Category: Fantasy

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Grimjack: Demon Knight


By John Ostrander & Flint Henry with an introduction by Roger Zelazny (First Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-91541-970-8

Grimjack originally appeared during the American comic industry’s last great flourishing in the 1980’s. Created by playwright John Ostrander and Young Turk Tim Truman as a back-up feature for Mike Grell’s Starslayer, the series ran in issues #10-18 before graduating to its own title at First Comics. It almost survived the company’s demise more than a decade later. In a crowded marketplace, and almost irrespective of who was doing the drawing, this hard-boiled-detective/fantasy action strip was a watchword for quality entertainment.

The ’80s were a fantastic time for comics creators and consumers. It was like an entire new industry opening up within the original, moribund mainstream; the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist retail outlets allowed new companies to start experimenting with format and content, whilst punters had a bit of spare cash to play with. Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally dissipated – the country was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be an actual art-form…

Consequently many new companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their four-colour kicks from DC, Marvel Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been slowly creeping in but by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse and First among others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads into traditional markets.

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. Chicago-based First Comics was an early frontrunner, with Frank Brunner’s Warp, Starslayer and Jon Sable from Mike Grell and Howard Chaykin’s iconic American Flagg!, as well as an impressive line of comicbooks targeting a more sophisticated audience.

In 1984 they followed Marvel and DC’s lead with a line of impressive, European-styled over-sized graphic albums featuring new, out-of-the-ordinary comics sagas (see Time2, Time Beavers, Mazinger or Beowulf to see just how bold, broad and innovative the material could be)…

John Gaunt is a perpetually reincarnating warrior-mercenary calling himself Grimjack: a combination private eye, Ronin and problem-solver-of-last-resort, just scratching out a living in the fantastic pan-dimensional city of Cynosure. This incalculably vast metropolis intersects with every place in the multiverse at one time or another and the strangest of the strange inhabit its core regions.

All manner of beings constantly rub shoulders (if they have them) with gods, monsters, robots and things less quantifiable in a cruelly capitalistic commercial wonderland where the laws of physics can change from house to house but the law of supply and demand is utterly inviolable…

In his long lives Gaunt has been many things, but first and foremost he is a hero of the Demon Wars – a period in Cynosure’s history when the city overlapped the assorted regions of Hell and unspeakably vile devils from a host of infernos ran amok in the metropolis until the valiant Demon Knights drove them off forever.

Now, in this all-new tale, Gaunt is hired by the Office of the Chronost-Marshall to find who has interfered with the city’s chronology, unleashing a devastating time-storm. Surly, rebellious and unpleasant, Gaunt is still the only operative tough and crazy enough to brave the fourth dimensional vortex and shut down the maelstrom. Unfortunately, he never reckoned on stumbling into his own tragic past and meeting again his one true love…

As the Demon Wars reached their crescendo long ago a sorely wounded John Gaunt stumbled into a paradise dimension named Pdwyr and found brief bliss with the glorious, pacifist princess Rhian, before his companion Major Lash betrayed the entire race to the infernal hordes and watched their paradise become a last bastion of Hell…

Now Gaunt has arrived in Pdwyr once more – just after his earlier self departed – and faces the ultimate temptation: changing history to save the only woman he ever loved and the only place he ever felt at peace, or letting events unfold again in all their horrific predestined brutality…

Whatever he decides will be wrong…

The combination of cynical dry wit, mordant, bitter-edged fantasy and spectacularly imaginative action made Grimjack one of the best series of the era and the ghastly human tragedy of this epic aside is a treat no comics fan should miss. Moreover, this graphic narrative, beautifully illustrated by Flint Henry and colourist Martin Thomas, is designed with new readers in mind so there’s no reason for anyone to avoid a brutally magical encounter with a genuine original of the genre(s)…
© 1989 First Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: Little Snow White, The Three Sluggards & The Shoemaker & the Elves


Adapted by David Wenzel & Douglas Wheeler (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-130-8

The immortal German folktales gathered by historians, philologists and lexicographers Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm have been told to enthralled generations of children all over the planet for nearly two centuries – they were first collected and published in 1812 – becoming an intrinsic part of human life. However these dark and powerful parables – they all have meanings and moral, after all – became increasingly enfeebled and sanitised over the decades as parents, entertainment purveyors and educators constantly diluted the details for their own reasons.

Here scripter Doug Wheeler (Swamp Thing, Classics Desecrated) and fantasy artist Dave Wenzel (Warlords, The Hobbit) return to the source material – but not too slavishly – for a dark and luscious pre-interpretation of three of the original classics in a glorious, fully painted hardcover edition first released by NBM in 1995.

