Category: Fantasy

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NeMo Balkanski’s FIB Chronicles


By Nemanja Moravic Balkanski & various (the Publishing Eye)
ISBN: 978-0-9868440-0-3

Some creators seduce and beguile but others choose to inform and affect with confrontational shock tactics…

The most wonderful thing about the comics medium is the limitless ways stories and art can be combined to educate, elucidate and entertain. For every Hergé there’s a Harvey Pekar, for every Alfred Bestall a Johnny Ryan (and John Ryan too) and so on, and there are comic strips to suit literally every age and temperament.

Some of the most evocative and addictively uncompromising efforts that I’ve seen in quite a while appear in this collection from Belgrade émigré Nemanja Moravic Balkanski, whose stunningly disturbing spoofs and edgy cultural pastiches have been gathered into a magnificent oversized full-colour hardback FIB Chronicles.

Balkanski was born in Belgrade in 1975 and, after mastering a multitude of artistic disciplines from comics to graphic design, theatre arts to film-making, and poetry to performance, emigrated to Vancouver 2007. Much of this vintage material contained here (also available as an app) come from his Balkan days, represented in this disquietingly substantial and blackly comic tome under the guiding conceit that the individual escapades of a nightmarish cast of distressing ne’er-do-wells and uncanny outcasts have been gathered into a damning dossier thanks to the scurrilous non-efforts of the far-from-intrepid clandestine agents of the Fabulous Investigation Bureau.

The result is a selection of their most atypical observations – presumably leaked here as a wake-up call to unwitting and complacent humanity…

The iconoclastic strips gathered here date from 1998-2005 and, supplemented by new bridging material in a staggering variety of artistic styles, describe a dark and disturbing underworld of barely perceived and unwisely ignored peril and surreal threat wrapped up in careful pastiche and savage parody…

US cop dramas come under the cosh when corruptly hip detective Cash Money experiences ‘Hair Fear’ and tackles feminist terror in ‘W.T.N. Griffit’ whilst tragic, plucky waif Boy Lyndo gets his shot at a happy ever after in ‘The Final Episode’ and the bizarre habits of a cult of Mel Gibson impersonators is exposed in ‘Gipsons vs Graduates’ after which gay lovers walk hand-in-hand down the wrong street in the weird war story ‘Jelly & Butter’ – a yarn conceived by Balkanski’s long-time collaborator Vladimir Protic.

A theatrical slasher-killer appears in ‘Space (the Final Frontier)’ and scatological stoner anthropomorph ‘Bud Bunny’ plays not-so-nice games with the other animals before fashion-plate Eau de Cologne falls foul of the harpy-ish harridans known as the BigDos in ‘Trigger’ and we are exposed to ‘Johnny McWire Getting the Beating of his Life’ and ‘Mr. Friday Night’ goes home alone yet again…

Booze and Balkan warriors come under the microscope one more in ‘Galactica, the Space Bottlesip’ (based on Branimir “Johnny” Å tulić‘s poem “Sons of Bitches”) after which the file devotes a lot of crazed and crucial pages to cybernetic dreamer Digital Standstill‘s climactic confrontation with ‘BigDo’s’ before we observe a salutary encounter with the ‘Psycho from 134th Street’ (scripted by Protic).

The battle against creeping communism is examined in the uplifting tale of ‘Little Mexico: El Dentista’, the nature of modern relationships in ‘It is My Friend’ and the value of introspection in ‘Sam Lr. Stag: His Life was a Drag’ before the life of a fascist monster is dissected in ‘Shalken Rösse’ and we are treated, in conclusion, to the meteoric rise and political acumen of the transcendent of ‘Melon Pig’, courtesy of Protic and Balkanski…

With additional articles, ‘Declassification Files’, a glossary of new words and expressions and even a few game-pages for the strong-stomached, this tainted love-affair with life’s moist and fetid underbelly is a dank graphic delight that not even every mature and cosmopolitan reader will enjoy: but for those with just the right blend of world-weary insouciance and malignant, undemanding innocence the words and pictures married together here will strike an unforgettable chord.

Strident, cruel, sardonically whimsical, overwhelmingly clever and bleakly hilarious in a Kafka meets Steven Wright channelling Bill Hicks kind of way, this absurdist, hauntingly affecting and astonishingly illustrated book is a uniquely entertaining read the brave and bold and reasonably old won’t dare to miss…
All comics © 2011 Nemanja Moravic Balkanski. Everything else All comics © 2011 Nemanja Moravic Balkanski and The Publishing Eye. All rights reserved.

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The Drowned Girl


By Jon Hammer (Piranha Press/DC)
No ISBN:

During the anything goes 1980s the field of comics publishing expanded exponentially with new companies offering a vast range of fresh titles and ideas. To combat this upstart expansion, Marvel and DC also instigated and created innovative material for those freshly growing markets with the latter cartoon colossus especially targeting readers for whom old-fashioned comicbooks were anathema …or at least a long-abandoned dalliance.

