Category: Fantasy

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Battling Boy

(Uncorrected Proof Copy)

By Paul Pope (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-145-4

Paul Pope is undoubtedly one of the most creative and visually engaging creators working in comics these days. Since his debut in 1993 he has stunningly combined elements of European and Japanese styles with classical American themes to produce tales of science fiction, fantasy, crime, comedy, romance, adventure and even superheroics, generally for mature audiences.

If you’re not a fan yet, check out Sin Titulo, Batman: Year 100, Heavy Liquid, 100%, One Trick Ripoff and more…

This latest venture, however, is aimed a general readership – Hey, Kids, This Means You! – and introduces a world very similar to our own but with one big, big difference…

Arcopolis City would be the perfect place to bring up kids but for one thing. Ghastly devils roam at night, stealing children. Even the days are increasingly fraught as a seemingly endless procession of monstrous beasts incessantly carves a swathe of mindless destruction through the bright, breezy thoroughfares…

Of course the valiant sentinels of the Fighting 145th do their very best to contain the daily onslaughts, but it is to jet-packed, ray-gun-wielding science hero Haggard West that the harried citizens look to end the crisis. Those heartfelt hopes are cruelly dashed, however, when hooded horror Sadisto lays a crafty trap and blasts the magnificent rocket-man out of the sky…

His daughter and apprentice Aurora is shattered as she watches her dad vanish in a blast of blazing plasma…

Entire universes away, a shining citadel of warrior deities celebrates a very special event as the greatest pantheon of dutiful cosmic champions in the universe revels in the brief return of their mightiest hero. The stormy saviour of many worlds is back to see his son, who has reached a very special age…

The Boy is not ready for his Turning Day. Even if every child born here is invariably sent into the cosmos on their 13th birthday to save some lesser race from imminent peril on the venerable quest known as “a Ramble”, he knows he isn’t strong enough yet. After all, many of his childhood comrades have never returned…

As usual, though, his puissant father knows best and the anxious lad (armed with a very special cloak, battle grieves, the Encyclopedia Monstrosity, keys to an apartment, a map, a magic credit card and a dozen totem tee-shirts) is booted out of the veritable Valhalla of the Starry Lofts and dumped on a mountaintop overlooking a seemingly continent-sized city …just as a homogonous Humbaba rampages through Arcopolis eating cars and crushing tanks…

Before hurtling off to another appointment with destiny, the lad’s proud father casually reminds his spooked scion that if his “Battling Boy” cannot end the plague of monsters on this world, humanity is finished here…

Even as Aurora West begins to unlock the secrets of her father’s legacy and keenly embrace her own dreamed of destiny, the reluctant young demi-god makes his way to the epicentre of chaos and engages the ferocious furious Humbaba.

Things do not go according to plan…

Wry, spectacular and astonishingly engaging, this is a supremely entertaining, beautifully rendered yarn with plenty of fast-paced action, judicious suspense, likable heroes and a gloriously arch villain in the Machiavellian Sadisto, whose subtle scams and unlikely alliances stretch far beyond this blockbusting premiere epic.

This is an ideal comic book for older kids, and reads even better if you’re their adult keeper or guardian. Don’t miss out on the start of something very special…
© 2013 by Paul Pope. All rights reserved.

Battling Boy will be published on October 8th 2013.

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Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Magic Within Book 1


By Tania del Rio & Jim Amash (Archie Comics Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-39-6

Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch debuted in Archie’s Madhouse #22 (October 1962), created by George Gladir & Dan de Carlo as a throwaway character in the gag anthology which was simply one more venue for comics’ undisputed kings of kids comedy. She instantly proved popular enough to become a regular in the burgeoning cast surrounding the core stars Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones.

By 1969 the comely enchantress had grown popular enough to win her own animated Filmation TV series (just like Archie and Josie and the Pussycats) and graduated to a lead feature in Archie’s TV Laugh Out before in 1971 finally winning her own title.

The first volume ran 77 issues from 1971 to 1983 and, when a hugely successful live action TV series launched in 1996, an adapted comicbook iteration followed in 1997. That version folded in 1999 after a further 32 issues.

Volume 3 – simple titled Sabrina – was based on new TV show Sabrina the Animated Series. This ran from 2000 to 2002 for 37 issues before a back-to-basics reboot saw the comicbook revert to Sabrina the Teenage Witch with #38, carefully blending elements of all the previous print and TV versions. A creature of seemingly infinite variation and variety, the mystic maid continued in this vein until 2004 and #57 wherein, acting on the global popularity of Japanese comics, the company boldly switched format and transformed the series into a manga-style high school comedy-romance in the classic Shōjo manner.

Written and drawn by Tania del Rio and inked by Jim Amash, this canny supernatural soap ran until #100 in 2009. The series folded four issues later.

An incredibly successful experiment, the beginnings of the manga saga were collected in a trade paperback as Sabrina – the Magic Revisited and issues #58-67 were later added to Archie Comics’ online library as digital editions. Now with the release of this black-&-white digest sized US tankōbon edition, the concept comes full circle…

Collecting Sabrina the Teenage Witch #58-68 from 2004-2005, this vibrant slice of wild whimsy opens with ‘Entering the Magic Realm’ – a fond remembrance from del Rio – and a handy character guide before issue/chapter 1 introduces us to a different kind of Winsome Witch in ‘Spellfreeze’…

Sabrina is just a typical Greendale High School girl. She lives with her Aunts Hilda and Zelda Spellman, has a pet cat Salem and barely conceals a crush on childhood pal Harvey Kinkle. The cute but clueless boy reciprocates the affection but is far too scared to rock the boat by acting on his desires.

Sabrina is also an atypical witch: living in the mortal world and passing herself off as normal. To make up for this peccadillo she has to attend Charm-School in the “Other Realm” to learn all about her heritage, powers and especially the rules of magic/mortal interaction.

Her life takes a complicated turn when a cute new boy enrols at Greendale. Shinji Yamagi is gorgeous and instantly popular – but he’s also a young warlock from Sabrina’s class at her other school. He’s on Earth to clandestinely study for a Charm-School project but soon finds it hard to keep his gifts secret.

Moreover he’s soon turning Sabrina’s head and she can’t decide which boy she likes best…

Complicating the mess is mortal Amy Reinhardt – a spiteful rival for Harvey’s affections who will do anything to upset Sabrina and sharp enough to instantly realise that she can use Shinji to further her ambitions…

Shinji is having real problems not using his magic to ease the tedious drudgery of mortal life and is soon openly flouting the rules just to make himself popular. Knowing that eventually somebody will realise he’s not simply performing tricks – and perhaps just a little jealous – Sabrina determines to stop him…

Salem is not just an ordinary cat; long ago he was Salem Saberhagen: the most powerful warlock of all. After trying to conquer the world he was imprisoned in a cat’s body where he could do no magic, but he can still talk and his rehabilitation is very grudging. He doesn’t need much urging to guide Sabrina to the Magic Realm where she can obtain a spell to neutralise Shinji’s powers.

It’s quite complex though, and the junior conjuress gets it badly wrong. Rather than freezing the warlock’s magic the spell turns Shinji’s body to ice.

Horrified at her mistake Sabrina confesses all to her Aunts and learns that only a kiss can turn him back to normal, but she’s slowly becoming aware that for all his arrogant faults, she really, really likes Shinji and doesn’t fully trust herself…

Chapter 2 has a sporting theme as Sabrina tries to get Harvey to make his move. Although a star of the basketball squad, the wishy-washy boy is badly fumbling the school tradition of bestowing a team ribbon upon the girl of one’s dreams.

