Category: Historical

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The Usagi Yojimbo Saga Book 1


By Stan Sakai (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-671-6(HB) 978-1-61655-609-9(TPB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-081-5

Back in 1955, when Stan Sakai was two years old, the family moved from Kyoto, Japan to Hawaii. Growing up in a cross-cultural paradise, he graduated from the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, before leaving to pursue further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California. His early forays into comics were as a letterer – most famously for Groo the Wanderer and the Spider-Man newspaper strip – before his nimble pens and brushes found a way to express his passion for Japanese history, legend and Akira Kurosawa films, inspirationally transforming a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

Usagi Yojimbo (“rabbit bodyguard”) first appeared in 1984’s Albedo Anthropomorphics #1: a background character in Stan Sakai’s The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, and premiering amongst assorted furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk. He soon graduated to a nomadic solo act in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up series in Grimjack. Although the expansive period epic stars sentient animals and details the life of a peripatetic Lord-less Samurai eking out as honourable a living as possible as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire), the milieu and scenarios scrupulously mirror Japan’s Feudal Edo Period (roughly 16th-17th century AD by Western reckoning) whilst simultaneously referencing other cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi to Godzilla.

Miyamoto Usagi is brave, noble, industrious, honest, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering and conscientious: a rabbit devoted to the tenets of Bushido and utterly unable to turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice. As such, his destiny is to be perpetually drawn into an unending panorama of incredible situations.

Despite changing publishers a few times, the Roaming Rabbit has been in publication since 1987, with nearly 60 assorted collections of comics and at least 5 art books to date. He’s guest-starred in many other series (most notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even made it into his own small-screen Netflix show – albeit in a futuristic setting. There are high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, spin-off comics serials and lots of toys. Author Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public… And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The title is as much a wanderer as its star, migrating from Fantagraphics to Mirage, Dark Horse, Radio Comix, IDW and Dark Horse again under Sakai’s own Dogu Publishing imprint. None of that matters: what you need to know is that this stuff is superb and no matter which version you see, you will be a better being for reading it…

This guest-star stuffed premiere monochrome masterpiece draws together yarns released by Mirage Publishing as Usagi Yojimbo volume 2 #1-16 and Usagi Yojimbo volume 3 #1-6

Following a fulsome Foreword from former editor Jamie S. Rich, pictorial rundown of dramatis personae in ‘Cast of Characters’ and rousing strip recap ‘Origin Tale’, an evocative Introduction from legendary illustrator and Dean of Dinosauria William Stout leads into the magnificent and ever-unfolding medieval mystery play…

It begins with 3-parter ‘Shades of Green’ wherein Usagi and crusty companion Gennosuke (an irascibly bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taking Indian rhino with a heart of gold) are recruited by Kakera: a ratty shaman in dire need of protection from the dwindling remnants of the once-mighty Neko Ninja clan. The former imperial favourites have fallen upon hard times since they and the Ronin Rabbit crushed the Dragon Bellow plot of rebel Lord Takamuro. Now, bat assassins of the Komori Ninja clan are constantly harrying, harassing and actively seeking to supplant them in Lord Hikiji’s service…

Chunin (deputy leader) Gunji believes the rodent wizard would make a mighty useful slave, and is scheming to overthrow the new – female – clan chief Chizu whilst acquiring him…

With the Neko’s trap closing around them all, the sagacious sensei summons spirits of four fantastic fighters to aid Usagi and Gen. These phantoms promptly possess a quartet of little Kame (tortoises) and are reshaped into adolescent amphibian Ninja Turtles, identifying themselves as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. Crucially, Usagi has fought beside one of their number before…

Subsequent battles go badly and eventually Gunji’s forces make off with Kakera-sensei. As Usagi leads the remaining heroes in relentless pursuit, the conniving Chunin makes his move. Gunji’s attempt to assassinate Chizu is bloodily and efficiently ended by late-arriving Usagi who is astounded to be told by the lady he has saved that the Neko’s lethal interest in him is now at an end…

