Category: Fantasy

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Kiddo


By Antoine Cossé (Records Records Records Books)
ISBN: 978-0-9566330-1-9

Since Britain grew up and joined the rest of the world in accepting comics as a valid and viable art form, the shelves of Albion have been positively groaning with a wealth of superbly fascinating graphic narratives of all types; especially since a number of bold new publishers have either picked up and translated Asian and European material or confidently released new stuff from creators around the world.

Antoine Cossé is a French graphic storyteller living in London. He left Paris to study at Camberwell College of Arts and graduated in 2006 with a degree in illustration. He then began a seemingly non-stop barrage of moody, funny and evocative strips catering to his own need to explore the absurd, the fanciful and the unexpected lurking behind the humdrum passage of everyday lives and kindly invited a growing fan-base to join him in his explorations.

Following a number of short strips, features and collaborations, in 2012 he produced his debut graphic novel РKiddo Рfor British outfit Records Records Records Books: an enigmatic, helter-skelter cartoon progression practically devoid of words which combines elements of epic dystopian science fiction with unceasing kinetic forward motion redolent in tone Рif not style and content Рto the ceaselessly energetic strip works of Andr̩ Barbe.

Lavishly packaged as a black and white hardback (comfortingly reminiscent of those classily sturdy children’s books of my youth) the stark events unfold as a solitary man plunges through jungles and wastelands, seeking who knows what in a scary big world.

Encountering beasts, a woman, hardship, hunger, booze, a giant monster dog, war, strange phenomena and the encroaching remnants – or perhaps discards – of civilisation, he moves ever onward to a chaotic closing conundrum…

Deeply sly, beguiling reductive and intoxicatingly Primitivist, Kiddo is an irresistible  surge of purely visual drama and a mystery for its own sake which will delight all aficionados of the medium who value comics for their own sake and don’t need answers spoon-fed to them.
© 2012 Antoine Cossé. © & ℗ Records Records Records Books.

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Usagi Yojimbo book 7: Gen’s Story


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-304-1

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 premiered in 1984 amongst the assorted furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk Albedo Anthropomorphics #1. He subsequently graduated to a solo act in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up series in Grimjack.

In 1955, when Sakai was two years old, his family moved to Hawaii from Kyoto, Japan. He left the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design 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 found a way to express his passion for Japanese history, legend and the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, and transformed 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…

Although the deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic stars sentient animals and details the life of a peripatetic Lord-less Samurai eking out as honourable a living as possible by selling his sword as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire), the milieu and scenarios all scrupulously mirror the Feudal Edo Period of Japan (roughly the 17th century AD by our reckoning) whilst simultaneously referencing other cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla.

Miyamoto Usagi is brave, noble, industrious, honest, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering and conscientious: a rabbit devoted to the tenets of Bushido.  He simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice. As such, his destiny is to be perpetually drawn into an unending panorama of incredible situations.

This evocative and enticingly seventh black-&-white blockbuster collects yarns from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #32-38 plus an extra attraction from funny animal anthology Critters #38, offering a selection of complete adventures tantalisingly tinged with supernatural terror and drenched in wit, irony and pathos.

Following a lavish and laudatory Introduction from Groo-some co-worker Sergio Aragonés, the historical drama resumes as the restless, roaming Miyamoto encounters street performer ‘Kitsune’ whose beguiling beauty and dexterity with spinning tops turns many a head.

Of course whilst everybody’s gaping in astonishment the foxy lady is picking their pockets…

The philosophical wandering warrior takes it in his stride but when crooked gambler Hatsu‘s customary conniving tricks provoke a bloody fight in an inn, Kitsune is forced to show the still blithely unaware bunny her other – far more lethal skills – to save their lives…

‘Gaki’ (literally “Hungry Ghost”) then delightfully skips backs to the bunny’s boyhood as a Bushido disciple of master warrior Katsuichi, wherein that venerable warrior teaches his fractious student a valuable and terrifying lesson in staying alert, after which ‘Broken Ritual’ (from a plot by Aragonés) offers a magnificent ghost story of honour regained.

It begins when the Yojimbo wanders into a village of terrified peasants cowering from the nightly horrors of a spectral warrior. The unhappy revenant is General Tadaoka, an old comrade of Usagi’s and, as the story of the defeated soldier’s frustrated attempt to commit Seppuku comes out, the heart-sore hare realises what he must do to give his deceased friend peace…

Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply the son of a small-town magistrate who had spent years learning the Way of Bushido from his stern, leonine master: not just superior technique and tactics, but also Katsuichi’s creed of justice and restraint which would serve the Ronin well throughout his turbulent life.

Mere months after graduating, Usagi was personally recruited by the personal bodyguard of Great Lord Mifunė. The young man advanced quickly and was soon a trusted bodyguard too, 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 and, although the doughty heroes managed to save their master, the Lord’s wife Kazumi and heir Tsuruichi were murdered. Realising ambitious rival Lord Hikiji was responsible, MifunÄ— declared war…

The epic conflict 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 next tale here returns to the days after that tragic betrayal and finds the hunted Usagi hiding in the wild forest known as ‘The Tangled Skein’ and taking shelter in the hut of an old woman. The crone was in fact a demonic Obakemono and, easily overpowering the fugitive, was set to devour Usagi when dead MifunÄ— returned to repay his most faithful servant for his unswerving loyalty…

This is followed by an extended contemporary tale featuring old frenemy ‘Gen’ and the title tale of this tome.

When the irascibly bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taker bites off more than he can chew, he is lucky Usagi is there to rescue him. Whilst the roguish rhino is recovering from severe wounds, however, the Ronin is approached by a haughty but destitute noblewoman and is drawn into ‘Lady Asano’s Story’ and her quest for vengeance against the traitor who destroyed her clan and family.

The Yojimbo is looking for a way to let her down gently when the dowager recognises Gennosuké as the lost son of her most trusted general…

The bitter bounty hunter wants nothing to do with her but when the traitor Oda – now the town magistrate – arrests the lady and Usagi learns of his companion’s awful upbringing in ‘Sins of the Father’ he decides to help even if Gen won’t.

The attempt fails and he is captured, compelling the rhino to get involved in ‘Lady Asano’s Revenge’: an epic final confrontation of Shakespearean proportions…

The sober, weary pair of itinerants then trek to another village in time for more trouble and ‘The Return of Kitsune’. The shady entertainer has been plying her trade and accidentally stolen a very dangerous letter: one detailing a proposed rebellion and scheme to profiteer from the crisis. Now she in hiding from the mercenaries of a hugely powerful and influential merchant…

However after the ill-starred trio savagely end the threat in typical bloodletting fashion a hidden faction springs a galling surprise on the weary victors…

‘The Last Ino Story’ ends the story section of this volume with a tale of brooding emotional drama and features the return of the Blind Swordspig; a blood-spilling porcine outlaw with a huge price on his head whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes.

Although Ino was a ruthless, blood-spilling villain he valiantly helped Gen in a desperate crisis, and the thief-taker returned the favour by leading everyone to believe his profitable quarry had perished.

Now, after fighting their way out of a vicious bandit ambush, the bounty hunter and his bunny buddy discover the swine has simply settled down as an innocuous farmer, but his violent past will not leave him be. Ino is dying of an infected arrow wound and his frantic young wife Fujiko begs them to save him any way they can…

This medieval monochrome masterwork also includes a gallery of covers to charm and delight one and all.

Despite changing publishers a few times the Roaming Rabbit has been in continuous publication since 1987, with more than 30 collections and books to date. He has guest-starred in many other series (most notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show.

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, informative and funny, the saga alternately bristles with tension and thrills and often breaks your heart with astounding tales of pride and tragedy.

Simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is the perfect comics epic: 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…
© 1992, 1993, 1996, 2009 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai. All rights reserved.

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Sock Monkey Treasury – A Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey Collection


By Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-696-6

It’s a fact sad but true that we can’t always be in the right place at the right time. No matter how scrupulous or diligent one might in the pursuit of a passion or hobby, things get missed. I, for example, missed the first comicbook releases of Dark Horse’s Sock Monkey by Tony Millionaire in 1998.

Sure, thanks to the miracles of back issue comic-shops I wasn’t deprived for long, but still, it was a close thing…

You, happily, don’t have any such worries, especially as Fantagraphics have just released a huge (286 x 203mm) and sumptuous 336 page hardback – 80 in full colour – collecting and commemorating all twelve uniquely dark and fanciful monochrome, multiple award-winning, all-ages adventures originally published as occasional miniseries between 1998 and 2007. Also included are the two colour hardcover storybooks Millionaire created in 2002 and 2004.

Tony Millionaire clearly loves to draw and does it very, very well; referencing classical art, timeless children’s book illustration and an eclectic mix of pioneering comic strip draughtsmen like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray, Elzie Segar and George Herriman: seamlessly blending their styles and sensibilities with European engravings masters from the “legitimate” side of the pictorial storytelling racket.

Born Scott Richardson, he especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as definitive formative influences.