DC created a number of new, more mature-oriented imprints such as Vertigo and Helix, but some of the most intriguing projects came out of their Piranha Press sub-division, formed in 1989 and re-designated Paradox Press in 1993.

When DC founded this adult special projects imprint, the resulting publications and reader’s reaction to them were mixed. It had long been a Holy Grail of the business to produce comics for people who don’t read comics and, despite the inherent logical flaw, that’s a pretty sound and sensible plan.

However, the delivery of such is always problematic. Is the problem resistance to the medium?

Then try radical art and narrative styles, unusual typography and talent from outside the medium to tell your stories: you get some intriguing results but risk still not reaching a new audience whilst alienating the readers already on board…

This eclectic and overwhelmingly effective tome was one of the best and simultaneously one of the least appreciated…

Dick Shamus lives in New York City. Not necessarily the one you know but one equally composed of snippets of books, flickers of films and TV titbits all filtered through the fried brains of an incorrigible addict who’s been off his prescription Lithium for far too long now…

Dick Shamus is a Private Eye. If he says so then it’s got to be true, right?

On one night so much like every other, Dick, bombed out of his gourd on his tipple of choice – embalmers’ formaldehyde with a chocolate drink chaser – picks up a useful tip about a Nazi weight-lifting club from one of his usual sources: few of them credible and none of them real…

The drink might be the secret CIA vaccine to prevent AIDS but it sure plays hob with the deductive faculties…

The side of the city only he can see tells the weary, ravaged gumshoe that there’s a connection between the Fascist health fanatics, India and the Drowned Girl – whoever she is – and as his personal reality intercepts and continually collides with the equally outrageous consensus reality the rest of us are stuck with, Dick is carried by events to a tragic and disturbing rendezvous.

If only he could recall who the client was…

Raw and savagely beguiling, the one night’s odyssey of the perceptually challenged Shamus as he weaves between rich bastards, gutter-scum, gullible art-trendoids, yuppie-gentrifiers and armchair anarchists, affable protester-bashing cops and a hundred other “normal” folks in search of his dimly perceived targets…

This disturbing, hard-luck pilgrim’s progress is as truly thought-provoking, hard-bitten, revelatory and socially castigating as the works of Dashiell Hammett, William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Raymond Chandler or Gabriel García Márquez, whilst the brutally unrefined and intoxicatingly vibrant painting of author Jon Hammer makes this perhaps the very best psycho-detective graphic novel you’ve never read.

But all that could change if and when you too track down The Drowned Girl…
© 1990 Jon Hammer. All rights reserved.

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Mike Baron’s The Group LaRue: the Ultimate Gaming Adventure


By Mike Baron, David Campiti, Paul Curtis, Faye Perozich, Andy Kuhn & Chris Tsuda (Innovation)
No ISBN:

Once upon a time Dungeons & Dragons style role playing games were the most compelling and obsessive things kids could do. All over the civilised world bands of youngsters would gather in furtive secrecy to play at being wizards, thieves and heroes with dice and bits of paper. How spoiled modern children must be with their electronic paraphernalia and tolerant parents, but at least it’s not like my distant school days when we just stood in the pouring rain, rolling hoops, hitting each other in the face with 24lb leather footballs and imagined ourselves as heroes by hitting each other with sticks whilst chain-smoking, beer-swilling teachers gazed on uncaringly…

But I digress: the late 1980s were a fertile time for American comics-creators. An entire new industry had been born with the growth of the Direct Sales market and its dedicated specialist retail outlets; new companies were experimenting with format and content, and punters even had a bit of spare cash to play with.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally abated and the country was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be a for-real actual art-form…

Consequently many young start-up companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown resigned to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even smaller companies had a fair shot at the big time and a lot of great material came – and too often, quickly went – without getting the attention or success it warranted.

One of the last to emerge as a contender was Innovation Publishing, founded by David Campiti in 1988, which added canny reprints collections like Bill Ward’s Torchy, Larry Harmon’s Bozo, the World’s Most Famous Clown and Walt Kelly’s Santa Claus Adventures and a judicious accumulation of acquired ongoing titles such as The Maze Agency and Hero Alliance to its deftly imaginative run of original titles like Scarlet Kiss, Cyberpunk, Legends of the Star Grazers, Scaramouch, Straw Men and many others.

The company’s true strength lay in a vibrant specialisation in adapted fantasy properties ranging from Lost in Space, Quantum Leap, Dark Shadows, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Beauty and the Beast and other media sensations to popular literary works such as Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality, Gene Wolf’s The Shadow of the Torturer and a welter of blood-drenched vampire epics based on the horror works of Anne Rice.

At its height Innovation ranked fourth in market share behind Marvel, DC and Dark Horse Comics but intriguingly, one of their earliest failures – a troubled series devoted to the magic of RPG – was, in retrospect, amongst the best yarns in their canon…

Devised and scripted by Nexus and Badger creator Mike Baron the short and sweet saga of the Group LaRue told the tale of five role-playing kids who suddenly realised it wasn’t just a game anymore…

This slim full-colour collection gathers the three issue tale beginning with ‘Enter: the Group LaRue!’ by Baron and illustrators Andy Kuhn & Chris Tsuda, as five Minneapolis kids sneaked into an old deserted mansion to play their weekly game only to be interrupted by a real wizard.