You already know the key points of ‘Little Snow White’ which takes up the lion’s share of this terrific tome, but major restorations include the fact that the little princess was only seven when the malicious and jealous queen ordered her death; that the triumphant step-mother gleefully eats the heart of a wild pig fully believing it to be Snow White’s and, after finally being murdered (three truly harrowing attempts) in the dwarves’ home, the radiant child was interred in a crystal coffin for seven years – inexplicably maturing there into a beautiful, if dead, young woman before she was finally revived.

When the Prince finally aroused her from the deathly slumber it wasn’t with a kiss either…

Good triumphed at last and evil was sadistically punished in the end, after which ‘The Shoemaker and the Elves’ provides a sweet and savoury palate cleanser in a cheerfully enchanting Christmas tale of Good Deeds rewarded after which ‘The Three Sluggards’ relates in a single captivating page how the laziest king in the world selected his ideal successor.

The original tales are so ubiquitous, so ingrained in our lives that there’s no possibility of any one version ever becoming definitive, but that’s not really the point. These particular iterations, as graphically realised by Wheeler and Wenzel, are a superb synthesis of immortal legend and comic art mastery that will enthral every reader no matter how over-familiar you think they might be. One of those perfect books that belongs on every bookshelf.
© 1995 by David Wenzel & Doug Wheeler.

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Hawkmoon: the Jewel in the Skull


By Michael Moorcock, adapted by Gerry Conway, Rafael Kayanan, Rico Rival & Alfredo Alcala (First Publishing)
ISBN: 0-915419-32-7

Michael Moorcock began his career as a comics writer and editor at age 15, writing and editing such classic strips as Tarzan, Dogfight Dixon, Jet Ace Logan, Captain Condor, Olac the Gladiator and many, many other British stalwarts before making the jump to prose fiction, where he single-handedly revitalised the genre with the creation of Elric and the high-concept of the Eternal Champion.

As literary fantasy heroes began finding comicbook outlets and analogues it was only a matter of time before Moorcock’s astonishing pantheon of paladins began making inroads into the graphic adventure market. After a series of superlative adaptations of his epochal Elric epics were released by Marvel and First Publishing in the 1980s, the latter company expanded the franchise and began publishing miniseries of the darkly satirical and highly engaging History of the Runestaff.

Also part of Moorcock’s vast and expansive “Eternal Champion” shared universe, the novels comprising The Runestaff detail the struggles of an embattled and beleaguered band of heroes in a dystopic future Europe struggling to survive the all-conquering armies of decadent and fascistic superpower Granbretan. The astonishingly addictive and archly hilarious core books The Jewel in The Skull, The Mad God’s Amulet, The Sword Of The Dawn, and The Runestaff have been collected into an omnibus edition entitled The History of the Runestaff if you feel the inclination to check out the source material…

In a mischievous reversal of British comics tradition the proto-steampunk Dark Empire of Granbretan are ruthless, rapacious, all-conquering bad-guys whilst the beleaguered underdog heroes are French and the star is a German!

Stuffed with English phonetic in-jokes and puns the series is a deeply witty and sardonic critique on the times it was written in. Wicked Baron Meliadus is ruler of the fabulous duchy of Kroiden – famed today for its trams and… well, not even trams really… and the debased gods the Wicked Englander marauders worship include Aral Vilsn, Chirshil, Jhone, Phowl, Jhorg and Rhunga – sound ’em out; we’ll wait…

In this adaptation of the first novel, originally released as a four issue miniseries in1987, the wonderment begins as doughty warrior Count Brass inspects the land of the Kamarg; domains he won after destroying the previous demented, despotic incumbent. After an eventful tour Brass returns home and renews a long-standing debate with his aide and friend Bowgentle about the relative merits of the burgeoning Empire of Granbretan.

A seasoned campaigner, the Count feels the Empire’s initial depredations are acceptable if the world stands united at the end whilst the philosopher/poet feels that there’s a creeping sickness corrupting the souls of the agents of expansion. The comrades get a chance to assess for themselves when Ambassador Baron Meliadus of Kroiden arrives seeking a non-intervention pact with the tiny but powerful state Brass shepherds.

Offering every courtesy to the visiting dignitary the Count allows himself to be swayed by the Baron’s honeyed words until the Granbretanian, obsessed with Brass’ daughter Yisselda, refuses to take “no” for an answer and attempts to abduct her. After grievously wounding Bowgentle, Meliadus is soundly thrashed and sent packing by the outraged father and henceforth a state of war exists between the Empire and the Karmarg.