With a variety of graphical strings to his bow such as his own coterie of books for children (particularly the superbly stirring Billy Hazelnuts series), animation and the brilliant if disturbing weekly strip Maakies – which describes the riotously vulgar and absurdly surreal adventures of an Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and his fellow über-alcoholic and nautical adventurer Drinky Crow. They are abetted but never aided by a peculiarly twisted, off-kilter cast of reprobates, antagonists and confrontational well-wishers.

Those guys are the mirror universe equivalents of the stars of these sublime confections…

In a Victorian House – of variable shape and size – by the sea, an old Sock Monkey named Uncle Gabby has great adventures and ponders the working of a wonderful yet often scary world. His constant companion is a small cuddly-toy bird with button eyes called Mr. Crow, who doesn’t understand why he cannot fly and sometimes eases his sorrow with strong spirits.

Their guardian is a small girl named Ann-Louise, and many other creatures living and artificial share the imposing edifice…

The gloriously imaginative forays into the fantastic begin as the material monkey is chased through the house by marauding toy pirates in their brigantine. In his flight he espies a gleaming, glittering glass concoction hanging from the ceiling. Convinced something so beautiful must be the Promised Land he enlists his artificial avian pal to help him enter ‘Heaven’. However the pirates have not given up and the chaos soon escalates…

‘Borneo’ describes the pair’s discovery of a shrunken human head and subsequent heroic oceanic odyssey to return the decapitated talisman home. Of course, if they had thought to unseal the sewn-shut lips he could have told them they were going in the wrong direction…

The next tale is a macabre all-action thriller which begins when a lost bat gets stuck in the attic ‘Dollhouse’. Mr. Crow meanwhile is attempting to console the freshly widowed Mrs. Smalls in the cellar. Things go even more savagely awry when the faux crow and well-meaning matchmaker Uncle Gabby try to introduce the grieving mouse to the strapping, winged stranger, utterly unaware of his pedigree as a South American Rodent-Eating Bat…

Knick-knacks, trinkets and ornaments have been going missing in the next tale and Ann-Louise attributes the thefts to ‘The Trumbernick’ who lives in the Grandfather clock. Having mislaid his hipflask, Mr. Crow investigates and finds the horde of goodies, in truth purloined by a capricious Blue Jay.

Disillusioned by the death of a beloved myth and disheartened by the antics of a venal – and extremely violent – bird, they are subsequently stunned to see an actual Trumbernick return, righteously enraged at the blow to his spotless reputation…

In ‘The Hunters’, stuffed bird and Sock Monkey, inspired by a room full of trophies and stuffed beasts, decide to take up the sport of slaughter, only to find that their size, relative ineffectuality and squeamishness – not to mention the loquacity and affability of their intended prey – prove a great impediment to their ambitions…

Millionaire proves the immense power of his storytelling in ‘A Baby Bird’, as Uncle Gabby’s foolish meddling with a nest – after being specifically told not to – results in tragedy, and brutal self-immolating repercussions that would make King Lear quail…

The author abandoned his masterful pen-&-ink etching style for soft mutable charcoal rendering in ‘The Oceanic Society’, wherein excitable doll Inches unknowingly performs an act of accidental cruelty at the shore and invites the vengeance of many outraged sea creatures against the tot inhabitants of Ann-Louise’s house…

An innocent attempt by the little girl and Mr. Crow to find Uncle Gabby a romantic companion goes hideous wrong and results in monstrous ‘Heartbreak’ when they throw away his actual true love and replace her with a ghastly mechanical monkey horror. The bereft puppet can then only find surcease in escalating acts of hideous destruction…

In 2002 Millionaire took his characters into a whimsical watercolour wonderland with “a Populare Pictonovelette” hardback entitled ‘The Glass Doorknob’. The beguiling tale is included here a series of full-colour plates supplanted by blocks of text, describing how the house dwellers once saw an indoor rainbow beneath a doorknob and spent all summer trying to recreate the glorious spectacle by acquiring and aligning every other item of glass, crystal or pellucid material they could find or steal…

The return to stark, inky monochrome augurs the onset of the terrifying 4-part epic ‘The Inches Incident’ which begins off the coast of Cape Ann when grizzled mariner Oyster Joe discovers thieving stowaways plundering his sailing ship.

Amidst spectacular hunts for sea monsters the villains Uncle Gabby and Mr. Crow explain how their former friend Inches mysteriously shanghaied and dumped them at sea…

Their new ally returns them home, but upon arrival they discover that the doll has become Evil! Boldly braving the house they discover the poor creature has been possessed by an inconceivable horror which drives them off and provokes a fantastic sea voyage to find the devil’s only nemesis…

This staggering, bleakly charming compendium closes with an existential treat from 2004. ‘Uncle Gabby’, coloured by Jim Campbell, was another one-shot hardback – albeit in standard comics format – which offered a few revelatory indulgences on the puppet heroes’ poignant origins, all wrapped up in a baroque bestiary and imaginative travelogue as the Sock Monkey discloses his shocking ability to un-name things and thereby end their existences…

Visually intoxicating, astoundingly innovative and stunningly surreal, Sock Monkey yarns judiciously leaven wonder with heartbreak and gleeful innocence with sheer terror. Millionaire describes them as for “adults who love children’s stories” and these tall tales all offer enchanting pictorial vistas and skewed views of the art of storytelling that no fan of comics or fantasy could ever resist.
Sock Monkey Treasury © 2014 Tony Millionaire. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 8: 1951-1952


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-699-7

The stellar Sunday page Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur debuted on 13th February 1937, a luscious and luminous full-colour weekly window into a miraculous too-perfect past of adventure and romance, even topping creator Hal Foster’s previous impossibly popular comics masterpiece Tarzan.

The saga of noble knights played against a glamorised, dramatised Dark Ages historical backdrop as it followed the life of a refugee boy driven from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world and attain a paramount position amongst the heroes of fabled Camelot.

Writer/artist Foster wove the epic tale over decades, as the near-feral wild boy matured into a paragon of chivalric virtue: knight, warrior, saviour, vengeance-taker and eventually family patriarch in a constant deluge of wild – and joyously witty – wonderment.

The restless hero visited many far-flung lands, siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes and utterly enchanting generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, animated series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on Prince Valiant – one of the few adventures strips to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and counting) – and even here in the end times of the newspaper narrative cartoons, it continues to astound in more than 300 American papers. It’s even cutting its way onto the internet with an online edition.

Foster tirelessly crafted the feature until 1971 when illustrator John Cullen Murphy (Big Ben Bolt) succeeded him as illustrator. Foster continued as writer and designer until 1980, after which he retired and Cullen Murphy’s daughter Mairead took over colouring and lettering whilst her brother John assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired, since when the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artists Gary Gianni and latterly Thomas Yeates with Mark Schultz (Xenozoic) scripting.

Before the astonishing illumination of dauntless derring-do recommences, Editor Brian M. Kane discusses, in amazing detail, the incredible tales of the creator’s pre-and-early comics days as an advertising artist and the impact of his “Mountie” paintings on early 20th century American ads in the fascinating Foreword essay ‘An Artist Nowhere Near Ordinary: Hal Foster’s Lord Greystoke of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’.

This volume of sublime strips is also balanced by another erudite Kane piece at the back: describing the now forgotten entertainments phenomenon of the Silver Lady Awards bestowed annually by the fabled, prestigious but now forgotten “Banshees”.

‘Hal Foster and the Other Woman’ reveals the story behind the story of King Features’ “Shadow Cabinet” and how Foster won his Silver Lady in1952 as well as noting many of his other testimonials such as the Rueben, the Swedish Academy’s Adamson Award and his election to our own Royal Society (for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce): an honour he shared with the likes of Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Hawking…

This 8th enormously entertaining and luxurious oversized (362 x 264mm) full-colour hardback volume reprints the pages from January 7th 1951 to 28th December 1952 (pages #726 to 829, if you’re counting) but before we proceed…

What has Gone Before: after the double christening in Camelot of his and Prince Arn of Ord‘s sons, Valiant was soon back in the saddle as an Arthurian troubleshooter, cleaning out a extortion-minded sorcerer’s den in Wales and picking up new squire Geoffrey – known affectionately as Arf – before heading North to Hadrian’s Wall and a brutally punishing and protracted siege by invading Picts.

It was nearly Val’s last battle…

When Aleta joined her dying husband he miraculously recovered. His forthright wife elected to take him back to his Scandinavian homeland so she dispatched Geoffrey to Camelot with orders for her handmaiden Katwin and nurse Tillicum to obtain a ship and meet her with baby Arn at the village of Newcastle…

Soon the group were bound for Thule, bolstered by the bombastic return of boisterous far-larger-than-life Viking Boltar: a Falstaff-like “honest pirate” who ferried the re-united extended family to Valiant’s harsh, cold homeland. Along the way Boltar found himself bitten by the love bug …

A chance meeting with an old cleric also disclosed the truth about Arf: the faithful squire had been forced from his home when his sire Sir Hugo Geoffrey took a new young bride. She didn’t want an annoying stepson underfoot but now she was gone and the boy could return home… if he wanted to…

Eventually the party reached the chilly castle of King Aguar and settled in for a winter of snowy rest and recuperation – although the temperatures could not cool Arf’s hot temper and propensity for finding trouble…

Aguar, meanwhile, had been seriously considering converting his rowdy Norse realm to the peaceful tenets of Christianity, but all the missionaries roaming his lands were cantankerous idiots preaching their own particular brand of faith – when not actively fighting each other.