When he was killed by a gigantic spear his magic gem exploded and the play-actors suddenly transformed into the characters they were channelling: a psychic Precog, superheroes Spark and Lead Plate, super-genius Scrambler and a flying Werewolf.

This last was Gil La Rue – whose illusionist grandfather built the abandoned mansion years ago, before suddenly vanishing.

The boy took charge when the villains in their planned game scenario manifest and deadly giant bug-men attack the bewildered kids…

Escaping with their lives the disbelieving players regrouped outside the mansion only to discover that Gil’s house had burned down and his whole family were gone…

Staying with best friend Manny Rhodes AKA Lead Plate, Gil deduced that whatever forces they unwittingly unleashed might well be hunting them all…

And that’s when estate executor Bob Whitney arrived, offering to reveal the secrets and reasons for their uncanny transformations. Apparently the elder La Rue belonged to a cult which covertly guards humanity against supernatural invasion, but now only Gil and his friends are left to carry on the interrupted mission…

Baron was gone by the second issue ‘Thrown for a Loup!’ but scripters Campiti & Paul Curtis carried on the saga with Kuhn & Tsuda faithfully continuing the art chores as the kids reluctantly explored the subterranean netherworld beneath La Rue mansion, battling more bug-things and seeking out the evil sorcerer who controlled them, but it’s soon clear that there was far more to good old Bob than met the eye…

The yarn came to an abrupt end with ‘Bug Out!’ (written by Campiti & Faye Perozich) as the team, still trapped in some otherworldly underground dimension learned the kind of man Bob was and a few basic home-truths such as not all monsters look scary, ugly doesn’t mean evil and especially “there’s no place like home”…

Clever, funny, thrilling and gloriously cathartic in a wholesome all-ages way, this old-fashioned adventure fantasy with a thoroughly modern “happy ever after” was fabulously fun and definitely deserved a longer run and a steady creative team behind it.

Even with the action long over there’s still plenty of enjoyment for modern readers and magic loving fans to discover if they can track down this buried treasure
™ and © 1989 Michael Baron. Product package © 1989 Innovative Corp. Part #1 story © 1989 Michael Baron. Part #2-3 story © 1989 Innovative Corp. Artwork © 1989 Andy Kuhn. All rights reserved.

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Elementals: The Natural Order


By Bill Willingham (Comico)
ISBN: 978-0-93896-508-4

Long before he achieved universal acclaim with his sublime adult fantasy series Fables, writer/artist Bill Willingham first turned comic fans’ heads with a post-modern re-evaluation of the superhero in a series entitled Elementals which took many Fights ‘n’ Tights traditions and turned them on their heads with telling and most pervasive effect.

The team debuted as a back-up tale in the one-shot Justice Machine Annual published by Texas Comics in 1983 and was picked up a year later by new publisher Comico, one of the front-runners in an explosion of new companies which grew out of the 1980s rise of the Direct Sales market and dedicated comics retail outlets.

This enchanting and enthusiastic volume collects that initial introduction and the subsequent first five innovative issues of their own title and opens with ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ by Willingham & Bill Anderson, as master villain Lord Saker demands a situation report from his trusted aide Shapeshifter. She describes how four recently deceased individuals have all inexplicably resurrected, each with the powers and attributes of one of the ancient alchemical elements.

Police officer Jeanette Crane revived with the ability to wield flame and heat and goes by the codename Morningstar, helicopter pilot and Vietnam vet Jeff Murphy has flight, speed and wind-based powers and answers to Vortex, whilst wealthy trust-fund brat Rebecca Golden has become a web-footed green sea-sprite dubbed Fathom.

The last resurrectee is 14 year old Tommy Czuchra: a disturbingly brilliant, adult and coldly rational boy-genius who can transform at will into a colossal Monolith of soil and rock.

Each of the quartet died in accidents directly related to their new conditions as avatars of Fire, Air, Water and Earth.

Saker is apprehensive: his centuries-old mystic master-plan is nearing fruition and now these supernatural agents have inconveniently manifested. When he dispatched his personal metahuman hit-squad, the Elementals easily routed them. Only Shapeshifter survived to report the bad news…

The series proper began with ‘The Spontaneous Generation’ (Willingham & Michelle Wolff Anderson) as the unlikely and reluctant heroes consult with Rebecca’s dad – a major league New York lawyer – about their situation. In this highly realistic and rational world, superpowers have only ever been the stuff of comicbooks, but now here they are alive again with incredible abilities, having just fought human chameleons, dragons and monsters…

Moreover, they each oppressively remember the pain and horror of dying but have no idea how or why they have returned…

And that’s when FBI spook Porter Scott turns up…

Meanwhile Saker’s remaining superhuman resources (Shapeshifter, Behemoth, Ratman, Electrocutioner, Annihiliator and Chrysalis) attack; ambushing the team during a lunch in the Seattle Space Needle, oblivious to the hundreds of civilian lives endangered in the assault. Once again outmatched the bad guys retreat, taking Fathom’s dad hostage…

After a ‘Destroyers’ pin-up by Willingham and Neil Vokes the drama resumes in ‘Angel of Light’ as some time later the Federal authorities – in the forms of Major General Benjamin Franklin Richter and NSA Special Agent William Lyons – discuss the National Crisis that has developed since the Elementals surrendered themselves to save David Golden.

