Category: Fantasy

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Agent 13: Acolytes of Death – A TSR Graphic Novel


By Flint Dille, Buzz Dixon & Dan Spiegle (TSR)
ISBN: 0-88038-800-5

Tactical Studies Rules was a backroom venture started in 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye which they grew into the monolithic role-playing and recreational fantasy empire TSR, Inc. revolutionising home entertainment in the days before cheap home computers and on-line video games.

Beginning with formally published scenarios and rules for Dungeons and Dragons, Cavaliers and Roundheads and others including gaming versions of Marvel Comics characters, Movies, TV shows and cartoon classics like Rocky and Bullwinkle, they swiftly branched out into figures and miniatures, magazines, models, table-top war games, fantasy fiction, collector card-sets and inevitably comics – firstly licensing their properties to companies like DC (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and many more before inevitably creating their own line of comicbook and graphic novel “Modules” in the 1990s, based on their own game product, licensed properties such as Indiana Jones, Buck Rogers and even their critically acclaimed fantasy novels.

One of my very favourites is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink period pulp action romp based on their kids novel series Agent 13: the Midnight Avenger (by Flint Dille and David Marconi) which shamelessly blended elements of the Shadow, Indiana Jones and Mandrake the Magician with classic horror and conspiracy thrillers to produce frantic fast-paced adventures of international intrigue and supernatural suspense set in the days before World War II.

Acolytes of Death is actually the second graphic novel volume (its predecessor Agent 13: the Midnight Avenger adapted to comics form the two novels The Invisible Empire and The Serpentine Assassin) but works as stand-alone saga which finds the indomitable super-spy, trained in the mysteries of ancient Lemuria, engaging his world-wide band of undercover operatives in a deadly quest.

It’s 1939 and at stake is humanity itself as immortal villain and would-be global dictator Itsu nears the end of his undying life. Preparing to enact an arcane ritual to renew his sinister eldritch energies, he convenes all the forces of darkness subject to his will: secret societies, witches, zombies and the world’s first vampire, to seek out the ideal venue for his unholy rebirth…

He has to be stopped: after all, just one of his wicked schemes is manipulating the nations of the Earth into another World War. He has other plans he hasn’t even started yet…

Agent 13’s uncanny powers are a result of his having been trained by the Brotherhood; Itsu’s cult of wizards and ninja-like Jinda Warriors, but the heroic tough guy rebelled and has been destroying these instigators of terror and chaos ever since…

Now in a rollercoaster race from Soviet Russia to Spain to New Orleans, 13, his dedicated associates and the sultry, morally ambivalent mercenary China White struggle to prevent the Dark Savant’s ultimate triumph, but can 13 trust his allies and the omens when so much is at stake…?

Fast-paced, far-fetched, joyous and frenetic, this is pure non-stop, action-packed nonsense of the sort beloved by fans of summer blockbuster movies, stirring and silly but utterly engrossing. The script rattles along and the incredible art by unsung genius Dan Spiegle (ably augmented by letterer Carrie Spiegle and colourist Les Dorscheid) is mesmerising in its expansive majesty.

Published in the extravagant, sleekly luxurious over-sized 285mm x 220mm European album format, this tantalising tome, as a graphic “module” also contains a fold-out map, counters, gaming data and background as well as a rule-set, just in case you and some judiciously selected friends feel like having a go at changing the spectacular ending…
© 1990 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Agent 13 is a trademark owned by Flint Dille and David Marconi.

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Kull: The Vale of Shadow (A Marvel Graphic Novel)


By Alan Zelenetz & Tony DeZuniga, with Tom Vincent & Michael Heisler (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-558-4

Following on from the creation of the comicbook Sword and Sorcery genre in the early 1970s with their magnificent adaptation of pulp superstar Conan the Barbarian, Marvel naturally looked for more of the same, and found it in Robert Ervin Howard’s prototypical wild warrior hero King Kull whose first adventure The Shadow Kingdom was published in the fantasy pulp Weird Tales in August 1929. Two more tales followed before Howard abandoned the character, but nine others and a poem ‘The King and the Oak’ were published posthumously, long after the troubled author had committed suicide.

The S&S genre had undergone a global prose revival through the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954), and by the 1960s the resurgence of two-fisted fantasies by such pioneer writers as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline and Fritz Lieber, whilst many modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter kick-started their careers with contemporary interpretations of man, monster and mage. Without doubt though, nobody did it better than the tragic Texan whose other red-handed stalwart included, Bran Mac Morn, Solomon Kane and El Borak as well tough guys in a variety of other genres such as Steve Costigan, Dark Agnes and Red Sonya of Rogatino.

Marvel Comics tested the waters in early 1970 with a little tale called ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ (in horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4) whose hero Starr the Slayer bore no small resemblance to Conan. It was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by young Englishman Barry Smith, a recent Marvel find, and one who was just breaking out of the company’s Kirby house-style.