Therefore when spring arrived he tasked his fully recovered son with a mission to Rome, beseeching the Pope to send proper priests and real teachers of the officially sanctioned religion to spread the Word of God.

No sooner had Val, Arf, doughty Rufus Regan and new comrade Jarl Egil set off, however, than vassal king Hap-Atla – seething from an old slight delivered to his deceased sire – rebelled, besieging Aguar’s castle. With manpower dangerously depleted the situation looked grim until wily Aleta took control, scoring a stunning triumph which shockingly contravened all the rules of manly warfare.

Valiant and his companions meanwhile had landed in Rouen and trekked onwards to the HolyCity, encountering thieves, murderers and worse as Europe, deprived of the Pax Romana, had descended into barbarism: reduced to a seething mass of lawless principalities ruled by greedily ambitious proto-emperors…

In one unhappy demesne the quartet dethroned a robber-baron but almost ended up wed to his unsavoury daughters, whilst in another Val encountered an alchemist-king who had accidentally invented an explosive black powder…

Exhausted, they eventually were welcomed at the castle of benevolent noble Ruy Foulke – but their good night’s sleep was spoiled when their host was attacked by villainous overlord Black Robert and his savagely competent forces…

This chronicle’s action commences as the visitors stoutly and resolutely defend their host against overwhelming force, with all combatants blithely unaware that Foulke’s daughter and Black Robert’s son are lovers. The youngsters almost sacrifice their lives to end the hostilities, and Valiant brokers an alliance which ends the bloodshed but has to leave quickly as his actions have deprived the invaders of much promised booty…

On the road again they missionaries encounter roving bands of barbarian reivers and take refuge in a monastery at the foot of the French Alps. The clerics offer to guide the quartet over the mountains to Italy, but are woefully short of the protective garments made from the cold-resistant Chamois, so Valiant goes off hunting the elusive antelope.

Trouble is never far from the Prince of Thule and his frozen safari brings him into conflict with another band of invading Huns or Tartars, which only ends when the capable northerner destroys them with an avalanche.

Properly kitted out, Arf, Egil, Rufus and Val are then taken over the horrific high passes, enduring ghastly arctic conditions before they reach the other side. Young Arf suffers most, and Val has to leave his crippled squire – whose feet have frozen – at a hospice in Torino whilst the remainder of his battered party carry on to Rome.

The EternalCity has become a cess-pit of iniquity since it was sacked by the barbarians and the Missionaries are given a constant run-around by greedy and duplicitous officials until Val discovers that the Pope has removed himself from the city and established a new home in Ravenna.

Although Valiant is still denied a meeting, the Pontiff appoints a committee which agrees to send true Christian teachers to icy Thule, but before details can be finalised the Prince is called back to Torino where Arf has taken a turn for the worse…

The Squire has lost the will to live, along with his left foot, and with all his chivalric ambitions destroyed is beyond consoling. In a powerful and moving sequence Valiant patiently brings the boy back from a fatal depression and sets him upon a new path: scholar and official historian of the kings of Thule.

Since the boy cannot handle the arduous trek back to Scandinavia, Valiant sends Egil and Rufus on ahead with the Pope’s team of missionaries and teachers by the most direct route whilst he accompanies Arf in a more leisurely and roundabout journey by ship.

En route the fierce man of war helps found the Christian Mission at San Marino before he and the still emotionally fragile lad board a Genoese trader. After crossing the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), fresh passengers join them and the boy is utterly smitten by the demure charms of the beauteous Adele, daughter of wealthy Eastern lord Sieur Du Luc…

Luckily, Valiant has been schooling his former squire in the courtly skills of music and poetry…

The boy’s timorous wooing of the Mediterranean charmer pays off in a multitude of ways. His strength and confidence returns, Adele favours and returns his attentions and the amused and charmed sailors, delighted to have the burdensome (and occasionally pirate-plagued) journey eased somewhat, carve Arf a marvellous wooden leg which is so well-fashioned that he can throw away his crutches and walk as a man should…

When the vessel reaches England the boy takes time to reconcile with his father and introduce Adele so that the tricky and torturous process of making a marriage match may begin, whilst Valiant’s return to Camelot and joyous reunion with best friend Sir Gawain propels the two old comrades and devoted merry pranksters into an orgy of practical jokes and good-natured duels with their fellow knights…

Sadly the riotous times end too soon, as word comes from Aguar that Val should return to Thule with the utmost speed. Arranging for Arf to meet them en route, Valiant accepts Gawain’s offer to take ship from his own island kingdom of Orkney, but although his brother-in-arms is a fine fellow, the knight’s family are another matter.

Gawain’s mother Morgause is reputed a witch, whilst her other sons Agravaine, Gaheris and vile Mordred are little better than brutes and outright villains. Moreover the men of Orkney have little love for Scandinavians, being regular recipients of savage raids from assorted Northmen…

After Gawain scotches their plan to hold Valiant for ransom, the Prince proposes ending years on enmity with a trade agreement which will make the ancient nations allies and at last sets off for Thule to receive some shocking news: during the year he has been away Aleta has given birth to twin daughters.

Although the proud father is astounded and delighted, his firstborn son is not taking the loss of star-status well – as described in a charming sequence of comedic adventures starring Prince Valiant Arn in the Days of King Arthur…

Another crisis soon occurs however as Boltar, ignorant of Aguar’s new treaty, accidentally pirates the Orkney ship transporting Adele to Thule and suffers the wrath of his king and former comrades.

Imprisoned in Aguar’s castle, the confused and indignant Boltar is secretly released by Tillicum, but the old rogue, misinterpreting her gesture of love, does her the honour of kidnapping her – just as all his romantic forebears have – and is baffled when she escapes and pulls a knife on him…

Fed up and utterly desolate, Boltar and his crew continue to their base in the Shetlands, leaving Aleta to mend fences with the King and discuss with the disconsolate nanny how best Tillicum can get her man…

Boltar meanwhile has been thoroughly tested: Thule’s ancient rivals the Danes have amassed a fleet to attack Aguar and offer his now-disgraced “Good Right Hand” a share of the spoils and glory to join his ships to their armada…

Despite being vexed and tempted, the old pirate instead risks his life to warn Aguar of the sneak attack and after a spectacular campaign of seaborne slaughter accepts his long-delayed punishment. To keep him in line, Aguar makes Tillicum responsible for his continued good behaviour…

Idyllic weeks pass until Valiant, bored with inaction, drags his new biographer Arf into a patrol of the nation’s border, only to have them both washed away in a flash flood and forced to spend weeks fighting their way back to civilisation from the primitive northern wilderness.

There are gentler moments in the restless warrior’s life, such as the foolish wager he makes soon after his triumphant return that he can catch and train a hawk better than Aleta’s Merlin and his father’s Golden Eagle, but the days are mostly quiet in Thule… until at long last Rufus and Egil arrive with the Pope’s Christian missionaries.

Both have converted on the trip and Valiant and Aleta are overjoyed that their daughters Valeta and Karen can be baptised, but the task of taking the gospels to the devoutly warlike worshippers of Thor and Odin will be far from simple…

As the European set to, lecturing and building churches, Val and Rufus become involved in a cross-border water dispute and the Prince, in a rare moment of diplomacy, furnishes a solution that prevents rather than ends bloodshed.

No such opportunity arises when he is ambushed as he returns to Aguar. The arrow that nearly ends his life is fired in error, by a serf who mistakes the prince for the local under-chief, Sigurd Holem.

Once a noble and trusted deputy of Aguar, the Fief-holder has become a cruel tyrant: enslaving his own countrymen and defying any – including his Lord’s heir – to stop him.

Determined to avenge the cruelties of Sigurd, Valiant infiltrates the monster’s impenetrable citadel and, through cunning engineering tricks, brings the entire daunting edifice crashing into ruins…

The next few strips use the device of Arf’s growing biography to lavishly recapitulate many of Valiant’s greatest exploits, such as the overthrow of Sligon and restoration of Aguar to Thule or the haunting fate of doomed mountain outpost Andelkrag, before the tone switches again and little Arn is forced to face the stomach-churning consequences of being a “mighty hunter” when nanny Tillicum makes him confront the results of his firing arrows at animals…

The boy and his guardian take centre-stage in the next sequence too when Boltar returns home from another bloody and profitable voyage and jealous rivals at court attempt to humiliate the rowdy blowhard.

The plan is cruel and simple. When Tillicum rejoins her man at his home Vikingsholm she brings the wide-eyed Arn with her, where during a moment of quiet converse with Boltar the hunting-mad lad slips from her careful scrutiny and is abducted.