Frustrated and humiliated Meliadus swears an oath by the mythical Runestaff to defeat Count Brass, possess Yisselda and ravage the Kamarg. Returning to the dark heart of the Empire the Baron plots a horrible revenge, unaware of the staggering forces his incautious oath has set in motion…

His vile thoughts turn to Duke Dorian Hawkmoon von Köln, a recently captured prince who valiantly resisted the Empire’s brutal conquest of his nation. Now a broken toy of Granbretan’s debased scientists, Hawkmoon will be the perfect instrument of revenge once the devilish doctors of Londra have done with him…

Meliadus offers Hawkmoon freedom if the broken hero will infiltrate the Karmarg and steal Yisselda and the Duke agrees, but rather than accept his word Meliadus takes the precaution of having a black jewel inserted into Dorian’s skull. Not only will it relay back all the Duke sees, but should he rebel it will eat into his skull and consume his brain…

The second chapter opens with Hawkmoon’s cunningly staged epic escape and soon the Hero of Köln is welcomed into the safe haven of Count Brass’ castle. His mission well underway the princely pawn is troubled by dreams of a Warrior in Jet and Gold, but his waking hours are filled with spiritual healing as the champions of the Kamarg and especially lovely Yisselda mend his broken warrior’s soul.

Moreover Brass is not fooled for a moment and undertakes to free Hawkmoon from the influence and lethal effects of the ebony jewel…

The reprieve is temporary and the Jewel in the Skull is only rendered dormant. To completely remove its threat Hawkmoon must travel to far Hamadam in search of the wizard Malagigi, who holds the secret of neutralising the brain-devouring bauble. However, before that can be contemplated the little kingdom must face the massed armies of Granbretan under the furious command of twice-thwarted Baron Meliadus…

With a revitalised Hawkmoon commanding a troop of harrying rough-riders the impossible feat is accomplished in grand style (thanks in no small part to the powerfully imaginative illustration of Rafael Kayanan and inkers Alfredo Alcala & Rico Rival) and as the Dark Empire retreats in stunned astonishment to lick its wounds and assuage its shaken pride, the tormented Duke heads East to Turkia seeking his personal salvation.

The final chapter sees him find his destined squire/companion Oladahn (smallest of the Mountain Giants), finally meet the mysterious warrior in Jet and Gold, defeat decadent sorcerer Agonosvos the Immortal and forge a new alliance when he rescues warrior-queen Frawbra and her city from insurrection instigated by Granbretan.

Masterminding the attempt is the rapacious and quite mad Meliadus, leading to a fate-drenched final confrontation…

There’s a tremendous amount of plot stuffed into each issue, often giving a feeling of ponderous density to the proceedings but it’s always leavened with plenty of action and one spectacular high concept idea after another. Whilst no substitute for Moorcock’s stunning fantasy tour de force, the graphic novel Jewel in the Skull is a bombastic and devastatingly effective adaptation that will delight all fans of fantastic fantasy.
© 1988 First Publishing, Inc and Star*Reach Productions. Original story © 1967 Michael Moorcock; used with permission.

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Look-In Film Special: Clash of the Titans


By Mary Carey & Dan Spiegle (ITV Books)
ISBN: 0-900727-87-X

Comic adaptations of major motion pictures aren’t nearly as common these days as they were in the days before video, DVDs, Bluray and movies-on-demand or downloadable entertainment and I, for one, regret the loss. Today the traffic more often goes the other way as comics of all sorts and quality become grist for Hollywood’s insatiable mill…

Once funnybook versions were there to keep the film in the public’s attention before and after the fact; providing publicity pre-release and acting as mementos once the blockbuster had come and gone.

Often the printed article lacked plot accuracy as most adaptations were produced from an original shooting script and directors always change stuff about and edit in post-production (just compare Marvel’s first Star Wars adaptation to the final cinematic version), most of the gorier moments were excised or compressed and of course the whole process required the audience to participate by learning to read…

What they did often offer, however, was a chance for an artist to escape the narrow confines of comicbook genres and really flex their imaginative muscles such as in this extremely impressive – and mostly spot-on – interpretation of the 1981 Ray Harryhausen fantasy classic.

This tie-in interpretation of Clash of the Titans (the film was actually directed by Desmond Davis by the way) is a singular epic experience which displays the masterful artistry of the hugely undervalued Dan Spiegle, released in America by the monolithic Whitman Publishing under their Golden Press imprint. The script was adroitly adapted in America by Mary Carey for an over-sized edition with plenty of spectacular full-page sequences which illustrator Spiegle utilised to superb effect as he detailed the story of the demigod boy-hero Perseus.

The lad was sired by the god Zeus on mortal princess Danaё of Argos, for which her father King Acrisius tried to kill both mother and child by sealing them in a crate and throwing them into the sea. Rescued by Poseidon, they washed up on the shores of Seriphos where the baby grew to be a simple fisherman, unaware of his celestial antecedents. To punish Acrisius Zeus unleashed the Kraken, last of the terrible Titans, to destroy the entire island kingdom of Argos…

The gods are acrimonious and seldom kind. When the son of divine Thetis hunted the winged horses, Zeus transformed him into a monster. Originally promised to beautiful Andromeda, this Calibos was forever after shunned and his mother decreed that if he could not marry the princess of Joppa no man would…

As a result of the gods’ eternal squabbling, young Perseus was unwillingly dispatched to Joppa where he fell for Andromeda, battled Calibos and was manipulated into undertaking a fantastic quest to destroy the Kraken before Thetis could use it to destroy Andromeda and her people forever…

All the incredible characters and creatures are included here: vain gods and marauding monsters, bold heroes, dastardly villains, winged Pegasus, the ghastly Gorgon, the ferryman of Hell; magic weapons, three-headed dogs and annoying mechanical owls all dazzle and delight in this breathtaking magical interpretation which is still readily available – at least in its British edition.