Thomas was a huge fan of the prose genre and took great pains to adapt novels and short stories to the graphic medium, even transferring other Howard tales into the canon by replacing his admittedly formulaic leading men with the surly Cimmerian (as Howard himself had done rewriting his unused Kull tale ‘By This Axe, I Rule’ into Conan novella ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’).

Marvel found solid ancillary supporting features with Solomon Kane, Bran Mac Morn and, most successfully King Kull: a wandering Atlantean mercenary who took the throne of a mighty kingdom by force of arms only to spend the rest of his life battling supernatural threats to it and guarding his own back from greedy, ambitious courtiers.

His comics publishing history was as chequered as his prose one; debuting in spectacular manner in Kull the Conqueror (29 issues from 1971-1978 with artistic contributions from Ross Andru, Wally Wood, John and Marie Severin and Mike Ploog among others), a black and white mature magazine Kull and the Barbarians (3 issues, 1975) and a revived, revised, comicbook version from 1982-1985. He even stared with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #112

This sleek and glossy, lavishly oversized gem (285mm x 220mm rather than today’s standard 258 x 168mm) comes from 1989: an eerie, lyrical and poetic tale as the aging King battles his greatest foe and defeats her in characteristically barbaric and unflinching manner…

Kull is dying, sweating and straining on his deathbed as infected wounds seem set to carry him into the great beyond. Gathered for the deathwatch are his most trusted advisors and as they individually reminisce about the gore-spattered gladiator who became Valusia’s greatest monarch, we share their recollections to discover the kind of man he was.

Oblivious, unaware, Kull’s body thrashes and writhes. He struggles on, his soul trapped in an ethereal realm, dancing an erotic duet with the darkly seductive angel of death who has come to take him to the gods…

This eldritch crossing of the final Rubicon is beautifully illustrated in the grand, ostentatiously humanesque manner of the Filipino artists who became such a mainstay of DC and Marvel during the 1970s and early 1980s. Tony DeZuniga was one of the first to break into American comics and his work is always of the highest quality, especially here, enhanced by the glowing, lush hues of colorist Tom Vincent.

Once upon a time Marvel led the publishing pack in high quality original graphic novels: mixing creator-owned properties, licensed assets like Kull and movie adaptations with Marvel Universe tales and even new series launches in extravagant squarebound packages based on the European album model. To me it seems these slim tomes always shine with some intangible extra oomph – perhaps it’s simply the bigger pages with more art on them?

Still readily available, this is a magnificent moody yarn that will delight any fan of the genre and should easily convert a few die-hards too.
© 1989 Conan Properties Inc All Rights Reserved.

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Jimbo in Paradise


By Gary Panter (Raw/Pantheon)
ISBN: 978-0-39475-639-4

Gary Panter has been an iconic force in comics and the visual arts since the late 1970s, and his unique distillation of American popular culture through the frenetic lens of his savage design style (alternatively termed “ratty line” or “punk”) has been seen in such varied fields as set design (winning 3 Emmy Awards for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), interior design, TV and computer animation as well as record covers for Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many others.

His expressionistic, beautifully ugly, primitivist, high energy anti-art has influenced a generation of cartoonists and illustrators including Matt Groening, whose Simpsons design style owes much to Panter’s innovations in the 1970’s hardcore punk-zine Slash and his contributions to Art Spiegelman’s legendary art comic Raw – from which these wildly eccentric strips are culled.

Long considered a dominant force in punk and alternative comics, Panter is the leading figure of a second generation of “Underground Cartoonists”, doing much to legitimise the movement and elevating this potentially misunderstood arena of graphic narrative to a position of High Art which most mainstream comics have never been able to achieve.

Born in Durant, Oklahoma in December 1st 1950, he became an integral part of the US New Wave movement (not to be confused with our British effete, big-haired, baggy-bloused, excessively made-up electro-pop scene of a decade later). He worked for Time, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker as well creating his own comics and graphic novels such as, Facetasm, Dal Tokyo and Cola Madnes (created especially for the Japanese market) as well as his signature creation Jimbo: a punk icon whose bizarre life was (mostly) explored in the seminal Raw magazine before being collected into the intimidatingly oversized tomes Adventures in Paradise, Jimbo’s Inferno and Jimbo in Purgatory.

Set – not that it’s particularly relevant – in a semi-futuristic, dystopian urban hodge-podge landscape, burly, kilt-clad Jimbo is just getting by and making do, but stuff always happens to him…

First, a new fast-food place opens up near the derelict building he lives in, but the telepathic robots who run it are really creepy and things start going bad when mutants chase him, trying to steal his burger. He takes refuge in the sewers but life doesn’t get any simpler. In ‘Jimbo’s House is Gigantic, but Condemned’ his skeevy pals Gruten, Zipper and Fluke come for a rather destructive visit, before they all go clubbing – giving the artist license to go hog-wild with stunningly complex full-page art-riots. Of course the authorities take a dim view of all the fun the kids are having…

‘Jim30’ begins a aeries of connected vignettes which abandon formal narrative structure as the punky pariah experiences the downside of waking up, making breakfast and bathing before ‘Jimbo meets Rat-Boy’ introduces our non-hero to a kindred spirit – and his disgusting pet…