Simultaneously, over the villain’s hidden citadel Nacht Island, the Elementals have broken free and are again devastating Saker’s Destroyers as well as his large army of fundamentalist soldiers: all willing zealots to his arcane cause.

Although the battle goes well in ‘Birds of Prey’ (inked by Rankin) the heroes are unprepared for the wizard to draw more power from his apparently infernal patrons and blithely unaware that Vortex has been killed and partially consumed by Ratman…

Even so the Elementals are clearly winning and look likely to end the affair quickly until Saker himself intervenes…

A year passes.

In ‘The Mean Seasons’ (Willingham, Herman & Rankin with added assistance from Dave Johnson, Mike Leeke & Bill Cucinotta) the Alchemical Allies have been prisoners all that time and Saker is close to his endgame, activating his agents in the Federal Government and readying himself to unleash the horrifying Shadowspear. As the sorcerer readies himself to destroy the world Jeff has almost fully recovered and his revenant comrades are also preparing for one last sally…

Saker has discerned that the Elementals do not age and cannot be killed by any means he can devise, but has unwisely formed an intellectual relationship with Tommy: foolishly disclosing his tragic and painfully unjust biblical origins and the reason he wants to see God’s creation unmade.

The Mage’s biggest mistake was believing that the seemingly broken foursome had given up and the cataclysmic Saves-the-Day climax of ‘Riders of the Storm’ (Willingham, Herman & Rankin) is both stunningly epic and superbly chilling…

Although the characters are not themselves particularly innovative the hard-headed, cynical and ruthlessly pragmatic manner in which Willingham and later author Jack Herman used them was a landmark breakthrough. As much as Alan Moore’s take on Marvelman, the Elementals always seemed to work in the most plausible and perhaps only possible manner our world could operate if men became modern gods and monsters.

The Natural Order is one of the very best superhero yarns of the era and still holds up incredibly well: slick, savvy, distressingly mature and savagely cynical.

If you want Adult Fights ‘n’ Tights thrills hunt down this magical masterpiece and enjoy the End of the World as we know it.
© 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988 William T. Willingham. All right reserved.

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The Names of Magic


By Dylan Horrocks & Richard Case (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-888-4

Way back when Neil Gaiman was just making a name for himself at DC he was asked to consolidate and rationalise the role of magic in that expansive shared universe. Over the course of four Prestige Format editions a quartet of mystical champions (thereinafter known as “the Trenchcoat Brigade”) took a London schoolboy on a Cook’s Tour of Time, Space and Infinite Dimensions in preparation for his becoming the most powerful wizard of the 21st Century, and an overwhelming force for Light or Darkness.

Shy, bespectacled Timothy Hunter (co-created by John Bolton) was an ordinary lad unaware of his incredible potential: a natural but untutored magical prodigy (and yes, I know who he looks like but the series came out eight years before anybody had ever heard of Hogwarts, so get over it).

In an attempt to keep him righteous the self-appointed mystic guides provided him with a full tutorial in the history and state of play regarding The Unseen Art and its major practitioners and adepts. However, although the four guardians were not united in their plans and hopes for the boy, the “other side” certainly had no doubts. If Hunter could not be turned to the Dark he had to die

The Books of Magic spawned a 75 issue run of issues under the Vertigo imprint plus attendant annuals, mini-series and spin-offs as the neophyte sorcerer struggled to find his way and learn the craft, aided and/or hindered by sort-of girlfriend Molly and a hidden personal history akin to a colossal, convoluted cosmic onion skin. His enigmatic lineage and true origins remained a crushing, crippling but crucially important mystery – especially since all the mystic powers of this world and many others either wanted him dead or enslaved…

By 2001 and the advent of this excellent tome (collecting the five-part Names of Magic miniseries) Hunter is a lonely, isolated fourteen year old runaway with no past, roaming the streets of London. His loving family have been exposed as fakes and surrogates, he’s lost or been abandoned by all his human associates and the final reeling shock was finding out that his real mother was Titania, Queen of Faerie and his sire her mortal falconer and plaything Tamlin…

However when he is simultaneously attacked by a raiding party of the Theena Sidhe from the Higher Realms and a politically influential mortal magician’s cult in ‘Invocation’, Tim is rescued by a sword-wielding stranger and old mentor Dr. Occult and his life is once again collapsing around his ears…

The stranger is Ash; a Walker and one of a hidden human brotherhood who police the ancient magical places of Earth, charged with taking the unwilling boy on a pilgrimage down those venerable lost paths to save his life and find his calling.

