Category: Fantasy

Posted on

Sailor Twain or the Mermaid of the Hudson


By Mark Siegel (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-636-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: genuinely unmissable… 10/10

Even after decades in the business every so often something comes along that makes me feel like a drooling delirious fanboy again. This time it’s the superb hardback compilation of a fabulous weird tales webcomic that’s certain to become a certifiable classic.

Mark Siegel was born inMichiganand raised inFrance; one of those story-obsessed prodigies who began drawing wonders as a kid and never grew out of it… only better at shaping them.

After a childhood concocting yarns, comics, cartoons, posters and animated films he returned to the USA to study Creative writing and Fine Arts at Brown University. Upon graduation he stayed stateside, tentatively beginning life as a jobbing designer/illustrator.

He got his big break with the award-winning strip-book Seadogs, written by Lisa Wheeler. This was followed by Long Night Moon, To Dance, Boogie Knights and more.

Increasingly intrigued and fascinated by the history and geography of theHudson RiverValleywhere he lives with wife and creative collaborator Sienna Cherson Siegel, the artist began to craft a lyrically beguiling mystery tale from the glittering, sophisticated and callous brutal days of the Riverboats which once plied their glamorous trade along that famed and fabled watercourse. This he published online at sailortwain.com.

Rendered in mercurial melancholic charcoal tones, Sailor Twain tells the tale of a poet who has lost his muse and becomes a riverboat captain to pay for his invalid wife’s medical treatment.

It’s also the tale of French wastrel Dieudonné who inherited his entrepreneurial older brother’s exclusive, high society river boat business when the inspirational Jacques Henri de Lafayette had a breakdown and vanished…

…And finally, it is the sad and sobering tale of a lady who could not accept her place or fate in a savagely proscribed and repressionistic masculine culture…

Set in the transitional era of 1880s New York where and when science and rationality began at last to supersede wonder, mystery and romance, and specifically during the months May to December 1887, the story opens with an enigmatic meeting in ‘Overture’ before ‘Part I: Twain’s Secret’ begins with ‘The Frenchman’s Steamboat’ as the diligent captain of the luxurious Lorelei recalls how the dissolute young European assumed control of a hugely profitable touring business after the elder Lafayette vanished. Also introduced are below-decks crew Horatio and Aloysius, Negro engineers who know more of the route’s peculiar history than they’re willing to share in ‘An Unlikely Survivor’…

The new owner seems a bad sort. In ‘A Prayer Down Below’, he demonstrates an indecent and almost unhealthy interest in bedding women, but after Twain rescues ‘The Mermaid in the Hudson’ and secretes her battered and wounded body in his cabin the trusty salt’s judgemental world is forever changed.

‘Beaverton’s New Book’ introduces another intriguing strand as a publicity-shy yet popular author’s latest sensational publication offers to reveal the “Secrets and Mysteries of the River Hudson” – everything from love-sick ghosts to the cure for a mermaid’s siren song – to both Twain and his increasingly odd employer.

The Captain, obsessed with ministering to the silent, wounded creature hidden in his cabin, is amazed when he is asked to post ‘Lafayette’s Letter’ to the enigmatic author, whilst in ‘South’s Promise’ Lafayette’s debauched dalliances multiply manically as Twain remembers his far-off wife and how her beautiful voice was stilled by disease. Nevertheless ‘Pearl’s Song’ is slowly being forgotten as the seaman becomes increasingly closer to the mythical beauty recovering in his bunk…

The lascivious Frenchman is rapidly losing touch with reality, constantly throwing messages in bottles to the murky roiling river waters as ‘Three Prisoners’ sees the now voluble sea-woman eagerly communicating with Twain just as Lafayette takes him into his confidences over his amorous actions…

Inspired again to write, Twain’s fevered imagination is sent reeling when he realises his employer is seeking ‘The Cure for Mermaids’ and, thanks to the Beaverton book, discovers his uncanny charge’s origins in ‘South of the North River’…

Entranced in a way no other man has been, the worthy Captain is utterly unaware of how the situation is spiralling madly in ‘The Missing Muse’ after which ‘Part II: Camomille’ takes a closer look at the louche Lafayette when ‘The Beaverton Revelation’ exposes the author’s shocking identity and New York Society gathers itself to take its chilly revenge in ‘Ink Stains’…

Lafayette’s carnal campaign hits a strange snag in ‘“The Dame’s Audacious”’, leading to most peculiar dinner conversation in ‘Eclipse’ and the culmination of long-laid plans in ‘Sevening’, all whilst Twain finds to his horror that his submersible companion has vanished in ‘Enticement’.

Before the tragedy moves towards the impossible endgame, she suddenly returns to assuage ‘The Strains of Absence’ prompting fantastic delirium when ‘Twain Dreams’…

‘Part III: World’s End’ moves fully towards otherworldly experiences ‘In the Other Realm’ of ghosts, drowned men and stranger things where the desperately querulous Twain finds ‘The Lost Brother’, learns of ‘A Lady Beguiled’ and discovers the power of ‘The Chained Heart’ as his tumultuous affair ploughs on to an astonishing denouement…

It all comes crashing down in stormy disaster as ‘Part IV: The Twain Shall Meet’ delivers another dreadful blow to the Captain’s divided heart as he and Lafayette mutually incur and endure ‘The Siren’s Wrath’…

…And with the world reshaped and set to (some sort of) rights, an evocative ‘Coda’ lends fruitful finality to the fearsomely fantastic proceedings…

Intoxicatingly complex, expansive and enchanting, seditiously, scarily seductive, the supernatural odyssey of the Lorelei and its doom-gripped crew is a gloriously baroque and simultaneously gothic epic of unnatural desire and supernal suspense that absolutely unwrites the twee, safely sexy modern mythology of marine maidens and restores to them the dolorous drama of sinister, implacable, irresistible sirens.

A perfect fantasy fable for adults, Sailor Twain is a truly graphic novel that every devoted dark dreamer must read.
© 2012 Mark Siegel. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Secret Identities


By Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, Jerry Ma & various (The New Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59558-824-1

A little while ago I reviewed Shattered: a splendid anthology of superhero-related stories by and about Asian Americans which, although self-contained, stemmed out of a previous and equally innovative Fights ‘n’ Tights assemblage. Secret Identities was designed to craft an alternative American history and milieu for heroes and villains more in tune with the needs and interests of a vast, neglected sector of the Republic’s readership, and having acquired a copy of that previous tome – still available and worth every penny – I thought I’d share a few further details with you…

Devised and supervised by life-long fans and mature creative types Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow & Jerry Ma, Secret Identities blends enchantingly intimate thoughts and reminiscences about the comics we all grew up knowing with a decidedly fresh approach to old plots, characters and treatments. Featuring the talents of exclusively Asian American creators from comics, the arts, design and computer gaming who smartly re-examine the USA’s signature sequential narrative genre from the social, cultural perspective of a non-WASP, non-Jewish experience, this compilation is a sharply different yet familiar take on the marvellous world of Men in Tights and Women in Control…

Following a close-knit over-arching timeline the book opens with a wonderful Marvel Comics Spoof – The Y-Men #1 – as the editors recall their childhood love affair with costumed characters and reveal how the project really got started. ‘Preface: In the Beginning’ by Jeff Yang & Jef Castro leads seamlessly into the Brave New World as ‘Prologue’ and ‘Driving Steel’ by Yang & Benton Jew take us to the 19th century American West, where immigrant workers struggle to build the trans-continental railroad and Irish Navvies ruthlessly compete with their Chinese counterparts. Sabotage, skulduggery and ill-will run rampant, and only little Negro lad John Henry is party to the fiery true nature of indomitable – and undying – labourer Master Jimson Fo…

‘S.A.M. meets Larry Hama’ by Tak Toyoshima is a breezy interview with the venerable veteran creator on the sense of cartoon affirmative action, after which the saga proper continues with ‘Section One: War and Remembrance’ as Parry Shen & Alexander Tarampi begin to examine the fictional history of Asian American mystery men and metahumans during WWII.