The kidnappers however have not reckoned on the Native American’s determination or tracking skills. After stalking them all alone for days, she rescues the boy just as the furious following Boltar catches up to her, and the conspirators have mere moments to regret their vile actions…

And when Valiant hears of the plot, he and Boltar then deal with the rest of the plotters in similar manner…

This volume’s stunning saga temporarily end with the opening movements of another epic extended story arc as the progress of the Christian missionaries leads Valiant – still far from a believer in the One God – to be targeted by Druids and Pagan warriors determined to crush the threat to their bombastic pantheon before it can take hold…

To Be Continued…

Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop rollercoaster of boisterous action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending human-scaled fantasy with dry wit and broad humour, soap opera melodrama with shatteringly dark violence.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, the strip is a landmark of comics fiction and something no fan can afford to miss.
Prince Valiant and all comics material © 2014 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2014 their respective creators or holders. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 6: 1947-1948


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-588-4

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on February 13th 1937, a luscious full-colour Sunday newspaper strip offering wonder-struck readers safe passage into a world of noble combat, rousing adventure and thrilling romance. Year by year in real time, the strip followed the exploits of a royal exile, driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule, who grew up to roam the world and ascended to a paramount position amongst the mightiest heroes of fabled Camelot.

Crafted by sublime master draftsman and tale-teller Harold “Hal” Foster, “Val” matured to clean-limbed manhood in a heady sea of exotic wonderment; visiting far-flung lands and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

The feature has sired films, animated series and all manner of books, toys, records, games and collections based on the strip – one of too few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and still forging ever onward) – and, even in these declining days of newspaper narrative cartoons as a viable medium, it still claims more than 300 American papers as its home. It has even made it into the very ether via an online edition.

Foster produced the saga single-handed, one spectacular page a week from 1937 until 1971, when he began to ease up on his self-appointed workload. With the syndicate’s approval – and after auditioning the likes of Gray Morrow and Wally Wood – Big Ben Bolt illustrator John Cullen Murphy was selected to become illustrator of the feature, with Foster continuing as writer and layout designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired (and died a month later on July 2nd) since when the strip has soldiered on under the auspices of writer Mark Schultz and artists Gary Gianni and Tom Yeates.

This sixth magnificently oversized (362 x 268mm) full-colour hardback volume reprints the strips from January 5th 1947 to 26th December 1948 as Foster began a phenomenally impressive and productive run on a strip which was already regarded as one of the greatest in existence, revelling in the fact that with war-time restrictions ended, he could devote an entire colossal page to each ever-more gripping and luscious instalment…

The introductory essay for this volume is ‘Foster of the Yukon or The Son Also Rises’ by Brian M. Kane (with Dr. Christine Ballengee-Morris), exploring the early life of the creator when he worked for the Hudson Bay Company and detailing his many connections to the Canadian wildernesses and indigenous people – as well as his prior illustration work featuring Canadian cultural themes and motifs.

Also included is a critical and scholarly overview by Native American Dr. Ballengee-Morris, discussing this collection’s material and use of First Nation characters and customs.

What Has Gone Before: Having finally wooed and been won by Queen Aleta of The Misty Isles after many fantastic hardships and spectacular trials and travails, Val and his willing prize briefly sojourned in Rome where they were wed before eventually arriving in Camelot.

Here his unconventional and strong-willed bride caused quite a commotion before foiling a seditious scheme by Mordred to humiliate Queen Guinevere and destroy Sir Launcelot.

Her tactics almost ended her own marriage, and only Aleta’s ferociously loyal, tempestuous fire-haired northern handmaiden Katwin was able to bring Valiant to his outraged senses…

Reunited and both duly penitent, the newlyweds voyaged to winter-locked Thule, where King Aguar could meet his new daughter-in-law. It was not a peaceful homecoming and the barely-rested Val had to quell potential rebellion in fractious Overgaard whilst another brewed in the fiefdom of former ally Earl Jon.

With the doughty Prince recovering from many wounds – again – bright-and-breezy Aleta struggled to win the favour of her straight-laced and sternly formal Father-in-Law and his dour, grim-minded warriors…

Her charm offensive began by solving Aguar’s quarrel with Jon through diplomacy and party-throwing. But even after being accepted by the family the Princess Bride had trouble adapting to the rough sports and pastimes of the chilly region – such as skiing and bear hunting – and she was delighted when the snows finally relented and the Spring thaws began.

Now, the receding snows also bring visitors to the annual parliamentary “Thing”. Hostile sub-chief Gunguir and his mighty son Ulfrun, pride of the Vikings, come to pay their reluctant respects but the latter takes an instant and unhealthily obsessive interest in the golden Princess …

As Val visits old friend and shipbuilding genius Gundar Harl, the nefarious Ulfrun kidnaps Aleta and, despite the heroic efforts of Katwin, sails away into the cold Atlantic seas. Nigh-drowned and with a broken arm, the handmaiden finds Valiant and alerts him to the crisis.

As he readies his pursuit the wounded tigress also informs him that his stolen wife is pregnant and that she must be there when they rescue her…

As he sails ever westward Ulfrun begins to realise his mistake. His purloined prize shows no fear, refuses him all things and even begins to win over his rough Viking warriors…

Val and a hand-picked crew are in full pursuit in Gundar’s most advanced sailing ship, utilising the mariner’s greatest invention – a sextant – to follow the abductors. Never out of sight for long, the followers push Ulfrun further and further west and north, past Greenland and into uncharted waters. After weeks of cat-and-mouse sailing with common sailors on both vessels contemplating mutiny, Valiant’s vessel inexorably closes in until a huge sudden storm finally separates stalkers and quarry…

Days later, in the following calm Val’s ship reaches a strange shore where he finds evidence of Ulfrun’s survival: a native village devastated by the Viking’s men. Hot to pick up the trail again he nevertheless finds time to administer aid to the survivors before following the Raiders’ boat into this NewFoundLand…

The pursuit is easy if slow. As Ulfrun’s Dragon-ship sails ever onwards, finding a vast mainland and constantly attacking the red-skinned natives’ settlements for provisions. Val and Gundar patiently follow their crimson wake, always stopping to offer assistance and consequently gaining allies who will allow him first crack at the murderous invader.

Eventually just as they reach a vast inland sea (Lake Ontario) the pressure proves too much and, after killing a mutinous shipmate, Ulfrun attacks Aleta even as Val’s ship heaves into view. The Prince’s men, supplemented by Native allies, ferociously attack but in the melee Ulfrun and two of his subordinates flee deep into the wild green interior…

The chase is manic and a final confrontation inevitable. On a mighty cliff vengeance is taken and justice served, but even as Val deals with Ulfrun Aleta has managed to talk his men into surrendering…

His passion for slaughter slaked, Valiant convinces the aggrieved Red Men to let all the surviving Raiders board their Dragon-ship and try to return to their homes. In one last betrayal, however, the Vikings raid Gundar’s vessel, stealing food stores and his invaluable sextant before setting off downriver towards Newfoundland. They never made it back to Europe…

Valiant and Aleta meanwhile have decided to winter in this strange yet inviting country and, with their faithful retinue and new feather-wearing native friends, prepare for the cold season by hunting, fishing, exploring and building a peculiar dwelling of felled logs.

As the sagacious Tribal Chiefs observe the golden woman in their midst a strange notion forms, and when a spectacularly fortuitous event occurs whilst she and Val visit the Great Falls (yep, Niagara) the savage savants decide that she is far more than human…

Moreover the tribal women can clearly see that the “Sun Woman” is with child…

This particular section is a mesmerising change of pace in the ongoing saga, focusing on paradisiacal, humour-tinged Arcadian splendour rather than constant angst and action, and Foster’s sublime facility for illuminating the wonders of the wilds make these episodes irresistibly beguiling.

With the snows coming, the Tribes decide that the newfangled log-cabin is insufficient to Aleta’s needs and construct a magnificent birch bark Lodge to keep her in perfect comfort whilst her barbarian men can sit and shiver in their draughty wooden house. Even more insultingly, they hold a village ceremony and appoint a forbidding guardian midwife to look after the incipient’ mother’s natal needs.

Although getting increasingly annoyed at their hosts’ interfering hospitality, nobody has the nerve to gainsay the stoic and terrifying Tillicum… not even Val himself on the morning she kicks him out of Lodge and indicates that from now on he sleeps with the other men…

Soon after, the next prince of Thule is successfully delivered and an amazed, astounded – and hung-over – happy father greets his son and proceeds to get in the way and underfoot.

Luckily for him youngest crewman Gunnar has gone missing so, saying farewell to his smiling “Sun Woman” (and her scowling servants Tillicum and Katwin), Valiant heads off into the snow-covered forests to find him.

The trail takes him to a far distant region which has never seen white skins before, just in time to save the wayward youth from the curious natives, but their hazardous trek back takes quite a while and the ice is melting on the Niagara river before they reach friends once more.

With the cold season gone Valiant and Gundar prepare to make the voyage back to Europe (even though the inventor secretly fears it impossible without his sextant) so Val takes one last opportunity to explore.