The Rosicrucian sages of The Cold Flame of the Golden Lotus, who want to co-opt Hunter’s power or negate his threat potential, have been embedded in the fabric of British Society for centuries and soon have their media tools and pet coppers on the trail whilst the rival Faerie stalkers – supposedly under a truce to leave Tim alone – rely on their own arcane methods to relentlessly pursue the fugitives…

When man and boy rendezvous with the “Trenchcoat Brigade” in Cornwall it is decided to closet the lad at the puissant magical college known as the White School where he can be safely trained in the use of his incredible powers.

Of course, there’s a snag: to enter a student must simply utter their True Name but when Tim tries he discovers that even his own identity is a lie…

Reeling in shock at the School gate, Tim and Ash narrowly escape a police ambush in ‘Trust’ and the boy almost succumbs to a beguiling spell from Lotus master Mr. Lily before stumbling into another Faerie trap. It appears that one clan of Fair Folk has made a pact with the eternal enemy of The Unseelie Court to destroy Tim, but the fugitives turn the tables on their hunters and Tim saves one of them from death, binding her into an unbreakable debt that she must repay twice-over…

‘Secrets’ sees Tim and Ash recruit modern Pagan “Bearclaw” Clarke to their Spirit Quest. However the Cold Flame close in and a police raid disrupts the astral journey before any secrets can be uncovered. Ruthlessly shooting their way out, the trio take ‘Flight’, daringly hiding deep inside the Faerie Kingdoms.

On Earth Mr. Lily turns his attention to Tim’s lost love Molly in his attempts to trap the young mage whilst, after a climactic struggle in Elfland, the seekers are captured and dragged before High King Auberon who denies all knowledge of Tim’s troubles. The Faerie Lord swears to ferret out the renegades working with the Seelie Court, and Tim finally learns his True Name, just before Iolanthe, eager to expend her onerous debt, warns him that he’s walked into another trap…

Battling free, the fugitive four head back to Earthly Cornwall where they wait helplessly for their following foes – both Faerie and Cold Flame – to converge for a final assault. With their backs to the sea and sure death approaching on all sides Tim and crew take refuge in tourist trap Merlin’s Cave, where as the various factions slaughter each other to get to him, the boy finds a hidden door and discovers the whole and unexpurgated ‘Truth’…

Although a series with a lot of highs and lows and one which never really lived up to its promise, Books of Magic was a popular early foray into mature comic publishing for Vertigo and subsequent returns to the characters have proved quite impressive.

Here Dylan Horrocks and illustrator Richard Case – augmented by cover artist Bolton – have recapitulated and reconfigured the past whilst crafting a compelling and enjoyable fantasy yarn that reads well, looks great and stands solid enough on it own to easily serve as an introduction to the saga of Tim Hunter.
© 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Freaks!


By Nik Perring, Caroline Smailes & Darren Kraske (The Friday Project/HarperCollins)
ISBN: 978-0-00-744289-8

We’ve all been in the know for years, us comics fans, but it’s only recently that the big wide world got into the whole mind-boggling realm of superpowers and scary monsters. With such self-aware and crafty shows as Misfits, Being Human, No Heroics and even US imports like as No Ordinary Family, Alphas, The Cape and numerous others, the concept of powers and abilities which take us above and beyond the norm have become as much part of common parlance as “Beam me up Scotty” and “These are not the droids you’re looking for” – and remember when grown-ups and your dad had no idea what those meant either?

Freaks! is a stunning collection of themed prose pieces ranging from compulsively brief vignettes to devastatingly effective epigrams which examine the concept of having a super-power, from the broadly literal such as ‘The Photocopier’ wherein the daughter of a lady who can duplicate herself waits impatiently for her own gift to develop, or ‘Statuesque’ wherein a passionate woman gradually petrifies herself, to far more cerebral and metaphysical forays into the weird world like the bittersweet ‘Clipped Wings’, heartrending ‘Invisible’ or piteous ‘Fifty Per Cent’…

Some are just plain creepy like ‘In her Basket’ and ‘Faulty Baby’ or gut-wrenchingly horrific as with ‘The Boner’ or ‘Damaged’…

Sometimes you can only stop and wonder if the abilities are real at all or just in your head…

Or theirs…

Blending paranormal paranoia with self-delusion and pitting incisive, instinctive intuition against genuine contemplative otherworldliness, these yarns by Carol Smailes and Nik Perring (working individually and in tandem) describe ordinary folk with uncanny gifts and extraordinary people who have mastered the mundane horrors of the world.

These 47 individual slices of kitchen sink fantasy are written with scathing wit, measured surreality, biting venom and shattering poignancy, all graced and augmented with lavish and plentiful monochrome illustrations by author/artist Darren Kraske.

If you’re looking for alien invasions or flamboyant punch-ups you’ll be left wanting, but if you fancy some exceedingly adult and mostly mature laughs and tears, a few chills and a lot of clever, thought-provoking entertainment then Freaks! is definitely the book for you.
© 2012 Caroline Smailes and Nik Perring. Illustrations © 2012 Darren Kraske. All rights reserved.