‘9066’ by Jonathan Tsuei & Jerry Ma then details the tragedy of a dedicated crusader who couldn’t get his country to look beyond the colour of his skin and shape of his eyes, whilst in ‘Heroes Without a Country’ (Daniel Jai Lee & Vince Sunico) the same anti-Jap furore almost deprived American super-unit the Sunset Squad of their most valuable asset when raiding a Nazi laboratory of horror…

‘Gaman’ by Jamie Ford & Tarampi reveals the generational fallout of those embattled days to a modern student who learns the hard way just what makes him so different from his school friends, whilst in ‘The Hibakusha’ Shen & Glenn Urieta reveal the secrets and latent dangers of the children born from the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So amazing were they that America’s interned them in Area 52 for years…

Marvel, DC and others generously allowed their characters to appear in the autobiographical sections of this collection, and a big-name writer and movie-maker shared a few insights about creativity with Keith Chow & A. L. Baroza in ‘Re-Directing Comics: Greg Pak’ before debuting his spectacular tension-drenched anti-hero after President Obama pardoned a dishonoured hero and potential assassin in ‘The Citizen’ by Pak & Bernard Chang…

‘Sidekicks: Gene Yang & Michael Kang’ finds the editors debating the Asiatic ghetto of faithful retainerdom (Chow & Baroza) after which ‘The Blue Scorpion & Chung’ by Yang & Sonny Liew provides an outrageous and wryly hilarious alternative to the traditional set-up, whilst the tragic story of ‘James’ (Kang & Erwin Haya) shows that the solution is usually in the assistant’s hands all the time…

‘Section Two: When Worlds Collide’ opens with another take on the strange visitor from an alien world scenario, courtesy of Chow & Chi-Yun Lau, after which another long-established comics creator speaks out in ‘Now There’s Something: Greg LaRoque’ (Chow & Alexander Shen), which leads into a compelling genre-bending fantasy of good, evil and family peccadilloes with ‘Trinity’ written and drawn by LaRoque himself.

‘No Exit’ by Naeem Mohaiemen & Urieta is a beautifully sharp examination of dignity and morality set in a Guantanamo-style camp not so very different from the shamefully real one, whilst ‘S.O.S.’ blends outsourcing to India with the back-office requirements of the busy, cost-conscious American superhero crowd in a delightful yarn from Tanuj Chopra & Alex Joon Kim.

Many of the tales in this tome take place in the modern metropolis of Troy, although New York City is the eventual location of Clarence Koo & Jerry Ma’s ‘The Wallpasser’, which mixes people-trafficking and illegal immigration with dark, super-normal forces and broken families before ‘Section Three: Girl Power’ takes a look at the distaff side of culture and super-society, starting with a hilarious silent and salutary fable from Kripa Joshi, whilst ‘You Are What You Eat’ (Lynn Chen & Paul Wei) finds a cake-loving lass given the greatest possible gift by her aged grandmother… and she can fight crime with it too…

‘Sampler’ by Jimmy Aquino & Haya also confronts long-held assumptions and prejudice when a Troy laundry/dry cleaning store frequented by costumed heroes provides a shy retiring seamstress with the opportunity to use her own long-unsuspected super-power, whilst ‘Learn to Share’ by Keiko Agena & Ming Doyle offers a disturbing look at the ethnic adoption experience through the malfunctioning eyes of a little girl with a dark past and terrifying power…

‘A Day at CostumeCo’ by Yang & Baroza introduces a magical family of metas-in-waiting in a masterfully enticing riff on the theme of superhero dynasties. When Vernon and Vivie Chang finally get rebellious big sister Valerie to accept her true nature All Heck breaks loose, after which Hellen Jo discusses the nature of female furies in ‘Supergrrrls’ before Jason Sperber & Chi-Yun Lau open ‘Section Four: Many Masks’; examining the nature of assumed identities in advance of a brief colour section introducing a barrage of new characters and concepts in one-page pinups.

Meta-merc ‘Agent Orange’ by Dustin Tri Nguyen & Dustin Nguyen is followed by supernatural judge ‘Gaze’ (Sung Kang, Billy Tan, Walden Wong & Sean Ellery) and acupuncture-activated go-girl ‘Flight’ by Ian Kim & Jeff Yang. Adulation-powered ‘Shine’ (Leonardo Nam, Anthony Tan & Ruben de Vela) and immortal avenger ‘Jia’ (Kelly Hu, Mark Allen & Cliff Chiang) are followed by Yul Kwon & Deodato Pangandoyon’s escaped North Korean lab rat ‘Cataclysm’ and one-man alien invasion resister ‘Go’ by Kazu Kibuishi, after which Anthony Wu’s army-of-one ‘Parallel Penny’ closes the file on this tantalising taster of things – hopefully – to come…

Returning to moody monochrome, ‘Section Five: Ordinary Heroes’ begins with Raymond Sohn depicting real folks’ definition of heroes before ‘Just Ordinary’ by Nick Huang & Shen takes a trenchant look at society and the media’s unhelpful expectations of what constitutes a champion, whilst ‘Twilight’ (Ted Chung & Anuj Shrestha) takes a hard look at alienation and self-discovery amidst the aftermath of disaster, and only a little time-travelling intervention at last saves ‘David Kim’ from his annoying match-making parents in a light and lovely super-folks RomCom by John Kuramota & Christine Norrie…

‘Meet Joe’ by Koji Steven Sakai & John Franzese shows how a determined kid-hero can buck both public expectations and family pressure, little So-Geum at last develops a super-power ‘On the Third Day’ (Johann Choi) – although not in the way his pushy parents wanted – and ‘Long’ perfectly captures the sheer exuberant joy of extra abilities in a brash bold pantomime by Martin Hsu. The chapter then closes with ‘Justified’ by Ken Wong & Tiffanie Hwang as a young hopeful innocently upsets ingrained ignorance and complacency during an open audition for aspiring mystery men…

‘Section Six: From Headline to Hero’ commences with a discussion of real-world American Asian heroes by Parry Shen & Jeremy Arambulo, after which ’16 Miles’ by Shen & Sarah Sapang extrapolates a poignant story of love and sacrifice in the midst of total terror whilst ‘Taking Back Troy’ (Yang & Francis Tsai) shows the downside of living with superhumans as a school party night goes tragically bad, before the action ends on a promising introductory note as ‘Peril: By the Time I Get to Arizona’ (Chow & Castro) introduces a desperate young man dragged into a world of impossible danger when the father he never knew goes missing and is branded a traitor. Dr. Won Kin Lun was the world’s greatest authority on super-powers and nano-tech and everybody wants his discoveries – except the unwilling, angry, betrayed son he secretly, arbitrarily inflicted them upon…

In ‘Epilogue’ Yang & Castro pensively wrap things up and consider the future but there’s still much to enjoy here. After full contributor biographies the added attractions start with ‘The One that Got Away’ by Larry Hama and there’s also a selection of Behind the Scenes concept art as well as ‘Our Favourite “Dear John” Letter’ – a brilliant manga cartoon apology for not contributing from eventual and actual contributor Jeremy Arambulo. The immersive experience then ends with a complete time-line chart and annotated score-card, ranging from the portentous beginnings in the 1800s to the unleashed future of 2020 and beyond.

Combining the best aspects of many storytelling traditions and artistic styles, utilised by a volunteer army of talented creators whose origins stem from Asia, India and all points East but whose ethnicity is definitely All-American, Secret Identities began a bold experiment in cultural assimilation that will amaze comics fans in search of something a little different…
Compilation © 2009 Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma. Individual pieces © 2009 each author. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Demeter & Persephone: Spring Held Hostage – A Greek Myth


By Justine & Ron Fontes, Steve Kurth & Barbara Schulz (Graphic Universe)
ISBN: 978-1-58013-318-0,     978-0-82256-570-3

The heroic tales and legends of older cultures have, for centuries formed an integral part of children’s educational development – and a good thing too. These days though, those magnificently inspiring and memorably visual yarns are as likely to be disseminated in graphic novel form as through the illustrated prose books which had such a formative influence on my early days.

Demeter & Persephone: Spring Held Hostage was released in 2007, one self-contained tome in a larger series which also retold in comics other Hellenic myths such as the Labours of Hercules, Jason’s journey with the Argonauts as well as other cultures’ founding fables like Isis & Osiris or King Arthur.

Packaged as full-colour, 48 page, card-cover booklets they – hopefully – introduced a wealth of kids to the magical riches of human imagination.

They also read very well as comics in their own right.