Whilst there might be no commercial necessity for adapted comics anymore, spectacular books like this prove that there should always be a place to see our greatest artists and our favourite filmic fables working in perfect harmony.
© 1981 Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Film Co. All rights reserved.

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Al Williamson Archives volume 1


By Al Williamson with an introduction by Angelo Torres (Flesk)
ISBN: 978-1-933865-29-4

Al Williamson is one of the greatest draughtsmen ever to grace the pages of comicbooks and newspaper comics sections. He was born in 1931 before his family moved from New York City to Bogota Columbia at the height of the Golden Age of syndicated adventure strips.

The lad’s passion for strips – especially Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim – was broadened as he devoured imported and translated US material as well as the best that Europe and Latin America could provide in such anthology magazines as Paquin and Pif Paf. Aged 12 Williamson returned to America and, after finishing school, found work in the industry that had always obsessed him.

In the early 1950s he became a star of E.C. Comics’ science fiction titles, beside kindred spirits Joe Orlando, Wally Wood, Roy G. Krenkel, Frank Frazetta and Angelo Torres, and drew Westerns Kid Colt and Ringo Kid for Atlas/Marvel. During the business’ darkest days he gravitated to newspaper strips, assisting John Prentice on Rip Kirby – another masterpiece originally created by Alex Raymond.

When comicbooks gradually recovered, Williamson drew Flash Gordon for King Comics and worked on mystery tales and westerns for DC whilst drawing such globally distributed newspaper features as Secret Agent Corrigan plus groundbreaking film adaptations of Bladerunner and Star Wars.

His stunning poetic realism, sophisticated compositions and fantastic naturalism graced many varied tales, but in later years he became almost exclusively a star inker over pencillers as varied as John Romita Jr., Larry Stroman, Rick Leonardi, Mark Bright, José Delbo and a host of others on everything from Transformers to Spider-Man 2099, Daredevil to Spider-Girl.

Al Williamson passed away in June 2010.

Flesk Publications is an outfit specialising in art books and the tomes dedicated to the greats of our industry include volumes on sequential narrative and fantasy illustration starring Steve Rude, Mark Shultz, James Bama, Gary Gianni, Franklin Booth, William Stout and Joseph Clement Coll. The guiding light behind the company is devoted and passionate art lover John Fleskes.

This initial oversized (305 x 232mm) 64 page collection of sketches, working drawings, unused and unfinished pages from one of the stellar creators of our art form stars captivating heroines, lusty barbarians, space heroes, beasts, aliens and so many wonderful dinosaurs, but also presents lesser known western scenes, science fiction tech, character sketches, duels, action sequences, nudes and glamour studies, unfinished pages from Xenozoic tales and John Carter of Mars, religious scenes and delicious unseen excerpts from Rip Kirby, as well as a glimpse into Williamson’s creative process.

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

© 2010 Al Williamson. All Rights Reserved.

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Jack of Fables volume 4: Americana


By Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Russ Braun, Tony Akins, Andrew Pepoy, & Steve Leialoha (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-050-5

Just so you know, Fables are fairytale, storybook and mythical beings hidden on our mundane Earth since their various magical realms fell to a sinister monstrous Adversary. Arriving hundreds of years ago (and still coming) the fantastic refugees hid their true natures from humanity and built isolated enclaves where their immortality and utter strangeness could not endanger the life of uneasy luxury they buried themselves within. Many of these elusive eternals wander the human world, but always under strict and draconian mandate to never get noticed.

In Fables: Homelands the utterly self-absorbed and absolutely amoral Jack of the Tales (basis for such legends as Beanstalk, Giant-killer, Frost, Be Nimble and many more) broke all the rules – because that’s his nature – by stealing Fabletown cash and moving to Hollywood. Once there he set up as a movie producer, created the most popular fantasy film triptych of all time.

A key tenet of the series is that the more “mundies” (that’s mortals like you and me) think about a fable character, the stronger that actual character becomes. Books, TV, songs, all feed their vitality. So when the movies based on Jack’s life ultra-charged him they also brought him much unwelcome attention. The avaricious rat-bag coined vast amounts of filthy lucre in the process, but it all led the Fabletown authorities straight to him.

In Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape our irreverent faux-hero was brought to task by the Fables Police, exiled from Hollywood and ordered to disappear, with only a suitcase full of cash to tide him over. He was also banished from all Fable properties and domains. Alone and unprotected he was soon captured by The Golden Bough, a clandestine organisation that had been hunting Fables for centuries.