Their is precious little food around yet and to provision the ship Val, with a hand-picked squad of Northmen, joins his native pals in a prodigious canoe journey to the Great Lake Trading Center in the Land of the Hurons…

The great event is another chance to meet and exchange ideas but proceeds at its own laborious pace. Happily Val’s impatience is assuaged once he is introduced to the intriguing, bone-crunching pastime called “Lacrosse”…

Eventually fully-supplied the men return to the Lodge and begin preparations to leave. The little prince – to be christened Arn once they reach Camelot – has grown strong and boisterous: and would not be overly imperilled by a perilous sea voyage, but another delay has suddenly manifested. Many of the tribes that live on the great river which will carry them back to the Atlantic are in revolt…

Valiant is again outclassed as his golden bride – a master of subtle diplomacy – who devises a cunning, slaughter-free solution to the problem, but her plan almost rebounds as the natives then baulk at the though t of letting their Sun Woman go back beyond the seas…

Once that obstacle is surmounted the only remaining problem is Tillicum, who refuses to be left behind…

The homesick crew head into the unknown and their journey becomes an incredible odyssey as only a general sense of the right direction, shipwreck, icy seas and appalling storms batter the lost voyagers before the weary sailors finally fetch up on a familiar shore.

No sooner has Aleta set foot on land for a moment’s solitude than she is spotted by Hibernian king Roary Dhu who fancies making her the next queen of Ireland…

That difference of opinion leads to appropriate outrage and bloodshed before Valiant and his rapidly diminishing crew head back out to sea, but at last fortune favours them when they are intercepted by Sir Launcelot’s personal ship.

The situation in Camelot is still tense after all these months, but Val’s faithful crew are exhausted and heartsore, so he and his extended family party transfer to the new vessel, leaving his weary followers to return to their own homes in Thule with tidings of his safe return and new son…

All Camelot is lifted by the presence of the Prince and his family, but another crisis is brewing and too soon Valiant is heading towards Cornwall to apply his lethal brand of problem-solving to murderous despotic, rebel king Tourien who, with his brutal sons Alp the Strong, Cedric the Dandy and Doorne the Slave Driver, flouts Arthur’s authority, murders his servants and believes himself utterly untouchable and beyond the monarch’s justice…

Eschewing a large armed force Valiant decides to dismantle the renegade’s threat from the inside using duplicity, and although largely successful he still has to resort to savage force of arms before the Cornish rat’s nest is finally cleaned out…

Back in Camelot again the victorious hero’s thoughts turn to his baby’s long-delayed christening. The only possible choice for a Godfather is his boyhood rival and the child’s namesake Prince Arn of Ord but when Val journeys to the outlying principality he receives an almighty shock…

To Be Continued…

This volume then concludes with ‘Coloring Valiant’ by in Brian M. Kane: a fascinating feature on Foster’s process to provide colour indications for the printers to work from which includes a huge and beautiful gate-fold fold-out of one of his original water-coloured pages, topped off and balanced by the published page his avid fans finally saw.

Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop, celebration of the human spirit in action, under torment, enduring duty and enjoying grand romance; mixing glorious historic fantasy with dry wit, broad humour with shatteringly dark violence.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, this is a masterpiece of fiction: a never-ending story no one should be without. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the very best way to do so and will be your permanent portal to an eye-opening world of wonder and imagination…
Prince Valiant © 2012 King Features Syndicate. All other articles, content and properties © 2012 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

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QU33R


By various and edited by Rob Kirby (Northwest Press)
ISBN: 978-1-9387203-6-9

It’s long been an aphorism – if not cliché – that Gay (or the more contemporary term LGBTQ) comics have long been the only place in the graphic narrative business to portray real romance.

It’s still true: an artefact, I suppose, of a society which seems determined to demarcate and separate sex and love as two utterly different – and possibly even opposite – things. I prefer to think that here in the 21st century – in most places – we’ve outgrown the juvenile, judgemental, bad old days and can simply appreciate powerful, moving and funny comics about people of all sorts without any kind of preconception, but that battle’s still not completely won yet. Hopefully, compendia such as this will aid the fight…

Nevertheless, at least in this superb anthology with contributions from 33 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and/or Queer (or Questioning their sexual identity) craftspeople and creators, love stories are not all that’s on offer. The authors and artists cajoled and shepherded by Rob Kirby (Curbside Boys, The Books of Boy Trouble) have produced revelatory ponderings, satires, comics-reportage, pastiches, comedies, thrillers, horror stories and superhero adventures, plus many superb pictorial narrative diaries and autobiographical pieces to complement the wild, heady romances inescapably on offer.

Oh, and there’s sex and swearing: rather a lot and sometimes a bit graphic, so if you’re the kind of person liable to be upset by words and pictures of an adult nature (such as joyous, loving fornication between two people separated by age, wealth, social position and race who happily possess and constantly employ the same type of naughty bits on each other) then go away and read something else.

In fact, just go away.

Following a Foreword by Justin Hall (No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, Glamazonia, True Travel Tales, Hard to Swallow) recapitulating just how far the industry and society have come since Mary Wings self-published Come Out Comix in 1973, opening the doors for thousands of other non-hetero creators, Editor Rob Kirby’s Introduction places this contemporary compendium of excellence by a broad contingent of cartoonists and writers self-identifying as proponents of “Alt/Queer comics” in its contextual place leaving nothing for us to do except enjoy the cartoons and comics…

It all begins with ‘Porno’ by Eric Orner, wherein the artist beguilingly relates key moments and situations from his past whilst ruminating upon his relationship with his dad, after which ‘Mother’s Sisters’ by Annie Murphy offers similar family insights by searching through the pages of a faux-photo-album.

MariNaomi then beautifully explains how, if not why, ‘Three’s a Crowd’ for a date-shy lass, whilst Ed Luce’s dance hall days in a Death-Metal mosh pit are hilariously described in ‘Wuvable Oaf presents Kindness of Strangers’.

‘The Transformers – a True Story’ (by Dylan Edwards) is a moving and memorable account of growing up “different”; an oft-repeated experience recapitulated in Diane DiMassa’s girlish tale of young love ‘Born Qu33r’.

Always compelling and challenging, Justin Hall hits home hard here with ‘Seductive Summer’ and the doomed affair of two young men with very different causes for their feelings of attraction, isolation, alienation despair and doom, after which ‘Just Another Night in Carbon City’ (Jennifer Camper) tells a grimly witty noir crime tale with not a Tough Guy in sight.

‘Sissy That Walk’ by Eric Kostiuk Williams incisively relates the fan reaction to RuPaul’s Drag Race show before a meaningful conversation occurs between two old friends in Kris Dresen’s ‘Chop Suey’ and Tyler Cohen presents us with one enigmatic possible tomorrow in ‘Flux’…

‘So Young, So Talented, So What?!’ is an engaging and often scary comic jam by Jennifer Camper & Michael Fahy, couched in the cautionary tale of a young artistic boy lost even before he reached the Big City, and is followed by a triptych of Fahy’s narrative gallery images and strips entitled ‘Found’, ‘O’Hara Song’ and ‘Hazily Remembered Drag Queens’.

Edie Fake then plays coy and arch at the ‘Sex Club’, whilst José-Luis Olivares indulges in ‘Online Fantasy’ and Steve MacIsaac lets his mind wander back into thoughts of unpleasant school days in ‘Vacant Lots’ before wishful thinking and wistful hope poignantly meet in ‘For Fletch and Ruski, Spooner, and Calico’ by Rick Worley.

‘Life’s But a Walking Shadow’ (Christine Smith) silently scours the college scene with a couple of kids who haven’t found their way yet whilst ‘Political Will’ by Carlo Quispe reveals the inescapable highs and lows of the party scene

Do you remember Private Manning? The young soldier was an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and leaked thousands of classified documents to the horrified world. The records were leaked via a hacker named Lamo and the then transgender Bradley was communicating via electronic media. Here Andy Hartzell imaginatively and mesmerising illustrates those game-changing chat logs in ‘Manning/Lamo Project’ to create possibly the most engrossing piece in this wonderful book.

‘Toot Toot Heyyyyyyy Beep Beep’ by Carrie McNinch describes a first emotional connection and the fall of Skylab before Rob Kirby recounts his own dating dilemma in ‘Music for No Boyfriends’ and local London lad Sina Sparrow proves there’s no such thing as carefree love in ‘If You Want Me To I Will Be The One Who Is Always Good’…

Superheroes and wry humour inform Ivan Velez, Jr.’s  ‘Oso Oro – the night I got my hero card…’ with the protagonist falling foul of the masked community’s precarious pecking order after which ‘Coming Out With the Bunksteads’ (by Arch-Bishop of Gay Comics Howard Cruse) hilariously turns venerable family strip Blondie on its head with a little coming-out confession, whilst author and “Officially Out” professional wrestler Terrance Griep relates ‘The Second Most Asked Question’ about his grappling career with Rob Kirby supplying the excruciating visual details…

A different type of “tension and differences in the band” are disclosed in Craig Bostick’s ‘Guitar  Bass  Drums’ before ‘Burger Meister: a Story of Love and Loss’ by Amanda Verwey focuses on a tragic miscommunication and Comedy of desperate-dating Errors, and Nichole J. Georges describes just another date in the whimsically wonderful ‘Grief’.