Sabrina is cruelly teased by Amy who tells her Harvey has already offered her his silken favour in ‘Blue Ribbon Blues’ and the distraction cannot come at a worse time. There’s a big test coming up in Charm-School – it’s the time when students have to make their first flying broomstick – and a bad result could affect her whole life…

Unbeknownst to her Shinji too is feeling the power of attraction. In ‘Councils and Concerts’, Aunt Hilda is lobbying to be elected to the ruling Council of the Magic Realm and needs no embarrassing distractions, but that hope is doomed after Sabrina is summonsed by the fearsome Galiena, Czarina of Decree to explain her recent rule-breaking and magical abuse of the adults-only spellfreeze incantation, not to mention riding a broom without a license…

As the depressed teen talks things over with best friend and eldritch classmate Llandra da Silva, Shinji appears and asks her on a date to see the hip, magic band Oberon. The wayward warlock has had plenty of run-ins with the Council though, and advises her just to ignore them, even as Llandra warns him not to come between her BFF and poor mortal Harvey…

After the gig, Shinji tries to get Sabrina to join him in another illegal broom flight and they have a blazing row before he ditches her. Humiliated and furious, all she can do is call the aunt she has again let down…

A Halloween party is the setting for ‘The Magic Within’ as troubled Goth girl Gwenevive Ricci arrives in Greendale, a mortal who can somehow make real magic. The brittle human is rather hard to like, but when Salem investigates he finds the secret of Gwenevive’s powers to be a rival someone he’d thought long gone and the soiree turns into a deadly supernatural battle.

More by luck than skill Sabrina saves the world and vindicates herself with the Council, but they might not be so mellow if they realised she had accidentally allowed Gwen to learn her secret…

‘Winter Wallflower’ deals with some of the potential repercussions as witchly wannabe Gwen pumps Sabrina for more information, blithely uncaring that she risks having her mind wiped by the Council. However rebellious Sabrina faces even greater challenges when she finds herself dateless for a school dance. Good old dependable Harvey has asked a cute freshman to the affair, and when Sabrina goes looking for Shinji she sees him in a passionate embrace with Llandra…

This chapter is complimented by a one-page gag strip starring Salem who abuses a present in ‘House Cat!’ before the Sabrina/Harvey/Shinji romantic triangle is dramatically resolved in ‘Cabin Fever’ wherein the kids and Llandra dash off for a winter break in a log cabin (with Aunt Zelda along as reluctant chaperone). However when the boys drive off for provisions they are caught in a killer ice storm and trapped on a mountain.

Soon their seething rivalry for Sabrina causes a confrontation, but after Harvey saves Shinji from death the chastened young magician determines to help Harvey win the girl of his dreams – even if neither of them is sure that’s what he wants…

After another Salem single ‘Here’s Looking at You’, Harvey’s indecisiveness resurfaces during Valentine’s Day. Despite the warlock boy’s every effort, his new mortal pal just cannot summon up the courage to ask Sabrina out. Moreover the frustrated teen Witch knows something’s amiss and has been having nightmares waiting for Harvey to make his move.

Unfortunately Sabrina talks – and enchants – in her sleep and wakes up on February 14th with the power to see ‘Love Connections’ between people and even animals. The teen witch spends the day acting as an unofficial Cupid, bringing together people who don’t realise how close their one true loves actually are, before – unable to handle Harvey’s paralysis – she just gives up and makes the first move herself.

Watching from concealment Shinji is delighted that at last they are together – and cannot understand why his own heart is breaking…

‘Caught on Tape’ deals with another kind of crisis just as Sabrina is finally together with Harvey. Hilda has been elected to the Council as Czarina of Meditation and the entire family has to move to the Magic Realm. The boy is still unaware of her true nature and now she may never see him again…

However when evidence is found of mortal poachers in the Magic Realm, Sabrina’s knowledge of the mundane world enables them to track down unscrupulous crypto-zoologist Atticus Rex and free the fantastic beast he thought would make him a TV sensation.

Realising that they increasingly need contact with Earth, the Council relents and stations Hilda permanently in the human Realm, but even after having his memories wiped the Spellmans have not seen the last of Atticus…

When Shinji’s mortal, toymaker uncle arrives from Japan and sees Sabrina’s cat he copies the creature’s unique appearance and spawns global ‘Salem Mania’. With the cat now on backpacks, apparel, toys, jewellery and every other form of merchandise as the ignominious ‘Mr. Kitty Litter’, the furious former arch-mage alternately plans revenge and how to cash in, with Sabrina otherwise occupied and unable to stop or help him.

Her attention has been diverted by an impossible dilemma: now that she has Harvey, why is she so jealous that Llandra is with Shinji?

This beguiling first collection concludes with a crossover of sorts when Shinji is “discovered” by a fashion agency and briefly becomes a male model. With Sabrina becoming increasingly disenchanted with Harvey, the warlock suddenly goes slow with Llandra and is romantically linked to pop sensations Josie and the Pussycats, but his meteoric career comes to a sudden halt when his bosses demand to see a little too much skin…

Enticing, funny and genuinely enthralling, this witty, fresh take on a classic American icon will delight most fans and readers. With actual human interaction rather than manufactured atom-powered fistfights to hold your attention, it offers women in particular a solid entertaining reason to give comics one more try. Sheer exuberant fun; perfectly crafted and utterly irresistible.
© 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ratspike


By John Blanche & Ian Miller (Games Workshop)
ISBN: 978-1-87237-200-6

I haven’t covered an actual art book in an age, so let’s look at a little known gem sorely in need of a new edition featuring the grotesquely beautiful art of painter and illustrator Ian Miller (The City, The Luck in the Head, Green Dog Trumpet) and designer, model-maker and illustrator John Blanche.

Both eclectic individualists found a spiritual home and an outlet for their fantastic fantasy imaginings at role-playing, book and comics publisher Games Workshop/Black Library, and their painterly endeavours happily led to the stunning celebration of the macabre and mind-bending melange of modern myth realisation under review today.

The legendary entertainment firm began by importing American product at the beginning of the Dungeons and Dragons craze in the 1980s before quickly moving on to creating their own material. Soon they were expanding into prose and pictorial fiction too, supported by some frankly astounding illustration material on their game packaging, periodical publications (White Dwarf, Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, Warhammer 40,000, Inferno and others) as well as sequences of original material novels in the fantasy, horror and science fiction genres.

This stunning oversized (29 x 21.8 x 1.5cm) hardback coffee-table tome was released in 1989 and offers a mesmerising selection of paintings and drawing from two uniquely inspired creators, beginning, after a Foreword by fantasy illustration giant Patrick Woodroffe, with John Blanche.

Eventually becoming Games Workshop’s Art Director, Blanche got his first big break after meeting Roger Dean, subsequently going on to develop a dark, punk-inspired painstakingly classical illustration style, usually working smaller than published size and having his work “blown up”, not reduced, for printing.

This compulsive chronicle combines, intersperses and interweaves the art with creator commentary, personal memories, insights and creative secrets as well as evocative literary quotes and snatches of poetry to enhance the images and, after Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, plunges into a welter of nearly 80 paintings and drawings over 62 pages, crammed with amazons, warriors, aliens, barbarians, fairy princes, eldritch post-apocalyptic demons and all the attendant genre icons beloved by generations of imaginers.