All religious stories are devised to explain away contemporary unsolved questions and unknowable mysteries. The liturgical lesson retold here was one people’s attempt to rationalise the progress of the seasons and the man-made miracle of agriculture, opening in the paradisiacal golden age of ‘A Winterless World’ where, thanks to the joyful bounty of the goddess Demeter, plants bloomed all year long and the Earth was bathed in perpetual warmth. The harvest goddess’ greatest joy was her glorious daughter Persephone, offspring of one of Zeus’ constant infidelities with any deity, supernatural creature or mortal he took a fancy to…

The supreme god ruled over the skies and Earth whilst his brothers Poseidon and Hades controlled the seas and underworld respectively. However, when the dolorous, lonely Lord of the Dead saw Persephone he wanted her for his wife – and callous, unthinking Zeus told him to just steal her and take her down to ‘The Dark Domain’ he ruled…

Despite her plight, Demeter’s daughter found a great deal that was admirable about Hades and his vast kingdom of judgement, punishment and reward. However, knowing how perilous her fate was, Persephone refused to eat anything that her embarrassed abductor offered, knowing that to do so would bind her to him forever…

In the bright lands above, Demeter frantically searched for her child. Discovering how Persephone had been taken, the Harvest Goddess pleaded with Zeus who refused to intervene, prompting her to abandon the pantheon’s home on MountOlympus. She wandered the Earth as ‘A Worried Mother’ and in the guise of a broken old woman became the nurse to Prince Demophoon of Eleusis, infant son of King Celeus.

Months passed whilst Demeter neglected the world’s lush abundance, defiantly ignoring the desperate pleas of man and god alike. Plants withered and starvation gripped the Earth, and on Olympus the crisis at last forced Zeus to act. He despatched messenger god Hermes to the underworld to negotiate with Hades and a compromise was reached.

‘The Seeds of Change’ saw a now reluctant Persephone leave the abductor she had come to care for. In all that time she had eaten nothing but as they parted she swallowed a few pomegranate seeds from a fruit Hades offered as final gesture…

Even whilst back in the clean air above, this caused great consternation as their consumption gave Hades a legitimate claim to Persephone. Moreover, she had come to love him but as her mother refused to be separated from her, her marriage to Hades would have doomed mankind to starvation.

‘The Pomegranate Problem’ was only solved by Rhea, mother of all gods, who suggested that the lovers should marry but that Persephone must spend two thirds of each year with her mother who would then cause the world’s plants to germinate, blossom, grow and ripen. After that the daughter would spend four months with her husband in the underworld, with Earth consequently becoming temporarily cold, dark and bleakly barren…

Satisfied with the solution but plagued by guilt, Demeter eventually returned to Eleusis where the baby Demophoon had grown to manhood. Here she taught her human charge the secrets of cultivation and plant improvement and the prince travelled the Earth, sharing his divinely-bestowed knowledge of agriculture to a grateful and eager humanity…

Engrossing, dynamic, pretty and blessed with a light touch, this splendid introduction to mythology is designed for kids with a reading age of nine or above – that’s Year 4, I suspect – and also contains a full glossary, a Further Reading and relevant websites list, and an index as well as fact-features on Creating Demeter & Persephone and biographies of the creators.
© 2007 Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Shattered: the Asian American Comics Anthology – A Secret Identities Book


By Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, Jerry Ma & various (The New Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59558-824-1

The very best thing about old comics periodicals, and a factor sadly deficient in most graphic novels these days, is the lack of variety. Those venerable weeklies and monthlies were generally stuffed with different strips and features offering a host of entertainment options that contemporary books just can’t match.

That’s certainly not the case in this marvellous collection of new stories supervised by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma, who first came to Funnybook fans’ attention in 2009 with the satirical shared-universe superhero book Secret Identities. That tome showcased the talents of exclusively Asian American creators in comics amalgamating the US industry’s signature genre with the social, cultural and entertainment influences of a non-WASP, non-Jewish (it’s easy to argue that the American comicbook was primarily invented by immigrants – and largely Jewish ones at that) talent pool to produce a whole new take on the sequential narrative experience.

Now this fresh collection expands on that initial offering with new adventures set in that New Universe, as well as many sidebar and only notionally linked cartoon yarns, from a host of gifted writers and artists whose origins and ethnicity stem from Asia, India and all points East.

An overarching storyline links the tales here as the Eastern archetypes which permeate Western fiction – the Brute, the Brain, the Temptress, the Alien and the Manipulator – are reclaimed and transformed into the motivating force which links the Secret Identities tale into one longer epic, with each chapter then supplemented by additional, less canonical strips.

Thus the prologue set up of ‘The Sacrifice’ written by Yang, Shen & Chow and illustrated by Ma introduces a quintet of otherworldly demons who want to break back into our helpless world. Bo-Kwun the Manipulator, Kum-Sau the Brute, Zhi-Lik the Brain, Yi-Heung the Alien and Ngau-Yun the Temptress – collectively known as Ng Duk, the Five Venoms – were long ago banished and barred by two ancient Djinn heroes. Their tenuous triumph is now sustained by a cult of ever vigilant warrior priests…

The saga further builds in ‘Burn’, by Jimmy & Jerry Ma, as a masked westerner in 19th century China brought poisonous flowers to destroy the people’s way of life, even contaminating the soul of their greatest champion The Commissioner…

The story proper begins in America during the Gold Rush with ‘The Brute – Driving Steel: the Breaking’ by Yang & Krishna M. Sadasivam, as wandering oriental outcast Ifrit and his negro partner John Henry are tricked into breaking the Mirror of Divine Immortals and release the Five Venoms…

Tangential follow-ups then offer a new perspective on an old story in ‘Master Tortoise & Master Hare’ by Howard Wong & Jamie Noguchi, Bernard Chang’s ‘Showtime’ begins a demonic basketball battle resolved on the artist’s own website, whilst ‘Solitary’ (Michael Kang, Edmund Lee & Glenn Urieta) examines the contemporary gang scene and family bonds before ‘Clean Getaway’ (Jamie Ford & A.L. Baroza) perfectly pastiches EC crime comics, complete with faux cover from Tales of the Orient #12…

‘The Temptress’ leads off the next chapter of the ongoing epic with ‘Bai, Bai, Bai Tsai’ by Yang, Martin Hsu & Sophia Lin as the creators reference manga styles to relate how second generation kid heroes Magical Girl, Super Deformed and Hell Kitty solve an ancient mystery and uncover sinister exploitation involving a cancelled cartoon show after which ‘Ching Shih, Queen of Pirates’, by Natalie Kim & Robin Ha, details the history of a 19th century demimonde who uniquely took control of her own destiny.

Another kind of seductress figures in the bittersweet romantic fable ‘The Regrets We Talk About’ by Fred Chao whilst ‘Heroes Without a Country: Tokyo Rose’ from Daniel Jae Lee & Dafu Yu provides a delightfully smart WWII superhero spy-thriller and Amy Chu, Larry Hama & Craig Yeung cleverly recall a bad time for Japanese-American Nisei in ‘The Date’…

A full-colour glossy ‘Gallery’ of concepts and characters follows featuring art and synopses for ‘Adam Warrock’ by Eugene Ahn & Ming Doyle, ‘Revolution Shuffle’ by Bao Phi & GB Tran, ‘Tempest’ from Kai Ma & Eric Kim, ‘The Walkman’ hilariously conceived by Aaron Takahashi & Mukesh Singh, ‘Angry Asian Man’ Phil Yu & Jerry Ma, the utterly enchanting ‘Mei the Alien’ by Koji Steven Sakai & Deodata Pangandoyon, ‘Camp Mech’ by Eric Nakamura & Sara Saedi, and Thenmozhi Soundararajan & Saumin Suresh Patel’s ‘The Death Stalker’…

‘The Brain’ then takes centre stage for the unfolding epic in ‘Hide and Sikh’ from Parry Shen & Jeremy Arambulo wherein the atomic children born of the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki grow into their dormant power and uncover a huge secret of metahuman genesis…

The remainder of the chapter then focuses on the dreaming world described by ‘The Power of Petunia’ (Joy Osmanski & Yasmin Liang), Paul Wei & Chi-Yun Lau’s classy future shocker ‘Drones and Droids’, a parable of High School popularity contests resulting in ‘Camden’s Revenge’ by Keiko Agena & Louie Chin and a darkly traumatic decision made in ‘Metatron’ by Stuart Ng.