After a devilish pastiche of the comic strip Nancy ‘Jimbo Erectus’ describes the evolution of the punk sub-species, after which we return to the future where Jimbo has scored with his buddy Smoggo’s harshly take-charge sister Judy. Now firmly entrenched in a “relationship” Jimbo is now confronted by a whole new world of give-and-take – so when giant cockroaches abduct his girlfriend he and Smoggo must rise to the occasion…

Many of these strips are accompanied by an ancillary strip running at the foot of the pages. Now, at the most inconvenient moment, ‘William & Percy’ take over the main page before the dramatic hunt continues…

Disillusioned, our man contemplates joining the army before opting for the natural life of a primitive shaman in ‘Jimbo is Running Sore’ (complete with graphic diversion ‘Klorex & Purox: the Mad Bombers’). After a brief conversation with God the hunt for Judy resumes; an extended odyssey leading to a fantastic barrage of visual extravaganzas that encompass the explosive death of the world and its aftermath: an eye-popping crescendo of apocalyptic imagery that perfectly captures the philosophy of 20th century punk.

If you’re looking for something a little strong, a little strange, perfectly outrageous and boldly experimental this is the ideal introduction to the works of an absolute maestro.
© 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 Gary Panter. All Rights Reserved.

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Rip M.D.


By Mitch Schauer, Mike Vosburg, Michael Lessa, & Justin Yamaguchi (Lincoln Butterfield/Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-369-9

Here’s a post-Christmas cracker that will delight monster-fans of all ages and signals a welcome return to upbeat and clever kids’ fiction.

Ripley Plimt is a bright lad with a hobby. Ever since he can remember he has adored classic monster movies. He’s an absolute expert on trivia, minutiae and lore. Now he’s eleven and all grown up he’s come to one inescapable conclusion… it’s all true!

When the kind-hearted lad mends a little bat’s broken wing one night it changes his life forever. Bitten by the fixing bug (but not the bat – that would be ungracious) he applies his unsuspected new skills to repairing the mouldering zombie corpse that shows up later – with the understanding and grudging approval of his parents and Uncle Will – and soon needy werewolves, protoplasmic blobs and ghost cats are all turning up to complicate his life.

The only real flies in the ointment are repulsive mortal kids Pretoria and Stanley DeMann, who used to live in Rip’s house and are prepared to go to extraordinary, murderous lengths to force the easy-going Plimpt family out…

Their millionaire dad is even worse and orchestrates a campaign of very human terror to get his way, almost driving Rip to abandon his unconventional dreams. However, the unscrupulous autocrat has some dark secrets of his own and Limbo the dead cat and a pretty little vampire girl know how best to exploit them…

Writer, artist, Producer, designer and Emmy® Award-winning animator Mitch Schauer (creator of Angry Beavers and Freakazoid!) is a founding member of Lincoln Butterfield, an independent animation company also comprising Robert Hughes and painter Michael Lessa. Comics veteran Mike Vosburg, who inked Schauer’s pencilled art here, has a glittering prize or two himself: as well as his funnybook career, he won his own Emmy® for directing Spawn cartoons and is chief storyboard artist for the Narnia movie franchise. Co-producing this snazzy graphic novel with electrically eclectic comics publisher Fantagraphics Books is LB’s first foray into print – but surely not their last.

With painted colour effects from Lessa and Justin Yamaguchi and including a wonderful development art section, this spectacular, spooktacular romp is a fabulously punchy, action-packed, wickedly funny treat for kids of all ages that will leave every reader voraciously hungry for more…

© 2010. All Rights Reserved. A joint production between Fantagraphics Books and Lincoln Butterfield.

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The Ditko Collection Volume 2 1973-1976


By Steve Ditko, edited by Robin Snyder (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 0-930193-27-X

After Steve Ditko left Marvel where his astounding work made the reclusive genius a household name (at least in comicbook terms) he continued working for Charlton Comics and in DC in 1968 began a sporadic association with DC by creating cult classics The Hawk and the Dove and the superbly captivating Beware… The Creeper. It was during this period that the first strips derived from his interpretation of the Objectivist philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand began appearing in fanzines and independent press publications like Witzend and The Collector.

This second softcover book, collected from a variety of independent sources by fan and bibliographer Robin Snyder, represents the remainder of a canon of lost treasures by a driven and dedicated artistic trailblazer whose beliefs have never faltered, whose passion never waned and whose art never stagnated. Produced in bold collage, abstract calligraphic and design essays and a variety of vibrant black and strips in his utterly unique cartoon style, these strident, occasionally didactic, but always bold, impassioned and above all – for Ditko never forgets that this is a medium of Narrative and Art – gripping stories and parables of some of his most honest – and infamous – characters.

The most common complaint about this area of Ditko’s work – and there have been lots – is the sometimes hectoring nature of the dialectic. Nobody likes to be lectured to, but it’s an astonishingly effective method of imparting information: our schools and Universities depend on the form as their primary tool of communication, just as Ditko’s is the comic strip artform.