The affable maven of menace macabre discusses his unforgettable work such as ‘Ice Unicorn’, ‘War Boss’, ‘Good King Otto’, ‘Amazonia Gothique’ and ‘McDeath’ plus  devoting much time to the infinitesimal discipline of building and painting miniatures – many of which have their own scarily impressive, ironically, mordantly funny section here.

The second half of the book is devoted to Ian Miller’s bleakly complex, convoluted classicist Dürer, Bosch and Druillet inspired futurisms which, before his association with Games Workshop, were best seen illustrating Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast stories as well as in films such as Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards and Coolworld.

His concluding half of the graphic gallery – 68 pages in all – combines quotes from Treasure Island, children’s nonsense rhymes, an intimate biography and disquieting slogans and snatches of prose with sketches, drawings, pen-and-ink studies and more than 100 paintings and less conventional images, displaying the artist’s signature brain-blasting architecture, eye-shredding monsters, blasted trees, isolated warriors and chaos knights.

Also on show are notional comic-strip sequences and works with such evocative if non-defining titles as ‘Death in the Rocking Horse Factory’, ‘Udder Woman, Killer of Cows’, ‘Angel Butcher’, ‘Hollywood Gothic’ and ‘Those Sent to that Dark Place’, all guaranteed to subtly engender unease and worse…

With the fantasy genre in full revival mode thanks to the likes of movies like The Hobbit and TV shows like Game of Thrones and Da Vinci’s Demons, there’s never been a better time to revisit this book or even further explore the lost marvels of a superb cadre of forgotten artists. So if you need to escape this ghastly world of humdrum terrors for a brief moment – and don’t we all? – seek out this Bestiary of the Bizarre and let yourself go…
© 1989 GW Books. © John Blanche & Ian Miller. All rights reserved.

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Usagi Yojimbo Book 3: The Wanderer’s Road


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-009-5

Usagi Yojimbo (literally “rabbit bodyguard”) premiered as a lowly background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, (Albedo Anthropomorphics #1, 1984), subsequently appearing there on his own terms as well as in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up in Grimjack.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family emigrated to Hawaii in 1955. He attended the University of Hawaii, graduating with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design after landing in California.

His early forays into comics were as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer, before his nimble pens and brushes, coupled with a love of Japanese history and legend and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, all combined to turn a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic is nominally set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) and specifically references the Edo Period of Feudal Japan: the early 17th century of our reckoning.

It simultaneously samples classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla whilst specifically recounting the life of Miyamoto Usagi, a Ronin or masterless wandering Samurai, eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo or bodyguard-for-hire.

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

And yes, he’s a rabbit – a brave, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic long-suffering, conscientious and heroic everyman bunny who just can’t turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This torrid third monochrome tome features takes which originally appeared in Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo volume 1, #7-12. Also included is a delightful short story from Mirage Studios’ Turtle Soup anthology from 1989.

The drama begins after an illuminating Introduction from fantasy novelist and occasional comics scribe Robert Asprin and offers a wealth of comedic episodes, supernatural adventure vignettes and other revelatory yarns to delight, astound and especially enchant, as author Sakai seamlessly plants hints and lays out threads that will in the fullness of time blossom and bloom into the elements of a 25-year-long epic…

First up is a salutary fable wherein the kind-hearted Ronin tries to rescue a trapped Tokagé lizard (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles that populate this anthropomorphic world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem) and earns the pitiless enmity of a local innkeeper.

Trapped atop a high, rickety watch platform with little food and snowstorms coming, “Spot” and Usagi’s problems are far from few but when the despicable bully gets bored and tries to chop down ‘The Tower’, fate smiles on the warrior and punishes the merchant…

With faithful Spot now sharing his wanderings, Usagi learns the power of ‘A Mother’s Love’ when he befriends an old woman and becomes embroiled in her quest to free a village of the ruthless depredations of her own beloved son, after which the rabbit again crosses paths – and swords – with affable yet ruthless Ino in ‘Return of the Blind Swordspig’ – a blood-spilling porcine outlaw whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes…

When the killer is saved from a bounty-hunter ambush by Spot, he forms an instant attachment to the lizard, but Ino’s obsessive hatred of Usagi can only lead to a blistering clash and heartbreak for one of the puissant sword masters…

The tone becomes supernaturally dark and bleak in ‘Blade of the Gods’ as the lonely Yojimbo meets a veritable devil in the sinister form of Jei, a roving unbeatable slaughterer who believes the Lords of Heaven have singled him out to kill the wicked on their behalf.

Of course only he decides who is or isn’t evil, and when he sets his soulless eyes on the Rabbit Ronin their incredible battle is ultimately decided by an incredible, baffling act of god…

Sakai’s stories were growing in depth and quality with every issue, and with ‘The Tea Cup’ the creator began to fully expand his milieu, making Japanese history and culture a compulsively authentic component of proceedings. Masked as an homage to Groo the Wanderer, this sparkling yarn saw Usagi and occasional foil money-mad bounty-hunter Gennosuké reunite to deliver a priceless and ultra-fragile porcelain cup to a Tea Master, with hired thugs from a rival potter trying to destroy it and them every inch of the way. As usual Gen was playing his own bewildering game of bluff and double bluff, and once again Usagi was left annoyed, exhausted and out of pocket…

The regularly scheduled wonderment concludes with the masterfully complex comedy thriller ‘The Shogun’s Gift’ as the rabbit again meets the beautiful bodyguard Tomoe Ame.

The devoted swordswoman is hunting for a ninja who stole the priceless Muramasa blade from the castle of her young Lord Noriyuki, new and still tenuous leader of the prestigious Geishu Clan. The sword is intended as a gift for the Shogun and its loss will cause an inexcusable and potentially fatal loss of face…

Suspecting the machinations of the insidious schemer Hikiji, Tomoe has begun frantically hunting the thief but fortune has already placed the culprit within the crafty clutches of the wily Usagi who solves the problem with hilarious guile and wit before tidying up the loose ends with his swords…

Also included here is the first of many wonderful cross-company alliances as ‘Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew’ as Leonardo of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fell through a wrinkle in space-time and found himself battling a horde of outlaw samurai before mistakenly getting into a duel of honour with a certain Rabbit Ronin…

Don’t fret folks: things ended inconclusively enough for at least two sequels (to be seen in later volumes…)

Usagi Yojimbo has changed publishers a few times but has been in continuous publication since 1987 with dozens of graphic novel collections and books to date. He has guest-starred in many other series (such as the aforementioned Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show – but there’s still time yet, and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out. With high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi series and lots of toys to promote popularity, Sakai and his creation have deservedly won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny and scary, always moving, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a cartoon masterpiece of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories and comics.

Why aren’t you a fan yet?
Text and illustrations © 1987, 1989 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ™ Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1989, 2005 Fantagraphics books. Leonardo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are ™ Mirage Studios and used with permission. All rights reserved.

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An Army of Frogs – A Kulipari Novel


By Trevor Pryce with Joel Naftali, illustrated by Sanford Greene (Amulet)
ISBNB: 978-1-4197-01726

We haven’t covered a straight kid’s prose novel (with the mandatory secret ingredient of loads of cool pictures) for a while now, so it’s good to break that particular duck (sorry, British Sporting metaphor – best look it up under cricket, as I’m being annoyingly clever here…) with a fascinating new series debut from NFL football-star turned author Trevor Pryce, his authorial collaborator Joel Naftali and illustrator Sanford Greene, all dedicated to addressing and rectifying a long-standing literary disparity.

