Category: Graphic Novels

Posted on

The Batman Annuals volume 1 – DC Comics Classic Library


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Leigh Brackett, France Herron, David Vern Reed, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Sheldon Moldoff, Dick Sprang, Stan Kaye, Charles Paris & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-215-8 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Nostalgia Box to Celebrate the Season… 8/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

DC’s Classics Comics Library of hardbacks was a remarkably accessible, curated collectible range of tomes, much missed by all today. One of the best of them was this wonderful aggregation of three of the most influential and beloved comic books of the Silver Age.

Originally released in June 1961, Batman Annual #1 hit newsstands a year after the startlingly successful Superman Annual #1. The big, bold anthology format was hugely popular with readers. The Man of Steel’s second Annual was rushed out before Christmas 1960 and the third came out a mere year after the first! That same month (June 1961) the first ever Secret Origins collection and this Bat-Blockbuster all arrived in shops and on newsstands. For us budding fanboys, it was like what I imagine one’s first hit of recreational narcotics must feel like…

It’s probably hard to appreciate now but these huge books – 80 pages instead of 32 – were a magical resource with a colossal impact for kids who loved comics. I don’t mean the ubiquitous scruffs, oiks and scallywags of school days who read them and chucked them away (most kids were comics consumers in the days before computer games) but rather those quiet, secretive few of us who treasured and kept them, constantly re-reading, discussing, pondering. Only posh kids with wicked parents read no comics at all: those prissy, starchy types who were beaten up by the scruffs, oiks and scallywags even more than us bookworms. But I digress…

For budding collectors these Annuals were a gateway to a fabulous lost past. Just Imagine!: adventures your heroes had from before you were even born…

Those colossal compilations of the 1960s changed comics publishing. Soon Marvel, Charlton and Archie Comics were also releasing giant books of old stories, then new ones, crossovers, continued stories, et al. Annuals proved two things to publishers: that there was a dedicated, long-term appetite for more material – and that punters were willing to pay a little bit more for it. This vast compendium reassembles the first three Batman Annuals in their mythic entirety: 21 terrific complete stories, posters, features, pin-ups, calendars and those iconic compartmentalized covers. There are also creator biographies and articles from Michael Uslan and Richard Bruning to put the entire experience into perspective, and original publication information and credits (the only bad thing about those big books of magic was never knowing “Who” and “Where”…)

The editors wisely packaged Annuals as themed collections, the first being ‘1001 Secrets of Batman and Robin’ starting the ball rolling with ‘How to be the Batman’ by Bill Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Stan Kaye, wherein an amnesiac Caped Crusader must be re-trained by Robin. As always there’s a twist in this tale, before ‘The Strange Costumes of Batman’ (Edmond Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Charles Paris) highlights specialised uniforms the heroes use over their outrageous careers.

The self-explanatory ‘Untold Tales of the Bat-Signal’ (writer unknown, Schwartz and Paris) again uses past exploits to solve a contemporary case, whilst ‘The Origin of the Bat-Cave’ (Finger, Sheldon Moldoff & Paris) is only revealed by a quick time-trip back to revolutionary war days. ‘Batman’s Electronic Crime-File’ (anonymous, Sprang & Paris) is a cracking thriller confirming the Dynamic Duo’s love of cutting-edge technology. ‘The Thrilling Escapes of Batman and Robin’ (Finger, Moldoff, Kaye) concentrates on their facility at escaping traps, and excitement peaked in a dazzling display of ‘The Amazing Inventions of Batman’ (Hamilton, Sprang, Paris).

‘Batman and Robin’s Most Thrilling Action Roles’ opens with tension-packed mystery ‘The Underseas Batman’ (Hamilton, Sprang, Paris), then explores Wayne’s Scottish connections in ‘The Lord of Batmanor’ (Hamilton, assisted by his wife Leigh Brackett, Sprang & Paris) before once more tapping into the Westerns zeitgeist with ‘Batman – Indian Chief’ (France Herron, Moldoff & Kaye). ‘The Jungle Batman’ (David Vern Reed, Schwartz & Paris) is pure escapist joy and we get a then-rare glimpse of Bruce Wayne’s training in ‘When Batman Was Robin’ (Hamilton, Sprang, Paris) before returning to foiling deathtraps with ‘Batman the Magician’ (Finger, Moldoff, Paris), and this section concludes with a pivotal tale ‘Batman – The Superman of Planet X’ (Herron, Sprang & Paris): one forming a key thematic plank of Grant Morrison’s epic Batman R.I.P. storyline and later exploits.

The third Annual (which came far more frequently than once a year) featured ‘Batman and Robin’s Most Fantastic Foes’ beginning with ‘The Mad Hatter of Gotham City’ (Finger, Moldoff & Paris), special-effects bandit ‘The Human Firefly’ (Herron, Sprang, Paris) and hyper cerebral mutant ‘The Mental Giant of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang, Paris) before the Clown Prince of Crime steals the show with a squad of skullduggery specialists in ‘The Joker’s Aces’ (Reed, Schwartz, Kaye).

Eerie and hard-hitting ‘The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City’ (Reed, Schwartz, Kaye) was one of DC’s earliest Ape epics, and although gripping, ‘The New Crimes of Two-Face’ (Finger, Schwartz & Paris) starred only a stand-in for the double-dealing psychopath. ‘The Mysterious Mirror Man’ (Finger, Moldoff and Paris), however, was the genuine article and well worth a modern do-over…

For me Christmas is inextricably linked to Batman. From my earliest formative years every Yule was capped by that year’s British hardcover annual, often reprinting US comics (if somewhat imaginatively coloured) but occasionally all-new prose stories liberally illustrated and based slavishly on the Adam West/Burt Ward TV series. As I grew older and became a more serious reader and collector (the technical term is, I believe, addict) I became an avowed appreciator of regular seasonal tales appearing in Batman or Detective Comics or the “Golden Age Classics” that too infrequently graced them. Over decades some Batman’s very best adventures have occurred in the “Season of Good will” and why DC has never produced a Batman Christmas Album is a mystery even the World’s Greatest Detective could not solve…

This book might not actually contain any X-Mas exploits but it is the kind of present I would have killed (or died) for all those hundreds of years ago, so how can you possibly deny your kids the delights of this incredibly enjoyable book? And just like Train Sets, Scalextric and Quad Bikes, when I say kids of course I mean “Dads”…
© 1961, 1962, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Batman: The Golden Age volume 2


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6808-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Batman: The Golden Age volume 2 is another paperback-format feast (there’s also a weightier, pricier and more capacious hardback Omnibus available) re-presenting our anniversarial Dark Knight’s earliest exploits. Set out in original publishing release order, it forgoes glossy, high-definition paper and reproduction techniques in favour of a newsprint-adjacent feel and the same flat, bright-yet-muted colour palette which graced the originals. Those necessary details dealt with, what you really need to know is that this is a collection of Batman tales depicting how the character grew into the major player who would inspire so many: developing a resilience to survive the stifling cultural vicissitudes coming decades would inflict upon him and his partner, Robin.

With the majority of material crafted by Bill Finger and illustrated by Bob Kane, there’s no fuss, fiddle or Foreword, and the book steams straight into mesmerising mysterious action, re-presenting astounding cape-&-cowl classics and iconic covers from Detective Comics #46-56, Batman #4-7 and the Dynamic Duo’s stories from World’s Best Comics #1 and World’s Finest Comics #2-3: cumulatively covering all groundbreaking escapades from December 1940 to November 1941…

Plunging right into perilous procedures, Detective #46 (Kane with regular embellishers Jerry Robinson & George Roussos) features the return of Batman’s most formidable fringe scientific adversary as the heroes must counteract the awesome effects of ‘Professor Strange’s Fear Dust’, after which #47 delivers drama on a more human scale in ‘Money Can’t Buy Happiness’. This action-packed homily of parental expectation and the folly of greed leads into Batman #4 (Winter 1941) which opens with a spiffy catch-all visual resume prior to ‘The Joker’s Crime Circus’, plus the piratical plunderings of ‘Blackbeard’s Crew and the Yacht Society!’. ‘Public Enemy No.1’ tells a gangster fable in the manner of Jimmy Cagney’s movie Angels With Dirty Faces, and ‘Victory For the Dynamic Duo’ involves the pair in the treacherous world of sports gambling.