With Kakera rescued and Gunji dead, the adventure closes with the turtle spirits returning to their own place and time, leaving Gen and Usagi to follow their own (temporarily) separate roads before ‘Jizo’ offers a delightfully gripping interlude as a grieving mother dedicates a roadside shrine to her murdered child and ineffable Karma places the killers in the path of a certain justice-dispensing, long-eared wanderer…

Next comes a brace of stories offering elucidating glimpses of the rabbit’s boyhood. Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply son to a small-town magistrate before being sent to spend his formative years learning the Way of Bushido from gruff and distant leonine hermit Katsuichi. The stern sensei taught not just superior technique and tactics, but also an ironclad creed of justice and restraint which would serve the Ronin well throughout his turbulent life.

In ‘Usagi’s Garden’ the callow pupil rebels against the arduous and undignified task of growing food until the lion delivers a subtle but lifechanging lesson, whilst in ‘Autumn’ a painful fall propels the lad into a nightmare confrontation with a monster who has trapped the changing of the seasons in a bamboo cage…

Two-part tale ‘Shi’ sees Usagi comes to the aid of a valley of poor farmers under constant attack by bullies and brigands seeking to force them from their impoverished homes. The thugs are secretly employed by a local magistrate and his ruthless brother who discovered gold under the peasants’ land and want to extract it without attracting the attention of the local Lord’s tax collectors. When the Ronin’s formidable skills stall the brothers’ scheme they hire a quartet of assassins whose collective name means “death”. However, the killers are far less trouble than the head farmer’s daughter Kimie, who has never seen someone as glamorous or attractive as the soft-spoken defrocked samurai…

Although there are battles aplenty for Usagi, the brothers’ remorseless greed ends them before the Yojimbo can…

Delightful silent comedy follows as ‘The Lizard’s Tale’ pantomimically depicts the ronin playing unwilling Pied Piper and guardian to a wandering flock of tokagé lizards (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles populating the anthropomorphic world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem). The rambunctious trouble-magnets repay the favour when the wanderer is ambushed in snow-drowned mountains by vengeful bandits…

‘Battlefield’ is a 3-chapter fable sharing a key moment and boyhood turning point in the trainee warrior’s life. It begins when a mind-broken, fleeing soldier shatters the boy’s childish dreams of warrior glory. The fugitive is a survivor of the losing side in a mighty battle and his sorry state forces Usagi to rethink his preconceptions of war. Eager to ram home the lesson, Katsuichi takes his pupil to the battlefield where peasants and scavengers busily snatch up whatever they can from the scattered corpses. Usagi is horrified. To take a samurai’s swords is to steal his soul, but even so, a little later he cannot stop himself picking up a fallen hero’s Wakizashi (short sword)…

After concealing the blade in a safe place, the apprentice is haunted by visions of the unquiet corpse and sneaks off to return the stolen steel soul. Caught by soldiers who think him a scavenging looter and about to lose his thieving hands, little Miyamoto is saved by the intervention of victorious Great Lord Mifune. The noble looks into the boy’s face and sees something honest, honourable and – perhaps one day – useful…

Following an Introduction on ‘Classic Storytelling’ from James Robinson, the ronin roaming resumes with ‘The Music of Heaven’ as Miyamoto and a wandering flock of tokagé lizards encounter a gentle, pious priest whose life is dedicated to peace, music and enlightenment. When their paths cross again later, the rabbit narrowly avoids being murdered by a ruthless assassin who has since killed and impersonated holy man Komuso in an attempt to catch Usagi off guard. Evocative and movingly spiritual, this classic of casual tragedy perfectly displays the vast range of storytelling Sakai can pack into the most innocuous of tales.