Possibly my very favourite tale in this masterful monochrome compilation is Greg Pak & Takeshi Miyazawa’s ‘Los Robos, Arizona’, joyously referencing the wide-eyed wonder of manga boys and their giant alien Mecha as a young cadet is selected by fate to befriend an incredible metal visitor, whilst Ford & Baroza again charm with new nostalgia in ‘A Cut Above’ parodying EC horror with a snippet from Weird Asian Science #46…

The over-epic resumes with ‘The Alien’ in ‘Peril: Welcome to the Terror’ from Keith Chow & Jerry Castro, returning to Goldfield, Arizona in 1900 and an outrage against the Chinese immigrant workers, before jumping to today and a manhunt for a misunderstood hero steeped in the horrors of then and the technology of tomorrow…

Kripa Joshi then takes a swingeing pot-shot at a culture of callous bullying in ‘Miss Moti, Shattered’, Johann Choi reveals the darkness of ‘The Stranger’ and Traci Honda deliciously, wordlessly plays childish games with ‘Personal Monsters’.

Tanji Chopra & Alice Meichi Li take a long dark look at the sordid future of negotiable affection in ‘Weightless’, whilst Angela Veronica Wong, Reinhardt Suarez, Christine Norrie & Craig Yeung explore the endless anticipation of kid superhumans and their insatiable aspirations in ‘A Dream of Flying’, before ‘Fashion Never Dyes’ again displays Ford & Baroza’s delight with EC thrillers by providing a shocker from the tragically non-existent Uncanny Tales of the Yellow Peril #27.

‘The Manipulator’ at last steps up in ‘Hibakusha: Secrets’ by Shen & Sean Chen as a determined team of atomic heroes uncover the clandestine nature of the Arizona scandal in a spectacular action adventure, whilst the ancillary aspects include ‘Push’ (Jennifer S. Fang, Ace Continuado & Julian San Juan) which reveals what happens when Yankee superhero brawn meets studious Asian serial killer planning, whilst ‘Persons of Mass Destruction’, by Gary Jackson & Cesar P. Castillo, offers a chilling dose of metahuman realpolitik in relation to the “threat” of North Korea.

Also on view are Ren Hsieh & Bryan Lee’s alien incursion ‘The Merciful’, stunning kung fu doomsday parable ‘Qi Lai!’ by Roger Ma, Dheeraj Verma & Tak Toyoshima, the indescribably odd ‘Occupy Ethnic Foods’ courtesy of a solo flying Toyoshima, and the gloriously hip strip featuring the maternal tribulations of a rather harried ‘Shadow Hero’ by Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew…

Yang, Shen, Chow & Urieta then bring it all to a triumphal finale in ‘The Sealing’ as the disparate heroes unite to battle the Five Venoms and restore the Mirror of Divine Immortals through an ultimate sacrifice or two, wrapping up this stirring and staggeringly impressive anthology celebration in grand manner.

Finally the publishing project further underscores its debt of thanks to the constantly-changing nature of the American Experiment in illustrated Epilogue. ‘The Vilcek Story’ (by Jeff Yang & Wendy Xu) précis the history of the family of Czechoslovakian Jews who fled to the USA during the years of Nazi atrocity and, after building successful lives, set up a foundation which celebrates and supports the ongoing immigrant experience – and funded this collection…

Combining the best aspects of a vast panoply of storytelling traditions and artistic styles, Shattered is a bold experiment in identity and assimilation that will amaze comics fans in search of something a little different…
Compilation © 2012 Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma. Individual pieces © 2012 each author. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Hereville book 2: How Mirka Met a Meteorite


By Barry Deutsch (Amulet) – Uncorrected Proof copy
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0398-0

After years of disappointing experience I generally prefer to review finished copies rather than previews or proofs: there’s a lot that can change in the final stages and besides there’s far more to a book than content. How it feels, smells and even withstands handling is as crucial as the narrative wonderment inside.

Nevertheless when I was offered this proof copy (originally distributed to attendees of the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con) I jumped at the earliest opportunity to see how the uniquely engaging Mirka Hirschberg had continued on her path to heroic glory. Even in less-than-finished form I just had to see the second Hereville chronicle and discover exactly How Mirka Met a Meteorite…

Suffice to say it was superbly satisfying and you should all be prepared to put up with me reviewing it again once I lay hands on a proper copy…

Mirka Hirschberg is an 11-year old girl in a Hassidic family. That’s not surprising: everybody in parochial, patriarchal, rural Hereville is Jewish and Orthodox. Mirka, however, is a bit different: as well as being intelligent and argumentative, the little rebel is also unconventionally forthright, stubborn and impatient. Thanks to these unfeminine quirks she has become a bona fide sword-wielding hero, the unlikely boss of a politely, cunningly carnivorous troll who is a Guardian of Wonders and grudging Frenemies with an actual witch.

Thankfully for Hirschberg family’s already shaky reputation only three of her 8 sisters (and little brother Zindel) are party to any of this shameful situation although, as usual, stepmother Fruma probably knows far more than she is letting on…

Still, Mirka’s instinctive resistance to thousands of years of tradition (which state that girls are inferior to boys and should thus remain separate from and secondary to male pursuits and occupations) always chafes. Moreover, the strict directive that females should stick to the womanly things they are born for is now harder than ever to understand or accept…

Mirka is a warrior at heart and has many secrets to keep. She has a frivolous and forbidden book under her bed – a catalogue of fabulous beats – consorts with monsters and now has a great big sword to similarly conceal from her generally disapproving family…

Tasked with the care and training of eight girls (and, until he’s old enough, one boy), step-mother Fruma spends most of her time keeping house and drilling her daughters on how to be proper wives and mothers, but she too is forthright, disputatious and very, very wise…

After her duel with the troll Mirka was grounded for the longest time. With no other option she buckled down and even learned to knit – after a fashion – but her duties still bored her and she ached to find foes to fight and menaces to master.

In consequence Fruma took her aside and taught her chess, imparting a modicum of wisdom and lots to ponder to her wayward child.

The games result in Mirka being given her freedom at last, but no sooner does she explode out of the house than she again clashes with bully boys Yitzchok and Manis before wisely running off into the woods.

She searches out the troll and compels him to give her a fencing lesson, but baulks when it turns out to be hard, repetitive work. She also spitefully foments unrest between the macabre monster and the witch, but the scheme goes awry and the troll accidentally summons a meteorite which will smash the hag’s hidden house in 15 minutes time…

Terrified and repentant, Mirka runs a desperate marathon to warn the witch. Just in time the Weird Woman disposes of the hurtling hunk of hot rock and archly assures Mirka that the exhausted girl’s problems have only just begun…

Feeling fully a victor Mirka heads home, but that feeling fades when the two bullies pounce on her and, conveniently ignoring Negiah – the rule forbidding physical contact between unrelated males and females – start to rough her up and shove dirt in her mouth. Suddenly the brutal boys are knocked silly and, turning, Mirka sees that her saviour is herself. A faster, stronger, better Mirka…

Pushy, effusive and so very unladylike, the newcomer explains that she was originally a meteoroid sporting and having fun with her sisters in deep space until she was summoned to Earth by the troll and latterly transformed into a doppelganger of Mirka by the Witch.

Moreover, now that she’s stuck here she wants to stay and have fun – and the first step is to surreptitiously share Mirka’s life…

The idea quickly pales. Even looked after by wise sister Rochel “Metty” is soon the cause of much trouble. The double is a better student and daughter and slowly insinuates herself into the household, not just doing the dull stuff well, but also taking over all the good things Mirka actually enjoyed…

Lonely, hungry and cut off from her family, Mirka is forced to take desperate action and confronts Metty. In response the meteor maid challenges the frail human to three contests: loser to leave Hereville forever…

The battles against her new and improved double don’t go well. Metty is everything Mirka dreams of being and the forlorn, outclassed lass hates her for it. Thankfully Rochel and Zindel have a wise solution in mind, but even then the adventure isn’t over and Mirka gets taken on the ride of her life before finally getting her feet back on solid ground and safely under the full family table…

Once again combining the most admirable aspects of Jewish Identity and cultural character – Family, Faith, Honour, Courage, Loyalty and self-deprecating Humour – with rollicking adventure and supernatural suspense, this second saga of one of the best female characters in all of fiction touches every base.

Readers will experience joy, heartbreak, alienation, redemption and action-packed sheer wonder as the ideal young rebel triumphs over adversity and becomes a far better but not different person in another superb display of graphic narrative mastery.

There are many books and graphic novels dealing with “the Jewish Experience” and even some dealing with the thorny issue of Orthodoxy, but none that so adeptly show that a girl can be such a believably indomitable, tuchus-kicking, day-saving champion. Mirka is a great role model for all youngsters and hopefully the star of many more adventures in the years to come.