Detective Comics #48 finds the lads defending America’s bullion reserves in ‘The Secret Cavern’, and they face an old foe when ‘Clayface Walks Again’ (Detective Comics #49, March 1941), as the deranged horror actor resumes his passion for murder and re-attempts to kill Bruce Wayne’s old girlfriend Julie. DC #50 pits Batman & Robin against acrobatic burglars in ‘The Case of the Three Devils’, leading neatly into Batman #5 (Spring 1941). Once again, Joker plays lead villain in ‘The Riddle of the Missing Card’, before the heroes prove their versatility by solving a quixotic crime in Fairy Land via ‘The Book of Enchantment’.

‘The Case of the Honest Crook’ follows: one of the key stories of Batman’s early canon. When a mugger steals only $6 from a victim, leaving much more behind, his trail leads to a vicious gang who almost beat Robin to death. The vengeance-crazed Dark Knight goes on a rampage of terrible violence that still resonates in the character to this day. The last story from Batman #5 –‘Crime does Not Pay’ – once again deals with kids going bad and their potential for redemption, after which World’s Best Comics#1 (Spring 1941 – destined to become World’s Finest Comics with its second issue) offers an eerie murder mystery concerning ‘The Witch and the Manuscript of Doom’. With most stories still coming from unsung genius Finger and art chores shared out between Kane, Robinson & Roussos, the team got a new top contributor as Fred Ray signed on to produce fantastic World’s Finest covers that offered the only venue to see the Gotham Gangbusters operating beside the Metropolis Marvel.

Sordid human scaled wickedness informs ‘The Case of the Mystery Carnival’, ‘The Secret of the Jade Box’ and ‘Viola Vane’ (Detective #51, 52 and 53 respectively): all mood-soaked crimebusting set-pieces featuring fairly run-of-the mill thugs, serving as perfect palate-cleansers for ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Remember!’ from WF #2: a powerful character play and a chilling conundrum that still packs a punch today.

‘Hook Morgan and his Harbor Pirates’ finds the Dynamic Duo cleaning up the docks whilst the quartet from Batman #6 (‘Murder on Parole’, ‘The Clock Maker’, ‘The Secret of the Iron Jungle’ and ‘Suicide Beat’) offer a broad range of yarns encompassing a prison-set human interest fable to the hunt for a crazed maniac to racket busting and back to the human side of being a cop. Detective #54 heads back to basics with spectacular mad scientist thriller ‘The Brain Burglar’, after which a visit to a ghost town results in eerie romp ‘The Stone Idol’ (Detective #55) before World’s Finest #3 launches a classic villain with the first appearance of one of Batman’s greatest foes in ‘The Riddle of the Human Scarecrow’.

The volume ends with a grand quartet of tales from Batman #7. ‘Wanted: Practical Jokers’ again stars the psychotic Clown Prince of Crime, whilst ‘The Trouble Trap’ sees our heroes crushing a spiritualist racket before heading for Lumberjack country to clear up ‘The North Woods Mystery’.

The last story is something of a landmark case, as well as being a powerful and emotional melodrama. ‘The People Vs. The Batman’ finds Bruce Wayne framed for murder and the Dynamic Duo finally sworn in as official police operatives. They would not be vigilantes again until the grim ‘n’ gritty 1980s…

Kane, Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried Batman well beyond his allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s reading… and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but inspired and inspirational writers like Bill Finger refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter.

Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and juvenile wish-fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do most: teach bad people the lessons they richly deserved…

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comic book heroics simply don’t come any better.
© 1940, 1941, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Yakari and Nanabozho (volume 11)


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-177-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Closing what has been an already appalling month for planet Earth, (belated) news came to us yesterday that we have lost two more of comics’ most prodigious and influential talents. You’re all busy and so am I, but we can’t let the events go unremarked. Here’s a quick reminder in review form of what will be so missed, but which we can still enjoy forever…

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A World We All Want … 9/10

In 1964 children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded by Swiss journalist André Jobin (25/10/1927-08/10/2024), who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later, he hired artist and fellow Swiss Franco-phone Claude de Ribaupierre, AKA “Derib”.

The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs): working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou. Thereafter, together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration.

Born in Delémont, Jobin split his time between Bande Dessinées – 39 Yakari albums and 3 for Pythagore – and his other writing editing and publishing briefs: an admirably restrained and outstandingly effective legacy to be proud of.

Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics became one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators with such groundbreaking strips as Buddy Longway, Celui-qui-est-nà-deux-fois, Jo (first comic to deal with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne. They haven’t been translated into English yet, but still we patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which led Derib to his deserved mega-stardom. Debuting in 1969, self-contained episodes trace the eventful, nomadic life of an Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains, with stories set sometime after the introduction of horses (by colonising Conquistadores) but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which also generated two separate animated TV series and a movie – has notched up 42 albums thus far: a testament to its evergreen vitality and brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job moved on in 2016, replaced by Frenchman Joris Chamblain.

Abundant with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, Yakari’s life is a largely bucolic and happy existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of dramatic delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart and brave, and who can – thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle – converse with animals…

First serialised in 1978, Yakari et Nanabozo was the fourth European album, released as the strip transferred to prestigious magazine Le Journal d Tintin, but was only translated by Cinebook in 2013, making it officially the 11th UK album. That’s not going to be a problem for chronology or continuity addicts as the tale is both stunningly simple and effectively timeless…

It begins one bright sunny day as the little wonder wanders out to the Rock of the Bear to meet his friend Rainbow. When the lad arrives there’s no sign of her, but he does meet a gigantic, extremely voluble desert hare claiming to be Trickster Spirit Nanabozho…

a statement he proves by making some astounding adjustments to the little lad’s own height.

The Great Rabbit claims to be Rainbow’s totem animal, just as Great Eagle watches over and protects Yakari. Moreover, the loopy lepine wants the lad to accompany him on a quest. Ever since a travelling tale-teller arrived in camp, recounting shocking stories of the far north where it’s so cold the bears are snowy white, headstrong Rainbow has wanted to see the amazing creatures for herself and, eager to please his protégée, the Brobdingnagian bunny agrees to help her, even supplying magic walking moccasins to reduce the hardships of the hike.

Unfortunately, the impatient tyke can’t wait for the Trickster and Yakari to join her and puts them on unsupervised. Unable to resist the enchanted slippers, Rainbow starts her trek, not knowing where she’s going or how to stop…

Now, with boy and bunny transforming into giants and tiny mites as circumstances demand, they set out to catch their impetuous friend, following the path of magic talisman ‘the Straight Arrow’ and assisted by such beneficial creatures as a night moose.

… And when they at last find Rainbow, the travellers decide that as they’ve come so far, they might as well complete the journey to the Land of the White Bears, aided by a fabulous flying canoe…

Always visually spectacular, seductively smart and happily heart-warming, Job’s sparse plot here affords Derib an unmissable opportunity to go wild with the illustrations; creating a lush, lavish and eye-popping fantasy wonderland which is breathtaking to behold, and Really Big Sky storytelling with a delicious twist in its colossal fluffy tail…

The exploits of the valiant little voyager who speaks to animals and enjoys a unique place in an exotic world is a decades-long celebration of joyously gentle, marvellously moving and enticingly entertaining adventure, honouring and eulogising an iconic culture with grace, wit, wonder and especially humour. These gentle sagas are true landmarks of comics literature and Yakari is a strip no fan of graphic entertainment should ignore.
Original edition © 1978 Le Lombard/Dargaud by Derib & Job. English translation 2013 © Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Batman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition


By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77951-269-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utterly Uncanny and Irresistible Comics Chillers… 9/10

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

The creative team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale tackled many iconic characters in many landmark tales, but one of their earliest is still, to my mind, their best.