He’s showing you a truth he believes – but at no time is he holding a gun to your head. If you disagree that’s up to you. He grants you the courtesy of acknowledging you as equal and demands that you act like one. You are ultimately responsible for yourself. It’s a viewpoint and tactic an awful lot of religions could benefit from.

After a new but unused cover piece and an introduction from editor Snyder the polemical panoply gathered here begins with the contents of self-published magazine The Avenging World (1973), beginning with an eponymous cartoon and collage directory of terms-defining vignettes after which some of his most impassioned artwork expands the arguments in ‘The Avenging World Part 2’, followed by the cover of that landmark publication and a highly charged parable ‘The Deadly Alien’.

At heart Ditko is an unreconstructed maker of stories and with ‘Liberty or Death: Libage Vs Chain’ (from the Collector 1974) he returns to the narrative idiom of enigmatic masked mystery heroes for a gripping tale of totalitarian barbarism and the struggle for freedom. ‘Who Owns Original Art?’ is a philosophical statement in essay form after which his satirically barbed ‘H Series: The Screamer’ perfectly marries superheroics, adventure, comedy and blistering social commentary.

After a selection of covers from Wha, the assorted contents follow beginning with hard-bitten incorruptible cop Kage who determinedly solves ‘The Case of the Silent Voice’ despite interference, apathy, malfeasance and the backsliding of his own bosses. ‘Premise to Consequence’ uses Ditko’s facility for exotic science fiction to examine truth and reality and sinister silent avenger ‘The Void’ reveals how even the best of men can betray their own principles.

‘The Captive Spark’ displays Ditko’s beliefs from the birth of civilisation to the sorry present whilst ‘Masquerade’ delightfully follows two journalists as they simultaneously and independently decide to crack a troubling story by becoming masked adventurers. The volume dedicates the remainder of its content to the final amazing exploits of Ditko’s purest ideological champion – the utterly uncompromising Mr. A…

TV reporter Rex Graine is secretly Mr. A: white suited, steel-masked, coldly savage, challenging society, ruthlessly seeking Truth and utterly incapable of moral compromise. In most respects A is an extreme extension of faceless agent of Justice The Question as seen in all his glory in DC’s Action Heroes Archive volume 2

From Mr. A #2 (1975) after the gloriously moody cover comes the gripping battle against duplicitous prestidigitator and media-darling bandit ‘Count Rogue’ and his startling solo campaign against ‘The Brotherhood of the Collective’ whose bullyboy tactics include racketeering, slander, murder and imposture. Also included here is the stunning Mr. A page from the 1976 San Diego Comic Con Program Booklet, a tantalising “coming next” page for the tragically unreleased ‘Mr. A Vs The Polluters‘ and this collection culminates with a true graphic tour de force as the incorruptible, unswerving White Knight battles the ultimate threat in a wordless, untitled masterpiece fans know as ‘Mr. A: Death Vs Love-Song’ (which appeared in The Comic Crusader Storybook in 1976 and from which the cover of this collection is taken).

I love comics. Steve Ditko has produced a disproportionate amount of my favourite, formative fiction over the decades. His is a unique voice wedded to an honest heart blessed with the captivating genius of a graphic master. The tales here have seldom been seen elsewhere; never often enough and always with little fanfare. If you can find this volume and its predecessor you’ll see a lot of his best work, undiluted by colour, and on lovely large (274x212mm) white pages.

Even if you can’t find these, find something – because Steve Ditko is pure comics.
All works © 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1986 Steve Ditko for The Avenging World, The Collector, Inside Comics, Comics Crusader, Wha, Mr. A, San Diego Comic Con Program Booklet and Comic Crusader Storybook respectively. All Rights Reserved.

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Hellblazer: The Fear Machine


By Jamie Delano and various & (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-880-5

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be as brief as I can. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, he is a mercurial modern wizard, a chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void.

Given his own series by popular demand, he premiered in the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US but at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in England, so as we’re singing the same song now (but with second-rate Britain’s Got Talent cover-artists as leaders) I thought I’d cover a few old gems that might be regaining their relevance in the days ahead…

In 1987 Creative Arts and Liberal attitudes were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. Jamie Delano began the series with relatively safe horror plots, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature, chequered history and odd acquaintances but even then discriminating fans were aware of a joyously anti-establishment political line and wild metaphorical underpinnings.

Skinheads, racism, Darwinian politics, gruesome supernature and more abound in the dark dystopian present of John Constantine – a world of cutting edge of mysticism, Cyber-shamanism and political soul-stealing. In Delano’s world the edges between science and magic aren’t blurred – they simply don’t exist.

Some terrors are eternal and some seem inextricably tied to a specific time and place: The Fear Machine (collecting issues #14-22 of the mature readers monthly comicbook) is an engrossing extended epic which began when the wizard went on the run after the tabloid press pilloried him as a Satanist serial killer in ‘Touching the Earth’ (by Delano, Richard Piers Rayner & Mark Buckingham).