These days, it’s hard enough to get any kid into reading but of late stories targeting – and of interest to – young boys have been pretty much non-existent. Back in the dark ages when we read by candlelight, there was a wealth of essentially Boy’s Only fiction, ranging from fantasies like Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky or Clive King’s Stig of the Dump to uncounted war and detective stories of Biggles, Sexton Blake and their square-jawed ilk, classroom classics such as Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Billy Bunter or Just William, tales of innumerable sporting heroes and perennial adventure landmarks like Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, Call of the Wild and so forth.

There were also loads and loads of other books and series like Narnia tales or The Hobbit but those were a bit egalitarian: equally enjoyable by most girls too – so they didn’t count…

Whilst laudable on so many levels, the increasingly generalised fiction experience over the decades left a lot of lads with no introductory boyish literary equivalent to modern men’s fiction: the Sven Hassels, Zane Greys, Alistair Macleans and Mickey Spillanes who service those particularly manly mainstays of fighting, chasing, outwitting and overpowering your properly evil enemies.

I mean these days even Daleks and Klingons are merely misunderstood and have their own valid points of view…

Seeking to tackle the problem of a whole sub-set of youngsters who just give up on reading, the creators involved here pulled off a masterful trick. This is a “boys book” girls, parents and all other softies are going to want to see too…

In the Outback of Australia Darel is a young frog who dreams of being a mighty warrior just like the vanished Kulipari Poison Frogs of legend.

When the horrendous spell-casting Spider Queen Jarrah and massed scorpion armies tried to invade and consume the lush Amphibilands long ago, those valiant heroes led the frog and turtle resistance, ultimately giving their all to save everyone from annihilation. Now everybody lives in idyllic peace, safely hidden from further assault by supreme Sergu, the Turtle King who dream-cast a mystic Veil around the oasis, masking it from all predators – especially the ever-growing, always hungry, malevolently rapacious scorpion horde.

Darel’s dream is no idle childish fantasy: although his mother was an ordinary wood frog (as is he), his father was Kulipari and heroically gave his life to save the wetland paradise from ultimate destruction during The Hidingwar.

These day’s though, nobody really cares about the old stories: safe and complacent behind the Veil, the various frog tribes carry on their dull, happy lives and don’t care to remember the bad old days…

Even Darel’s best friends Gurnagan and Coorah just play along as the frustrated would-be champion constantly practises fighting, sneaking and strategising, preparing for a day which might never come.

Just in case…

Out in the harsh desert badlands however, supreme scorpion Lord Marmoo plans to destroy the Veil forever and feast on the frogs he knows reside beyond it. To facilitate his scheme he has entered into a risky alliance with monstrous Jarrah and even recruited divisions of lizards and “sandpaper frogs” – debased mercenaries who would do anything, even betraying their own kind for profit…

One day, whilst hunting herbs for apprentice healer Coorah at the very edge of the all-concealing barrier, Darel and Gurnagan encounter a scorpion reconnaissance party ensorcelled by the Spider Queen to breach the hem of the Veil and lay the foundations of the mystic shield’s destruction. Further out, the terrified froglets can see an impossibly huge army just waiting in the shimmering sands for the fall of the wall…

Sensing his moment has come, Darel sends faithful “Gee” back to warn the village whilst he spies on the invaders but Gurnagan is quickly captured and dragged off before he can carry out his task.

With all hope resting in his pads, Darel boldly infiltrates the Scorpion Lord’s camp to save his friend, and begins an astonishing heroic odyssey that will bring his people and homelands to the brink of extinction and take him to the mythic allies needed to fulfil his inescapable destiny…

Superbly illustrated by Sanford Greene who provides maps, character studies and more than fifty fascinating fun and scary full-colour illustrations, An Army of Frogs is an enthralling and captivatingly rousing read which rattles along and will hopefully lead to a host of stirring sequels.

Text © 2013 Trevor Pryce. Illustrations © 2013 Sanford Greene. All rights reserved.

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Jeremy Brood part 1: Relativity & Fantagor Presents Brood


By Richard Corben & Jan Strnad with additional designs by Stan Dresser (Fantagor Press/Longhorn Book Distribution)
ASIN: B0006F7UMU            ISBN: 978-0-96238-410-3

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents and pioneers of graphic narrative: a legendary animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist who surfed 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. Renowned for his mastery of airbrush and anatomical stylisation – producing works of captivatingly excessive overwhelming eroticism – and infamous for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales, Corben’s epic storytelling, violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious triumphs through the 1970s and 1980s were instrumental in making comics a mainstream medium and art form for mature readers.

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. Although most acclaimed for interpretations of classic horror literature, he is equally adept at capturing the alarming nuances of technological terror and cynical political intrigue in shocking science fiction tales such as the truncated epic spotlighted here.

In 1982 he began, with long-time collaborator Jan Strnad, a proposed series of European style square-bound albums starring a troubled star traveller, but it sadly fell victim to an economic downturn before it could find its feet. This taste of a tantalisingly uncompleted greater epic began in Jeremy Brood: Relativity and was brought to an abrupt finish in the magazine Fantagor Presents Brood (Fantagor #5, 1983). The tale has since been collected in a book in 1989 and subsequently re-released in 1998.

The original chronicle begins with a fascinating glimpse at the artist’s working process in his picture-packed ‘Illustrators Notes’ before the full Technicolor experience opens with spare-faring civil servant Brood and his horny but frustrated co-pilot Charlene receiving a sub-space transmission from Earth.

An agent on the planet Eden has sent a distress call and they are to divert there at top speed. Their civilisation is at a cultural crossroads and needs nudging in the right direction – or so planetary sociologist Bernard Finchley claims.

However due to the relativistic nature of near-light speeds, the message is three years old by the time it reaches them and their short trip to Eden will take two centuries in local time…

When they at last arrive, the promised paradise world is a hot, dry desert but, following protocol and armed with the latest tapes of the language, Brood dons a disguise and makes his way to the nearest city, leaving Char and the ship as back-up in case of trouble.

It finds him anyway and the Earthman is attacked by barbaric grotesques and has to get physical with the brutes…

In the intervening years Eden has fallen into religious fanaticism, and as Brood enters the devastated city he is found by an aged cleric who draws him towards a vast gathering. The worshippers are about to sacrifice another nubile virgin maid to Holobar – an increasingly rare occurrence as most girls wisely “disqualify” themselves at their very first opportunity – in the hope that the prophesied saviour will appear to deliver them from their oppressive all-conquering deity. As Jeremy watches in secure anonymous horror, his ancient guide Narrl hurls him into the middle of the ceremony and urges him to deflower the alien maiden or be torn apart by the mob…

Repressed WASP Brood used to have trouble getting sufficiently amorous even with his black girlfriend in the privacy of their spaceship – and she was actually the same species – so this horrific situation almost ends in disaster until the old wise man smashes the stone mask on a huge idol above the altar. Underneath, the monolith has Brood’s face…

Shocked, panicked and realising he’s been set up by a man dead for centuries, Brood at last accomplishes what he was dispatched for, encouraged in equal measure by the willing female under him and the screaming fanatics surrounding him.