Set during the Batman: Year One scenario created by Frank Miller, and originally released in 1996 as a 13-part miniseries (running from Halloween to Halloween) it shed newer, darker light on the early alliance of Police Captain Jim Gordon, Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent and a mysterious masked vigilante who seek to unseat, if not destroy, the unassailable mob boss who runs Gotham City: Carmine “The Roman” Falcone…

Trenchant with narrative foreboding – long-time fans already know the tragedies in store for all participants, although total neophytes won’t be left wondering long – this gripping Noir thriller effortlessly carries the reader along on a trail of tension. Here and back then, Gotham is a dirty paradise for criminals and the corrupt, a modern Sodom and Gomorrah unofficially ruled by a ruthless, savage patrician of evil.

However, good people live here too. At this moment, when the Big Boss is seeking to allay growing fears in his deputies over legal strikes by a certain cop and pushy ADA, a rise in freaks, killers and weirdo thieves, and tales of attacks by a nut dressed as bat, more trouble strikes…

As seen in opening episode ‘Crime’ a costumed burglar is targeting Falcone’s holdings. The Roman’s evening and life in general suddenly get worse as, beginning at one of his lavish soirées, a mysterious killer stalks him, callously slaughtering close family and criminal employees, once a month, on every public holiday. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and so on, each hit crushing more of The Roman’s perfect world, just as the three compulsive crimebusters had secretly sworn to.

Is the Holiday Killer a rival mobster, a victim of criminality, one of a newly ubiquitous plague of super-freaks, or has perhaps one of our heroes stepped over a line in their zeal for Justice? To make matters worse, Batman is real and “his” army of costumed nuts continually insert themselves into every attempt to get back to business… And what part does the sultry Catwoman play in all this?

The personalised pogrom continues in ‘Thanksgiving’ (with Solomon Grundy adding an appetite for destruction), and expands across ‘Christmas’ and ‘New Year’s Eve’ (The Joker, Calendar Man), ‘Valentine’s Day’ and ‘St. Patrick’s Day’ (Catwoman, Poison Ivy) and ‘April Fool’s Day’ (with The Riddler being asked questions for a change).

With bodies dropping and Gordon, Dent and Batman increasingly at odds over ending the killings and stopping The Roman, the assassination campaign intensifies on ‘Mother’s Day’, ‘Father’s Day’ and ‘Independence Day’ (all sinisterly celebrated by Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter), before personal tragedy strikes home on a ‘Roman Holiday’ when Dent is literally defaced and confirms his descent into madness as Two-Face.

Most shockingly, with his organisation in tatters and his surviving familia at each other’s throats, ‘Labor Day’ sees Falcone – and Batman – no closer to exposing the Holiday Killer. All that changes in concluding chapter #13 as ‘Punishment’ ushers in Gotham City’s era of the freaks…

Effortlessly blending the realms of the mobster with Batman’s more usual super-foes (most of whom make a memorable appearance) and graced with startlingly powerful images of Mood, Mystery and Mayhem from the magic pencil and brush of Tim Sale, this serial killer whodunit is an utter joy to read that should keep you guessing until the very end.

As a Deluxe Edition, there are plenty of extras added here, culled from many, many previous collections, but especially Absolute Batman: The Long Halloween. These include sketches, promo pieces, cover designs for previous collections, the captivating ‘Long Halloween Interview’ conducted by letterer Richard Starkings, Loebs & Sale’s picture-packed ‘Original proposal’, and an exhaustive feature on the creation of all ‘The covers’ of the iconic limited series. Also included are comprehensive ‘Character studies’, the creative process behind the cover to Overstreet’s Fan #18, plus covers, sketches, unused alternate images and even the Action figures designed for the event.

This is one of the very best Batman adventures of modern times and a tale any comics reader and crime buff must see.
© 1996, 1997, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Showcase Presents The House of Secrets volume 1


By Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Steve Skeates, Robert Kanigher, Raymond Marais, Sam Glanzman, Jack Kirby, Mark Evanier, Jack Oleck, Mary Skrenes (as Virgil North), Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Draut, Werner Roth, Jack Sparling, Dick Giordano, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Sid Greene, Alex Toth, Mike Royer, Mike Peppe, Don Heck, Wally Wood, Ralph Reese, John Costanza, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Gray Morrow, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Rich Buckler, Bernie Wrightson, Al Weiss, Tony DeZuñiga, Jim Aparo, Sergio Aragonés, Nestor Redondo, José Delbo, Adolfo Buylla & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1818-8 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Splendid Slice of Spectral Shock & Awe… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s the time for sweet indulgence, shocking over-eating and spooky stories, so let’s pay a visit to a much-neglected old favourite…

American comic books started slowly until the creation of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre. Implacably vested in the Second World War, the Overman swept all before him (and very occasionally her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional genres resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd. Although new kids kept on buying, much of the previous generation of consumers also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychological landscape of the world and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this.

As well as Westerns, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and public fascination with all things occult, eldritch and arcane led to them being outshone and outsold by a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Monako, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a “narrativium” power source for super-heroics.

Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader. Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948. Technically though, Adventures Into the Unknown was actually pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before finally committing to a regular series in 1951.

By this time, and following the filmic horror heyday of Universal Pictures’ fright films franchises, worthy comic book monolith Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap by inventing the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, cover-dated September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for macabre mood material, resulting in seminal anthologies Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama vehicle Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

Around that time the staid cautious company that would become DC Comics bowed to the commercial inevitable and launched a comparatively straightlaced anthology that became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 opening of The House of Mystery. When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings was at its height, the mobs with pitchforks furore was adroitly curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules.

Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore. However, since the appetite for suspenseful short stories was still high, in 1956 National introduced sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November/December cover-date. Plots were dialled back into superbly illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which would dominate the market until the 1960s when superheroes (which had begun sneaking back in 1956 after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing The Flash in Showcase #4), finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a slew of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books, with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero monopolising House of Mystery whilst Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with Eclipso in House of Secrets. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties, folding with #80, the September/October 1966 issue.

However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and by the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom was over, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain…

This real-world Crisis prompted surviving publishers to loosen the self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at that juncture, but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer…

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with a rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillers: a minor substrate they regularly return to with style and potency to this day.

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, House of Secrets returned with issue #81 (August/ September 1969) just as big sister The House of Mystery had done a year previously. Under a bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, writer Mike Friedrich, Jerry Grandenetti & George Roussos introduced a ramshackle, sentient old pile in ‘Don’t Move It!’, after which Bill Draut limned the introduction of bumbling caretaker Abel (with a guest-shot by his murderous older brother Cain from HoM) in eponymous intro set-up fable ‘House of Secrets’. The portly porter then kicked off his storytelling career with Gerry Conway & Jack Sparling yarn ‘Aaron Philip’s Photo Finish!’ before the inaugural issue was put to bed with a Draut limned ‘Epilogue’…

HoS #82 was a largely Conway scripted affair as Draut drew both ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ and ‘Epilogue’, whilst cinema shocker ‘Realer Than Real’ was illustrated by Werner Roth & Vince Colletta. Written by Marv Wolfman, ‘Sudden Madness’ delivered a short sci fi saga via the brush of Dick Giordano, ere Conway regaled us with ‘The Little Old Winemaker’ (Sparling art): a salutary tale of murder and revenge. Wolfman – realised by Dick Dillin & Neal Adams – wowed again with ‘The One and Only, Fully-Guaranteed, Super-Permanent, 100%’: a darkly comedic tale of domestic bliss and how to get it…

After Draut & Giordano’s ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets‘ piece, superstar Alex Toth made his modern HoS debut with Wolfman-written fantasy ‘The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of’, and Mikes Royer & Peppe visualised sinister love-story ‘Bigger Than a Breadbox’ before Conway & Draut revived gothic menace for a chilling fable ‘The House of Endless Years’.