Jack escaped during a mass break-out of forgotten, adulterated and abridged Fables, all fleeing from a particularly horrific fate – metaphysical and contextual neutering.

He is presently on the run from those selfsame forces (in the distractingly vivacious shape of the Page Sisters, dedicated hunters of everything Fable-ulous) and constantly seeking to restore his cash-flow as this fourth volume – collecting issues #17-21 of the monthly Vertigo comic – commences with first chapter of the eponymous ‘Americana’ as Jack reviews his simple life goals – to be the richest, most powerful and best-looking Fable in the universe – and have lots of really hot sex…

‘On Eggshells’ opens with Jack, Gary, the Pathetic Fallacy and cynical sidekick Native American Raven hiding out in a cheap motel as Hillary Page, with diminished giant Paul Bunyan and Babe (a blue ox with a remarkable imagination), zeroes in on the fugitives.

Things pick up however when Jack reassembles the shell-shocked Humpty Dumpty who has the location of a monolithic treasure drawn on fractured exterior. Such a shame a few fragments are missing, or the daring band of brothers could go directly to the mythic Fable-realm of Americana and plunder the Lost City of Cibola…

As it is, the treasure-seekers have to hop a freight-train in time-honoured legendary manner, but ghostly iron horses are few and far between, so it’s no real surprise that they catch the same one as Hillary and Company…

‘Mind the Zombies’ follows the uneasy allies’ circuitous route via steamboat to the perfectly average, undead-infested picture-perfect little town of Idyll where they meet the utterly sinister Librarian of Americana. His name is Burner, but he considers it more of a job-description…

Narrowly escaping with their legendary, literary lives Jack, Hillary and the rest resume their peripatetic journey to Cibola, unaware that Burner has set the indefatigable Leatherstocking Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo (that’s Hawkeye to you folks) on their rapidly scampering tails…

‘On the Road’ details the inevitable clash with literature’s greatest tracker and subsequent narrow escape into more trouble amidst the Ganglands of hard-boiled crime fiction. From their it’s an epic trek to the Great White North, mythical New York City and Broadway, Witch-haunted Puritan New England, the Antebellum South and the “Injun” infested Wild West, before finally reaching their ultimate goal in ‘Goldrush’ wherein Jack achieves all his ambitions, fiscal and carnal…

It’s not long before the boom is once more lowered on the obnoxious sap and Americana concludes on a chilling cliffhanger as the Bookburner vacates the United States of Fiction, intending to eradicate all the Fables still interned at the Golden Bough…

However there’s yet one more treat for fans as the metaphysical, engagingly peculiar and trouble-attracting Pathetic Fallacy takes centre-stage for ‘Gary Does Denmark’ wherein the affable, nigh-omnipotent sad-sack recounts his history with Shakespeare’s greatest work, ably hampered by our regular cast and with Jack’s evil prototype Wicked John standing in for the named star of our show…

Written by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges, illustrated by Russ Braun, Tony Akins, Andrew Pepoy & Steve Leialoha this tome sees the series develop into a uniquely whimsical and absurdist meta-fictional delight that no fan of reading, high art or low comedy can afford to miss…

This imaginative and breathtakingly bold rollercoaster ride of flamboyant fantasy and snappy street-smarts is a supremely saucy, self-referential, darkly, funny fairytale for adults concocted with much more sly cynical humour and sex than your average funnybook – so po-faced moralistas and societal stickybeaks be warned!

Every enchanting volume should be compulsory reading for jaded imagineers everywhere – and in some as yet unreachable realm they actually are…

© 2007, 2008 Bill Willingham and DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Eye of the Majestic Creature


By Leslie Stein (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-413-9

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

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

After graduating from the New York School of Visual Arts Leslie Stein began producing unbelievably addictive cartoon strips in the self-published Yeah, It Is. Winning a Xeric Grant for her efforts, she started the even better comicbook Eye of the Majestic Creature, blending autobiographical self-discovery, surreal free-association, philosophical ruminations, nostalgic reminiscences and devastatingly dry wit to describe life filtered through a seductive meta-fictional interior landscape. This lady laconically tans under vastly different suns and the results are enchanting and entrancing.

This volume collects the first four issues in a dreamy, beautifully realised manner of visual mood-music – loose, flowing line-work, detailed stippling, hypnotic pattern-building and honest-to-gosh, representational line-drawing, each at the most appropriate juncture – eschewing chronological narrative for a easy, breezy epigrammatic mode of delivery.