This book is part of publisher HarperCollins’ experimental Friday Project where the traditional modes of book creation are augmented by concentration on new digital technology and disciplines as well as innovative methods of acquiring, publishing, selling and promoting their product. For more details you should check out http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/about-harpercollins/Imprints/the-friday-project/Pages/The-Friday-Project.aspx
To learn more about the creators please go to http://www.carolinesmailes.co.uk/
http://nikperring.com/ and http://theargonautsalmanac.blogspot.com/
Freaks! is scheduled for release on April 12th 2012.

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Legends of the Stargrazers Book 1


By Cynthy J. Wood & David Campiti, Matt Thompson, Tom Yeates & various (Innovation)
No ISBN:

It’s hard to deny or justify, and sometimes a little embarrassing to explain these days, but for a goodly proportion of readers, comics have always been a source of low-level, innocent titillation.

In the far-off days when comicbooks were expressly for kids, scantily clad, perfectly sculpted exemplars of the human form – female and male – were perhaps the first introduction to innocent psyches of the turbulent world of sex and relationships and sex and hormones and sex, so it’s not surprising that there’s a whole fan sub-culture dedicated to Cheesecake (also, to be fair and to a lesser extent, Beefcake) collectively known as Good Girl Art.

From the late 1980s onward with internet porn and far more explicit (photographic) publications readily accessible to youngsters, you would have thought that the simple allure of drawn hotties and totties would have waned but you’d be wrong. Some folk just seem to prefer illustrated hormonal icons to “real” (albeit implausibly airbrushed or photoshopped) ones…

Artists skilled in delineating these impossibly perfect visions number amongst our most celebrated but the stories generally took a back-seat as the characters posed and strutted in beguiling, distracting and generally improbable fashions and stances, so it’s nice to be able to cite a rare occasion when plot and dialogue were as well developed as the stars’ physical characteristics…

The Legends of the Stargrazers was created by Cynthy J. Wood and Innovation publisher David Campiti as a light-hearted space-opera in 1989, running six issues and almost immediately collected as two of the industry’s earliest trade-paperback graphic novels.

The premise is both simple and enchantingly beguiling: in the future humanity has spread throughout the galaxy, bringing commerce and advancement to many races: and of all the independent traders plying the space winds the strictly female crews of vessels calling themselves Stargrazers are the most successful.

This initial volume opens with ‘Here be Dragons’ by Wood & Campiti, drawn by Matt Thompson and inked by Randy Elliott & Nestor Redondo, which introduced Captain Rachel Lacey, Sherree Rhys-Holm, Karry Vistaas and Carla Withers; the all-girl crew of Stargrazer merchant ship Crock of Gold, plying their trade across the galaxy and dreading the arrival of their latest recruit-replacement.

It’s a cut throat, hand-to-mouth life of boom and bust for the traders and the last thing they need is to be breaking in another star-struck newbie. Even after the appropriate winnowing process the successful candidate seems painfully typical: cute, perky, hyper-enthusiastic…

However apprentice trader Julie Green is a girl with an astonishing secret…

During her first voyage, after a fairly typical piece of business which ended up in the usual fire-fight and frantic flight, Julie witnesses an incredible sight – the first appearance in decades of the almost-mystical sun-feeding space dragons from which the Stargrazers took their name.

Enthralled she learned the voyagers’ secret history and the cosmic connection between the fantastic creatures and the fleets of star-wanderers who will do anything to protect the fabulous saurians from unscrupulous planet-dwellers…

‘The Smithfield Incident’ holds a story within a story as the crew rescue imperial super-spy Smithfield Cobb from certain death in deep space only to slowly fall under the sway of his irresistible manly charm and artificially-enhanced pheromone count. Cobb is the Empress’ secret weapon in an ongoing war against rebel forces and this tale is little more than a framing sequence for his solo story ‘Libretto’ (by Campiti, Tom Yeates & Rick Bryant, and looking suspiciously like a tale left over when early Indy pioneer Pacific Comics went bankrupt).

Rendered in the manner of classic Al Williamson’s EC sci fi thrillers, the flashback saga of Cobb’s clash with rebel agents and love affair with the soul of a planet adds a hint of stabilising tragedy to the flash-and-dazzle light-heartedness of the Stargrazers’ exploits, as he drags the neutral merchant maids into conflict with Rebellion forces. However his philandering tactics backfire and Cobb learns a salutary lesson when the girls switch his prized info tape for Julie’s diary… without her knowledge or permission…

‘Ghost Ship’ finds the girls enjoying a rare shore-leave when Lacey is framed for illegal trading, piracy and slave-taking. The furious Captain immediately takes off in pursuit of impostors using her name and discovers not only the secret of the mythic phantom star-trader Vanderdecken but also uncovers a race of men like angels who have an unsuspected connection to Julie…

This first collection concludes with ‘Gossamer’ as the origins of the winged men are revealed and the history of humanity’s expansion into space is disclosed.