Forced to flee his inner London comfort-zone he is adopted by a band of neo-pagan Travellers (apparently as responsible for all the ills plaguing society in the 1980s and 1990s as fat people and immigrants are today…) and journeys through the heartland of Britain.

Going native amongst the drop-outs, druggies, bath-dodgers and social misfits Constantine buddies up with an immensely powerful psychic girl named Mercury and her extremely engaging mum, Marj, but even amidst these freewheeling folks he can feel something nasty building. The first inkling occurs in ‘Shepherd’s Warning’ when Mercury discovers an ancient stone circle has been fenced off by a quasi-governmental company named Geotroniks. Someone is trying to shackle Mother Earth’s circulatory system of Ley lines…

Meanwhile elsewhere, people are compelled to kill and mutilate themselves and Geotroniks is watching and taking notes…

When police raid the Travellers campsite in ‘Rough Justice’ Mercury is abducted and imprisoned in a secret complex where the mind’s limits and the Earth’s forces are being radically tested. Cutting edge stuff… if only the subjects and observing scientists can be persuaded to stop committing suicide…

Mike Hoffman illustrated the fourth chapter, ‘Fellow Travellers’ as Constantine headed back to London for help in finding Mercury and uncovering the secrets of Geotroniks. He gains a horrific insight when the train he’s on is devastated by a psychic assault which makes all the passengers destroy themselves…

‘Hate Mail & Love Letters’ (with art by Buckingham & Alfredo Alcala) begins two months later. Marj and the travellers are hiding in the Highlands with a fringe group called the Pagan Nation, led by the mysterious Zed – an old friend of the wily trickster. Constantine keeps digging, but across the country suicide and self harm are increasing. Society itself seems diseased, but at least the Satanist witch hunt has been forgotten as the Press rage on to their next sanctimonious cause celebré…

Touching base with his few police contacts and pet journalists the metropolitan mage soon stumbles into a fresh aspect of the mystery when a Masonic hitman begins removing anyone who could be of use to his enquiries in ‘The Broken Man’. Saving journalist Simon Hughes from assassination in a particularly exotic manner guaranteed to divert attention from his politically damaging investigations, Constantine finds new clues that a the psychic horror and social unrest are all being orchestrated by reactionary aspects of the government and a sinister “Old Boy network”…

And somewhere dark and hidden Mercury’s captors are opening doors to places mortals were never meant to…

As the Pagan Nation’s priestesses work their subtle magics to find the missing girl and save humanity’s soul, a disgusting, conglomerate beast-thing is maturing, made from fear and pain, greed and suffering and deep black despair: provoking a response from and guest-appearance by Morpheus, the Sandman, and prompting Constantine, Hughes and possibly the last decent copper in London to go hunting…

Picking up another recruit in the form of KGB scientist Sergei, events spiral ever faster as the Freemasons – or at least their “Magi Caecus” elite – are revealed to be organising the plot in ‘Betrayal’, combining Cold War paranormal research, economic imperialism, Thatcherite divisive self-gratification and the order’s own quasi-mystical arcana to create a situation in which their guiding principles will control society and the physical world. It nothing more than a greedy power-grab using blood and horror to fuel the engines of change…

All pretence of scientific research at Geotroniks is abandoned in ‘The God of All Gods’ as Masonic hitman Mr. Webster goes off the deep end, ignoring his own Lodge Grandmaster’s orders to abort the project amidst an increasing national atmosphere of mania, determined to free the fearful thing they’ve created and unmake the modern world at all costs. Constantine’s allies are all taken and the wizard is left to fight on alone.

Knee deep in intrigue, conspiracy and spilled guts, humanity seems doomed unless Constantine’s band of unhappy brothers and a bunch of Highland witch women can pull the biggest, bloodiest rabbit out of the mother of all hats in the spectacular conclusion ‘Balance’…

The heady blend of authoritarian intransigence, counterculture optimism, espionage action, murder-mystery conspiracy theories and ancient sex-magic mix perfectly to create an oppressive tract of inexorable terror and smashed hope before the astounding climax forestalls if not saves the day of doom, in this extremely impressive dark chronicle which still resonates with the bleak and cheerless zeitgeist of the time.

This is a superb example of modern horror fiction, inextricably linking politics, religion human nature and sheer bloody-mindedness as the root cause of all ills. That our best chance of survival is a truly reprehensible exploitative monomaniac seems a perfect metaphor for the world we’re locked into…

Clever, subversive and painfully prophetic, even at its most outlandish, this tale jabs at the subconscious with its scratchy edginess and jangles the nerves from beginning to end. An unmissable feast for fear fans, humanists and political mavericks everywhere…

© 1989, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Death of Groo the Wanderer (Marvel Graphic Novel #32)


By Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai & Tom Luth (Epic/Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-290-7

Groo is a living paradox: a brilliant fighting man and unbeatable warrior sell-sword and simultaneously the dumbest collection of organic molecules on the planet. Always hungry, he wanders because most places where he pauses burn down, wash away or crash into rubble soon after he gets there. He loves to fight and the entire world trembles at the mention of his name. They do the same when they smell him too…