As seen in the opening vignettes ‘The Country is Calling!’, ‘Seashell Arrives’ and ‘Someone is Yelling At Me over the Phone: You Are Disgusting!’ Larrybear is a girl deliberately and determinedly on her own, trying to establish her uniquely singular way of getting by. She has friends (most especially her talking guitar Marshmallow) interests and ambitions of a sort, but just isn’t looking for an average life, just more companions to share with …

In ‘Fun Time with “I Eat Peanut Butter Between Naps”’ the cast expands as Larrybear goes walkabout, beginning with house-sitting for some very individualistic friends…

Encountering ‘Insanity at Every Turn’ she travels across America to visit her difficult family in Chicago and very-welcome old school friends, taking in San Francisco too before settling for New York in ‘Back For More’…

Delivered in mesmerising, oversized (7½ x 11″/192 x 280mm) black & white, these incisive, absurdist, whimsically charming and pictorially intoxicating invitations into a singularly creative mind and fabulous alternative reality are a glorious rewarding cartoon experience and one no serious fan of fun can afford to miss.

© 2011 Leslie Stein. All Rights Reserved.

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula


Adapted by Roy Thomas, Mike Mignola & John Nyberg (Topps/Titan Books edition)
ISBN: 978-1-85286-474-3

Vampires have never been more popular and the undisputed icon of the cult-fiction genre is indisputably Dracula. One of the best looking graphic novels ever to feature the immortal undead Count came from Topps Comics in 1992 when they produced a four part adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s flawed film masterpiece.

Whatever your opinions of the movie, the brutally dark story of love, reincarnation and second chances did generate an exceptionally impressive comics interpretation by master adapter Roy Thomas and moody Meisters-of-the-Macabre Mike Mignola & John Nyberg…

This stripped-down UK edition released by Titan Books opens with the prologue wherein Christian knight Vlad Dracula returns to his castle after a magnificent victory against the invading Turks in 1462, to discover that his beloved wife Elisabeta is dead. The tragic beauty committed suicide when she received a malicious message stating that her husband had been killed…

Grief-stricken, the bloody warrior Vlad turns his back on God and Man…

May 1897 and Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania following the loss of his colleague R.M. Renfield  to facilitate the voyage of aged wealthy Count Dracula to the thriving modern Metropolis of London. He stumbles into a scene of unbridled terror…

Meanwhile in the heart of the Empire his fiancée Mina Murray indulges her wildly wanton friend Lucy Westenra as the famous beauty strings along three ideal suitors, Dr. Jack Seward, Texan Quincy P. Morris and Arthur Holmwood, the future Lord Godalming.

Mina is a perfect double for the long dead Elisabeta and when Dracula, freshly arrived in England and already causing chaos and disaster, sees her he begins to seduce her. He is less gentle with Lucy and his bestial, bloodletting assaults prompt her three beaus to summon the famed doctor and teacher Abraham Van Helsing to save her life and cure her increasing mania.

Harker has survived his Transylvanian ordeal and hurriedly marries Mina in Romania. Enraged, Dracula renews his assaults and Lucy dies to be reborn as a predatory monster. After dispatching her to eternal rest, Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward and Quincy Morris, joined by the recently returned and much altered Harker and his new bride, determine to destroy the ancient evil in their midst…

Dracula however, has incredible power and centuries of experience on his side and taints Mina with his blood-drinking curse, before fleeing back to his ancestral lands. Now the mortal champions must follow and excise his awful power before Mina – now aware of her previous existence as Dracula’s wife Elisabeta – succumbs forever to his unholy influence…

Dark, moody, visually stunning and compulsively frenetic, this interpretation is a memorable and intensely fulfilling iteration on a modern myth and one that no fan can ignore.

The Titan version of this lost gem is probably the most readily available but the two Topps editions are still around if you’re persistent. The first printing also contains in its 112 pages an introduction from Coppola and an afterword by the film’s writer James V. Hart (whose other credits include screenplays for Contact, Tuck Everlasting, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Hook and Muppet Treasure Island amongst others, whilst the 120 page Previews Exclusive Edition tops that (sorry, my will was suborned by irresistible malign forces) by including a poster, behind-the-scenes glimpses at the film’s creation and cards from the spin-off Dracula Collectible Card set.
© 1993 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 1: The City of Shifting Waters


By J.-C. Méziéres & P. Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-038-2

Valérian is possibly the most influential science fiction series ever drawn – and yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that expansive and undoubtedly contentious statement. Although to a large extent those venerable newspaper strips formed the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to Leia’s Slave Girl outfit…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoasting of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined possible.

Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420, running until February 15th 1968) and was an instant hit. The graphic novel under discussion here ‘The City of Shifting Waters’ is actually the second chronological yarn.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in science fiction triggered by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella.

Other notable successes of the era include Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane and, which all with Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated fantasy masterpiece Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Valérian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is a light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travel adventure-romp (a bit like Dr. Who, but not really at all…), drenched in wry, satirical, humanist and political commentary, starring (at first) an affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the universal time-lines and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the first tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’) he was rescued from a tricky situation by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline and he brought her back with him to the 28th super-citadel and administrative wonderland of Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire. The indomitable girl trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and by the time of this book was accompanying him on his missions throughout time and space.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was first serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ (January 1st – September 1st 1985) after which the mind-bending sagas were published as all new complete graphic novels, until the magnificent opus concluded in 2010.