More menaces from the wanderer’s past reconnect in ‘The Gambler, The Widow and the Ronin’ as a professional conman who fleeces villagers with rigged samurai duels plies his shabby trade in just another little hamlet. Unfortunately, this one is home to his last stooge’s wife, and to make matters worse, whilst his latest hired killer Kedamono is attempting to take over the business, the long-eared nomad who so deftly dispatched his predecessor Shubo strolls into town looking for refreshments…

Again forced into a fight, Miyamoto makes short work of Kedamono, leaving the smug gambler to safely flee with the entire take. Slurping back celebratory servings of sake, the villain has no idea the inn where he relaxes employs a vengeful widow and mother who knows just who really caused her man’s death…

A note of portentous foreboding informs ‘The Nature of the Viper’, opening a year previously when a boisterous, good-hearted fisherman pulled a body out of the river and nursed his amazingly still breathing catch back to health. If he expected gratitude or mercy, the peasant was sadly mistaken, as the fondling explained whilst killing his benefactor as soon as he was able. The ingrate is Jei: a veritable devil in mortal form, who believes himself a “Blade of the Gods” and singled out by the Lords of Heaven to kill the wicked. The maniac makes a convincing case: when he stalked Usagi, the monster was struck by a fortuitous – or possibly divinely sent – lightning bolt but is still going strong and keenly continuing to hunt the Ronin.

‘Slavers’ begins a particularly dark journey for our hero as Usagi stumbles across a boy in chains escaping from a bandit horde. Little Hiro explains how the ragtag rogues of wily “General” Fujii have captured a whole town: making the inhabitants harvest their crops for the scum to steal…

Resolved to save them, the rabbit infiltrates the captive town as a mercenary seeking work, but is soon exposed and taken prisoner. ‘Slavers Part 2’ finds Miyamoto stoically enduring the General’s tortures until the boy he saved bravely returns the favour – after which the Yojimbo’s vengeance is awesome and terrible…

However, even as the villagers rebel and take back their homes and property, chief bandit Fujii escapes, taking Usagi’s daish? (matched long and short swords) with him. To take a samurai’s swords is to steal his soul, and the monster not only has them but continually dishonours them by slaughtering innocents as he flees the ronin’s relentless pursuit.

‘Daish? – Part One’ opens with a hallowed sword-maker undertaking the sacred process of crafting blades and the harder task of selecting the right person to buy them. Three hundred years later, Usagi is on the brink of madness as he follows Fujii’s bloody trail, pitilessly picking off the General’s remaining killers whilst attempting to redeem those soiled dispensers of death. The chase leads to another town pillaged by Fujii where Miyamoto almost refuses to aid a wounded man… until one woman accuses him of being no better than the beast he hunts…

Shocked back to his senses, the yojimbo saves the elder’s life and in gratitude the girl Hanako offers to lead him to where Fujii was heading. ‘Mongrels’ changes tack as erstwhile ally and hard-to-love friend Gennosuke re–enters the picture. The bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taker is on the prowl for suitably profitable prospects when he meets The Stray Dog: his greatest rival in the unpopular profession of cop-for-hire.

After some posturing and double-dealing wherein each tries to edge out the other in the hunt for Fujii, they inevitably come to blows and are only stopped by the fortuitous intervention of the Rabbit Ronin…

‘Daish? – Part Two’ sees the irascible rugged individualists form a shaky truce in their overweening hunger to tackle the General. Mistrustful of each other, they nevertheless cut a swathe of destruction through Fujii’s regrouped band, but even after furious Usagi regains his honour swords there is one last betrayal in store…

Older, wiser and generally unharmed, Gen and Usagi part company again as ‘Runaways’ delves deeper into the wanderer’s past. Stopping in a town he hasn’t visited in decades, the rabbit hears a name called out and his mind retreats to a time when he was a fresh young warrior in the service of Great Lord Mifune.

Young princess Takani Kinuko had been promised as bride to trustworthy ally Lord Hirano and the rabbit was a last-minute replacement as leader of the “babysitting” escort column to her impending nuptials. When an overwhelming ambush eradicated the party, Usagi was forced to flee with the stuck-up brat: both of them masquerading as carefree, unencumbered peasants as he strove to bring her safely to her future husband past an army of ninjas killers.