Produced in unique fashion by Sergio Aragonés, wordsmith Mark Evanier, letterer Stan Sakai (creator of Usagi Yojimbo) and colourist Tom Luth, the idiot’s adventures form one of the longest running humour comicbook series in America and there seems to be no chance of stopping the creators as long as we keep buying these incredible, hilarious sagas…

Both in comic narrative and the infinitely more strenuous field of gag-cartooning Sergio Aragonés has produced vast volumes of excellent work. His darkly skewed sensibilities and grasp of the cosmically absurd, wedded to a totally unique, anarchically meticulous drawing style and frankly terrifying professional discipline, have made his (usually) silent doodles a vibrant proof of the maxims that laughter is universal and a picture is worth a thousand words.

After working for years for Mad Magazine and DC’s horror titles on gag features and the occasional full comic strip, in 1981 with writer and associate Mark Evanier, Aragonés produced a madcap four-page parody of the Sword-and-Sorcery genre as a contribution to the Creators Rights benefit comicbook Destroyer Duck published by Eclipse Comics.

Following a second outing in Mike Grell’s Starslayer (#5) Pacific Comics launched Groo the Wanderer in his own title. After 8 issues (December 1982-April 1984) the troubled company folded but the unsinkable barbarian (that’s a joke I’ll explain later) resurfaced in the Groo Special one-shot from Eclipse (October 1984), before finding a home at Epic Comics: Archie Goodwin’s creator-owned corner of the Marvel Universe.

Aragonés first created his witless warrior in the 1970s but no publisher would take on the property unless he sold all rights – an almost universal situation in the industry until the advent of the Direct Sales market transferred power from companies and distributors to creators and consumers. After an uproarious 120 issue run at Epic, and dozens of graphic novel compilations, the witless wonder moved on to Image and Dark Horse Comics, but they haven’t completely gone belly-up yet…

This all original volume from 1987 reintroduces readers to the smelliest, ugliest, stupidest itinerant mercenary in the world. Luckily he’s also the best swordsman in creation and too thick to be harmed because when he shuffles his unshod, dirty feet into the domain of King Krag he inadvertently encounters a thoroughly nasty man with a good many reasons to psychotically hate him…

At that time the kingdom was being ravaged by a colossal dragon, but as the only man on the planet crazy enough to fight it has a huge bounty on his head, how stupid would he have to be to come and attempt to kill it? – and if you’re having difficulty answering that, either you’ve not been paying attention or Groo has found a new apprentice…

Due to the kind of circumstance-concatenation that only happens in this series, everybody in the land of Groo-haters thinks the oaf is finally dead – even Groo – but with all the folk who have ever suffered at his hands gathered in one place they all start to realise that a world without Groo just isn’t the same…

Fear not however: order, if not sense, is eventually restored – but only after a grand display of confusions, contusions, conflagrations, conflicts, pratfalls, pitfalls, punch-lines and punch-ups. There’s even a little room left over for a soupcon of romance (Mmmm, Soup! Mmmm, leftovers…)

Published in the extravagant, luxurious over-sized 285mm x 220mm European album format which allows even more room for the artist’s tireless tornado of visual gags and graphitti this is a masterpiece of mirth and madness that comedy addicts will love and the great strength of the series is that new readers can start practically anywhere – and still be none the wiser…

Oh yeah, that sinking thing: among his other lack of abilities Groo cannot travel by ship. He’s not sea-sick or anything – it’s just that his physical presence on a nautical apparatus of any sort causes it to sink – and this book has one of the very best riffs on that running (swimming? sinking?) gag I’ve ever seen…
© 1987 Sergio Aragonés. All Rights Reserved.

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Conan of the Isles (Marvel Graphic Novel #42)


By Roy Thomas & John Buscema, with Danny Bulanadi, Ricardo Villamonte, Armando Gil and Dave Simons (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-483-9

During the 1970′s the American comic book industry opened up after more than fifteen years of cautious and calcified publishing practices that had come about as a reaction to the scrupulously-censorious oversight of the self-inflicted Comics Code Authority: A body created by the publishers to police their product and keep it palatable and wholesome after the industry suffered their very own McCarthy-inspired Witch-hunt during the 1950s. One of the first genres to be revisited was Horror/Mystery comics and from that came the pulp masterpiece Conan the Cimmerian.

Simultaneously, Sword & Sorcery stories had undergone a global prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954), and the 1960s saw the resurgence of the two-fisted fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber, whilst many modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter kick-started their careers with contemporary versions of man, monster and mage. Indisputably the grand master of the genre was Robert E. Howard.

Marvel Comics tested the waters in early 1970 with a little tale called ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ (from the horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4) whose hero Starr the Slayer bore no small resemblance to the Barbarian. It was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by young Englishman Barry Smith, a recent Marvel find, and one who was just breaking out of the company’s Kirby house-style.

