry of Digikore and lettering from Jim Campbell, ‘The Legend of Ragnarok’ opens with our young champions romping in the sky as, far below, village pest and incurable dragon-hater Mildew rants on about the End of Days and unavoidable coming of the all-consuming Midgard Serpent.

Gobber and Stoick don’t give much credence to his babblings about Ragnarok, but they are concerned by the recent sea-quake, and subsequent whirlpools and tidal surges. In response the Chief reluctantly orders the recall of the fishing ships and sea patrols…

Hiccup, meanwhile, has troubles of his own. He’s never yet met a dragon he couldn’t befriend but the unruly Changewing he’s currently trying to train at the academy might ruin his spotless record. Not only is she incredibly hostile, but whenever he looks into her eyes the beast hypnotises him. He’s pretty fed up with regaining consciousness in the rafters of the great hall or on the edge of cliffs…

Turbulent seas continue to batter the island and as the Berk boats come in obsessed marauder Alvin takes his chances and launches a full invasion. The bizarre conditions have also unsettled the dragons, so Hiccup and Astrid are braving the skies on watch when they spot a stampede of terrified wild saurians from other islands. As they close in, however, the roiling seas are breached by the biggest monster they have ever seen.

Can the island-sized beast possibly be the Midgard Serpent, herald of the world’s ending?

Alvin doesn’t care. It wrecked his ships and his plans so he’s considering temporarily allying with Stoick to destroy it…

As it rears above Berk, ready to smash the island to shards, learned Fishlegs identifies it as a Leviathan-class Seashocker – commonly known as a Purple Death – before rallying with the villagers, Alvin’s Outcasts and the Dragon Riders for their last battle.

Hiccup meanwhile has hatched a desperate plan involving the cantankerously mesmerising Changewing which might save them all… as long as his newest conquest plays along…

Counterbalancing the apocalyptic action is a short tale starring Astrid by Furman & Sara Richard. ‘Queen of the Hill’ finds the feisty female warrior and faithful Stormfly washed up on a mystery island and menaced by a horde of Smothering Smokebreaths. With her dragon wounded and her axe lost, Astrid has to devise a cunning way to keep the predators at bay until help comes or her companion heals…

Although ostensibly crafted for excitable juniors and TV kids, this is another sterling example of supremely smart and funny adventure-sagas no self-indulging fun-fan or action aficionado of any age or vintage should miss: compelling, enticing, and splendidly satisfying.
© 2015 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

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Melusine volume 5: Tales of the Full Moon


By Clarke & Gilson, coloured by Cerise; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-212-6

Witches – especially cute, sassy and/or teenaged ones – have a splendidly long pedigree in all branches of fiction, and one of the most seductively engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian comics-magazine Spirou in 1992.

Mélusine is actually a sprightly 119-year-old neophyte sorceress diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School. To make ends meet she spends her off-duty moments days working as au pair and general dogsbody to a most shockingly disreputable family of haunts and horrors inhabiting and infesting a vast, monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau at some chronologically adrift, anachronistically awry time in the Middle-ish Ages…

Episodes of the long-running, much-loved feature are presented in every format from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales; all riffing wickedly on supernatural themes and detailing Mélusine’s rather fraught existence. Our magic maid’s life is filled with the daily indignities of skivvying, studying, catering to the appalling and outrageous domestic demands of the master and mistress of the castle and – far too occasionally – schmoozing with a large and ever-growing circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

The strip was devised by writer François Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humorist Frédéric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue… and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and as “Bluttwurst” Les Enquêtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Château Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes. He has obviously been cursed by some sorceress and can no longer enjoy the surcease of sleep…

Collected Mélusine editions began appearing annually or better from 1995 onwards, with the 24th published in 2015 and another due this year. Thus far five of those have shape-shifted into English translations…

Originally released in October 2002, Contes de la pleine lune was Continentally the tenth groovy grimoire of mystic mirth and is again most welcoming: primarily comprised of single and 2-page gags starring the sassy sorceress which delightfully eschew continuity for the sake of new readers’ instant approbation…