The poignant reverie concludes in ‘Runaways – Part 2’ as valiant hero and spotless maiden fell in love whilst fleeing from pitiless, unrelenting marauders. Successful at last, their social positions naturally forced them apart once she was safely delivered.

Shaken from his memories, the ronin moves on, tragically unaware he was not the only one recalling those moments and pondering what might have been…

Originally collected as The Brink of Life and Death, an evocatively enticing third tranche of torrid tales opens with ‘Discoveries’ – a heartfelt and enthusiastic Introduction from comics author Kurt Busiek – before more epics of intrigue intermingle with vignettes of more plebeian dramas and even an occasional supernatural thriller, all tantalisingly tinged with astounding martial arts action and drenched in wit, irony, pathos and tragedy…

Far away from our nomadic star a portentous interlude occurs as a simple peasant and his granddaughter are attacked by bandits. The belligerent scum are about to compound extortion and murder with even more heinous crimes when a stranger with a ‘Black Soul’ stops them…

This is Jei and nothing good comes from even innocent association with the Blade of the Gods. Still pursuing his crusade, the monster deals most emphatically with the criminals before “permitting” orphaned granddaughter Keiko to join him…

‘Kaise’ then finds Miyamoto Usagi befriending a seaweed farmer who’s experiencing a spot of bother with his neighbours. At peace with himself amongst hard-toiling peasants, Usagi is soon embroiled in their escalating battle with a village of rival seaweed sellers – previously regarded as helpful and friendly – and quickly realises scurrilous merchant Yamanaka is fomenting discord and unrest between his suppliers to make extra profit…

In a roadside hostelry ‘A Meeting of Strangers’ introduces a formidable female warrior to the ever-expanding cast as the Lepine Legend graciously offers a fellow weary mendicant the price of a drink. A professional informer then sells Usagi out to still-smarting Yamanaka and lethally capable Inazuma has ample opportunity to repay her slight debt to the Rabbit Ronin when he’s ambushed by an army of hired brigands…

Despite – or because – it is usually one of the funniest comics on the market, occasionally Usagi Yojimbo will brilliantly twist readers’ expectations with tales that rip your heart apart. Such is the case with ‘Noodles’, as the ronin meets again street performer, shady entertainer and charismatic pickpocket Kitsune. She was plying all her antisocial trades in a new town just as eternally-wandering Usagi rolls up. The little metropolis is in uproar at a plague of daring robberies and when inept enforcers employed by Yoriki (Assistant Commander) Masuda try – and painfully fail – to arrest the long-eared stranger as a probable accomplice, the ferociously resistant rabbit earns the instant enmity of the pompous official.

Following the confrontation, a hulking, mute soba (buckwheat noodle) vendor begins to pester the still-annoyed ronin and eventually reveals he’s carrying elegant escapologist Kitsune in his baskets. Astounded, the yojimbo renews his acquaintance with her before the affable thieves go on their way, unaware that trouble and tragedy are just around the corner…

The town magistrate is leaning heavily on his Yoriki to end the crimewave but has no conception Masuda is actually in the pay of a vicious gang carrying out most of the thefts. What they all need is a convincing scapegoat to pin the blame on, and poor dumb peasant Noodles is ideal – after all, he can’t even deny his guilt…

With a little sacrificed loot planted, the gentle giant becomes a perfect patsy and before Usagi and Kitsune even know he’s been taken, the simple fool has been tried and horrifically executed. ‘Noodles Part 2’ opens as our aggrieved heroes frantically dash for the public trial and almost immediate crucifixion. Neither pickpocket nor bodyguard can save the innocent stooge: all they can do is swear to secure appropriate vengeance and a kind of justice…

In sober mien the rabbit roves on, stumbling into a house of horror and case of possession. ‘The Wrath of the Tangled Skein’ finds Usagi returning to a region plagued by demon-infested forests. Offered hospitality at a merchant’s house, he subsequently saves the daughter from doom at the claws of a demonic Nue (tiger/fox/pig/snake devil), but is almost too late and only alerted to a double dose of danger when a Bonze (Buddhist Priest) arrives to exorcise the poor child – just like the cleric already praying over the afflicted waif upstairs…