Despite some early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month, the comic-strip adventures of Robert E. Howard’s characters were as big a success as the prose yarns. Conan became a huge success: a mega-brand that saw new prose tales, movies, a TV series and cartoon show, a newspaper strip and all the other paraphernalia of success. And it all largely stemmed from the vast range of comics initiated by Thomas, Windsor-Smith (as he became) and the excellent succession of comics creators that followed.

Thomas was a huge fan of the prose material and took great pains to adapt the novels and short stories into the graphic canon. From the latter days when the barbarian was an established Marvel mainstay comes this utterly enchanting adaptation of the hero’s last recorded adventure, written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, first released in 1968.

The Cimmerian’s wanderings had eventually led him to the throne of a vast kingdom, the founding of a dynasty and after twenty years, terminal boredom. He had outlived his comrades and beloved wife Zenobia and chafed under the yoke of responsibility. When seven hundred citizens of Tarantia were terrifyingly consumed by blazing bloody lights King Conan was furious and bewildered until a ghostly vision bade him to hunt down and destroy these marauding Red Shadows.

Secretly abdicating in favour of his son Conn, the aging warrior vanished from Court, returning to the life of a pirate, and as “Amra the Lion” gathered a crew of valiant brigands to covertly hunt down the master of the crimson shades – who have subsequently spread their depredations throughout the known world.

Still formidable and burdened with fearsome responsibilities, Amra and old comrades Sigurd of Vanaheim and Yasunga the Black Corsair rove the scattered islands of the Western Ocean, seeking their hidden foe and battling monsters, rogues and maddening mechanical dooms.

Even though nearly seventy years old Conan drove himself hard and soon the ship of rogues found their hidden foe in the form of the priest-cult of Xotli and their uncanny Black Kraken warriors of lost Atlantis. When the pirates were all captured Conan alone infiltrated the hidden citadel to solve the mystery of the Red Shadows, rescue his crew and save the whole Hyperborean world…

Divided into three chapters, ‘Red Shadows and Black Kraken!’ (inked by Danny Bulanadi, Ricardo Villamonte & Armando Gil), ‘Dragons from an Unknown Sea!’ and ‘Gods of Light and Darkness!’ (both inked by Dave Simons), I rather suspect this tale was originally intended for the comicbook spin-off King Conan before being bumped into this sleek and glossy oversized format

Once upon a time Marvel led the publishing pack in the development of high quality original graphic novels: mixing creator-owned properties, licensed assets like Conan, Marvel Universe tales and even new series launches in extravagant over-sized packages (a standard 285mm x 220mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm) that felt and looked like far more than an average comicbook no matter how good, bad or incomprehensible (a polite way of saying outside the average Marvel Zombie’s comfort zone) the contents might have been.

Fast-paced, action packed and stuffed with the red-handed wonderment beloved by his fans, Conan of the Isles is rip-roaring pulp fare, brimming with supernatural horrors, scantily-clad damsels in distress and spectacular derring-do, cannily recounted by veteran creators at the top of their form. Still readily available this is a classy tale that will delight any fan of the genre and could easily convert a few die-hards too.
© 1982, 1988 Conan Properties Inc All Rights Reserved.

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Castle Waiting Volume 2


By Linda Medley (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-405-4

What exactly happens after “Happy Ever After”?

Castle Waiting is a far too infrequent comicbook answer to that question, produced in lovely bursts of joyful creativity since 1996 by cartoonist and sometime self-publisher Linda Medley, set in a generically plentiful fairytale milieu encompassing everything from talking animals to medieval knights to fairies and giants all leavened with a dry sharp wit and commonsense modern sensibility.

After voyaging peripatetically from self-published to co-published and back in 2006 Medley settled at Fantagraphics who collected all the previous issues (one shot Castle Waiting: the Curse of Brambly Hedge, seven issues under her own Olio Press imprint, four more with Cartoon Books and a further five under her own steam) and began work on a further fifteen issues which comprise this wonderful, colossal, book shaped hardback. Although the series is again on hiatus I’m hopeful that soon there will be more magic to come.

Originally published in black and white at standard US comicbook proportions, Medley’s sturdy, open, woodcut-like art actually benefits from the slight reduction to book format. Her superb backgrounds and location establishing shots are made perfectly ponderous and wonderfully unyielding whilst her incredible facility with expressions is given full range of play and ideal conditions to work in.

As seen in the previous volume, the castle in question is a fantastic and mysterious edifice sitting on the edge of a tempestuous sea-facing cliff. Once it had Lords-and-Ladies and other grand occupants a-plenty, but when the Princess fell into a deep enchanted sleep and giant thorns and bushes enveloped the place it fell into abandoned disuse. It has since been occupied by a motley – and often anthropomorphic – crew and exists as a kind of affable commune-community centre, populated by good, hearty background characters who didn’t cause any fuss or trouble in those famous tales.