Text and illustrations © 2012 Barry Deutsch. Published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite is scheduled for a November 1st release.

Posted on

Ralph Azham volume 1: Why Would You Lie to Someone You Love?

By Lewis Trondheim, coloured by Brigitte Findakly and translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-593-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: one for the boys and girls who grew up but never stopped imagining… 8/10

With over 100 books bearing his pen-name (his secret identity is actually Laurent Chabosy), writer/artist/editor and educator Lewis Trondheim is one of Europe’s most prolific comics creators: illustrating his own work, overseeing animated cartoons of adaptations of previous successes such as La Mouche (The Fly) and Kaput and Zösky or editing the younger-readers book series Shampooing for Dargaud.

His most famous tales are such global hits as ‘Les Formidables Aventures de Lapinot’ (translated as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey), (with Joann Sfar) the Donjon series of nested fantasy epics (translated here as the conjoined sagas Dungeon: Parade, Dungeon: Monstres and Dungeon: the Early Years) and his utterly beguiling cartoon diaries sequence Little Nothings.

In his spare time, and when not girdling the globe from convention to symposium to festival, the dourly shy and neurotically introspective savant has written for satirical magazine Psikopat and provided scripts for many of the continent’s most popular artists such as Fabrice Parme (Le Roi Catastrophe, Vénézia), Manu Larcenet (Les Cosmonautes du futur), José Parrondo (Allez Raconte and Papa Raconte) and Thierry Robin (Petit Père Noël).

Trondheimis a cartoonist of uncanny wit, outrageous imagination, piercing perspicacity, comforting affability and self-deprecating empathy who prefers to scrupulously control what is known and said about him…

His latest English language project (originally released by Belgian outfit Éditions Dupuis in 2001) returns to the realm of anthropomorphic fantasy in a saga designed as six volumes of wryly cynical faux-heroism revolving around failed Messiah and all-around disappointment Ralph Azham.

In his mountainous rural village, teenaged slacker Ralph is barely tolerated. He’s lazy, rude to his elders, constantly flouts authority, is always mouthing off and perpetually gets into trouble. Moreover when he turned blue on the Night of the Double Moon – a certain sign of magical powers and an indicator that one may be the long-awaited Chosen One – he subsequently failed the tests of The Envoy and was ignominiously returned to the village.

Now he’s just an obnoxious waste of space whose only gift is the unnerving ability to tell when someone is pregnant or going to die…

The desolate village is slowly expiring too. Situated in a depressing gully and old riverbed, the place comprises barely a dozen families now; the hard subsistence toil gradually forcing the farmers to emigrate to the less hostile but crowded lowlands. Also, with the annual visit from the rapacious marauding barbarian horde forever looming, the place has precious little comfort or security to offer the dour citizens.

When the elders send Ralph out on a useless herb-gathering mission so they can have a council meeting without his annoying presence, the pariah is accosted by coquettish, scheming Claire who tries to seduce him and make him take her away from it all. After all, a boy with his gifts could surely make some money in the civilised parts of the world…

Ralph spurns her and returns to eavesdrop on the village meeting, but when she follows and forcefully tries again, her big brother Piatch observes everything and attacks in a vain effort to defend her long-spent honour. The running fight crashes through the village and many of the indignant elders join in. When the well-thrashed Ralph furiously exposes many of their marital secrets he finds himself confined to the pigsty for two months by the shamed and outraged citizens…

Later that night his long-suffering father Bastien passes Ralph food and a knife, sadly recalling those distant days when the entire populace thought the boy was their literal ticket to salvation. After all, when the Chosen One was finally found, his mighty powers would totally destroy the terrible threat of predatory conqueror Vom Syrus and save the entire nation.

The whole episode was ill-starred. On their last night together, father and son were trapped in a cave-in and Ralph discovered his unsettling but militarily useless power. Even after they escaped death by suffocation, the airborne pilgrimage to fabled Astolia went tragically wrong – just how bad only Bastien knew for certain – and when the boy was returned to the village the populace’s high expectations soon soured.

They’d been taking it out on Ralph ever since…

In the pigpen Claire tries once more to sway the fed-up and furious boy wonder, but he’s already declined one attempt to help him escape. Wastrel Ralph has no intention of ever leaving his doting dad. Later as Bastien quizzes him on why he’s still there the alarm is sounded. The horde is near…

The village is perfectly divided. Exactly half want to fight whilst the others favour abject surrender and throwing themselves on the invaders’ mercies. Unbelievably, now they desperately need Ralph to settle matters as the tie-breaking vote. The outcast is utterly unable to ignore the irony or resist the temptation to make them all squirm, but he is distracted by the ailing Filbert kid. The lad isn’t very well and it is another night of the Double Moon…

When the militant faction proves to be the most determined to win and acquiesces to Ralph’s outrageous and humiliating demands the vote is cast and the villagers begin building a huge deadfall trap to kill as many Horde raiders as possible, guided by the pariah’s father who was once a military engineer.

As the labours progress, further hidden secrets of Ralph’s interesting time in Astolia are revealed, but even as the weary folk return to their homes the trap is sprung: not by the invaders but rather one of their own.

Sore loser Mortimer knew that only he was right and thus couldn’t abide by the results of the vote…

In the cascade of rocks little Raoul Filbert was injured and as the enraged mob hunt for the new village pariah, forgotten Ralph carries the wounded child to the wise woman Auntie Milla. As she tends to the lad something happens to Ralph too. Soon he realises that his powers have changed and he can see dead people…

When he meets his father he realises that the ghost of the Envoy from his long-ago journey is attached to Bastien and soon the awful  truth of his boyhood trip to Astolia comes tumbling out…

Milla too was part of the conspiracy, and now that Ralph knows the horrible, selfish cause for his years of abuse and ostracization he severs all ties with his father. Suddenly the alarm sounds and the old soldier rushes back to the village where the horde has arrived. Dejected Ralph picks up the sleeping Raoul and follows, but in the dark nobody has noticed that the little lad’s head has turned blue…

In a wild and cataclysmic display of arcane power Raoul destroys half the village and routs the panicked barbarians, but once they have recovered their wits the Horde outriders give chase. However when the azure couple are cornered, Ralph’s new gift and the spirits of the pursuers’ previous victims combine to save them both, before a final cataclysm erupts and wipes out the invaders and most of the village too…

After one final fractious confrontation with the surviving elders, Ralph heads for the plains and summons the latest Astolian Envoy to take him and Raoul to the city where the new Chosen One can be trained. However, as they prepare to take off on the civil servant’s triple-headed winged reptile, Claire rushes up, demanding to join them.

She feels she has the right since her cat ears and tiger stripes have turned a vibrant shade of blue…

Mesmerising and superbly enjoyable, this unfolding epic features a truly intriguing and clay-footed hero in a fantastic world of regrettably shallow and typically callous everyday folk, venal, self-serving and barely worth saving even if a Messiah can be found…

This engagingly sly and witty fantasy adventure tale for grown-ups begins here in a 96-page, full-colour landscape (218x168mm) sturdy hardcover edition and promises to become another must-not-miss epic masterpiece from one of the world’s greatest comic geniuses.

Contents © DUPUIS 2001 byTrondheim. All rights reserved. This edition © 2012 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword


By Barry Deutsch (Amulet)
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8422-6

Win’s Christmas or Chanukah Gift Recommendation: an ideal introduction to other worlds and honest heroics, not just for girls but for everyone… 9/10

There’s fair few graphic novels dealing with “the Jewish Experience” and even some dealing with the thorny issue of Orthodoxy, but I honestly can’t think of another book that features a truly likable girl-child as a bona fide hero – and a traditional, tuchus-kicking, day-saving champion at that.

Mirka Hirschberg is an 11-year old girl in a Hassidic family. That’s not surprising: everybody in Hereville is Jewish and Orthodox. Mirka, however, is a bit of a problem child.

She’s intelligent, inquisitive, stubborn and argumentative: utterly unconvinced and unmoved by the ancient yet still thriving belief and institutionalised tradition that girls are inferior to boys and should stick to what they they’re good at.