Conway & Draut maintained the light-hearted bracketing of the stories prior to #84, properly beginning with ‘If I Had but World Enough and Time’ (Len Wein, Dillin & Peppe), a cautionary tale about too much TV. Tensions grow with Wolfman & Sid Greene’s warning against wagering in ‘Double or Nothing!’ and Steve Skeates, Sparling & Jack Abel’s utterly manic parable of greed ‘The Unbelievable! The Unexplained!’, before Wein & Sparling mess with our dreams in ‘If I Should Die before I Wake…’

Cain & Abel acrimoniously open HoS #85, after which Wein & Don Heck disclose what happens to some ‘People Who Live in Glass Houses…’ whilst art-legend Ralph Reese limns Wein’s daftly ironic ‘Reggie Rabbit, Heathcliffe Hog, Archibald Aardvark, J. Benson Baboon and Bertram the Dancing Frog’…

John Costanza contributed a comedy page entitled ‘House of Wacks’ and Conway, Gil Kane & Adams herald the upcoming age of slick and seductive barbarian fantasy with gloriously vivid and vital ‘Second Chance’. Issue #86 featured the eerily seductive ‘Strain’ with art by George Tuska, powerful prose puzzler ‘The Golden Tower of the Sun’ – written by Conway with illustrations from Gray Morrow – after which the writer and Draut tug heartstrings and stun senses in the moving, moody madness of ‘The Ballad of Little Joe’. The issue ends with another episode of peripatetic, post-apocalyptic, ironic occasional series ‘The Day after Doomsday’, courtesy of Wein & Sparling.

Chatty introductions and interludes with Abel were gradually diminishing to make way for longer stories and experimental episodes like #87’s ‘And in the Darkness… Light’; subdivided into ‘Death Has Marble Lips!’, a sculptural shocker by Robert Kanigher, Dillin & Giordano; sinister sci fi scenario ‘The Man’ by Wolfman, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, and excellent weird pulps pastiche ‘The Coming of Ghaglan’ by Raymond Marais & talented newcomer Michael William Kaluta. Much the same was #88’s dread duo ‘The Morning Ghost’ (Wolfman, Dillin & Frank Giacoia) and ‘Eyesore!’ by Conway & Draut.

The majority of covers were the magnificent work of Neal Adams but HoS #89 sports a rare and surprisingly effective tonal image by Irv Novick (albeit attributed here to Gray Morrow): a gothic romance special with period thrillers ‘Where Dead Men Walk!’ – drawn by Morrow – and ‘A Taste of Dark Fire!’ from Conway & Heck. This latter tale debuted Victorian devil-busting duo Father John Christian & Rabbi Samuel Shulman, who appeared far too infrequently in succeeding years (see also Showcase Presents the Phantom Stranger).

Tuska illustrated Skeates’ futuristic thriller ‘The Distant Dome’ in #90, whilst Wolfman, Rich Buckler & Adams described the short, sharp lives of ‘The Symbionts’, after which Mike Friedrich & Morrow end the SF extravaganza with the perplexing tale of ‘Jedediah!’ HoS #91 was almost entirely Conway scripted, leading with a South American revolutionary rollercoaster ‘The Eagle’s Talon!’, illustrated by Grandenetti & Wally Wood. Sparling limned faux-factual feature ‘Realm of the Mystics’, prior to writer/artist Sam Glanzman producing a potent parable of alienation in ‘Please, Don’t Cry Johnny!’ before Murphy Anderson wrapped up the wonderment with Conway’s deadly doppelganger drama ‘There are Two of Me… and One Must Die!’

Issue #92 was one of those rare moments in comics when all factors are in perfect alignment for a major breakthrough. Cover-dated June/July 1971, the 12th anthological issue of House of Secrets cemented the genre into place as industry leader as Len Wein & artist Bernie Wrightson produced a throwaway thriller set at the turn of the 19th century. Here, gentleman scientist Alex Olsen is murdered by his best friend and his body dumped in a swamp. Years later, his beloved bride – now the unsuspecting wife of the murderer – is stalked by a shambling, disgusting beast seemingly composed of mud and muck…

‘Swamp Thing’ was cover-featured – also eerily illustrated by Wrightson – striking an instant and sustained chord with the buying public. It was the bestselling DC comic of that month and reader response was fervent and persistent. By all accounts, the only reason there wasn’t an immediate sequel or spin-off was that the creative team didn’t want to produce one.

Eventually, however, bowing to interminable pressure, and with the sensible notion of transplanting the concept to contemporary America, the first issue of Swamp Thing appeared on newsstands in the spring of 1972. It was an instant hit and immortal classic.

The remaining pages in that groundbreaking HoS issue weren’t bad either, with Jack Kirby & Mark Evanier scripting psychodrama ‘After I Die’ for old Prize/Crestwood Comics stablemate Draut to illustrate, whilst ‘It’s Better to Give…’ – by Virgil North (AKA Mary Skrenes) provided an early chance for Al Weiss & Tony DeZuñiga to strut their superbly engaging artistic stuff. The issue ends with Conway & Dillin’s sudden shocker ‘Trick or Treat’…

House of Secrets #93 (August/September 1971) saw the title expand from 32 to 52 pages – as did all DC’s titles for the next couple of years – opening access to a magnificent hoard of new material wedded to the best of their prodigious archives for an appreciative, impressionable audience. Jim Aparo made his HoS debut in Skeates-scripted spook-fest ‘Lonely in Death’, and so did macabre cartoonist Sergio Aragonés in ‘Abel’s Fables’, after which the reprint bonanza began with ‘The Curse of the Cat’s Cradle’ (originally seen in My Greatest Adventure #85) stupendously depicted by Alex Toth.

Jack Abel’s ‘Nightmare’ was followed by golden oldie ‘The Beast from the Box’ – courtesy of Nick Cardy and House of Mystery #24 – after which Lore (Shoberg) contributed a page of ‘Abel’s Fables’ before the entertainment ended with John Albano & DeZuñiga’s chilling ‘Never Kill a Witch’s Son!’ rounding out the fearsome fun in period style. HoS #94 began by exposing ‘The Man with My Face’ (Sparling art) and Wein & DeZuñiga’s ‘Hyde… and Go Seek!’, whilst ‘The Day Nobody Died’ (George Roussos; Tales of the Unexpected #9) and ‘Track of the Invisible Beast!’ (Toth from HoM #109) provided vintage voltage before another Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ and ‘A Bottle of Incense… a Whiff of the Past!’ by Francis (Gerry Conway) Bushmaster, Weiss & Wrightson closed proceedings in devilishly high style.

Albano & Heck showed domesticity wasn’t pretty in ‘Creature…’ before everybody got a nasty case of chills in ‘And Thing That Go Bump in the Night!’ (credited here to Sparling but probably Tuska & Win Mortimer) before ‘The Last Sorcerer’ (Bernard Baily from HoM #69) and ‘The Phantom of the Flames!’ – a rare DC illustration job for magnificent Marvel Mainstay Joe Maneely from HoM #71. The dark dramas close with Jack Oleck & Nestor Redondo’s ‘The Bride of Death’. HoS #95 also included a couple of Lore’s ‘Abel’s Fables’, a Sparling ‘Realm of the Mystics’ and a Wein/Sparling ‘Day after Doomsday’ vignette.

Oleck & Draut’s ‘World for a Witch’ opened the next peril-packed issue, followed by a high-tension, high-tech Toth reprint ‘The Great Dimensional Brain Swap’ (HoS #48) and Wein, Dillin & Jack Abel’s ‘Be it Ever So Humble…’ whilst Oleck & Wood’s ‘The Monster’ describes a different kind of horror. ‘The Indestructible Man’ (by master-draughtsman Bill Ely, originally in Tales of the Unexpected #12) closes the show. Also lurking within this issue is another agonisingly funny Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ fun frolic…

The penultimate issue in this sparkling collection – incomprehensibly still the only way to affordably access these chilling classics – leads with Sparling’s classical creep-show ‘The Curse of Morby Castle’ after which Skeates & Aparo return to ‘Divide and Murder’ before Aragonés strikes again in ‘Abel’s Fables’. Blasts from the past ‘The Tomb of Ramfis’ (HoM #59, by the fabulous John Prentice) and ‘Dead Man’s Diary’ (drawn by Ralph Mayo for HoM #46) are demarcated by another trenchant Wein/Sparling ‘Day after Doomsday’, whilst José Delbo delineates manic monster-fest ‘Domain of the Damned’.