Medley’s stories are deft, clever and work because they focus on everyday life at the fringes of the “Big Stuff”, with characters such as old bearded nun Sister Peace; Patience, Prudence and Plenty, three elderly ladies in waiting who have seen it all, the tragically demented surgeon Doctor Fell, seven-foot tall, foundling dwarf blacksmith Henry/Loki, warrior-centaur Chess, assorted kitchen-staff like Mrs. Cully and her giant son Simon – who is not simple – and a host of others, permanent and passing through, all wrangled by stork-headed, self-appointed major domo Rackham. The venturesome “vermin” who inhabit the still-unexplored nooks and crannies are sprites, pixies, poltergeists and demons.

Convivial and conversational the narrative impetus is provided by Lady Jain who first came seeking refuge from an abusive husband. She moved in heavy with child and when he was eventually delivered the kid was not human. Everybody bides their own business here though…

The pace is deliciously slow, filled with situations rather than events that unfold at their own pace so by the opening of this volume Jain and her newborn Pindar are only just moving to better rooms in the Keep. She settles on the old counting house because of the memories it provokes (and as the book progresses we’ll see many secret snippets of her childhood…). As the days go by blacksmith Henry’s dwarf (they prefer the term “Hammerlings”) relatives Tolly and Uncle Dayne come by for a visit. They’re on a mysterious mission but are distracted: Tolly is pretty sure he knows what or who Pindar’s dad was…

The Hammerlings extend their stay to provide some remodeling work for Rackham and open unsuspected areas of the Castle to long-delayed scrutiny, with results both well and ill welcomed, and Jain reveals she has a magic trunk…

The horrifying secret of Doctor Fell is revealed and a preliminary restoration of his faculties, as is Jain’s romantic past and Henry’s connection to the little folk, before the cast are introduced to the unimaginable delights of nine-pin bowling and the volume meanders to a close with the portents indicating something big and nasty is coming…

Saucy, bold, enigmatic, gently funny, reassuringly romantic; brimming with human warmth and just the right edge of hidden danger Castle Waiting is a masterpiece of subtle ironic, perfectly paced storytelling that any kid over ten can and will adore. Moreover, if you’re long in the tooth or have been around the block a time or two, this fantastic place can’t help but look like home…

™ & © 2010 Linda Medley. Compilation © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Young Gods & Friends


By Barry Windsor Smith (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-491-8

In keeping with the dolorous nature of this time of year I’m concentrating on a few missed opportunities in this period between the dubious joys of Christmas and the nervous anticipation of the New Year so here’s a graphic novel that in some way didn’t live up to all it could have been not because of the material itself but because of the kind of world we live in…

Barry Windsor Smith is a consummate creator whose work has moved millions and a principled artist who has always been poorly served by the mainstream publishing houses. Whether with his co-creation of Sword-and Sorcery comics via Conan the Barbarian or his later work-for-hire material for The Thing (Marvel Fanfare #15 – utterly hilarious), Machine Man, Iron Man, X-Men, Weapon X or the tremendously fun Archer & Armstrong/Valiant Comics work with Jim Shooter, his stunning visuals always entranced but never led to anything long-lived or substantial. And always the problem seemed to be a clash of business ethics versus creative freedom…

In 1995 Dark Horse, an outfit specialising in licensed and creator-owned properties, offered him the carte-blanche chance to do it his way in his own tabloid-sized anthology Barry Windsor-Smith: Storyteller. The magazine carried three features all written and drawn by the artist; The Paradoxman, The Freebooters and Young Gods. Although the work was simply stunning it appeared independent publishers were cut from the same cloth as the mainstream…

It’s not my business to comment on that: I’ve been both freelancer and publisher so I know there are at least two sides to everything (and you can hear Mr. Windsor Smith’s in this superb collection from Fantagraphics) but the series ended acrimoniously in 1997 after nine issues and the stories remained unfinished. This tome, the first of three, collected all the published material of each strip-strand and also includes the chapters still in progress at the time of the split, some new and reformatted material and other extras that fans and lovers of whimsical fiction would be crazy to miss.

But it is still incomplete and that’s a true shame…

Created as a light-hearted and wittily arch tribute to Jack Kirby’s majestic pantheon of cosmic comic deities Young Gods and Friends nominally stars foul-mouthed earthbound goddess Adastra, getting by as a pizza-delivery chick in New York City, but slowly builds and spreads into a mythico-graphic Waiting for Godot as we trace her past, discover warring pantheons that decided arranged weddings were better than Ragnaroks and meet the bold and heroic nuptualists who would do anything to avoid the arrangement: thus becoming delightfully diverted down a dozen different paths as a picture/story oh-so-slowly builds.

As I’ve mentioned the series came to an abrupt halt with the ninth episode, but there was a tenth ready and that is here, as well as material and fragments that would have been finished out the first dozen instalments as well as deleted scenes, fragments, outtakes and reworked snippets.

On a purely artistic level this collection and extrapolation is a sheer delight; with superb art, splendid writing and all sorts of added extras, but the story-consumer in me can’t help but yearn for what might have been and how much has been lost.

Beautiful wry, witty and completely enchanting – and tragically disappointing because of that

™ & © 2003 Barry Windsor Smith. All Rights Reserved.