(One clarifying note: in the canon “Hypsis” is counted as the twelfth tale, due to the collected albums being numbered from ‘The City of Shifting Waters’ – the second story but the first to be released in collected book form. When ‘Bad Dreams’ was finally released in a collected edition in 1983 it was given the number #0.)

The City of Shifting Waters was originally published in two tranches; ‘La Cité des Eaux Mouvantes’ (#455 25th July to 468, 24th October 1968) and ‘Terre en Flammes’ (‘Earth in Flames’, #492-505, 10th April to 10th July 1969), and opens here with the odd couple dispatched to 1986 – when civilisation on earth was destroyed due to ecological negligence and political chicanery – to recapture Xombul, a madman determined to undermine Galaxity and establish himself as Dictator of the Universe.

To attain his goal the renegade has travelled to New York after a nuclear accident has melted the ice caps and flooded the metropolis (and everywhere else), seeking hidden scientific secrets that would allow him to conquer the devastated planet and prevent the Terran Empire from ever forming…

Plunged back into an apocalyptic nightmare where Broadway and Wall Street are under water, jungle vines connect the deserted skyscrapers, Tsunamis are an hourly hazard and bold looters are snatching up the last golden treasures of a lost civilisation, the S-T agents find unique allies to preserve the proper past, survive even greater catastrophes such as the volcanic eruption of Yellowstone Park and frustrate the plans of the most ambitious mass killer in all of history…

Visually spectacular, mind-bogglingly ingenious and steeped in delightful in-jokes (the utterly-mad-yet-brilliant boffin who helps them is a hilarious dead ringer for Jerry Lewis in the 1963 film “The Nutty Professor”) this is still a timelessly perfect Science Fiction masterpiece every fan of the genre – in whatever medium – would be crazy to miss…
© Dargaud Paris, 1976 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2010 Cinebook Ltd.

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Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Thor


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Walter Simonson, John Romita Jr., J. Michael Straczynski & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1- 84653-481-2

As the new Thor film screened across the world, Marvel quite understandably released a batch of tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to movie fans wanting to follow up with a comics experience. Under the Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella this treasury of tales reprints some obvious landmarks from Journey into Mystery #83, Thor #159, 200, 337-339, Thor Volume 2, # 1-2, 84-85 and Volume 3, #3 which, whilst not all being the absolute “definitive” sagas, do provide a snapshot of just how very well the hoary mere-mortal-into-godlike gladiator concept can work.

And just in case you think I’m kidding about the metamorphic riff, remember Billy Batson first became Captain Marvel in 1940, Tommy Preston regularly powered up into Golden Lad from 1945, Tommy Troy began changing into The Fly in 1959 and Nathaniel Adam initially transformed into Captain Atom in 1960 and that’s just the first few I could think of…

In addition to a Stan Lee introduction, this compendium contains an extensive 23 page text features section detailing career overviews, secret origins and technical trivia, maps, and character profile pages culled from assorted issues of the encyclopaedic Marvel Universe Handbook.

The adventure begins with a modest little fantasy tale from one of the company’s ubiquitous mystery anthologies, where, in the summer of 1962 that tried-and-true comicbook concept (feeble mortal into God-like hero) was employed to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

Journey into Mystery #83 (cover-dated August 1962) featured the debut of crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave where lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When in his frustration, he smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape; his puny frame was transformed into the Norse God of Thunder, the Mighty Thor!

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Leiber and illustrated by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ is pure early Marvel; bombastic, fast-paced, gloriously illogical and captivatingly action-packed. The hugely under-appreciated Art Simek was the letterer and logo designer.

The character grew from that formulaic beginning into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination with Journey into Mystery inevitably becoming the Mighty Thor (with #126) but in this collection we skip to issue #159 (December 1968) where the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were re-examined and finally clarified.

In the comic series it began with a framing sequence by Lee, Kirby & Colletta that book-ended a reprint of ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ in #158, but here ‘The Answer at Last!’ alone suffices to explain how the immortal godling was locked within the frail body of Don Blake: an epic saga which took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed that the mortal surgeon was no more than an Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion…

Next follows ‘Beware! If This be… Ragnarok!’ (#200, June 1972) by Lee, John Buscema & John  Verpoorten, which interrupted an ongoing battle between Thor and Grecian death-god Pluto to adapt the classical Norse myth of the inevitable fall of the Aesir gods; a stunning graphic prophecy which would inform and shape the next few hundred issues of the series.

Thor settled into an uninspired creative lethargy after the departure of Kirby’s imaginative power and subsequently suffered a qualitative drop after Buscema moved on, leaving the series in the doldrums until a new visionary was found to expand the mythology once again…

Or, more accurately, returned as Walter Simonson had for a brief while been one of those artists slavishly soldiering to rekindle Kirby’s easy synthesis of mythology, science fiction and meta-humanist philosophy, but with as little success as any other.