David Kelly helpfully shares a few very sensible ‘Tips to a Teen-Age Me’ whilst Marian Runk offers some captivating memories and suggestions of her own in ‘This Winter, I Practiced Being Alone’…

‘Miss Sasha Velour’ (by Sasha Steinberg) then shows that you don’t need to be armed to be Fabulous and Jon Macy graphically examines his relationship with his heroes in a powerful and self-searching untitled graphic musing on Oscar Wilde, Frankenstein’s Monster, Djuna Barnes, Raymond Chandler and Charles Mingus before ‘Confession’ by L. Nichols rounds off the comics cavalcade with a light-hearted affirmation about finding yourself…

Situated between pin-up Drag in 1969 (Sasha Steinberg), and untitled pieces from MariNaomi and L. Nichols – plus one last strip starring ‘School Girls’ by Camper – About the Creators then briefs you on the talented story-makers and where else to find their work whilst a copious Special Thanks section gratefully name-checks the contributors and the investors on KickStarter who paid to make the project happen, ending this glorious rainbow-hued book of bright ideas and colourful yarns on an exceedingly positive and life-affirming note.

QU33R is a superb example of comics celebrating determination and difference: sensitive, evocative, romantic and humorously engaging “people stories” which any open-minded fan can’t help but adore. There’s not much fighting but plenty of punch, and in an ideal world this book would be readily available in every school and library for any confused kid in need of inspiration, comfort, understanding, encouragement and hope.
QU33R, the collection is © 2014 Rob Kirby. The individual art and writing contributions are © 2014 the original artists and writers. All rights reserved.

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Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde volume 2: The Young King and The Remarkable Rocket


Adapted by P. Craig Russell & various (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-771-3

P. Craig Russell began his illustrious career in comics during the early 1970s and came to fame young with a groundbreaking run on science fiction adventure series Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds.

Although his fanciful, meticulous, classicist style was joyously derived from the great illustrators of Victorian and Edwardian heroic fantasy, and the craftsmanlike visual flourishes of Art Nouveau was greatly at odds with the sausage-factory deadlines and sensibilities of the mainstream comicbook industry, the sheer power and beauty of his work made him a huge draw.

By the 1980s he had largely retired from the merciless daily grind, preferring to work on his own projects (generally adapting operas and plays into sequential narratives) whilst undertaking the occasional high-profile Special for the majors – such as Dr. Strange Annual 1976 (totally reworked and re-released as Dr. Strange: What Is It that Disturbs You, Stephen? in 1996) or Batman: Robin 3000.

As the industry grew up and a fantasy boom began, he returned to comics with Marvel Graphic Novel: Elric (1982), further adapting prose tales of Michael Moorcock’s iconic sword-&-sorcery star in the magazine Epic Illustrated and elsewhere.

Russell’s stage-arts adaptations had begun appearing in 1978: first in the independent Star*Reach specials Night Music and Parsifal and then from 1984 at Eclipse Comics where the revived Night Music became an anthological series showcasing his earlier experimental adaptations; not just operatic dramas but also tales from Kipling’s Jungle Books and other literary classics.

In 1992 he began adapting the assorted Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde – a mission he continues to date, and this second volume (now in its third printing) deftly balances a tale of magnificent, pious allegorical wonderment with a wry and hilarious concealed yet concerted attack on conceit and self-aggrandisement packed with examples of the devastating, so-quotable epigrams which made the author so briefly the most popular man in London Society…

The Young King was originally published in 1891, one of the quartet of stories in A House of Pomegranates, (Wilde’s second book of stories for children) and here adaptor Russell utilises all his skills to staggering effect.

When the old king falters, the grandson he refused to acknowledge (due to the scandal of a Princess’ forbidden liaison) is plucked from the obscurity of a shepherd’s croft and made heir to the kingdom.

At first the crude, impoverished lad is beguiled and besotted by the sheer beauty of the Court and his new Station, but as his coronation approaches and he sinks into idolatry over the impossible, incomprehensible fineness of his vestments and symbols of office, the bedazzled 16-year-old dreams three dreams.

In them he sees three visions of the toil, privation, hardship and, too frequently, deaths the common folk paid for his Crown, Robe and Sceptre, and something changes within him.

Discarding all his finery, he dons his shepherd rags, picks up his crook and places a circlet of briars upon his brow. Then walking to the Cathedral, he draws scorn, derision and worse from the townsfolk, soldiers and nobility who decry the ingrate seeking to bring shame to a proud kingdom…

The miraculous, messianic ending to this stunningly realised parable is ably counter-pointed by a somewhat jollier – if wickedly barbed – offering.

Rendered in a more animated and fantastical manner, The Remarkable Rocket appeared in Wilde’s original 1888 collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales and begins with the betrothal of a young Prince to an exotic Princess.

As part of the festivities, a huge banquet and Grand Ball was to be concluded with a spectacular fireworks display: a spectacle the intended bride had never before experienced.

As the preparations began, in the palace gardens the assorted Roman Candles, Catherine Wheels and other pyrotechnics began to discuss their upcoming big night, one particularly obnoxious rocket increasingly monopolizes the conversation. Pompous, self-important, supercilious and unconscionably rude, he brags so much and babbles so long that he reduces himself to tears and is so sodden that when the big moment comes he is utterly incapable of igniting and completely misses the show.

Damp and disconsolate, he is discarded and lies unspent and obstreperous in the gardens having learned nothing. When a frog, dragonfly and duck try to engage him in conversation, Rocket again reverts to his abominable manner but things are about to change as two common boys pick him up to chuck on their campfire…

Gloriously rife with razor-sharp Wildean bon mots and ferociously barbed social criticism, this clever yarn still holds one final ironic tweak in the tale…

The brace of brilliant adaptations in this award-winning (a Harvey for Best Graphic Album and an Eisner for Best Artist) book signalled another high point in the artist’s splendid career, and on first release in 1994 displayed another milestone in the long, slow transition of an American mass market medium into a genuine art form.

Most importantly this and the other volumes in the series are incredibly lovely and irresistibly readable examples of superb writing (so go and read Wilde’s original prose tomes too!) and sublime examples of comics art their very best.

Now that it’s finally back in print, you simply must avail yourself of this masterful confection…
© 1994 P. Craig Russell. All rights reserved.

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Usagi Yojimbo book 6: Circles


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-146-0

Wandering rabbit bodyguard Miyamoto Usagi started life as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper before indomitably carving his own unique path to graphic glory.

Creative mastermind Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family moved to Hawaii two years later. On graduating from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, he pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California and started in comics as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Sergio Aragonés’ Groo the Wanderer.

Eventually the cartoonist within resurfaced: blending a passionate storytelling drive and abiding love of Japanese history and legend with a hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, Sakai began crafting 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 addictive period epic is set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) but scrupulously mirrors the Feudal Edo Period of Japan – (roughly the 17th century AD by our reckoning); simultaneously referencing classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla, whilst specifically recounting the life of a peripatetic Lord-less Samurai eking out as honourable a living as possible by selling his sword as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire).

As such, his destiny is to be perpetually drawn into a plethora of incredible situations.

He is a rabbit – brave, noble, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering, conscientious and devoted to the tenets of Bushido – who simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This superbly stirring sixth black-&-white blockbuster collects yarns from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #25-31 plus an extra attraction from funny animal anthology Critters #50, offering a selection of complete adventures tantalisingly tinged with supernatural terror and drenched in wit, irony and pathos.

Following an adulatory Introduction from Jeff Smith, the restless Miyamoto encounters a Hannya (female demon) plaguing travellers whenever they try to cross ‘The Bridge’ after which ‘The Duel’ sees him targeted by a ruthless bookie.

The gambler’s professional duellist only needs one final big payday to safely retire with his beloved wife and child, but his disreputable boss is determined to fleece the locals no matter who has to die…

‘Yurei’ means ghost and, when a weeping woman’s spirit invades the Yojimbo’s dreams crying for justice, Usagi becomes an unwitting avenger whose presence provokes her murderer into making a huge and fatal mistake, after which ‘My Lord’s Daughter’ finds the Rabbit Ronin relating his greatest – battle against a horde of Obakemono (monsters) and demons to rescue a princess – in a wry fairy-tale tribute to the aforementioned Groo…

The remainder of this rousing compendium details a revelatory exploit wherein Usagi makes for his home village with thoughts of finally staying in one place. However when he meets again his childhood sweetheart Mariko a shocking secret regarding her soon changes everything.

‘Circles’ is divided into a succession of connected vignettes beginning with ‘Wind over the Tombstones’ as the homeward-bound hero discovers his former sensei Katsuichi – whom he believed dead – is very far from it…

Then in ‘Remembrances’, young Jotaro is abducted by the deadly Jei.

This veritable devil in human form believes himself a “Blade of the Gods” singled out by the Lords of Heaven to kill the wicked. The raving loon has been hunting Usagi ever since the Yojimbo defeated him – with the aid of a fortuitous or possibly divinely sent lightning bolt….