Mirka is a rebel and a warrior at heart: she even keeps a forbidden, non-kosher book – a bestiary of monsters – under her bed…

In a family of eight girls and one boy, step-mother Fruma spends most of her time keeping house and training all the daughters on how to be proper wives and mothers, but she too is forthright and disputatious. However she’s old; wise and wily enough not to show it and make waves. Every so often she also proves that she clearly knows far more about everything than she lets on…

When Mirka cunningly gets out of knitting practise again she thinks she’s won a victory, but as they walk through the woods to school little brother Zindel points out the fallacies in his sister’s ploy, citing the disastrous time Mirka told everybody she wanted to be a monster-hunting dragon-slayer…

Suddenly they are confronted by two older boys who have been persistently bullying the baby brother. Yitzchok and Manis are bigger, older and mean, but where Zindel is cowed Mirka is defiant and when her sibling is struck she responds by bouncing a rock off the attacker’s skull.

The young thugs are furious enough to break Negiah (the rule forbidding physical contact between unrelated males and females) and give chase, but Mirka evades them and rushes deeper into the undergrowth. Soon she is lost and stumbles onto a strange, tall house she never saw before.

Hereville is small, closed and insular so an unknown tower – and exotic garden – is a huge surprise… but not as much as the eerie old woman tending a tree by floating in mid-air…

Astonished, Mirka drags Zindel and sisters Gittel and Rochel to inspect the mystery manse. Although the older girls are far more concerned with propriety and their future roles as reputable wives, Zindel is appropriately astounded. However when Mirka picks one of the fist-sized grapes on the fence, a monstrous unknown creature appears. It has hooves, huge ears, a snout and a malign gleam of intelligence in its eyes. With an horrific squeal it chases the formerly-bold thief frantically through the woods, too fast for Rochel to tell Mirka that it’s only a Pig…

It certainly isn’t.

When Mirka recovers her wits she turns and attacks the monster, but it easily beats her and wickedly knocks the breathless girl into a men-only barbecue – and another shameful flouting of the rules of tradition…

The pig isn’t done with her either, and spends the following days hunting and tormenting her: constantly eating her homework, painfully butting and even framing Mirka after it destroyed Fruma’s garden. Of course no one else ever sees the beast…

Mirka’s perpetual harping on is, however, upsetting her sisters. Constantly acting up and shaming the family is having detrimental effects on the sisters’ marriage prospects and the family reputation. So to save the honour of the Hirschbergs, Mirka sets a cunning trap…

Things don’t go quite as she planned. Although the brave lass gets a noose around the swine it easily drags her through the woods before speaking and telling the stunned girl just how much it hates her for despoiling the hidden garden and how it will forever make her pay!

Livid, Mirka attacks again and the furious battle which ensues precipitates them both into a lake. Still battling mightily, Mirka loses consciousness and thinks she sees a benevolent lady cradling her, saving her…

When she reaches the bank and struggles to safety she is still holding the rope and the equally exhausted pig calls a truce, forswearing its eternal vengeance. Free, exultant and smug, Mirka boasts of her victory to her siblings, but when Zindel goes with her to see the site of her victory they find Yitzchok and Manis tormenting the still hog-tied beast by throwing stones. The plucky boy cannot stand to see such cruelty and vainly tries to stop the bullies, but when the savagely turn on him a fighting mad Mirka beats them off with a tree branch and they flee.

Freeing the far from grateful swine, the siblings are then confronted by the strange witch who owns the pig. Refusing to be in Mirka’s debt, the hag divines the lass’ greatest wish and reveals how Mirka can win a hero’s sword worthy of a true dragonslayer…

All she has to do is defeat the highly unconventional troll who currently possesses it and after some oddly fitting advice from Fruma – who apparently knows the witch in the woods and orders her stepdaughter to never see her again – plus another screaming fight with the over-protective Zindel, in the middle of the night, Mirka sets off to win her prize…

Her contraband book and Fruma’s idle musings could not prepare her for the reality of The Troll: a bizarrely erudite terror who is guardian of a host of uncanny treasures. He readily accepts her challenge for he has not yet had breakfast – and chooses as his method of combat the worst of all tests… a knitting contest…

Readily mixing the most enviable aspects of Jewish Identity and cultural character – Family, Faith, Honour, love of debate and reverence for knowledge – with rollicking adventure, sly, surreal humour, supernatural suspense and vibrant youthful rebellion, this first adventure of the redoubtable but fallible Mirka and the Hirschberg clan is a sheer award-winning graphic narrative delight.

Fascinating and subtly informative about a culture most people know too little about, How Mirka Got Her Sword is also a superbly funny and exciting page-turner (beautifully, enchantingly illustrated by a master of the comics form) and a book girls and boys will read over and over again.

This beguiling instant-classic hardback also includes a delightful Sketchbook section disclosing the secrets of ‘Designing the Troll’ to encourage readers to become creators too…
© 2010 Barry Deutsch. Published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Copper

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: still readily available and utterly essential because everybody needs to dream big and wild… 10/10


By Kazu Kibuishi (Scholastic)
ISBN: 978-0-545-09893-9

Every so often a strip comes along that perfectly encapsulates the astonished joyous awe, suspenseful sadness and gleeful terror of being young, simultaneously managing to regress every adult who reads it back to those halcyon days of sheer, wide-eyed wonder. Little Nemo, Pogo, Barnaby, Akiko on the Planet Smoo, Eric Shanower’s assorted forays into the worlds of Oz and especially Calvin and Hobbes all possess that amazing facility to utterly beguile young and old alike, and I’m sure I detect the faintest echoes of all of them in this superb and far too infrequent online series from cartoonist, designer, author and editor Kazu Kibuishi which began life as a kind of personal art-therapy webcomic in 2002.

According to his introduction, Kibuishi – whose other works include the successful Amulet sequence of supernatural junior graphic novels, Explorer – the Mystery Boxes, Flight and other fine graphic marvels – turned an unused T-shirt design into a purely creative exercise during a low period in his personal life.

The monochrome and wordless ‘Rocket Pack Fantasy’ introduced a nervous but inquisitive little kid and his morose dog in a wild-riding daydream, but the real beginning was the full-colour page ‘Big Robot’ – another off-hand tribute to Winsor McCay which gave the characters voices and names in another action-packed dream – after which the boy Copper and his stalwart canine Fred met monsters and pursued an adorable little red-headed girl trapped in ‘Bubbles’.

Fred became stroppier and more surly with every instalment: ‘Waves’ found the boisterous buddies surfing Hokusai breakers whilst ‘Climbing’ found the dog and his boy pondering the pros and cons of scaling the mountains above the clouds and ‘Ruins’ saw an explorer’s enthusiasm brought low by canine pessimism, although they were in total agreement about the necessity of an epic voyage to get genuine Aunt Koko ‘Melon Bread’ – accept no substitutes…

‘Mushroom Crossing’ was the first extended exploit: an 8-page visual extravaganza which found the duo negotiating a chasm via spectacular fungoid stepping stones, before returning to single page thrills such as jogging with the ‘Racing Shrimp’…

Another unobtainable and enigmatic young lady mischievously introduced her dark-haired self in ‘Bridges’ after which Fred humiliated himself before a jury of his peers by performing ‘Somersaults’ and only perked up after a visit to the ‘Tide Pool’.

A baffling world of ‘Freestyle’ art led to a frustrating chase as Copper narrowly missed both his dream girls in ‘Ballads’, whilst a sad seasonal celebration left the oneiric adventurers ‘Blue’ leaving Fred to ponder the perils of venturing ‘Outside’.

‘Picnic’ is a silent 4-page rumination on travel by balloon which first appeared in the aforementioned themed-anthology Flight whilst ‘Fall’ examines Autumnal sensitivities and Fred’s latest bout of amour, before the ramblers return to the seas in time to get caught in a staggering ‘Storm’.

That elusive dark minx then left Fred a little present whilst Copper examined an imaginary ‘Summer House’, but the preoccupied pair missed both her and a cute blonde number in ‘Transit’, after which another seaside excursion on a surfboard offered a very deceptive ‘Lull’ in their action-packed lives…

‘Happy’ introduced a couple of effusively weird and needy characters but building a boat in ‘Sail’ soon restored our unlikely heroes’ grouchy equilibrium and visiting a beautiful ‘Waterfall’ did the same for their contemplative calm.