Meanwhile miles distant, desert brigands mount a lethal assault on the grounded starship…

Safe for the present, Brood and his new bride Brynne are filled in by the devious alien Priest – who is also Narrl’s brother. The old connivers are the great grandsons of Finchley and a native girl, and their family has been working to build a counter-religion and messiah-cult based on Brood’s eventual arrival in the expectation that his Earth technology will allow them to overthrow the oppressive, draconian fundamentalist followers of Holobar …

Jeremy can’t think about his proposed role as rabble-rousing rebel: he’s lost radio contact with Char, and is forced to trek back to the ship. En route, however, Narrl tries to kill Brood, revealing himself to be a traitor seeking to destroy the saviour and crush the people’s hope of redemption forever. Eradiating his betrayer Brood pushes on, only to discover he is now the only Earthling on Eden…

Fantagor Presents Brood came out a year later: a special edition of Corben’s own occasional and self-published art magazine which ran a conclusion of sorts in full colour, supplemented by a black and white reprint and a new unconnected monochrome fantasy tale.

(In case you’re wondering the reprint was Razar the Unhero’ written in 1970 by Herb Arnold as “Starr Armitage”: a dark and sexily violent spoof with a deprecating edge, deliciously lampooning the Sword and Sorcery epics dominating paperback bookshelves of the day. The new tale was ‘Ogre II’, a tragic comic monster love story sequel to a yarn that ran in Warren Publishing’s 1984 #4.)

Jeremy Brood however starred in the rocket-paced all-action shocker ‘The Big Shriek!’ which picked up moments after Relativity ended…

As Jeremy buries what remains of Charlene, hordes of airborne dragon-riding Holobar zealots pass over his head heading towards the city and the (presumably) impregnated Edenite Madonna, determined to end the heretical resistance forever…

Soon the city is under shattering bombardment and all looks black until the infuriated Brood storms in, crashing his barely airworthy ship into the central square and briefly driving back in the attackers.

Retreating to the temple, Brood and Brynne prepare for their inevitable end, but the cunning far-seeing and ruthless Bernard Finchley and his devoted disciple Priest had arranged a last-ditch contingency plan, with no thought at the horrific cost their centuries-separated dupe Jeremy would be forced to pay…

Moody and trenchant, laced with sparkling irreverence and cynicism, this parable could and should have found time to fully flower but the times and trends were against it. However Corben and Strnad’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives and inescapable failings has never been better exemplified, and at least the 80 or so pages that were complete are still available in one single edition should you care to check out yet one more book no comics or fantasy fan should be without.
© 1982, 1983, 1989 Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. All rights reserved.

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Dead Air


By M. Dalton Allred with Laura Allred (Slave Labor Books)
No ISBN, ASIN: B000GLP8JG

Major comicbook creative force M. Dalton (‘we call him “Mike”’) Allred’s many comicbook writer/artist triumphs include Madman, The Atomics, and Red Rocket 7 as well as notable collaborative runs on Marvel’s X-Force and X-Statix with Peter Milligan and Vertigo thriller iZombie with Chris Roberson, but unlike almost everyone else in the industry to reach an exalted status, most of his early work was – and remains – extremely readable…

After switching from a career in the media to funnybooks, he commenced his unique brand of tale-telling (aided as always by wife Laura) with a dreamily paranoid, visually symphonic suspense shocker very much in the mould of classic 1960s Rod Serling Twilight Zone mystery tales.

Originally designed as a black and white 4-issue miniseries, Dead Air was instead released by independent publisher Slave Labor as a complete Original Graphic Novel and reintroduced comics to the thrills of uncanny, inexplicable paranoiac peril through the channelled artistic sensibilities of modern design legend Patrick Nagel (upon whose remorselessly pared-down stylisations Allred based his own early drawing).

Following The End of the World, the poignant personal horror begins in ‘Shapes of Things’ as, in the small American town of Roseburg, Oregon, radio DJ Calvin Lennox stares at the blue glow coming from over the mountains and wonders…

One night all communication with the outside world was completely lost. All the TV channels blinked out to static and there was nothing but dead air on the radio. Soon Mayor Leroy Black had declared Martial Law and instigated a curfew: nobody out and nobody in, and order viciously imposed by the sheriff’s bully-boys.

Everybody knew it had to have been the long-deaded nuclear war, but Lennox didn’t care. His wife Sydney and their two boys Michael and Connor were miles away in Eugene when the disaster – whatever it actually was – had struck, and Calvin was going crazy trying to get to them.

Asking Black to let him leave only resulted in a savage beating, so Lennox carefully laid plans with lifelong pals Charlie Custen, Warren Goodrich and Kevin Zelch to escape from the captive population, all the while barely holding off the bubbling madness, desperation of loss and agony of not knowing…

Their moment came in ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ as the determined quartet made their break with the unexpected assistance of an unsuspected ally. The attempt led to a desperate car-chase and an exchange of gunfire which permanently scarred the frantic family man and badly wounded Warren, but soon they were all on their way, riding on an open empty highway that was somehow, subtly… wrong.

Warren was the one who spotted it.

Everything looked fine, with no sign of atomic – or any other physical – destruction, but the road no longer had any turn-offs or exits…

Freaked out, the fugitives continued on and began to notice that the scenery, landscape and mountains now seemed altered and oddly different. It was like they’d been transported to another world….

With reality reeling, they stop to assess their situation and, after some discussion, decide to push on and find Sydney and the kids. Switching to the motorbikes, they travel on – far, far further than the normal distance to Eugene.

The horror starts to hit home in ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ when the interminable highway is interrupted by a beach and sea-shore miles from where it should be. Nonplussed, Calvin breaks into an empty lighthouse and sees his destination just over a ridge. Somehow Eugene was just there, but there was something not right about the city’s edges and outskirts…

Baffled and combative, the freaked out friends move on to find a familiar city filled with forgotten childhood treasures but utterly devoid of life. As they separate to explore, Calvin discovers he can now see through John’s eyes just as a glowing blue cloud begins to dissolve all the buildings…

Only Warren and Calvin escape the all-enveloping mist and the heartsick, bereft family man is filled with a terrifying partial understanding as he turns their vehicle back towards Roseburg for the incredible answers to all mysteries in ‘A Sort of Homecoming’. Even then only Calvin Lennox makes it, to finally confront the agent of all his woes and find the answers he’s been seeking…

Stylish, wry, moving, quirkily lyrical and inundated with iconic islands of popular culture, Dead Air is a beguiling puzzle picture and decidedly different love story which still packs a punch for fantasy fans and comics lovers to enjoy over and over again.
© 1989 M. Dalton Allred. All rights reserved.

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The Wild West Show


By Joe R. Lansdale, Lewis Shiner, Neal Barrett Jr., Sam Glanzman, Doug Potter & many and various. Edited by Richard Klaw (Mojo Press)
ISBN: 1-885418-04-3

Once upon a time, not that very long ago, nearly all of fiction was engorged with tales of Cowboys and Indians.

As always happens with such periodic popular phenomena – such as the Swinging Sixties’ Super-Spy Boom and the recent Vampire/Werewolf Boyfriend trend – there was a tremendous amount of momentary merit, lots of utter dross and a few spectacular gems.

Most importantly once such surges have petered out there’s also generally a small cadre of frustrated devotees who mourn its passing and, on growing up, resolve to do something to venerate or even revive their lost and faded favourite fad…

After World War II the American family entertainment market – for which read comics, radio and the burgeoning television industry – became comprehensively enamoured of the clear-cut, simplistic sensibilities and easy, escapist solutions offered by Tales of the Old West; already a firmly established favourite of paperback fiction, movie serials and feature films.