This duel with the forces of hell leads into ‘The Bonze’s Story’ as Usagi befriends the real priest and learns how misfortune and devotion to honour compelled elite samurai Sanshobo to put aside weapons and war in search of greater truths and inner peace…

Political intrigue and explosive espionage return to the fore in ‘Bats, the Cat, & the Rabbit’ as Neko ninja chief Chizu re-enters Usagi’s life, fleeing a flight of rival Komori (bat) ninjas. These winged horrors are determined to possess a scroll containing the secrets of making gunpowder and, after a tremendous, extended struggle, the exhausted she-cat cannot believe her rabbit companion is willing to simply hand it over. She soon shrugs it off, after all the Komori have fallen into her trap and quickly regret testing the purloined formula…

The peripatetic yojimbo then walks into a plot to murder Great Lord Miyagi involving infallible unseen assassin Kuroshi at ‘The Chrysanthemum Pass’. Although the valiant wanderer is simply aiding karma to a just outcome despite overwhelming odds and a most subtle opponent, this act will have appalling repercussions in days ahead…

Hunted woman and deadly adept Inazuma then proves ‘Lightning Strikes Twice’ when found – as always – at the heart of a storm of hired blades trying to kill her. However, during one peaceful moment, she makes time to share with a fellow swordsmaster the instructive tale of a dutiful daughter who married the wrong samurai. By exacting rightful vengeance upon his killer, she won the undying hatred of a powerful lord and set her own feet irredeemably upon the road of doom…

Rounding out in this epic collection are copious ‘Story Notes by Stan Sakai’, a full-colour ‘Gallery’ of the covers from both comic books and their attendant paperback compilations, annotated ‘Cover Sketches’ and designs, plus biographical data ‘About the Author’.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, informative and funny, the saga alternately bristles with tension and thrills and frequently crushes your heart with astounding tales of pride and tragedy, evil and duty. Bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is the perfect comics epic: a monolithically magical, irresistibly appealing tale to delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened haters of “funny animal” stories.
Text and illustrations © 1993-1998, 2014 Stan Sakai. All rights reserved. Foreword © 2014 Jamie S. Rich. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles © 2014 Viacom International, Inc. All rights reserved. All other material and registered characters are © and TM their respective owners. Usagi Yojimbo and all other prominently featured characters are registered trademarks of Stan Sakai.

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Lucky Luke volume 40 – Phil Wire


By Morris, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-155-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, enjoying light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nine decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums and many, many spin-off series (like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan), with sales thus far totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Originally the brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first officially seen in Le Journal de Spirou’s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke actually sprang to (un-titled) laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946. Morris was one of “la Bande des quatre”– The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and Franquin: leading proponents of a fresh, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School”. It came to dominate Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, E.P. Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, encountered Goscinny, scored work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and constantly, copiously noted and sketched a swiftly vanishing Old West.

Working solo until 1955 (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere), Morris produced nine initial albums – of which today’s was #8 – of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American émigré René Goscinny. With him as his regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary, heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation on August 25th 1955. In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote in La Diligence (The Stagecoach). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, whereupon Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. He went to the Last Roundup in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante.

Lucky Luke has a long history in Britain, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo. And that’s not counting the many attempts to establish him as a book star starting with Brockhampton Press in 1972 and continuing via Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally and thankfully found the right path in 2006.

As Lucky Luke contre Phil Defer (Lucky Luke: Phil Wire in Britain) this classic collection comprises a brace of tales taken from the company’s general entertainment periodical Le Moustique. The saga of deadly gunslinger Phil Wire -“The Spider” is visually based on the early western works of based on legendary cinematic bad man Jack Palance in a strip taken from issues #1464-1494 (14th February-12th September 1954) of the celebrated periodical.