The last issue in this magnificent monochrome compendium opens with a glorious intro page from Mark Hanerfeld & Kaluta, after which the artist entrancingly illustrates Albano’s tough-as-nails-thriller ‘Born Losers’ and Toth illuminates ‘Secret Hero of Center City’ (originally seen in HoM #120). After one last Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’, Wein and Mikes Royer & Peppe reveal why ‘The Night Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore!’, and another John Prentice treat is served up in ‘The Fatal Superstition’ (HoM #35) before the legendary Adolfo Buylla celebrates the end of the affair in grisly fashion with ‘Happy Birthday, Herman!’

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s no stretch to posit that they probably saved DC during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Now their blend of sinister mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and so many latterday imitators. If you crave beautifully realised, tastefully gore-light and splatter-free sagas of mystery and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chills, book your stay at the House of Secrets as soon as you possibly can…

Terms and conditions Do Not Necessarily apply…
© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Phantom – the complete newspaper dailies: volume Three 1939-1940


By Lee Falk, Ray Moore & Wilson McCoy: introduction by Mike Bullock (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 1-932563-61-X (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Born Leon Harrison Gross, Lee Falk created the Ghost Who Walks at the request of his King Features Syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed champion in comics, The Phantom became the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits…

The generational champion debuted on February 17th 1936, in an extended sequence pitting him against an ancient global confederation of pirates. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over illustration to artist Ray Moore. The spectacular and hugely influential Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, “the Ghost Who Walks” was quite poorly served in the English language market (except in the Antipodes, where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god). Many companies have sought to collect strips from one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history, but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. That has been rectified recently by archival specialists Hermes Press who launched curated collections in 2010 which have made almost all the various canonical iterations accessible to the devoted.

This third landscape Dailies edition is currently only available digitally. Released in 2011, its pages are stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like panel and logo close-ups, covers and lots of original art and opens with ‘Introduction: The Phantom and I’: a memories-rich text feature stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies from author/musician and uber-fan Mike Bullock before the vintage blood-&-thunder fun begins with exotic thriller ‘The Mysterious Girl’ (originally running Mondays to Saturdays, May 8th to September 2nd 1939).

Roaming Alexandria in plainclothes, the Ghost Who Walks interrupts a brutal abduction, but the jewel-bedecked victim doesn’t want his help or even to talk about it. Persistent and curious, The Phantom investigates further and learns she is currently amnesiac; terrified and being stalked by sleezy Count Pharos, who claims to be her guardian. When the rogue convinces “Miss Banks” to take a sea voyage with him, the Phantom and his faithful wolf Devil join the jaunt. Before long the heroes are apparently lost at sea, before the memory-afflicted maiden is also disappeared. Hard to kill, The Phantom trails the Count and finds a second abducted prisoner. Young Baron Marshall Dufresne is Pharos’ real ward and his imprisonment and wealth are what really concern the villain, particularly as the lad loves a girl named Merle and is prepared to sign a suicide note leaving everything to Pharos in return for her safety.

Of course, all those sneaky plans come unstuck once the Phantom decides to step in and stop the plot, but not before almost dying in many shocking ways as Pharos and his hulking henchman Red flee with the Phantom in spectacular hot pursuit, The chase ends in justice and Merle’s memories – and reputation – restored. Fast-paced, packed with peril and introducing a truly unique character in the bulky shape of Hannah – a fight-loving domestic servant who is The Phantom’s physical equal in fisticuffs – this epic exploit is sublimely frenetic fun, and segues seamlessly into ‘The Golden Circle’ (September 4th 1939 to January 20th 1940) as the hero’s true love resurfaces. Wealthy American adventurer Diane Palmer was made a nervous wreck by her time with The Phantom and has, for many months, believed him dead. Her doctors advised the masked man to go along with the sham for her sake…

The recuperating heiress has been unsuccessfully wooed by airman Lieutenant Byron, but when the Phantom checks in and finds her still pining for him, checks out again. The example inspires the pilot, who cables the hero to tell him Diana has agreed to become Mrs. Byron…

Enraged and jealous the hero returns to the hospital but finds her already gone. After dealing with Byron, The Phantom chases, catches and re-bonds with Diana. Sadly, that only generates a truly insurmountable problem as Diana’s snooty mother declares the masked peasant unworthy of her daughter. They can only wed if he gets a real job…

Chained to generations of duty and by his vow to oppose evil, the lovers are seemingly parted forever, and soon after in France the heartbroken hero is targeted by a mother/daughter con team and framed for murder. His frantic escape exposes another all-woman criminal gang plundering the world and The Phantom barely escapes the many traps and tribulations of the insidious organization The Golden Circle…

With war in Europe and the epic battle against the Circle ended, the subplot of Diana returns as Mama Palmer finally admits that all the men she’s pushed at her distraught daughter have not passed muster. Running from January 22nd to July 27th) ‘The Seahorse’ sees the dowager advertise for a suitable son-in-law with the result that Diana is feted, charmed, courted and ultimately kidnapped by scurrilous Count Danton. Naturally, The Phantom is not far away, but is he solely motivated by jealousy or does the fact that Danton is the foremost and deadliest enemy agent in the western hemisphere impact the hero’s incredible actions in winning her back?

Crucially, will clearing Diana of espionage charges and accusations of treason make The Phantom a more eligible suitor in Mama’s eyes?

This volume concludes with ‘The Game of Alvar’ (July 27th–
to December 14th 1940) as the reunited lovers enjoy a little downtime together… but only until they stumble onto a canny smuggling operation and Dian is targeted by a deadly assassin running a private murder-island. Naturally the Ghost Who Walks rushes to her aid, but the sinister Mr. Alvar has the entire police force and civil authorities on his payroll. Ultimately, this time it’s Diana who takes up arms, saves the day and restores honourable government to the oppressed, even if The Phantom does latterly land a blow or two…

The saga pauses for now with a few more images taken from The Phantom Big Little Books – another treat long overdue for resurrection.

Stuffed with chases, cruises, air and submarine clashes, assorted fights, torture, action antics, daredevil stunts and many a misapprehension – police and government authorities clearly having a hard time believing a pistol-packing masked man with a pet wolf might not be a bad egg – this is sheer gripping pulp-era excitement that still packs a punch and many sly laughs.
© 2011 King Features Syndicate, Inc.: ® Hearst Holdings, Inc.; reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Marvel Comics Presents – Stoker’s Dracula


By Bram Stoker, adapted by Roy Thomas & Dick Giordano with Joe Rosen, & VC’s Chris Eliopoulos, Cory Petit, Randy Gentiles & Rus Wooton (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4905-7 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-0-7851-1477-2 (2005 HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Moody Masterpiece …8/10

At the end of the 1960s American comic books were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for much of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by bold trends in movie-making and on TV, which now supplied the bulk of young adult entertainment needs for those kids who had grown up with Marvel.

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was a resurrection of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move vastly aided expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The switch to supernatural stars had many benefits. Crucially, it brought a new readership to House of Ideas, one attuned to the global revival in spiritualism, Satanism and all things sinisterly spooky. Almost as important, it gave the reprint-savvy company an opportunity to finally recycle old 1950s horror stories that had been rendered unprintable and useless since the code’s inception in 1954. A scant 15 years later the CCA prohibition against horror was hastily rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – and scary comics came back in a big way with a new crop of supernatural heroes and monsters popping up on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an en masse creation of horror titles (both new characters and reprints from the massive boom of the early 1950s) that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to (temporarily, at least) bite the dust. Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspect of the contemporary buzz for bizarre themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always in entertainment, the watch-world was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. One of Marvel’s earliest hits was an annexation of much of the lore around Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. With the secrets of that comic book success being held in abeyance here due to specific reviews of those tales imminently forthcoming, today we’re focusing on and recommending a lost gem of graphic narrative that grew out of the short lived phenomenon…

As far better explained by Roy Thomas in this compilation’s fact-packed Introduction ‘Dracula Lives – Again!’, the Tomb of Dracula newsstand periodical swiftly begat a non-code, anthological magazine spin-off – Dracula Lives – which, by various processes and endeavours further detailed by illustrator Dick Giordano in his Afterword ‘More than thirty years ago…’, spawned a full and thorough, serialised adaptation of the Stoker source material. More details of its production, and how the sudden downturn in horror themed fare caused the adaptation to stall and the magazines that carried it to fold are fully discussed in both essays and form part of the copious treasure trove of ‘Extras’ that close this tome of terror.