I’ve often pondered on how almost simultaneously a dark, bleak, nigh-nihilistic and oddly left-leaning Film Noir genre quietly blossomed alongside that wholesome revolution, seemingly for the cynical minority of entertainment intellectuals who somehow knew that the returned veterans still hadn’t found a Land Fit for Heroes… but that’s a thought for another time and different review.

Even though comic books had encompassed Western heroes from the very start – there were cowboy strips in the premier issues of both Action Comics and Marvel Comics – the post-war years saw a vast outpouring of anthology titles with new gun-toting heroes to replace the rapidly dwindling supply of costumed Mystery Men, and true to formula, most of these pioneers ranged from transiently mediocre to outright appalling.

With every comic-book publisher turning hopeful eyes westward, it was natural that most of the historical figures would quickly find a home and of course facts counted little, as indeed they never had with cowboy literature…

Despite minor re-flowerings in the early 1970s and mid-1990s, Cowboy comics have largely vanished from our funnybook pages: seemingly unable to command enough mainstream commercial support to survive the crushing competition of garish wonder-men and the furiously seductive future.

Europe and Britain also embraced the Sagebrush zeitgeist and produced some pretty impressive work, with France and Italy eventually making the genre their own by the end of the 1960s. They still make the best straight Western strips in the world.

Happily however an American revolution in comics retailing and print technologies at the end of the 20th century allowed fans to create and disseminate relatively inexpensive comicbooks of their own and, happier still, many of those fans are incredibly talented creators in other genres. A particularly impressive case in point is this captivating lost treasure from independent creator-led outfit Mojo Press, which published some amazing and groundbreaking horror, fantasy, Western and science fiction graphic novels and books between 1994 and their much-lamented demise in 1999.

Released in 1996, The Wild West Show was Mojo’s sixth release, a black and white anthology which celebrated the classical iconography of the genre whilst gleefully playing fast and loose with the content and running roughshod over the traditional mythology of the medium.

After the informative and educational ‘Two Fists, Four Colors and Six Guns’ – a history of Western comics by Scott A. Cupp – the wide-screen wonderment begins with Joe R. Lansdale’s beguiling short story ‘Trains Not Taken’ (adapted by Neal Barrett Jr. & John Garcia) as American Ambassador-to-Japan Bill Cody strikes up a casual conversation with businessman James Hickock on a Iron Horse trip to the Dakotas.

Among the many topics are the captivating single woman both find impossible to ignore, the Japanese/American union and recent massacre of a combined US Cavalry/Samurai force by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull,

The tragic loss of both Custer and Yoshii and other matters of great import pass the time, but the weary Hickock is too distracted to concentrate fully. His mind is filled with the troubles of his aging alcoholic wife and the disturbing dreams of another life: one where he was a buffalo hunting scout and deadly gunslinger. But those are just frustrating fancies of trains not taken. It’s all too late now – or is it…?

Lewis Shiner’s ‘Steam Engine Time’, illustrated by Doug Potter, is another glorious genre-bending snippet set in Austin, Texas in 1898, where an anonymous lad with a dream and a guitar tried to get the white folk interested in his new kind of music. Even though the far-more-welcoming Negroes in the Colored Quarter hadn’t heard of “The Blues” they accepted his unique squalling and bizarre pelvis-led dancing and understood his impatience. The kid wished that somehow he could get electricity into his guitar. Someday, maybe…

Veteran comics craftsman Sam Glanzman then turned in a silent masterpiece of action and bleak, black humour in ‘I Could Eat a Horse!’ after which Paul O. Miles and artists Newt Manwich & Michael Washburn adapted Donn Webb’s hilarious saga of a far from ordinary sidekick in ‘Cowboy Dharma’, whilst Norman Partridge & Marc Erickson revealed the West’s affinity for grotesque horror in the terrifying tale of The Head – but not much else – of murdering bandito Joaquin Murrieta in ‘For Neck or Nothin’…

Short and bittersweet, ‘Custer’s Last Love’ is a smart parable of the battle of the sexes from Steve Utley & Kevin Hendryx, and the whole shooting match ends on a lyrical high with the fact-based historical drama of settler Maggie Gosher whose ‘Letters from Arizona’ in 1889 are here transformed into a powerful and memorable strip by Joe Preston, John Lucas & Martin Thomas.

The Western tale has long been a part of world culture and perhaps that fact has relegated the genre in too many minds to the status of a passé fascination of a bygone generation. However these fresh looks at an overexposed idiom prove there’s still meat to found on those old bones, and cow-punching aficionados, fans of nostalgia-tainted comics and seekers of the wild and new alike can all be assured that there’s a selection of range-riding rollercoaster thrills and moody mysteries still lurking in those hills and on that horizon…

Black hats, white hats, alternate worlds, great pictures and macabre twists – what more could you possibly ask for?
The Wild West Show © 1996 Richard Klaw. All material contained herein © its respective creators. All rights reserved.

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Usagi Yojimbo book 2: Samurai


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-0-93019-338-1

Usagi Yojimbo (which translates as “rabbit bodyguard”) first appeared as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, which launched in furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk anthology Albedo Anthropomorphics #1 (1984), subsequently appearing there on his own terms as well as in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up in Grimjack.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family emigrated to Hawaii in 1955. He attended the University of Hawaii, graduating with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design after landing in California.

His early forays into comics were as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer, before his nimble pens and brushes, coupled with a love of Japanese history and legend and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, all combined to turn a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic is nominally set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) and specifically references the Edo Period of Feudal Japan: the early 17th century of our reckoning.

It simultaneously samples classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla whilst specifically recounting the life of Miyamoto Usagi, a Ronin or masterless wandering Samurai, eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo or bodyguard-for-hire.

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

And yes, he’s a rabbit – a brave, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic long-suffering, conscientious and heroic everyman bunny who just can’t turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This sublime second monochrome compilation (which originally appeared in Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo volume 1, #1-6, from 1989), begins with an effulgent Introduction from fellow legendary Groo-grifter Mark Evanier before the comedic adventure seamlessly transformed into epic drama, in an ambitious 9-chapter serial which solidly set the scene for decades to come.

‘Samurai!’ started with the Ronin again meeting money-mad bounty-hunter Gennosuké after a deadly duel of honour left a warrior named Gunichi a bloody corpse at the Yojimbo’s feet. Pressed by the newly-arrived and curious Gen, the moodily moved and uncharacteristically loquacious rabbit began sharing some of the events of his boyhood…

Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply the son of a small-town magistrate, dispatched with his friend Kenichi to train at the prestigious DogoraFencingSchool in Sendai.

As the boys made their journey they encountered a lone, aged warrior beset by a pack of bullies from that self-same school, determined to prove their institution’s martial superiority. Despite all efforts to placate the hotheads old Katsuichi was eventually forced to reluctantly slay the toughs. The stunned witnesses began to bicker. Whilst Kenichi wanted to follow orders and go on to the – clearly honourless – DogoraSchool, little Usagi chose to seek out the old man and make him his Sensei…

The old man was finished with teaching but eventually saw something in the defiant, determined little rabbit and grudgingly accepted his exceptional young charge…

Usagi spent years learning the Way of Bushido from his stern, leonine master: not just superior technique and tactics, but also a philosophy of justice and restraint that would serve him all his life…

The revelations of Usagi’s boyhood training continue in short, revelatory vignettes as the elder Yojimbo and his surly companion continue towards shelter, highlighting the peculiar relationship of Sensei and Student. At the disciple’s first tournament the scurrilous, vengeful Dogora adherents plan to “accidentally” cripple the boy and thus humiliate his teacher, but don’t reckon on his innate ability.