To Be Continued…

Although certainly designed and intended as captivating but cheesy eye-candy, the broad scope of this fantasy saga and the light touch of authors Wood and Campiti, packing their scripts with wry humour and sci fi in-jokes, elevates Legends of the Stargrazers far above the usual “look, don’t think” level of Good Girl material and it’s a genuine pity the series died so young.
™ and © 1989 Cynthy J. Wood & Innovative Corp. Main story artwork © 1989 Matt Thompson. “Libretto” art © 1989 Tom Yeates. All rights reserved.

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Gig Posters volume 2: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century


By Clay Hayes (Quirk)
ISBN: 978-1-59474-543-0

Although a little on the fringe of what we usually look at here, this superb and humongous (282 by 356mm) full-colour art-book thumped onto my in-tray recently and I will admit to being rather blown away by the contents. I make no apologies but happily stress for nit-pickers that since Now Read This is dedicated to plugging stories told through or in conjunction with graphic art – and even typography – Gig Posters volume 2 contains some of the most impressive, varied and arresting modern images I’ve seen in quite a while…

GigPosters.com began in 2001 as an on-line historical vault for music art where browsers could view a vast resource of music related design, concert posters and contemporary nostalgia. It quickly became The Place for jobbing artists, designers, printer-makers and performing artists from around the globe to showcase their talents. In 2009 a giant book containing 700 of the very best images with 101 of those as full-page, ready to frame/hang/nail/blu-tack or otherwise affix to your personal vertical spaces was released. Naturally the book was a tremendous success and this spectacular sequel followed in 2011…

Within these immense pages are works by Adam Pobiak, Alan Hynes, Alana Bailey, Altieri Art, the Ames Bros, Anville, AS Printing Press, Atzgerei, Baker Prints, Blackheart Studios, Ben Wilson, Broken Press, The Bubble Process, The Bungaloo, Chicken Billy, Clint Wilson, Clinton Reno, The Comet Substance, Concepción Studios, Craig Horky, Craig Updergrove, David V, D’Andrea, Dead Meat, Dirty Donny Gillies, DKNG, Doe Eyed, Doublenaut, Douze Studio Dresden, Dr. Alderete, Droid, Empire Press, Erick Montes, Frida Clements, Ghost-Town Studio, Graham Pilling, Gunsho, The Half and Half, Hatch Show Print, Hyp Inc, Idiot or Genius?, Insurgentarts, Iron Canvas Studios,

Iskra Print Collective, Isle of Printing, Ivan Minsloff, James Flames, Jeral Tidwell, Jeremy Wilson, Jim Mazza, Joe Whyte, John Howard, Johnny Sampson, Justin Santora, Kill Hatsumomo Prints, Kunny van der Ploeg, Landland, Madpixel Art and Design, Mara Piccione, Mark McCormick, Mark Sgarbossa, Marq Spusta, Matt Terich, Maximum Fluoride Killustration, Mike Saputo, Mike Weihs, Mile 44, Nat Damm, Nerl Says Design, Nick DuPey, Petting Zoo Prints and Collectables, Pfahlert Creative Labs, Punchgut, R. Black, Rich Kelly, Robbie Fuct, Ryan Duggan, Scott Campbell, Scraped Knee Studios, Scrawled Design, Shawn K. Knight, The Silent Giants, Small Horse Studio, Sonnenzimmer, Spike Press, Standard Deluxe, Inc., Standard Design, Status Serigraph, Subject Matter Studio, Switchopen Illustrations, T-Bone & Aljax Production and Design, Tim Huesken, Tom Bagley, Traci Edwards, Two Arms, Inc., Two Rabbits Studios, Tyler Stout, Uglybogus, Us & Them, Weapons of Mass Design, Weathermaker Press and Will Ruocco.

The acts promoted and commemorated in these stunning pictures range from household names (well, in my household anyway) to local phenomenons and up-and comers: Green Day, Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, Flight of the Conchords, Rage Against the Machine, Ra Ra Riot, Norah Jones, Slayer, Sonic Youth, Devotchka, Bonny Prince Billy, Cake, Linkin Park, Ween, Death Cab for Cutie, Marianne Faithful, Wu- Tang Clan, Helmet, Duran Duran, Yob and many, many more…

Since 1977and the Punk Revolution, music and comic art have continually fed off each other and many of the images in here will seem like old friends to fanboys and art lovers. Many of them will inevitably inspire new comic images…

© 2011 Clay Hayes and Gigposters.com. All rights reserved. All artwork courtesy and copyright of individual designers or design studios.

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The Art of Sketch Theatre volume 1


By various (Baby Tattoo Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61404-003-3

“Sketch Theatre exists for one express purpose – to expose you to the myriad career opportunities available for creative individuals. Whether you’re interested in comics, tattooing, painting, illustration, graphic design, fashion, animation, creating films or making music, there are more opportunities for artists today than there have ever been in history.

Through Sketch Theatre, we hope to inspire you to the realisation that if you are an artist, that it is more than ok – it is a gift that holds no shame in being fulfilled.”

Sketch Theatre is an online forum and showcase where creators post works plus those so-crucial intervening stages of development for the inspiration, encouragement and edification of others touched by the hunger to make art and this superb oversized hardback compilation offers four pages each to 57 of the many contributors who are part of the experiment.