When Simonson assumed the writing and drawing of the title in November1983 with issue #337 – deeply invested in Kirby’s exploratory, radical visionary process – free to let loose and brave enough to bring his own unique sensibilities to the character, the result was an enchanting and groundbreaking body of work (#337-382 plus the Balder the Brave miniseries) that actually moved beyond Kirby’s Canon and dragged the title out of a creative rut which allowed Simonson’s own successors to sunsequently introduce genuine change to a property that had stagnated for 13 years.

This first iconic story-arc ‘Doom!’, ‘A Fool and his Hammer…’ and ‘Something Old, Something New…’from The Mighty Thor #337-339 shook everything up and made the Thunder God a collectible sensation for the first time in a decade. Moreover the entire tale is but the prologue to a stupendous larger epic which actively addressed the over-used dramatic device of the Doom of the Gods that had haunted this series since the mid-1960s…

The story evolves out of a spell inscribed on Thor’s hammer and seen in the character’s very first appearance. When crippled Don Blake was first transformed into the Thunder God he saw on the magic mallet Mjolnir the legend “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor…”

The saga begins when Blake is asked by super-spy outfit S.H.I.E.L.D. to intercept an Earth-bound fleet of starships which refuel themselves by absorbing suns! Hurtling off into deep space the Storm God boarded one vessel only to be defeated in combat by its alien protector, an artificially augmented warrior named Beta Ray Bill. Moreover, as they crashed to Earth the alien somehow co-opted the mystic mallet’s magic and transformed himself into a warped duplicate of Thor, after which Odin mistook Bill for his son and heir, whisking him to Asgard to defend the Realm Eternal from another monstrous threat! And then…

Enough tomfoolery: suffice to say that the action and surprises pile one upon another as the alien revealed that he was the appointed protector of his Korbinite race, the survivors of which are fleeing a horde of demons who destroyed their civilisation and are determined to hunt them to extinction.

And now they’re all heading towards Earth…

After the mandatory big fight Thor and Bill – each with his own hammer – teamed-up to investigate the demons, with confused love-interest Lady Sif along for the rollercoaster ride, discovering in the process a threat to the entire universe. That tale is not included here, resulting in a rather disappointing letdown as the narrative leaps ahead fifteen years to July 1998 and the relaunch of the thunder god in Mighty Thor Volume 2.

‘In Search of the Gods’ and its sequel ‘Deal with the Devil!’ (by Dan Jurgens, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson, Volume 2, #1-2) featured the return of Thor and the Avengers after more than a year way from the Marvel Universe, subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield in a desperate attempt to improve sales after the apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In a spectacular and visually compelling two-parter, the Thunderer was reinstated into the “real” world just in time to fall in battle against the devastating Asgardian artefact known as the Destroyer. As the Avengers struggled on against the unstoppable creature, the godling’s spirit was melded with an innocent killed during the struggle, only to emerge once more with a human alter-ego and a new lease on life…

The second volume concluded with issues #84-85 (November-December 2004, written by Daniel Berman & Michael Avon Oeming, illustrated by Andrea Divito and colourist Laura Villari) which once and for all depicted the Really, Truly, We Mean It End of the Gods and Day of Ragnarok as Thor himself instigated the final fall to end an ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless beings who have manipulated the inhabitants of Asgard since time began…

For the full story you’ll need to seek out Avengers Disassembled: Thor whereas this volume’s cosmic comic sagas conclude with the third issue of Thor Volume 3 and ‘Everything Old is New Again’ by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales (November 2007) with the Storm Lord back from the dead, conjoined once more with Don Blake and looking for the displaced citizens of a restored but empty Asgard, which now floats a few dozen feet above the barren flats of Brockton, Oklahoma.

This all-action tale details the clash between Thor and once best-friend Iron Man in a world that has radically changed since the new lord of Asgard’s demise and resurrection…

As a primer or introductory collection for readers unfamiliar with the stentorian Thunderer this book has a lot to recommend it. I’m also keenly aware of the need for newcomers to have his centuries-long saga presented in some form of chronological order, but in all honesty the final result is a little choppy and very much a one-trick pony. With the staggering breadth of characters and variety of adventures that have been generated during Thor’s long career there’s an inescapable aura of missed opportunity to the tome in question.

However, I cannot deny that what does appear is of great quality and thematically an obvious and thoroughly entertaining accompaniment to the cinema spectacle. Most importantly this is a well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation too. If there’s a film sequel, let’s hope that Marvel has plans to include some of the great material by a vast range of creators omitted from this book in a second, more imaginative volume….

™ and © 1962, 1968, 1972, 1983, 1984, 1998, 2004, 2007, 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.