When brittle, moody, over-stressed Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, ducking cat-eating monster Winston, dodging frisky vampire The Count or avoiding the unwelcome and often hostile attentions of horny peasants and over-zealous witch-hunting priests, our saucy sorceress can usually be found practising her spells or consoling and coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

Unlike Mel, this sorry enchantress-in-training is a real basket case: her transformation spells go awfully awry, she can’t remember incantations and her broomstick-riding makes her a menace to herself, any unfortunate observers and even the terrain and buildings around her…

As the translated title of this (fifth) Cinebook offering suggests, Tales of the Full Moon dwells on demolishing fairy fables and bedevilling bedtime stories but also gives a proper introduction to Mel’s best friend Krapella: a rowdy, roistering, mischievous and disruptive classmate who is the very image of what boys want in a “bad” witch…

This tantalising tome is filled with narrative nostrums featuring the usual melange of slick sight gags and pun-ishing pranks; highlighting how our legerdemainic lass finds a little heart’s ease by picturing how one day she’ll have her very own Prince Charming.

Sadly, every dream ends – usually because there’s a mess that needs cleaning up – but Melusine absolutely draws the line when Cancrelune and even her own sweetness-&-light Fairy cousin Melisande start hijacking her daydreams…

This fusillade of fanciful forays concludes with eponymously titled, extended episode Tales of the Full Moon wherein Melusine is ordered to read a bedtime story to the Count’s cousin’s son: an obnoxiously rambunctious junior vampire named Globule who insists on twisting her lovely lines about princesses and princes into something warped and Gothic… and that’s before Cancrelune starts chipping in with her own weird, wild suggestions and interjections …

Wacky, wry, sly, infinitely inventive and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a terrific taste of European comics wonderment: a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read well before bedtime – or you’ll be up laughing all night …
Original edition © Dupuis, 2002 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.

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The Cloud


By K. I. Zachopoulos & Vincenzo Balzamo (Archaia)

ISBN: 978-1-60886-725-7

Writer Kostas Zachopoulos clearly has a great grip on classic themes and tropes. His previous comics releases – Mon Alix, The Fang, Mr. Universe, Misery City – have all memorably tweaked and refreshed horror, crime and other genres but his latest offering might well take him into the reading mainstream in a masterful fantasy saga of love, loss, search and renewal.

Imagine The Never Ending Story with sharp edges and harsh consequences or – if you’re an older, better-read aficionado of the extraordinary – remember the buzz you got the first time you read one of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea stories or a Jack Vance tale of the Dying Earth…

The tone and topic of those wonderful modern legends ripple through this phenomenally enticing hardback tome, illustrated in a gloriously magnificent progression of painted pages by award-winning newcomer Vincenzo Balzamo (Immortal, Revenge: the Secret Origin of Emily Thorne), offering one more magical myth for modern questers to admire and covet.

In the far future the world has endured its final disaster and been radically changed by mankind’s sins. The entire globe is girdled in insulating, isolating, all-encompassing vapour walls which cut off the people who remain from each other and the strange new things that have evolved to roam the foggy vastnesses. The human survivors of the ancient catastrophe known as the Shine cling to high places in small communities eking out their pointless lives well aware that above the clouds roam ruthless pirates and slavers…

One day – which seemed like any other – a wild little boy exuberantly rode his giant flying wolf – named Cloud – through the roiling foggy blanket. He was on a quest and touched down at a mountain top citadel, seeking something in the skybound city. The boy was searching for a Wish in a Stone and, although the wise men claimed to know nothing of it, a beggar in the elevated street gave him sage advice. The enshrouded elder advised the carefree wanderer that to secure a wishing stone from the Great Before, he first needed to locate The Writer…

Finding the sagacious fool was not as difficult as convincing him to help, but the boy had travelled far and found a great treasure the garrulous savant was prepared to trade for the incredible Dandelion Stone…

This news caused the child’s mind to spiral back to the tragic last time he had seen his father but more advice from the babbling scribe brought him back to the present. Grasping the stone the boy took his leave only to have the precious prize snatched from his hands by a nimble thief. His pell-mell pursuit eventually resulted in the bandit’s capture, but the cornered foe was only a little girl who claimed her need for the wish was greater than his own.