Now, in the little boy Jei senses a connection to his despise quarry and recruits a band of brigands to assist him in his schemes for revenge…

When the devil’s hired killers attack the village where Mariko’s husband Kenichi is headman, the strands of fate knit together as ‘Shroud Over the Mountain’ unites former friends and rivals in their desire to save the boy – who has already escaped and got into even more trouble…

The drama comes to an emotionally shattering climax in ‘Closing the Circle’ as the Rabbit Ronin learns at last the shocking truth about Jotaro and Mariko.

Arranging for his aging sensei to take on a new pupil he then wearily resumes his restless wanderings …

Triumph, tragedy, terrific action and terror all seamlessly flow together in this addictive epic, and Circles is still one the best collections in an unbroken run of classic graphic masterpieces.

Usagi Yojimbo has been in continuous publication since 1987, resulting in more than 30 graphic novel collections and books to date. The Legendary Lepus has guest-starred in many other comics and nearly had his own TV show – but there’s still time yet and fashions are ever fickle so hope endures…

As well as generating a horde of high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games, 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, astoundingly visceral, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a work of cartoon genius: engaging and irresistible with a broad appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of anthropomorphic adventures.
Text and illustrations © 1992, 1993, 1994 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ® Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1994, 2006 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 5: 1945-1946


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-484-9

Probably the most successful comic strip fantasy ever produced, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on February 13th 1937, a luscious full-colour Sunday page offering a perfect realm adventure and romance. Year by year, in real time, the strip followed the exploits of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world and rose to a paramount position amongst the mightiest heroes of fabled Camelot.

As crafted by sublime master draftsman Harold “Hal” Foster, the princeling matured to clean-limbed manhood in a heady sea of exotic wonderment; visiting far-flung lands and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, animated series and all manner of books, toys, records, games and collections based on the strip – one of too few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and still forging ever onward) – and even in these declining days of the newspaper narrative strip as a viable medium it still claims over 300 American papers as its home. It has even made it into the very ether with an online edition.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when he began to ease up on his self-appointed workload. With the syndicate’s approval, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt illustrator John Cullen Murphy was chosen to draw the feature. Foster continued as writer and layout designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of writer Mark Schultz and artists Gary Gianni and Tom Yeates.

This seventh gloriously oversized full-colour hardback volume reprints the strips from January 7th 1945 to 29th December 1946 during which time his celebrated yet rarely seen “Footer strip” The Mediaeval Castle was brought to conclusion.

Because of wartime paper rationing, newspapers across the country needed to fill their reduced page counts carefully. To assist their clients the syndicate dictated format-changes to most of their strip properties and Prince Valiant began to appear with an unrelated (and therefore optional) second feature, which individual papers could opt to omit according to their local space considerations.

Apparently the three-panel-per week saga starring the 11th century family of Lord and Lady Harwood, their young sons Arn and Guy and teenaged daughter Alice – a feudal pot-boiler so popular that it spawned a couple of relatively contemporary book collections – wasn’t dropped by a single paper throughout its 18-month run from April 23rd 1944 to 25th November 1945, but Foster was happy to return to one epic per full page once the newsprint restrictions were lifted.

In this volume the strip sees a less than historical Christmas celebration and harsh winter turn into a fruitful spring as the bitter rivalry with neighbour Sir Gregory slowly mends, thanks in no small part to a hostage swap of their first-born sons and Alice’s romantic inclinations towards young and dashing Hubert Gregory. Of course it doesn’t hurt that their quarrelsome fathers have been called away Crusading…

P. Craig Russell’s introductory essay ‘Jack Kirby, Hal Foster and Me’ expresses and describes Prince Valiant‘s influence on one of today’s most lauded creators, after which the magnificent main saga then resumes.

What Has Gone Before: Despite his many exploits and triumphs, restless Valiant is haunted by visions of Queen Aleta of The Misty Isles, whom he believes has bewitched him, utterly unaware that she saved his life not once but twice.

Val pays an adventure-filled to his father King Aguar – whom he has restored to overlordship of Thule, eradicating assorted bandit bands, being shipwrecked and cast away before foiling a plot to oust the aged monarch.

Once home, however, a hunting accident almost kills him and, laid up, he plays Cupid for a crippled artist and a Viking’s daughter. Once, barely recovered, he then repulses an invasion by barbarian Finns.

Never a man for peace and indolence, Val then determines to free himself of Aleta’s bewitching spell. Returning to Camelot the Prince enlists the aid of Sir Gawain and they promptly set off across Europe towards Misty Isles. In Germany they are attacked by barbaric Goths, before taking ship in Rome and being shipwrecked. The squire Beric and now amnesiac Val are marooned whilst Gawain is captured for ransom by an ambitious Sicilian noble.

As Beric sacrifices himself to save his Prince’s life, Valiant finally recovers his wits and lands on the extremely hostile Misty Isles…

Aleta, spellbinder of Val’s nightmares, has recently been ill-used by fate. Never the supernatural monster he believed, she was, however, in dire straits with a flock of suitors and her own courtiers pressing her to marry immediately and produce an heir. So it was with mixed emotions that she saw the boy she had saved burst in, snatch her up and flee the Isles with her as his rather uncomplaining prisoner.

Val, wounded, exhausted but triumphant, now has the cause of all his woes chained and at his mercy as he turns toward England…

After crossing a vast desert with pursuers hard on their heels the couple reach the port of Tobruch, where the local despot tries to buy Val’s hard-won prize. Somehow his hatred towards her has become something else and soon he is protecting her from bandits and numerous other perils.

She returns the favour when he is injured: nursing him through fever and even convincing a band of roving Tuaregs to escort them across Arabia. By the time the couple reach Bengasi Val is again her slave, but only realises it after a recuperative stay in the palace of the Sultan. It’s at that moment that Donardo, Robber Emperor of Saramand strikes, stealing Aleta and setting his band of brigands upon Valiant.

The villain’s biggest mistake is not ensuring Val is dead. Alone and weaponless, the Arthurian knight relentlessly tracks the thieves and deals with them mercilessly before reaching Donardo’s citadel moments too late to exact full vengeance.

Unable to liberate Aleta, he instead foments a full scale war between the Robber Emperor and his neighbours, each as wicked and untrustworthy as Aleta’s abductor…

Barbaric and time-consuming, the conflict rages, with each king secretly seeking to double-cross his temporary ally. However, whilst Val is riding a tiger by acting as the warlord of the attacking forces, Aleta takes her fate into her own hands and escapes from Donardo’s castle and is (relatively) safe when Saramand is sacked and the Emperor meets his long-delayed fate…

Leaving the devastated city, Val, reunited with his love and his legendary Singing Sword, travels to Rome, arriving just as Vandal general Genseric attacks the Eternal City. Befriended by Genseric’s employer, the former Empress Eudoxia, Val and Aleta are married there before again trying for England. To do so, they steal a ship from the victorious, blood-crazed and very drunk Vandals, heading to the relative safety of Lyon.

As they quit the vessel, a slave implores Val to free him, and the scribe Amurath joins their party. He is clearly quite taken with Aleta’s new handmaiden Cidi…

With Rome fallen every vestige of civilisation – such as safe roads – has ended and the party is soon under attack by bandits. These Val can handle, but he has no conception of the peril he faces when Cidi develops a lethally obsessive fascination for him…

When besotted Amurath stops the handmaiden from poisoning Aleta, Cidi responds by committing suicide and the heartbroken scribe changes. As the newlyweds enter Paris, he schemes to have them shamed and killed by the noble Thane Roth as they stay in his palace…

The freed slave had underestimated Aleta however, and the sinister plan fails…

As Val and Aleta commence the last leg of their journey they meet and employ a tempestuous fire-haired northern titan named Katwin. She will be the Lady’s handmaiden in England…

With little trouble the party reach Camelot where Aleta soon becomes a Court favourite – despite a few hilariously compromising moments before she is formally introduced to Arthur. She soon sets tongues wagging by riding and hunting just like man…

The scandals continue after Valiant and others are despatched on a mission against the Saxons. Refusing to be separated from her husband, the headstrong Queen of the Misty Isles impersonates a knight and joins the war-party…

Soon after, whilst hunting with Val and Gawain, she charms a band of outlaws led by charismatic Hugh-the-Fox when they are all captured for ransom. Brokering a peace and pardon from Arthur she turns the woodsmen into scouts against the ever-encroaching Jutes and Saxons of high king Horsa.

After spectacularly repulsing the invaders with “his” wood scouts, Val’s next adventure pits him against the treacherous Sir Modred, who seeks power by exposing Sir Launcelot‘s relationship with Queen Guinevere. To save the monarch’s shame, Aleta impetuously confesses to being the knight’s actual lover… just as Val returns from a mission and gets the wrong idea…

The outraged, betrayed Prince flees Camelot and only loyal Katwin is able to bring him to his senses. Reunited and both penitent, the newlyweds decide to spend winter in Thule, where Aguar can get to know his new daughter-in-law. It’s not a happy homecoming, however, and as the barely-rested Val is forced to quell a potential rebellion in Overgaard another brews in the fiefdom of Earl Jon.