A work of astounding, respectful authenticity, and completely compelling at all stages despite a 30-year pause, this haunting beautiful adaptation is a triumph of that comics subdimension concerning adaptations of found literary material. As such, it compiles the chapters from Dracula Lives #5-8, 10-11 (spanning cover-dates March 1974 – March 1975) plus the completed but homeless seventh chapter which found a home in Marvel Preview #8 (AKA Legion of Monsters #1, September 1975) before the project stalled. After much long protracted wishing, and dalliances with other companies, the project was finally revived and the full finished saga was commissioned by Marvel three decades after the fact. The result was initially released as 4-issue miniseries Stoker’s Dracula (October 2004 to May 2005) before transferring for Halloween 2005 to its more apposite graphic novel incarnation.

A few more things to point out. Thomas and Giordano were deeply invested in the project and pulled out all the innovative stops to make the serial something special. Thomas designated specific lettering for each character’s narration – one of the earliest incidences of the technique, and Giordano – in an era long before graphic novels were possible in America – designed each instalment with drop-away caption boxes, on the hope that if one day the US gathered material in albums like Europe, individual chapter titles and “coming next issue!” captions could just be excised… like in a “real” novel…

However, as we’re all accursed with completism in comics, all those pages, plus miniseries front and back covers, Dracula Lives covers, paste up recap pages (11 in all) are included in the aforementioned Extras section, as well as 15 pages of sketches and 8 more showing the art process from rough pencils to inks and grey-tone wash finishes, before ending with the Giordano cover of Alter Ego #53 which highlighted the completion of the book of many ages…

As for the story, we all know it to some degree, but this one is guaranteed the closest ever to helping kids with their book reports without inflicting the modern bane of AI plagiarism on already despondent English teachers…

In an unbroken flow of gothic wonderment, the monochrome glory begins with a significant opening line quote, as on May 3rd 1897, English lawyer Jonathan Harker is lured to the wilds of Transylvania and horror beyond imagining when an ancient bloodsucking horror prepares to relocate to the pulsing heart of the modern world. As seen in ‘Into the Spider’s Web’, ‘The Female of the Species’, and ‘And in that Sleep…!’ English man of business Harker becomes an enforced guest, left to the tender mercies of his vampiric harem, and narrowly escapes even as their dark master Dracula travels by schooner to England, slaughtering every seaman aboard the S.S. Demeter in ‘Ship of Death’ before quietly unleashing a reign of terror on the sedate and complacent British countryside.

In the seat of Empire, Harker’s fiancée Mina Murray finds her flighty friend Lucy Westenra fading due to troublesome dreams and an uncanny lethargy none of her determined suitors – Dr. Jack Seward, Texan Quincy P. Morris and Arthur Holmwood (the next Lord Godalming) – can dispel. As Harker struggles to survive in the Carpathians, in Britain, Seward’s deranged patient Renfield claims horrifying visions and becomes greatly agitated…

Dracula, although only freshly arrived in England, is already causing chaos and disaster, and constantly returns to swiftly declining Lucy. His bestial bloodletting prompts her three beaux to summon famed Dutch physician Abraham Van Helsing to save her life and cure her increasing mania. As seen in ‘If Madness be Thy Master…!’, ‘Death Be Thou Proud!’, ‘Hour of the Wolf!’ and ‘Tell Truth, and Shame the Devil’ Harker survives his Transylvanian ordeal, and when nuns notify Mina, she rushes to Romania and marries him in a hasty ceremony to save his health and wits…

In London – and ‘For in that Sleep of Death…’ , ‘If Blood be the Price…’ , ‘For the Blood is the Life…’ and ‘The Demon in his Lair’ – Dracula renews his assaults and Lucy dies, and is reborn as a predatory, child-killing monster. After dispatching her to eternal rest, Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward and Morris – joined by recently returned, much-altered Harker and his bride – vow to hunt down and destroy the ancient evil in their midst, after a chance encounter in a London street between the newlyweds and an astoundingly rejuvenated Count.

Dracula has incredible forces and centuries of experience on his side. Having tainted Mina with his blood-drinking curse, he flees back to his ancestral lands. Frantically, giving the mortal champions give chase in ‘Pursuit’ and ‘Jaws of the Dragon’, battling the elements, the monster’s enslaved “gypsy army” and horrific eldritch power in a race against time lest Mina finally succumb forever to his unholy influence. Thankfully, but at great cost, Dracula’s efforts are all foiled and ‘Sunset’ sees his final death, with the survivors seen enjoying a fresh new dawn in ‘Epilogue’…

This breathtaking, oft-retold yarn delivers moody mystery, epic action, moving melodrama and astounding adventure all mantled in grim gothic horror, delivering beguilingly beautiful images and stunning thrills and chills in a most satisfactory traditional manner. Well worth the incredible wait, this is a comics classic every fan should hunt down.
© 2021 MARVEL.

Posted on

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil



By Jeff Smith, coloured by Steve Hamaker (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1466-1 (HB) 978-1-4012-0974-2 (2009 TPB) 978-1-4012-9307-9 (2019 TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fights ‘n’ Tights Fiction for the Whole Family… 10/10

Superhero comics don’t get better than this.

No soft-soap, no easing you in. Jeff Smith (in a tale originally published as a 4-issue prestige format miniseries in 2007) came the closest yet to recapturing the naive yet knowing charm that made the World’s Mightiest Innocent far and away the most successful super-character of the Golden Age in this sharp and seductive reworking of one of his greatest adventures.

Following an adulatory Introduction from Alex Ross, the trip back to our magical communal childhood kicks off with a scene of appalling deprivation and terror…

Billy Batson is a little homeless kid with a murky past and a glorious destiny. One night, he follows a mysterious figure into an abandoned subway station and meets the wizard Shazam, who gives him the ability to turn into a hefty adult superhero called Captain Marvel. Gifted with the wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of Achilles and speed of Mercury, the literal man-child is sent into the world to do good.

Accompanied by verbose tiger-spirit Mr. Tawky Tawny, Billy sets out to find a little sister he never knew he had, and even parlays himself into a job as a source for TV reporter Helen Fidelity…

He sets to, fighting evils big and small, but at his heart he’s still just a kid. After impetuously causing a ripple in the world’s magical fabric, he must face the escalating consequences it causes: cosmic conniption fits that endanger the entire universe. When Billy finally tracks down his little sister, he also – accidentally – shares his powers with her and suffers the ignominy of having her be better at the job than he is…

The Captain soon encounters evil genius, US Attorney General and would-be ruler of the universe Dr. Sivanna, as well as the deadly and hideous minions of mysterious Mr. Mind, whose Monster Society of Evil is dedicated to wiping out humanity! Can he make amends and save the day?

Maybe, if Mary Marvel helps…

The original saga this gem is loosely based on ran from 1943-1946 in Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46: a boldly ambitious, captivating chapter-play in the manner of the era’s movie serials, and still regarded as one of the most memorable achievements of Golden Age comic books. It’s fairly safe to say that this reworking will stay in people’s hearts and minds just as long, too. It certainly spawned an excellent spin-off series which I’ve covered a time or two…

Jeff Smith accomplished the impossible here: crafted a superhero tale for all ages restoring some part of the genre to the children for whom it was originally intended. Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil is exciting, spectacular, moving and unselfconscious; revelling in the power of its own roots and the audience’s unbridled capacity for joy.