The boy’s momentary confusion ended when both girl and Dandelion Stone were swept up in the nets of the constantly marauding sky-pirates and the chase was on again…

The Cloud is a superb picaresque odyssey through an incredible world of fantastic throwback kingdoms and floating islands, as our hero makes amazing new allies and mints fresh myths at every brief stopover. Most importantly as the boy gets ever closer to his heart’s desire – coincidentally liberating enslaved races and gradually unpicking the muddled history of the Before Time – he learns of the forces that have subtly manipulated him and realises there is a way to bring the tired, benighted Earth into the light, but only at a terrible price…

Epic, sweeping, enchantingly bemusing and drenched in potent tragedy, this is a sheer delight no fantasy fan should miss.
™ and © 2016 Kostas Zachopoulos & Vincenzo Balzamo. All rights reserved.

The Cloud will be released 20th July 2016.

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Red Baron volume 2: Rain of Blood


By Pierre Veys & Carlos Puerta, translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-211-9

The sublimely illustrated, chillingly conceived fictionalised re-imagination of legendary German Air Ace Manfred von Richthofen continues in stunningly scary form with this second no-nonsense instalment from Pierre Veys & Carlos Puerta. Baron rouge: Pluie de sang debuted Continentally in 2013 and here resumes its fascinating, faux-autobiographic course as notionally described by the titular flier…

Scripted with great style and Spartan simplicity by prolific bande dessinée writer Pierre Veys (Achille Talon, Adamson, Baker Street, Boule et Bill, les Chevaliers du Fiel), the drama is stunningly illustrated by advertising artist and veteran comics painter Carlos Puerta (Los Archivos de Hazel Loch, Aeróstatas, Tierra de Nadie, Eustaquio, Les Contes de la Perdition) in a staggeringly potent photo-realistic style.

In the first volume we saw how young military student Manfred discovered he had an uncanny psychic gift: when endangered he could read his opponents intentions and counteract every attack. Immediate peril seemed to trigger his gift and he subsequently tested the theory by heading for the worst part of town to provoke the peasants and rabble. He never questioned how or why the savage exercise of brutal violence – especially killing – made him feel indescribably happy…

As a cavalry officer when the Great War began, Manfred found further proof of his talent when he casually acted on a vague impulse and avoided a lethal shelling from a threat he could neither see nor anticipate…

He could never convince his only friend Willy of this strange gift, even after he transferred to the Fliegertruppen (Imperial German Flying Corps) as gunner in a two-man reconnaissance craft …

The saga recommences here as Von Richthofen barely survives his first taste of sky-borne dogfighting and instantly resolves to learn how to fly. Never again will he trust his life to someone else’s piloting skills…

Sadly he is far from a natural pilot and only hard work and persistence allow him to qualify as a flier. Even after his first kill, he still can’t stop his elite comrades laughing at his pitiful landings…

Things begin to change after he modifies his two-man Albatross C.111 so that he can fire in the direction of his flight rather than just behind or to the sides. Now a self-propelled machine-gun, Von Richthofen takes to the skies and scores a delicious hit on a hapless British pilot…

Days later his joy increases when Willy is assigned to his squadron.

Sharing the spoils of occupation life, Von Richthofen relates his earliest war exploits as a cavalryman pushing east into Russia. A grisly escapade with a single Uhlan against a company of Cossacks is again greeted with tolerant disbelief and Willy is only mildly surprised by the callous indifference Manfred displays when recalling how he hanged some monks whilst moving through Belgium to the Western Front.

The affronted boaster is determined to prove his powers are real. The opportunity comes when they come across enlisted men indulging in a boxing match. Lieutenant Von Richthofen orders them to let him join in: facing down hulking brute Stoph, who was German national champion before hostilities started.

As Willy watches his slightly-built school chum easily avoid every lethal blow before slowly and methodically taking his opponent apart, he finally believes. He also begins to fear…

To Be Concluded…

A sharp mix of shocking beauty and distressingly visceral violence, Rain of Blood blends epic combat action with grimly beguiling suspense. The idea of the semi-mythical knight of the clouds as a psychic psycho-killer is not one many purists will be happy with, but the exercise is executed with mesmerising veracity and Puerta’s illustration is both astoundingly authentic and gloriously enthralling.