Amidst the dour, grim-minded warriors, bright-and-breezy Aleta struggles to win the favour of the King – until she shows him another way to deal with his subjects’ dissatisfaction…

To Be Continued…

This volume also includes a stellar glimpse of the storyteller’s commercial endeavours in magazines and advertising in Brian M. Kane’s informative essay ‘Foster the Illustrator’ and a discussion of the strip’s amazing, groundbreaking co-star in ‘Aleta: Water Nymph of the Misty Isles’ to wrap up the full immersion in the myriad splendours of a long-gone age…

Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a constantly onrushing rollercoaster of rousing action, exotic adventure and grand romance; mixing glorious human-scaled fantasy with dry wit, broad humour with shatteringly dark violence.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, this is a masterpiece of fiction: a never-ending story no one should miss. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the best way to do so and will be your portal to an eye-opening world of wonder and imagination…
Prince Valiant © 2012 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2011 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

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Impossible Tales: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 4


By Steve Ditko & various, edited by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-640-9

Perfect Christmas Present Alert! – For every discerning comics fan and suspense lover… 10/10

Once upon a time the short complete tale was the sole staple of the comicbook profession, where the plan was to deliver as much variety as possible to the reader. Sadly that particular discipline is all but lost to us today…

Steve Ditko is one of our industry’s greatest talents and probably America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell stories the best way he can, whilst the noblest of aspirations, will always be a minor consideration or even stumbling block for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of Funnybook output.

Before his time at Marvel, young Steve Ditko perfected his craft creating short stories for a variety of companies and it’s an undeniable joy to be able to look at this work from a such an innocent time when he was just breaking into the industry: tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, utterly free from the interference of intrusive editors.

This fourth fantastic full-colour deluxe hardback reprints another heaping helping of his ever more impressive works: all published between July 1957 to March 1959 and all courtesy of the surprisingly liberal (at least in its trust of its employees’ creative instincts) sweat-shop publisher Charlton Comics. Some of the issues here were actually put together under the St. John imprint, but when that company abruptly folded much of its already prepared in-house material – even entire issues – were then purchased and published by clearing-house specialist Charlton with almost no editorial changes.

And whilst we’re being technically accurate it’s also important to note that the eventual publication dates of the stories in this collection don’t have a lot to do with when Ditko crafted these mini-masterpieces: Charlton paid so little the cheap, anthologically astute outfit had no problem in buying material it could leave on a shelf for months – if not years – until the right moment arrived to print…

All the tales and covers reproduced here were created after implementation of the draconian, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority rules (which sanitised the industry following Senate Hearings and a public witch-hunt) and all are wonderfully baroque and bizarre fantasy, suspense or science fiction yarns and helpfully annotated with a purchase number to indicate approximately when they were actually drawn.

Sadly there’s no indication of how many (if any) were actually written by Ditko, but as at the time the astoundingly prolific Joe Gill was churning out hundreds of stories every year for Charlton, he is always everyone’s first guess when trying to attribute script credit…

Following an historically informative Introduction and passionate advocacy by Blake Bell, the evocative tales of mystery and imagination commence with ‘The Menace of the Maple Leaves’, an eerie haunted woods fable from Strange Suspense Stories #33 (August 1957), closely followed a dark and sinister con-game which goes impossibly awry after a wealthy roué consults a supposed mystic to regain his youth and vitality and is treated in ‘The Forbidden Room’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #4 July 1957)…

From November 1957, Do You Believe in Nightmares? #1 offers a bounty of Ditko delights, beginning with the stunning St. John cover heralding a prophetic ‘Nightmare’, the strange secret of a prognosticating ‘Somnambulist’ and the justice which befell a seasoned criminal in ‘The Strange Silence’: all proving how wry fate intervenes in the lives of mortals. ‘You Can Make Me Fly’ then goes a tad off-topic with a tale of brothers divided by morality and intellect and the issue ends with a dinosaur-packed romp courtesy of ‘The Man Who Crashed into Another Era’…

Next up is a tale from one of Charlton’s earliest star characters. Apparently the title came from a radio show which Charlton licensed, and the lead/host/narrator certainly acted more as voyeur than active participant, speaking “to camera” and asking readers for opinion and judgement as he shared a selection of funny, sad, scary and wondrous human interest yarns all tinged with a hint of the weird and supernatural.

When rendered by Ditko, whose storytelling mastery, page design and full, lavish brushwork were just beginning to come into its mature full range, the Tales of the Mysterious Traveler were esoteric and utterly mesmerising…

From issue #6 (December 1957) ‘Little Girl Lost’ chills spines and tugs heartstrings with the story of a doll that loved its human companion, followed by a paranoid chase from Strange Suspense Stories #35 (December 1957) as ‘There it is Again’ sees a scientist dogged by his most dangerous invention…

Unusual Tales #10 (January 1958) provides a spooky cover before disclosing the awesome secret of ‘The Repair Man from Nowhere’ and, following the wickedly effective Cold War science fiction parable ‘Panic!’ from Strange Suspense Stories #35, resumes with ‘A Strange Kiss’ that draws a mining engineer into a far better world…

Out of This World #6 (November 1957) provides access to ‘The Secret Room’ which forever changed the lives of an aging, destitute couple. Then the cover and original artwork for Out of This World #12 (March 1959) lead to a tale in which a ruthless anthropologist is brought low by ‘A Living Doll’ he’d taken from a native village…

Returning to Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #6 results in three more captivating yarns. ‘When Old Doc Died’ is perhaps the best in this book, displaying wry humour in the history of a country sawbones who was only content when helping others, whilst ‘The Old Fool’ everybody mocked proved to be his village’s greatest friend, and ‘Mister Evriman’ explored the metaphysics of mass TV viewing in a thoroughly chilling manner…

The dangers of science without scruples informed the salutary saga of a new invention in ‘The Edge of Fear’ (Unusual Tales #10, January 1958), after which the cover of This Magazine is Haunted #14 (December 1957) ushers us into cases recounted by the ghoulish Dr. Haunt; specifically a scary precursor to cloning in ‘The Second Self’ and a diagnosis of isolation and mutation which afflicted ‘The Green Man’…

The cover and original art for the giant-sized Out of This World #7 (February 1958) precedes ‘The Most Terrible Fate’ befalling a victim of atomic warfare whilst ‘Cure-All’ detailed a struggle between a country doctor and a sinister machine which healed any ailment.

We return to This Magazine is Haunted #14 wherein Dr. Haunt relates a ghastly monster’s progress ‘From Out of the Depths’ before ‘The Man Who Disappeared’ tells his uncanny story to disbelieving Federal agents, whilst Out of This World #7 provides an ethereal ringside seat from which to view a time traveller’s ‘Journey to Paradise’.

From Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #7 (March 1958), ‘And the Fear Grew’ relates how an Australian rancher fell foul of an insidiously malign but cute-looking critter, after which ‘The Heel and the Healer’ reveals how a snake-oil peddler found a genuine magic cure-all, whilst ‘Never Again’ (Unusual Tales #10 again) took an eons-long look at mankind’s atomic follies and ‘Through the Walls’ (Out of This World #7) saw a decent man framed and imprisoned, only to be saved by the power of astral projection…

Out of This World #12 (March 1959) then declared ‘The World Awaits’ when a scientist uncovered an age-old secret regarding ant mutation and eugenics, Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #7 (February 1958) exposed ‘The Angry Things’ which haunted a suspiciously inexpensive Italian villa, and the gripping cover to Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #10 (November 1958) segues into the unsuspected sacrifice of a jazz virtuoso who saved the world in ‘Little Boy Blue’…

A tragic orphan found new parents after ‘The Vision Came’ (Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #8, July 1958) and Dr. Haunt proves television to be a cause of great terror in ‘Impossible, But…’ from This Magazine is Haunted volume 2, #16 (May 1958) – an issue which also disclosed the world-changing fate of a soviet scientist who became ‘The Man from Time’…

Another selfless inventor chose to be a ‘Failure’ rather than doom humanity to eternal servitude in a stunning yarn from Strange Suspense Stories #36 (March 1958), whilst the luckiest man alive at last experienced the downside of being ‘Not Normal’ (Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #7) before Unusual Tales #11 – from March 1958 – revealed the secret of Presidential statesmanship to a young politician in ‘Charmed, I’m Sure’, and exposed a magical secret race through an author’s vacation ‘Deep in the Mountains’…

This mesmerising collection then concludes with the suitably bizarre tale of Egyptian lucky charm ‘The Dancing Cat’ (from Strange Suspense Stories #37, July 1958) to ensure the spooky afterglow remains long after the final page and leave you hungry for more mystic merriment and arcane enjoyment…

This sturdily capacious volume has episodes that terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, stripped down plots and simple dialogue that let the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display the sharp wit and contained comedic energy which made so many Spider-Man/J. Jonah Jameson confrontations an unforgettable treat a decade later, and this is another cracking collection not only superb in its own right but as a telling examination into the genius of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists.

This is a book serious comics fans would happily kill or die or be lost in time for…
This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Introduction © 2013 Blake Bell. All rights reserved.