If you can track down the original hardback volume, it’s stuffed with added features. The dust-jacket opens into a truly magical double-sided poster, there are sketch and script pages for the reader with industry aspirations, biographies and historical sections, a lavishly illustrated production journal, puzzles and even a modern version of the secret code used as a circulation builder in the 1940s. Most important though, and irrespective of what iteration you get, it is the mesmerising quality of the story and artwork that you’ll remember, forever.

Words are cheap and I’ve used enough: now go get this is a truly magical, utterly marvellous book.

© 2007, 2009, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The A-Z of Marvel Monsters


By Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0863-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fan Smash! … 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

To dyed-in-the-wool comic book fanboys there’s a much beloved period in history when a frankly daft and woefully formulaic trend produced utter, joyous magic. We look back on it now and see only the magnificent art, or talk with loving derision of the crazy (and frequently onomatopoeic) names, but deep down we can’t shake the exuberant thrill inside or the frisson of emotion that occurs when we see or even think of them.

Before Jack Kirby & Stan Lee brought superheroes back to Marvel Comics, the company was on its last legs. Locked into a woefully disadvantageous distribution deal, the company’s output was limited to some sixteen genre titles. But there was hope…

The outside, mainstream, world was currently gripped in an atomic B-movie monster craze, so Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko dutifully capitalised on it in their anthology mystery titles Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense. In an unending procession of brief inspirational novelettes, dauntless or canny or just plain outsider humans outsmarted a succession of bizarre aliens, mad scientists, an occasional ghost or sorcerer (this was, after all, the heyday of the Comics Code Authority when any depiction of the supernatural was BAD) and a horde of outrageous beasties in a torrent of wonders best described by the catchphrase “monsters-in-underpants.”

Simplistic, moralistic, visually experimental yet reassuringly predictable in narrative, these Outer Limits-style yarns were – and still are – the epitome of sheer unrelenting fun with no redeeming social context required. Marvel have increasingly celebrated that fact in recent years (even folding most of the yarns into their modern multiversal continuity) and – over the course of one month – commissioned a line of 26 “Kirby Monster” variant covers for their periodical releases, all lovingly crafted by a number of top names to highlight the treasured contribution of beasties, things and what-nots…

This volume gathers those images in a handy hardcover primer (and eBook edition) whilst gloriously gilding the lily with a splendid selection of a few of the original mini-epics as created from those pre-Marvel Age masterpieces. The short sharp surprise is suitably augmented by ‘Jack Kirby, Atlas Comics & Monsters!’: a 1994 Introduction from the King himself.

The next bit’s another shopping-list moment, so if you want to skip ahead a little, I shouldn’t be at all surprised…

Augmented by the original cover of each diabolical debut, the worshipful A to Z art-section opens with Erica Henderson’s reinterpretation of ‘The Awesome Android!’ (as first seen in Fantastic Four #15) and rapidly follows up ‘The Blip!’ by Simon Bisley, and ‘The Crawling Creature!’, delineated by Maguerite Sauvage. An extreme late entry in the Kirby-Kritter Circus, ‘Devil Dinosaur!’ launched in his own title in 1978 and his moody reprise from Matthew Wilson is followed by Jeff Lemire’s take on ‘Elektro!’ and ‘Fin Fang Foom!’ – first seen in Strange Tales #89, and rendered here by Walter Simonson & Laura Martin.

Michael & Laura Allred depict latter-day cellulose celluloid star ‘Groot!’ (originating in Tales to Astonish #13), before Francesco Francavilla highlights ‘The Hypno-Creature!’, Paolo Rivera revisits Fantastic Four #24’s weird menace ‘The Infant Terrible!’ and Glenn Fabry regales us with an Asgardian god battling ‘The Jinni Devil!’ in a scene that didn’t make it into 1967’s Thor #137…

Dave Johnson details a key point in the life of ‘Kraa the Unhuman!’ before John Cassaday & Matthew Wilson illuminate the depredations of ‘Lo-Karr, Bringer of Doom!’, after which Geof Darrow whisks us back to Thor #154 to meet again amalgamated atrocity ‘Mangog!’

Kirby’s astounding 1976 Eternals series produced many incredible images, with Paul Pope & Shay Plummer selecting 2,000 feet tall Space God ‘Nezarr the Calculator!’ to set the pulses racing, whilst Mike del Mundo plumps for Strange Tales #90’s ‘Orrgo!’ and James Stokoe recalls Strange Tales of the Unusual #1 (December 1956)’s forgotten fiend ‘Poker Face!’

Recurring FF foe ‘The Quonian!’ first appeared in Fantastic Four #97 and wows again here thanks to Christian Ward, after which Eric Powell previews ‘Rommbu!’ and Tradd Moore pits Ant-Man against Tales to Astonish #39 terror ‘The Scarlet Beetle!’ before Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend show us the power of ‘Thorr!’ Chris Samnee & Wilson expose the fervent ferocity of Journey into Mystery #63’s undersea goliath ‘Ulvar!’ and Arthur Adams & Chris Sotomayor hark back to Tales to Astonish #17 to focus on ‘Vandoom’s Monster’ after which one last FF antagonist features as Cliff Chiang reveals ‘The Wrecker’s Robot!’ as seen in Fantastic Four #12.

Wrapping up this astounding alphabet are Dan Brereton’s rendition of ‘Xemnu!’ and Phil Noto’s depiction of ‘The Yeti!’ who battled Kirby’s Black Panther in #5 before Tony Moore & John Rauch hilariously conclude the countdown with alien outlaw ‘Zetora’.

Okay. Maybe a few of those spooky stalwarts might have been from a later era and star in superhero sagas, but the influence and intent was clearly seen throughout and just sets the tone for the Kirby-crafted fearsome fantasy-fest that follow…

The family-friendly monster mash – featuring scripts by Lee and Larry Lieber with Dick Ayers inking – opens with ‘I Learned the Dread Secret of The Blip!’ (Tales to Astonish #15, January 1961) wherein an openminded radar operator attempts to assist a stranded alien energy being. ‘I Dared to Battle the Crawling Creature!’ comes from TtA #22 (August 1961) as a scrawny High School nerd travels into the bowels of the Earth to face a primitive predator, whilst an aging electronicist creates and eventually counters would-be computerised conqueror ‘Elektro! He Held the World in his Iron Grip!’ (Tales of Suspense #19, January 1961).

The hideous Hypno-Creature harried a very human hero in extra-dimensional invasion epic ‘I Entered the Dimension of Doom!’ (ToS #23, November 1961) whilst facing hulking atomic victim ‘Kraa the Unhuman!’ (ToS #18, June 1961) proves the making of a timid American teacher…

A sunken stone head on a Pacific Island proved to be big trouble when explorers awakened ancient alien invaders in ‘Here Comes… Thorr the Unbelievable’ (Tales to Astonish #16, February 1961) and the origins of Defenders villain Xemnu the Titan are exposed in ‘I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!’ (Journey into Mystery #62, November 1960) whilst one hapless human proves to be the perfect hideout for extraterrestrial fugitive Zetora in ‘The Martian Who Stole My Body!’, as seen in JiM #57 (March 1960).

Foolish, fabulous, thrill-packed, utterly intoxicating and unforgettable, these are fun-filled tales no puny human could possibly resist.
© 1956-1961, 2017 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Mandrake the Magician: Fred Fredericks Sundays volume 1 – The Meeting of Mandrake and Lothar


By Lee Falk & Fred Fredericks (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-692-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Time for another Birthday briefing as we exploit the month of mystery and imagination to celebrate 90 glorious years for another Golden Age stalwart…

Regarded by many as comics’ first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11th June 1934 – although creator Lee Falk had sold the strip almost a decade previously. Initially drawing it too, Falk replaced himself as soon as feasible, allowing the early wonderment to materialise through the effective understatement of sublimely solid draughtsman Phil Davis. An instant hit, Mandrake was quickly supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page from February 3rd 1935.