Outer space beckoned in ‘Mission Control’ but gambling held no fascination for them in ‘Arcade’, although dabbling with Ham Radio ‘Signals’ brought the boy frustratingly close to that little blonde girl, even as his far-from-shopping-savvy canine companion found no solace at all in his latest impulse ‘Purchase’…

‘Dive’ then uncovered the dog’s deepest secrets and the pair soon discovered that robots made great ‘Dancers’ before an 18-page epic (also from Flight) offered a delightful extended exploit as Copper built his own airplane – despite Fred’s help – and they embark upon a truly fantastic ‘Maiden Voyage’…

Even Fred’s pessimistic musings couldn’t spoil a quiet afternoon of the ‘Good Life’, though Copper’s crazy quest for adrenaline thrills – such as leaping off the ‘Jump Station’ – just might. Still, riding a giant turtle in ‘Slowrider’ was pretty restful even if scooter-riding through a bustling ‘Metropolitan’ centre was a mixed blessing…

After hurdling giant flying mushroom ‘Steps’ Fred learned a sad lesson about pet-keeping in ‘Bunny’ before the wanderers encountered the strangest ‘Signpost’ ever and the boy joined a maritime mission in the role of aquatic ‘Observer’. Ruminations on labour then stemmed from messing with ‘Clockwork’ and Fred’s shaky self-esteem got a battering in the ‘Marketplace’.

‘Angler’ proved that the dog just doesn’t get the point of fishing whilst laser-tag received a dramatic boost when the lads played ‘Shooter’.

The beguiling peregrinations in this printed compilation end with an all-original 8-page adventure when the boys go for a walk in the woods and meet a monkey who seems – at first – only interested in their ‘Lunch Pack’. Of course, they couldn’t be more wrong…

This glorious and enthralling chronicle also includes a comprehensive and extremely informative look at the process of webcomic creation in ‘Behind the Scenes’ which will certainly aid any keen would-be creators make their own comics.

Kibuishi happily shares all his work secrets in ‘The Drawing Board’, ‘Thumbnails’, ‘Panels’, ‘Pencilling’, ‘Lettering’, ‘Inking’, before offering some instruction in the scientific arts of ‘Going Digital’ and ‘Colouring’.

Sheer whimsical surreality wedded to exuberant questing creativity, beautifully illustrated with warmth and subtle invention, makes Copper an utterly captivating read for young and old alike. This is a book unafraid to use poignant yearning, loss and introspection as well as slyly gentle humour and bold action and this series – hopefully to resume with new material one day – should sit happy in every nursery and on every family’s bookshelf.
© 2010 Kazu Kibuishi. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Brain Camp


By Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan & Faith Erin Hicks, coloured by Hilary Sycamore & Sky Blue Ink (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-366-3

When I was a kid comics were cheap, plentiful and published in cognitive strands: Pre-school stuff read to you, kindergarten magazines read with someone, “Juvenile” stories for boys and girls together and “Post-juvenile” material you bought for yourself, generally divided by both genre and gender (although that’s not a consequence of old fashioned parochial prejudice these days, but more a sales-sensitive concern when getting simply boys to read anything at all is a tricky problem…).

Irrespective of quality, quantity or historical significance, that long-gone wealth and riot of affordable personal and private entertainment taught kids of all ages how to absorb and enjoy illustrated narratives, but although I can still lay claim to premature juvenility most days, in latter times the sheer cost of producing comics items have all but killed the market. If younger kids read printed comics at all these days it’s almost certainly as graphic novels.

So it’s a good thing that there are so many good ones around and – just like the good old days – separated into bands for kids of differing ages, temperaments, interests and cognitive abilities.

A sterling case in point is this moody, paranoiac fantasy chiller by writers Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan (more usually known as kids’ TV scripter and novelist as well as playwrights), beguilingly interpreted by cartoonist and pictorial tale-teller Faith Erin Hicks, which compellingly addresses children’s issues of parental pressure, self-worth and achievement whilst relating a rollicking rollercoaster scary story…

In the deep woods two kids from a Summer Camp are undertaking an orienteering exercise when one of them is taken ill. One minute Clerkson is his usual obnoxious self and then he’s having a fit, choking, and coughing up feathers…

Soon after in New Jersey, Jenna Chun is still disappointing her go-getting doctor parents with her useless obsession about art, and over in Queens, New York, slacker Lucas Meyer is also a problem for his mother. Stealing cars, goofing off and generally wasting everybody’s time, he’s certainly destined for jail, just like his dad…

However things change radically when mysterious distinguished gentlemen turn up and offer both families a last-minute place for their problem children at Camp Fielding: America’s most successful educational institution for hot-housing failing kids and difficult “late bloomers”. Some all-expenses-paid places have suddenly become vacant, but if the parents want to guarantee that their problem children will grow into successful, contributing citizens one day they must start them the very next day…

Set in isolated woodlands the camp doesn’t seem that different from other Summer catch-up boarding schools but there are a few oddities. No electronic devices, cellphones or games, no outside food  – and the dorm rooms are filthy. There are no lessons or teaching, just activities you can join if you want to, regular time-trials to solve a giant maze in the middle of the compound and, strangest of all for a specialist educational centre, the kids seem to be the usual mix of morons, geeks and bullies, some of whom suddenly become brilliant…

Lucas quickly makes a friend in perennial victim Dwayne, but when the new kid meets fellow late-starter Jenna it’s a case of mutual hate at first sight…

That soon passes as Dwayne and a friendly girl named Sherry clue them in to the lay of the land; which kids to avoid, Cabins Three and Six where the genius boys and girls sleep, and the cafeteria with its nauseating beige and grey goo-food, bizarre nutritional regime and ice cream-based reward system.

Thanks to disgust, stubbornness, ill-grace, Jenna’s first period and Dwayne’s illicit stash of cash, the kids manage to survive without eating much of the goo, whilst their attention is frequently diverted by a range of odd events: strange lights and sounds in the woods, personality and intellect changes in some of the kids, odd lesions and growths on others, and Jenna even finds a strange featherless dead bird behind one of the cabins…

After a night in the woods (somehow nobody noticed she was missing), Jenna makes a map of the area and Lucas decides to use it to run away – at least as far as the nearest fast-food diner. Accompanied by Dwayne and Jenna they set off and discover a secret lab in the woods, where more kids are locked in. Their faces are grossly malformed and they are spitting out feathers. One of them is the presumed flunked-out-and-sent-home Sherry…

Caught and hauled up before Director Fielding, the kids play dumb and are talked out of quitting camp and further disappointing their parents. But whilst eating Pizzas stolen from theCampCounsellors’ regular takeaway deliveries, the trio compare notes and theories, theorising that Fielding is covering up a disease outbreak in hisCampCash-cow.

The boys organise the other kids in their hut to attempt a mass breakout, but in Jenna’s cabin it’s too late: all the other girls have become smart and snarky, cackling at her like crows…

That night Lucas wakes from a disturbing dream about Jenna, and whilst cleaning his shorts in the sink spies two of the counsellors secretly injecting all the sleeping boys with a mystery drug. Next morning before he can tell anyone he realises how much smarter they have all become after the regular maze-run – even Dwayne…

Terrified and using his old bad-boy skills, Lucas hotwires a car and drives off with Jenna but they are quickly caught and returned, just in time for Parents’ Day. Again their punishment is negligible and, after stuffing themselves on the event’s catered food, the pair confront Fielding who surprisingly admits that they were right…

There is a medical emergency amongst the children and unless they also take the vaccine which the staff have been secretly dosing their classmates with, Jenna and Lucas could die horribly, just like Sherry…

Moreover, a side-effect of the necessary drug will increase their intelligence…

Complying with the inevitable Jenna and Lucas take their medicine, and with their intellects rapidly expanding, the still-suspicious kids spy on Fielding and his crew, only to discover the terrible truth: the Director is in league with extraterrestrials, using dumb kids as hosts for alien avian spawn!

Even worse, the conspiracy reaches high up into government and the exploited children’s ambitious parents were in on it from the start…

Something is different however: even with the embryos growing in their heads Lucas and Jenna are still resisting the change-over, still basically themselves, and with time running out, their intelligence increasing every minute and their feelings for each other growing too, they hatch a desperate last-minute plan to destroy the infestation and save all the implanted kids, even if their parents won’t…

Dark, seditious and creepily effective, this is a thriller with a bark and a bite that will satisfy the most demanding teen reader or aged savant, rendered in a loose and beguiling manner that easily combines innocent charm with clinical precision.
Text © 2010 Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan. Illustrations © 2010 FaithErinHicks. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Young Witches


By Francisco Solano López &Barreiro (Eros Comic/Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-202-0

This book is intended to excite adults whilst simultaneously making them laugh, think, and hopefully feel frisky. If the cover image hasn’t clued you in, please be warned that the book contains nudity, images of sexual intimacy but, oddly, not the sort of language commonly used in the privacy of the bedroom (and playgrounds whenever supervising adults aren’t present). If this sort of thing offends you, read no further and don’t buy the thing. The rest of us will just enjoy one of the best graphic novel experiences ever created without you.