The philosophies and efforts of the many painters, illustrators, animators, games designers, film industry Creatives and other less definable professional imaginers combine to form a stunning and beguiling catalogue of fantasy and facility that is both breathtaking and powerfully galvanising.

This staggeringly impressive collection and celebration of modernist imagery, craft, skill and imagination blends a broad array of artistic techniques and styles with the iconography and memories of cartoons, comics, television, toys, movies, street culture, music, body art and a million other unforgettable creative delights into a high gloss, stunningly lavish exploration of modern culture.

The sketches, designs and finished works here range from the horrific and bizarre to the disturbingly lovely and the creators responsible are understandably proud of their work…

Contained in this first volume are the efforts of Aaron Sims, Aimée Kuester, Alex Alvarez, Alvin Lee, Amy Botello, Ana Bagayan, Apricot Mantle, Axel #13, Brandi Milne, Brian Smith, Cameron Davis, Charles Hu, Chet Zar, Chris Ryniak, Christian Lorenz-Scheurer, The Chung!!, Corey Miller, Daphne Yap, Dave Dorman, Dave Hill, Fred Harper, Gene Guynn, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Gris Grimly, Jeff McMillan, Jessica Ward, Jon Beinart, Jon Schnepp, Jordu Schell, Kali Fontecchio, Lola, Luke Chueh, Mark Gabbana, Mari Inukai, Marshall Vandruff, Meats Meier, Michael Broom, Michael Hussar, Miss Mindy, Molly Crabapple, Munk One, Nat Jones, Nate Frizzell, Nick Baxter, Nicholas Villareal, Rick O’Brien, Ron English, S. Fisher Williams, Sam Shearon, Shawn Barber, Steven Daily, Sze Jones, Tara McPherson, Terryl Whitlatch, Tom Baxa, Travis Louie and Wayne Barlowe.

These astonishingly compelling confections (skewed heavily towards the scary, phantasmagorical and chillingly seductive) are presented in a deluxe, wonderfully large (305x229mm) 240-page tome format in eye-popping colour and this exquisite compendium is a fabulous goad for anybody who’s ever regretted growing up, putting away their toys and pencils a little too soon or recently felt the guilty sting of unrequited unadulterated artistic frustration…

All artworks © 2011 by their respective artists; their respective representative(s) and/or their respective copyright/trademark holders. All rights reserved.
For more see sketchtheatre.com

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Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales of Horror


Adapted by Richard Corben & Rich Margopoulos (Catalan Communication/Del Rey)
ISBNs: Catalan signed hb 0-87416-013-8   Del Rey pb 978-0-34548-313-3

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: a legendary animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist surfing the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in pictorial storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. He is renowned for his mastery of airbrush and captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and infamous for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror and beguiling eroticism in his fantasy and science fiction tales. He is also an acclaimed and dedicated fan of the classics of gothic horror literature…

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. This collection gathers a number of adaptations of works by Godfather of eerie fantasy Edgar Allan Poe, first seen in issues of Creepy magazine between 1974-1975 and in Pacific Comics’ A Corben Special in 1984.

This superb hardback Catalan collection was re-released in 2005 in softcover by prose publisher Del Rey Books in July 2005.

The terror commences with the moody monochrome madness of ‘The Oval Portrait’ (from Creepy #69, February 1975 and adapted by writer Rich Margopoulos, as were all the Warren originated stories here) wherein the wounded survivor of a duel breaks into an abandoned chateau to recover and falls under the sinister spell of a beguiling painting and seductive journal…

‘The Raven’ is a fully airbrushed, colour phantasmagoria from Creepy #67 (December 1974) which perfectly captures the oppressive majesty of the classic poem, as is the next macabre vignette wherein the focus shifts to ancient Greece and the inevitable approach of death amongst the warriors at a funeral: a wake tainted by an invisible ‘Shadow’ (Creepy #70 April, 1975).

The obvious and worthy star turn of this tome is the artist’s own adaptation of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, created for the comicbook A Corben Special in May 1984 and here expanded and reformatted for the larger, squarer page of this European album.

Traveller Edgar Arnold is trapped in the bilious swamp where the ancestral seat of the ancient Usher clan is slowly dissolving into the mire that surrounds it.

The tainted blood of the melancholic master Roderick and his debauched clandestinely closeted, sumptuously seductive, deranged sister Madeline proves certain to extinguish the family long before the dank Earth reclaims the crumbling manse, but if it doesn’t Roderick is determined to expedite matters himself.

Madeline however, has other dreams and desires and is not above using her unique charms to win her objectives…

Corben – with the assistance of colourists Herb & Diana Arnold – perfectly captures the trenchant, doom-laden atmosphere, erotic charge and cataclysmic denouement of the original and this seminal, seductive work is undoubtedly one of the very best interpretations of this much-told and retold tale.

The artist’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives has never been better exemplified than with these immortal stories and this is a book no comics or horror fan should be without.
© 1974, 1975, 1984, 1985 1993 Richard Corben and Richard Margopoulos. All rights reserved.