Falk – as 19-year-old college student Leon Harrison Gross – had sold the strip to King Features Syndicate years earlier, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to it full time. Schooling done, the 23-year-old born raconteur settled into his life’s work, entertaining millions with astounding tales. Falk also created the first costumed superhero in moodily magnificent generational manhunter The Phantom, going on to spawn an entire comic book subgenre with his first creation. Most Golden Age publishers boasted at least one (and usually many) nattily attired wizards in their gaudily-garbed pantheons: all roaming the world(s) making miracles and crushing injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actual sorcery.

Characters like Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of  “…the Magician”’s like Zatara, Zanzibar, Kardak proliferated ad infinitum: all borrowing heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery gracing the world’s newspapers and magazines. In the Antipodes, Mandrake was a suave and stalwart regular of Australian Women’s Weekly and became a cherished icon of adventure in the UK, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Turkey and across Scandinavia: a major star of page and screen, pervading every aspect of global consciousness.

Over many decades he has been a star of radio, movie chapter-serials, a theatrical play, television and animation (as part of series Defenders of the Earth). With that has come the usual merchandising bonanza of games, toys (including magic trick kits), books, comics and more…

Falk worked on Mandrake and “The Ghost who Walks” until his death in 1999 (even on his deathbed, he was laying out one last story), but also found a few quiet moments to become a renowned playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller. After drawing those first few strips Falk united with sublimely polished cartoonist Phil Davis, whose sleekly understated renditions took the daily strip, and especially the expansive full-page Sunday pages (collected in companion volume The Hidden Kingdom of Murderers), to unparalleled heights of sophistication. Davis’ steadfast, assured realism was the perfect tool to render the Magician’s mounting catalogue of spectacular miracles. Soon the Magician was a major star of page & screen, pervading all aspects of global consciousness as hinted at in a furore of fact features and massed memorabilia treats, beginning with introductory essay ‘The Real Mandrake the Magician’. This discusses real-life stage magician Leon Mandrake – who shared the evocative sobriquet in the mid-20th century – as revealed courtesy of his son Lon. Next on the bill is an appreciation of Davis’ inspired replacement as illustrator, in ‘Fred Fredericks – My Mandrake Artist’ by Andreas Erikson, with incisive exploration of Harold “Fred” Fredericks, who took over art production when Davis died and who ultimately assumed full creative duties when Falk himself passed on in 1999. This briefing covers that his tenure and includes his prodigious pre- and post-Mandrake comics work.

Those in the know are well aware that Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a suave globe-trotting troubleshooter. Always and everywhere he was accompanied by African partner-in-crimefighting Lothar and, from early on, capable companion (eventually, in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne. Together they solved mysteries and fought evil. Those exploits took the close-knit team literally everywhere, and the strips section of this luxury monochrome landscape hardback opens on ‘Traveler’s Tale’ which ran from March 21st to August 22nd 1965 and saw the last episodes illustrated by Davis, before his death in 1964 from a heart attack.

The saga sees Mandrake in the arctic, where iceberg-watching leads to the recovery of an apparent alien in a survival capsule. A physical and mental marvel, while slowly awakening Opolo deduces not just the English language but also that he’s been in hibernation for 60,000 years. He goes on to reveal that he’s actually from Earth, albeit part of a space-faring race that preceded Homo Sapiens. He’s also pining for his estranged true love Adrana, and Mandrake is happy to help him find her and the long buried civilisation they both came from and are the last survivors of…

Incredibly, along the way, the magician also solves an ancient murder mystery and plays cupid to the reunited survivors, before seeing them abandon their birthworld for the stars…

Always well in tune with contemporary zeitgeists – like sci fi and spy fi – Falk dipped into the growing well of supervillains monopolizing book shelves and airwaves by next reviving Mandrake’s personal arch-nemesis as ‘The Cobra Returns’ (August 29th 1965 – April 3rd 1966). The sinister savant was once Mandrake’s tutor at The College of Magic and here begins a globally destabilising assassination spree, provoking crime busting agency Inter-Intel to call in the Magician and his crew to consult. Sadly, the ploy only makes the perfidious plotter turn his full murderous attentions on our heroes, in an escalating series of attacks that ultimately end in a spectacular showdown and apparent end of the evil one…

With global stability secured, organised crime goes wild, and the miracle trio are kept busy helping the good guys crack down on mobsters in ‘The Underworld vs. Inter-Intel’ (April 10th – August 7th 1966), after which ‘The Astro Pirates’ (August 14th – December 25th 1966) highlights a modern spin on an old racket…

When bold bandits begin holding up airliners in the stratosphere they foolishly pick a jet carrying Narda, and a fully-engaged Mandrake and Lothar spare no effort to end the sinister sky-jinks, after which – inspired by the “Great Northeast Blackout” of November 5th 1965 – Falk & Fredericks fill us in on ‘The Blackout Caper’ (January 1st – April 23rd 1967), as a mad scientist teams up with mobsters to use darkness and chaos to get rich quick and fulfil even nastier nuclear ambitions but underestimate the power of the mighty magician…

Fredericks was a liberal and civil rights proponent, and had for months been subtly changing the “happy, loyal native” appearance of the African globetrotter to match the acts and character Falk had been crafting for years. The process was completed with a reboot of their first adventure together spanning April 30th – September 24th. ‘The Meeting of Mandrake and Lothar’ relates how the practically superhuman prince of reclusive kingdom “the 12 Nations” joins Mandrake in stopping crazed fugitive Mad Dog Dill, before abdicating all monarchical responsibilities to fight evil everywhere. However, returning to the present, shocks abound as Lothar agrees to helm his people’s transition to democracy by becoming their president, just as Mandrake and Narda are targeted by a manic gambler turned master-villain.

‘The Game of Chance’ (October 1st 1967 – February 11th 1968) soon sees Lothar return to aid in the comeuppance of devious blackmailer, kidnapper and influence-peddler Baron Chance and, prior to a resurgence of full-on fantasy, returns in ‘Invasion of the Babu’ (February 18th – July 21st 1968). No stranger to space adventure, Mandrake and Co are best friends with Magnon and Carola, Emperor and Empress of the Central Galaxy and benign rulers of one million worlds. The humans were there when the potentates had their baby Nardraka, and, as dutiful “godparents”, pull out all the stops when the toddler princess is abducted by barbaric invaders the Baboos.

Sadly for them, the apelike alien aggressors make a string of mistakes, beginning with hiding the hostage on even more barbaric Earth, continuing with trying to outsmart Mandrake and closing with believing Nardraka is “just” a stupid little female…

With one crisis resolved, Mandrake barely survives the renewed attentions of the Baron as ‘Second Chance’ (July 28th – November 3rd 1968) sees the magician and Inter-Intel hunt the murderous malefactor to his hidden island fortress and strike a major blow against organised crime, after which ‘The All or Nothing Hunt’ (November 10th 1968 – March 30th 1969), heralds the arrival of alien gamblers Alpha and Beta, who have made the mage their next obsession. Hiding a planet-eradicating bomb on Earth, the wagerers expect the wonder wizard to traverse the globe, deciphering clues to deactivate it. Of course, the extraterrestrials don’t play fair, but Mandrake isn’t playing at all…

No good deed goes unpunished, however, and ‘The Galactic Rumble’ (April 6th – September 7th 1969) reveals that Alpha and Beta are intergalactic crime lords with millions of thugs now indulging in an intergalactic gang war Magnon’s military and peacekeepers are helpless to stop. Isn’t it time to call in some consultants with the know-how to fight them on their own terms?

Yes it is, and not even exploding stars and marauding star dragons can long slow them down…

Ending the show are ‘The Fred Fredericks Mandrake the Magician Complete Sunday Checklist (1965-2002)’, plus full biographies of Fred Fredericks and Lee Falk. This thrilling tome offers exotic locales, thrilling action, bold belly laughs, cunning crime action and sheer wonder in equal measure. Paramount taleteller Falk instinctively knew from the start that the secret of success was strong and, crucially, recurring villains to test and challenge his heroes, and make Mandrake an unmissable treat for every strip addict. These stories have lost none of their impact and only need you reading them to concoct a perfect cure for the 21st century glums.
Mandrake the Magician © 2018 King Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. All other material © 2018 the respective authors or owners.