After besting the entire FencingSchool contingent in duels with wooden swords – or Bokken – the boy at last faces his old friend Kenichi and triumphs.

His prize is a Wakizashi “Young Willow” and Katana “Willow Branch”. The short and long swords are the soul of a samurai, marking his graduation to martial maturity, but Usagi is blithely unaware of what his victory has cost his childhood companion…

Mere months later, the graduate warrior was challenged by a masterful, mysterious swordsman who was a bodyguard to the Great Lord MifunÄ—. Their duel was interrupted when a band of Dogora assassins attacked, determined to avenge their school’s humiliation by a single stick-wielding student. The cowards were no match for the steel of Usagi and the mighty Gunichi, and the victors parted as friends, with the bodyguard promising to recommend the rabbit for future service to his Lord.

Still assessing his options the young Samurai then encountered Kenichi once more. The disgraced youth had left the DogoraSchool and was trying to drink himself to death, but when he and Usagi heard that their home village was threatened by bandits the former friends reunited to save their loved ones…

By holding Usagi’s childhood love Mariko hostage, the brigands had successfully neutralised his magistrate father and were stripping the hamlet of all its provisions and meagre treasures when Usagi and Kenichi challenged them.

None of the villains survived the vengeance of the outraged villagers.

In the aftermath although Mariko clearly wanted Usagi to stay, she said nothing and the Samurai left to join Lord MifunÄ—’s service. Kenichi stayed…

The young warrior rose quickly as MifunÄ—’s vassal and was soon a trusted bodyguard, serving beside the indomitable Gunichi. It was a time of great unrest and war was brewing. In his third year of service the Lord’s castle was attacked by Neko Ninja assassins. Although the doughty warriors managed to save their master, his wife Kazumi and heir Tsuruichi were murdered. Realising ambitious rival Lord Hikiji was responsible, MifunÄ— declared war…

The struggle ended on the great Adachigahara plain when MifunÄ—’s general Todo switched sides and the Great Lord fell. At the crucial moment Gunichi also broke, fleeing to save his own skin and leaving the helpless Usagi to preserve the fallen Lord’s head – and Honour – from shameful desecration…

The story came full circle now, when after two years as a purposeless, masterless Ronin, the wandering Yojimbo met Gunichi again…

After that epic origin yarn, Sakai returned to short, pithy vignettes to cleanse the dramatic palate, beginning with a delicious traditional horror story. In ‘Kappa’ the wanderer encounters a deadly marsh troll at dusk and barely escapes with his life by offering the foul beast some wild cucumbers he has picked. Exhausted, the Ronin finds shelter with an old woman for the night, but when she hears of his adventure she becomes hysterical.

The cucumbers were planted so that her own son – returning that night – would have something to buy off the voracious Kappa…

Horrified by his inadvertent error, Usagi dashes back to the marsh to save the son, but even after overcoming the monster shockingly learns of one final sting in this tale…

Soaking a sore back in a hot spring the wanderer befriends a newly hatched tokagé lizard (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles that populate the anthropomorphic world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem), but is caught off guard and ambushed by bandits. Luckily the uniquely fire-breathing ‘Zylla’ comes to his assistance, prompting the wary warrior to wonder if the lizard might be a minor deity…

This second monochrome compilation concludes at the ‘Silk Fair’ where the wanderer saves a silk-worker from marauding bandits and stays to liberate all his oppressed fellows from a miserly merchant ruthlessly exploiting them…

The Lethal Lepus has changed publishers a few times but has been in continuous publication since 1987 – with over 29 graphic novel collections and books to date. He has also guest-starred in many other series (such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show but there’s still time yet and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out. There are high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi comics serial and lots of toys. Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny, thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a monolithic magical saga of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories.

Sheer comicbook poetry by a Comicbook Sensei…

Text and illustrations © 1987, 1989, 2005 Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1989, 2002 Fantagraphics books. All rights reserved.

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Essential Thor volume 5


By Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Don Perlin, Vince Colletta, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5093-0

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured, with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had most often drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios.

By the time of this fifth Essential monochrome compendium, an unthinkable Changing of the Guard had seen the King of Comics jump ship from the House of (His) Ideas to arch-rival DC where he crafted the unfinished Magnum Opus of the Fourth World series as well as a number of other game-changing concepts.

The Thunder God suffered a sharp, sudden loss of imaginative impetus, however, which left the series floundering, despite the best efforts of (arguably) the company’s greatest remaining illustrators, Neal Adams and John Buscema. More than any other Marvel feature, The Mighty Thor was the strip where Kirby’s creative brilliance had always found its greatest release in cosmic wandering and questing exploration of an infinite and dangerous universe.

His dreaming, extrapolating and honing of a dazzling new kind of storytelling and graphic symbology, wedded to soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe – and all within the limited confines of a 20-page action adventure – was an impossible act to follow.

Although his successors mimicked the trappings of that incredible conceptual juggling act, the heart, soul and soaring, unfettered wonder just were not there any longer – nor would they be until 1983 when Walt Simonson assumed creative control with #337 (see Mighty Thor: the Ballad of Beta Ray Bill).

By the time these monthly episodes (from issues #196-220, February 1972 to February 1974) saw print, the Thunder God and his Asgardian companions were slowly devolving into a muddled, self-doubting band of fantasy spacemen roving the outer limits of the Marvel Universe under the earnest but uninspired governance of young science fiction novelist Gerry Conway and a dedicated, talented but still somehow inappropriate string of artists.

The previous volume had seen Asgard again imperilled by mystic monstrosity Mangog with Thor and friends dispatched on another extended odyssey to the ends of the Universe in search of succour and water from The Twilight Well. In his righteous rage Odin had previously banished God of Evil Loki to a fantastic world, momentarily forgetting that once there the Prince of Evil could awaken the most vicious, unbeatable monster in the universe…

Now the Thunderer, with Warriors Three Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim, found himself lost ‘Within the Realm of Kartag!’ (illustrated by John Buscema & Vince Colletta): facing slug-men and bewitching temptress Satrina even as the All-Father and the hosts of the Shining City struggled to hold Mangog at bay. Meanwhile on the planet Blackworld Lady Sif and her muscular shield-maiden Hildegarde were undertaking another Odinian quest and found themselves caught up in a time-bending nightmare…

Thor #197 saw the heroes overcome all odds to find ‘The Well at the Edge of the World!’ meeting the conniving, all-powerful Norns and recruiting the colossal Kartag for their desperate return to shattered Asgard.

On Blackworld Sif and Hildegarde encountered monsters and men making uncontrollable evolutionary leaps towards an unguessable future, but found an unlikely ally and guide in aged sailor Silas Grant.

The male heroes returned to find Asgard in flaming ruins and the cataclysmic confrontation with the Mangog nearing an apocalyptic end, whilst on Blackworld Sif, Hildegarde and Silas met alien Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile and the horrendous creature behind the evolutionary jumps. Simultaneously the battle in Asgard reached a horrific climax when Mangog was at last defeated ‘…And Odin Dies!’

Issue #199 saw the ravaged home of the gods adrift in a dimensional void, allowing Thor – clutching to a desperate last hope – to cocoon his deceased father in a timeless forcefield, preventing Dark Goddess Hela from claiming his soul. However she wasn’t the only deity hungry for the All Father’s spirit and ‘If This Be Death…!’ revealed Grecian netherlord Pluto invading the broken realm to take Odin into his own dire domain.