A decidedly different combat concoction: one jaded war lovers should definitely try.
Original edition © Zephyr Editions 2012 by Veys & Puerta. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Dreamworks Dragons – Riders of Berk volume 4: The Stowaway


By Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-079-5

DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk and its follow-up Defenders of Berk are part of one of the most popular cartoon franchises around. Loosely adapted from Cressida Cowell’s gloriously charming children’s books, the show is based upon and set between the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Of course if you have children you are almost certainly already aware of that already.

Having wowed young and old alike across the globe, the series has also spawned a series of comic albums and this third digest-sized collection features two stellar incendiary serpentine sagas scripted as ever by the ever-enthralling Simon Furman.

In case you’re not absolutely au fait with the exhilarating word of winged reptiles: brilliant but introverted boy-hero Hiccup saved his island people from being overrun by hostile dragons by befriending them. Now he and his unruly teenaged compatriots of the Dragon Rider Academy gleefully roam the skies with their devoted scaly friends, getting into trouble and generally saving the day.

When not squabbling with each other, the trusty teens strive to keep the peace between the vast variety of wondrous Wyrms and isolated Berk island’s bellicose Viking settlers.

These days, now the dragons have all been generally domesticated, those duties generally involve finding, taming and cataloguing new species whilst protecting village and farms from constant attacks by far nastier folk such as Alvin the Treacherous and his fleet of piratical Outcasts and, all too often, fresh horrors…

As usual, before the comic confrontations commence action takes wing there’s a brace of handy information pages reintroducing Hiccup and his devoted Night Fury Toothless, as well as tomboyish Astrid on Deadly Nadder Stormfly, obnoxious jock Snotlout and Monstrous Nightmare Hookfang, portly dragon-scholar Fishlegs on ponderous Gronckle Meatlug and the terribly dim yet jovially violent twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut on double-headed Zippleback Belch & Barf. There’s also a quick intro for big boss Stoick and chief armourer Gobber…

Eponymous epic ‘The Stowaway’ (illustrated by Iwan Nazif with the colouring wizardry of Digikore and lettering from Jim Campbell) opens with our young champions joyously training in the sky when a trading ship docks. The merchants of the Fraghen have had to fight their way through an Outcast blockade to deliver their wares, but don’t seem too badly damaged. Moreover, as well as trade-goods they bring a gorgeous lad named Hroar: a real devotee of dragons who had somehow managed to stow away on the long-ship all the way from distant Knaff…

The brawny young barbarian Adonis is gregarious, makes friends easily and says all the right things. Hiccup wishes he could like him, but there’s just something too perfect about his colleagues’ new best friend.

…And besides, Toothless clearly doesn’t trust him…

Astrid does, though, and Hroar also does everything he can to make himself liked by the other dragon riders. Nevertheless, whenever a minor spat or problem with the flying reptiles disrupts the daily routine, the stowaway is there. In fact there are a lot of little incidents. The big beasts all seem very fractious these days…

The bonny boy is popular with the adults too, particularly Hiccup’s father Stoick who pressures his son to admit Hroar to the Dragon Academy. Bowing to the inevitable, Hiccup maliciously pairs the neophyte with the ferocious Typhoomerang Torch. After far too short an interval, the boy from Knaff is showing them all up…

Convinced something untoward is going on, Hiccup starts questioning the trader crew and reaches a shocking conclusion. Sadly it’s just a shade too late as Hroar has already lured Astrid into a trap on distant Dragon Island.

Now it’s up to Hiccup and his friends to save her from a sinister villain with a secret power no dragon rider has ever seen before…

Cue spectacular climactic battle, hard-won victory and satisfying comeuppance…

Although ostensibly crafted for excitable juniors and TV kids, this is another sublimely smart and funny saga no self-indulging fun-fan or action aficionado of any age or vintage should miss: compelling, enticing, and wickedly wonderful.
©2015 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.