Whilst prolific scripter Ricardo Barreiro prefers to quietly let his prodigious works speak for him, his inimitable partner in this and many other comics classics is an unmistakable part of three generations of kids’ lives.

For British and Commonwealth comics readers of a certain age, the unmistakable artistic style of Francisco Solano López always conjures up dark moods and atmospheric tension because he drew such ubiquitous boyhood classics as Janus Stark, Adam Eterno, Tri-Man, Galaxus: The Thing from Outer Space, Pete’s Pocket Army, Nipper, The Drowned World, Kelly’s Eye, Raven on the Wing, Master of the Marsh and a host of other stunning tales of mystery, imagination and adventure in the years he worked for Britain’s Fleetway Publications.

However the master of blackest brushwork was not merely a creator of children’s fiction. In his home country ofArgentinahe was adjudged a radical political cartoonist whose work eventually forced him to flee to more hospitable climes and far less dangerous times.

Francisco Solano López was born on October 26th 1928 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and began illustrating comics in 1953 with Perico y Guillerma for the publisher Columba. With journalist Héctor Germán Oesterheld (a prolific comics scripter “disappeared” by the Junta in 1976 and presumed killed the following year) Solano López produced Bull Rocket for Editorial Abril’s magazine Misterix.

After working on such landmark series as Pablo Maran, Uma-Uma, Rolo el marciano adoptivo and El Héroe, López joined Oesterheld’s publishing house Editorial Frontera and became a member of the influential Venice Group which included including Mario Faustinelli, Hugo Pratt, Ivo Pavone and Dino Battaglia.

López alternated with Pratt, Jorge Moliterni and José Muñoz on Oesterheld’s legendary Ernie Pike serial but their most significant collaboration was the explosively political and hugely popular allegorical science fiction thriller El Eternauta which began in 1957. By 1959 the series had come to the unwelcome attention of the authorities inArgentina andChile, forcing López to flee toSpain. Whilst an exile there he began working forUK publishing giant Fleetway fromMadrid andLondon.

In 1968 he returned to Argentinaand with Oesterheld started El Eternauta II for new publisher Editorial Records, produced sci-fi series Slot-Barr (written by Barreiro) and period cop drama Evaristo with kindred spirit Carlos Sampayo. In the mid-1970s López was once again compelled to flee his homeland, returning to Madrid where he organised the publication of El Eternauta and Slot-Barr with Italian magazines LancioStory & Skorpio.

He never stopped working, producing a stunning variety of assorted genre tales and mature-reader material and erotica such as El Instituto (the subject of this review under its American title Young Witches), El Prostíbulo del Terror (also by Barreiro) and full colour male-fantasy strip Sexy Symphonie.

More serious works included the bleak thrillers Ana and Historias Tristes with his son Gabriel and he also illustrated Jim Woodring’s adaptation of the cult movie Freaks. In recent times, safely home in Argentina he continued to work on El Eternauta with new writer Pablo “Pol” Maiztegui.

López even found time for more British comics with strips such as ‘Jimmy’, ‘The Louts of Liberty Hall’, ‘Ozzie the Loan Arranger’ in Hot-Shot and Eagle as well as ‘Nipper’ and ‘Dark Angels’ for Roy of the Rovers.

Francisco Solano López passed away in Buenos Aireson August 12th 2011.

Latterly his most famous English-language series (six volumes of stunning, shocking erotically charged graphic novels at the last count), The Young Witches debuted in the USA as a 4-issue miniseries from Fantagraphics’ Eros Comics imprint in 1990, the contents of which form the majority of this superbly seductive compilation.

In the winter of 1866, after a troubled labour which took her mother, Lillian Cunnington was born into a minor aristocratic house. When her father, barely married seven months, realised how he had been cuckolded and subsequently took his own life, the baby was sent to live with her maternal aunts Jessica and Agnes Moore inCoventry.

Lilian’s life was harsh and bizarre, growing up with the draconian spinsters who revelled in the era’s taste for corporal punishment and had an entirely unnatural and abiding affection for each other which they frequently indulged, uncaring if impressionable eyes were watching…

In the Spring of 1881 the wilful, self-reliant child was bundled off to a finishing school where she discovered the truth about her past and the secret history of the world…

The Institute was a forbidding edifice set in vast, isolated grounds that took only the most select young girls. After passing a terrifying and shockingly intrusive entrance exam, young Lilian discovered that the school was a haven and training ground for the last remnants of an ancient sub-race of humanity: women with astonishing supernatural abilities…

The other girls were alternately hungry to meet her and resentful – especially as her mother fled the order and abandoned their millennial principles – but when they forcibly subjected her to their own disturbing initiation rites Lilian repulsed them all with an explosive display of unsuspected arcane power…

In her decidedly unconventional classes she learned the history of her kind: how in time-lost Sumer the cult of Ishtar, the Female God was first born, a religion for women which bestowed great power and knowledge on its adherents.

As Aphrodite in Greece and Venus in Rome, the faith continued until the rise of monotheistic Male Christianity sought to enslave and humble women and wipe out the powerful, wanton deviants they termed witches…

Driven into hiding the witches were almost eradicated by the 18th century, when the solitary prophetess Diana had a revelation and began seeking out sister-survivors, believing them by the very fact of their continued existence to be superior beings, honed to a Darwinian fitness.

Drawing them together she devised a plan of conquest to take control of the world by manipulating men of power, wealth and influence, using their addiction to pleasure and the witches’ divine gifts. Through careful planning, judicious infiltration and sublime seduction, the women would subjugate their cruel oppressors…

The work of the institute was to train girls to be the perfect wives of the world’s rulers, using sex as a weapon and clandestinely controlling from the bedroom. Meanwhile the ultimate goal was to produce ever-more powerful witches by only breeding daughters. To accomplish their sacred plan however, the institute harboured two horrific secrets: a thriving trade in selling ideal brides to the debauched scions of theBritish Empire- and the lesser World – and a hideously inbred brood-male who covertly inseminated every girl before her wedding night, ensuring that wherever they ended up Ishtar’s bloodlines remained pure…

Lilian was a problem however. Although the daughter of a failed traitor to the cause, she was also the most powerful witch the school had ever encountered and her rebellious nature was seemingly impervious to reason, discipline or correction.

Moreover she was unwholesomely attracted to young men such as the gardener rather than her own sisters and kind, with no machinations the girls or their grotesquely conniving headmistress could devise able to dissuade her from her disobedient path…

Events came to a cataclysmic head when her rival and classmate Agatha was betrothed.

Ready to go forth and do the Cult’s bidding as bride of aged Lord Wellington, the dutiful disciple was appalled at her impregnation ceremony when confronted by the Institute’s shambling, brutish imbecilic stud male. Agatha baulked and broke down, refusing to commit the act and the enraged Headmistress compelled her with all the violence and brutality she has claimed to be the province of their male oppressors…

Lilian exploded in a display of outrage and indignation and with all the power of the elements the Young Witch lashed out against a lifetime of control, virtual slavery and injustice resulting in a deadly duel of magical will and an apocalyptic conflagration…

In the aftermath Lilian and Agatha fled the shattered Institute forever…

Let’s not stray from the point – these tales are primarily designed to honestly titillate and excite and there’s a huge amount of lavishly rendered nudity, love-making and fetishism on display here. However there is also a strong story, terrific suspense and a heartfelt attempt to say something about gender politics too, and all in a well-researched historical context.

In later tales Lilian and Agatha have encounters with iconic historical and literary figures including Robert Louis Stevenson, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Dr. Henry Jekyll (plus one), Jack the Ripper, Dorian Grey, Sherlock Holmes and others…

This deliciously saucy and salacious sex-and-horror yarn combines the bawdy, breezy, haunted ambiance of classic Hammer Films with sultry, lascivious supernatural suspense in a stunning black and white confection far more enchanting and compelling than any number of shades of grey, and this torrid tome also includes a luscious, full-colour extra erotic charge in the form of a silent, sexy Silly Symphony from Solano López…
© 1990, 1991, 1992Barreiroand F. Solano López. All rights reserved.