…And, on Blackworld, Tana Nile hinted at the origin of the monstrous Ego-Prime and how it can force such terrifying uncontrollable time-warps…

Back in free-floating Asgard, things went from bad to worse as brave Balder‘s beloved Karnilla deserted him just as invincible Pluto defeated Hela and aimed a killing blow at Thor…

The denouement was aggravatingly delayed as anniversary issue #200 hit the pause button to flashback to an earlier age. ‘Beware! If This Be… Ragnarok!’ was crafted by Stan Lee, John Buscema & John Verpoorten and spectacularly depicted the fall of the gods through the mystic visions of Volla the Prophetess, with only a bridging Prologue and Epilogue by Conway & Buscema revealing the Norns saving Thor’s life just in time for the concluding battle against Pluto in #201 (with Jim Mooney providing lush finished art over Buscema’s layouts).

When Hela relinquished her claim to the father of the gods and Odin enjoyed a miraculous ‘Resurrection!’, on Earth absentee Asgardians Heimdall and Kamorr began seeking out mortals for a another Odinian master-plan even before the battle with Pluto was fully concluded. As they scoured Midgard, on Blackworld Ego-Prime advanced the civilisation into atomic Armageddon and Sif barely transported her companions to Earth in time to escape the thermonuclear conflagration.

Luckily Thor, Balder, and the Warriors Three were in New York City to meet the refugees, since the deadly, now self-evolving, Ego-Prime had followed them…

Thor #202 boasted ‘…And None Dare Stand ‘Gainst Ego-Prime!’ (Buscema & Colletta) although Silas, Tana Nile and the assembled Asgardians tried their best as the now-sentient shard of Ego, the Living Planet rampaged across the city making monsters and shattering entire streets, whilst Odin calmly observed the carnage and destruction and Heimdall and Kamorr gathered their human targets for the concluding ‘They Walk Like Gods!’, wherein all Odin’s machinations were finally revealed as Ego-Prime inadvertently created a new race of 20th century deities. Sadly the All-Father’s long and single-minded scheme appalled his son and weary, war-torn subjects, whose understandable rebukes led to them all being ‘Exiled on Earth!’ in #204 (Buscema & Mooney) and soon targeted by terrifying satanic tempter Mephisto…

Soon only the Thunderer was left to oppose the devil invading his private hell and liberating hundreds of demon-possessed humans from ‘A World Gone Mad!’ (Colletta inks), after which the Earth-bound godling clashed brutally but inconclusively with the uncharacteristically amok Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man just as Thor’s greatest enemy resurfaced in #206’s ‘Rebirth!’

Tracking the escaped Creel to Rutland, Vermont during their annual Halloween festival, Thor, Sif and Hildegarde clashed with the malevolent Loki and his all-powerful ‘Firesword!’ in an action-heavy duel elevated by a plethora of comic creator cameos with the divine Marie Severin adding her caricaturing brilliance to Buscema & Colletta’s workmanlike illustration. Another extended sub-ploy opened here as Sif vanished, spirited away by the love-lorn Karnilla to the ends of the universe…

Sci fi themes took the lead again in Thor #208 as ‘The Fourth-Dimensional Man!’ manifested, stealing the Thunderer’s ambient Asgardian energies to save his own world from disaster. Sadly they were insufficient and the malevolent Mercurio needed to tap his source directly resulting in battle without mercy as Thor’s noble spirit gradually gave way to the despair of exile and constant loss…

Incessantly searching for Sif, Thor stopped in London (not one any Briton would ever recognise though) in #209 long enough to accidentally awaken a sleeping alien dormant since the building of Stonehenge. The resultant clash between Thunder God and “Demon Druid” devastated much of England in ‘Warriors in the Night!’ before being ambushed in Red China by Mao’s soldiers in #210 ‘The Hammer and the Hellfire!‘ (Buscema, Don Perlin & Colletta). They were merely the action appetiser, however, since ultimate Troll Ulik had decided to conquer both his own people and Earth and moved pre-emptively to remove his greatest foe from the equation…

With New York invaded by Troll warriors, #211 revealed ‘The End of the Battle!’ (Buscema, Perlin & Colletta) as the fighting mad Asgardians routed the underworld insurgents just as an insane Balder returned to warn that Asgard had been conquered. With the Realm Eternal emptied of gods and occupied by sleazy lizard-men, Thor and his companions were soon hot on the trail of their missing race. Guided by saurian rogue Sssthgar and his serpentine horde, they undertook a ‘Journey to the Golden Star!’ in #212 and discovered their liege and kin meek chattels on a slaver’s auction block…

Scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot, ‘The Demon Brigade!’ saw Thor betrayed by the Lizard Lord and embroiled in a war between slaver races before discovering Sssthgar’s secret and freeing his father. He also obtained a lead to the whereabouts of Sif and Karnilla, consequently plunging his small dedicated party of heroes recklessly ‘Into the Dark Nebula!’ (by Conway, Sal Buscema & Mooney) to rescue the missing maidens from the asteroid miners who had purchased them.

They found their quarry besieged by the 4D Man and his army, who were intent on acquiring a malign, sentient source of infinite power, but events took an uncanny turn when ‘The God in the Jewel’ (John Buscema & Mooney) absorbed the women into its crystalline mass and took off, intent on dominating all life in the universe…

Forced to become allies of convenience, the Asgardians and Mercurio strove together ‘Where Chaos Rules!’ to free the women and stop the rapacious gem-god, but even after eventual victory found them tenuous comrades, Thor’s trials were not done.

Returning in triumph to a mysteriously rebuilt Asgard in #217, the wanderers found ‘All Swords Against Them!’ (Sal Buscema inking brother John), as impossible doppelgangers of Odin, Thor and the rest greeted them with murderous hostility. Whilst the Thunder God furiously battled to unravel this latest mystery, in another sector of the universe the all-conquering Colonizers of Rigel were put to flight and abandoned their worlds to an all-consuming force of sheer destruction…

Thor #218 proved there was no rest for the weary as the victorious Asgardians again took ship for deep space to prevent the Rigellians’ doom from reaching Earth. ‘Where Pass the Black Stars There Also Passes… Death!’ (J. Buscema & Mooney) found the hard-travelling heroes discovering a nomadic race of colossal, decadent star-farers who fuelled their unending flight by recycling thriving civilisations into food and power.

In distant Asgard, Hildegarde’s young sister Krista was slowly falling under the sway of sinister seductive evil even as her hereditary protectors were a cosmos away, infiltrating one of the Black Stars’ cosmic scoops and encountering a race of mechanical slaves in

#219’s ‘A Galaxy Consumed!’ (inked by Mike Esposito) before this volume’s story-portion ends with #220, wherein the slaves and their charismatic messiah Avalon are at last freed and untold galaxies subsequently saved from callous consumption in ‘Behold! The Land of Doom!’

This collection also includes fact-filled Marvel Universe Handbook pages on Pluto, Tana Nile, and Mercurio, the 4-D Man.

The Kirby Thor will always be a high-point in graphic fantasy, all the more impressive for the sheer imagination and timeless readability of the tales. With his departure the series foundered for the longest time before finding a new identity, but his successors did their honest best to follow in his Brobdingnagian footsteps.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of The King but fans of cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a definite must for all fans of the character and the genre.

©1972, 1973, 1974, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.