It begins in the booze-soaked Badlands when Phil Defer – LE FAUCHEUX sells his lethal talents to sinister saloon owner O’Sullivan. He’s looking to remove a rival entrepreneur…

Fate – or perhaps the gods of comedy – instead decree that another tall guy extremely good with guns gets to Bottleneck Gulch first, where he’s naturally mistaken for the rather idiosyncratic, notoriously superstitious killer for hire. You know, the tall guy…

Lucky and Wire have already clashed once before and – despite all the hero’s efforts to deter O’Sullivan – meet once more after all “the Spider’s” schemes to remove rival barkeep O’Hara are foiled. Ultimately, as ever, it comes down to a showdown on main street with only one tall man walking away…

The album also features a second but shorter serial from Le Moustique #1508-1516 (19th December 1954 to 13th February 1955): originally entitled Lucky Luke et Pilule. As Lucky Luke and The Pill, it here details a campfire tale told by our rangy wanderer, relating how a short-sighted, diminutive hypochondriac tenderfoot with no discernible fighting ability or action acumen became a true gun-toting town-tamer…

Ideal for older kids with a bit of historical perspective and social understanding – although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any Laurel and Hardy film, Chuckle Brothers skit and whatever TikTok clip the waifs of the coming generation (Gen Eric?) titter to – these early exploits are a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dupuis 1956 by Morris. © Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure (Library of American Comic Essentials)


By V.T. Hamlin (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-829-6 (Landscape HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Reliving Those Golden Days… 9/10

Modern comics evolved from newspaper strips. These pictorial features were, until relatively recently, extremely popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation and profits. From the outset humour was paramount; hence our umbrella terms “Funnies” and of course “comics”.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924; gradually moving from mock-heroics to light-action into full-blown adventure with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929) or Tarzan and Buck Rogers – both debuting January 7th 1929 as adaptations of pre-existing prose properties – the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good humour strips supplemented by the occasional jolly child-oriented fantasy.

This abruptly changed in the 1930s when an explosion of rollicking drama strips launched with astounding rapidity. Not only features but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on not just today’s comicbooks but all our popular fiction.

Another infinitely deep well of fascination for humans is cavemen and dinosaurs. During that distant heyday of America’s strip-surge a rather unique real character created a rather unique and paradoxical cartoon character: at once both adventurous and comedic; simultaneously forward-looking and fantastically “retro” in the same engagingly rendered package…

Vincent Trout Hamlin was born in 1900 and did many things before settling as a cartoonist. After mustering out of the US Expeditionary Force at the end of the Great War, V.T. finished High School and then went to the University of Missouri. This was in 1920 and he studied journalism but, since he’d always loved drawing, the eager beaver took advantage of the institution’s art courses too.

Hamlin was always a supreme storyteller and lived long enough to give plenty of interviews and accounts – many impishly contradictory – about the birth of his antediluvian archetype…

As a press photographer, Hamlin had roamed the Lone Star State filming the beginnings of the petroleum industry and caught the bug for finding fossils. Whilst drawing ads for a Texas Oil company, he became further fascinated with bones and rocks as he struggled to create a strip which would provide his family with a regular income…

When V.T. resolved to chance his arm at the booming comic strip business, those fossil fragments got his imagination percolating and he came up with a perfect set-up for action, adventure, big laughs and even a healthy dose of social satire.

Alley Oop is a Neanderthal (-ish) caveman inhabiting a lush, fantastic land where dinosaurs still thrive. In fact his greatest friend and boon companion is Dinny; a faithful, valiant saurian chum who terrifies every other dinosaur in creation… as well as all the annoying spear-waving bipeds swarming about. Because Dinny is as smart and obedient as a dog, all the other cave folk – like arrogant, insecure King Guzzle – generally treat the mighty, free-thinking, disrespectful Oop with immense caution…

Unlike most of his audience, Hamlin knew such things could never have occurred, but didn’t much care: the set-up was too sweet to waste and it would prove to be the very least of the supremely imaginative creative anachronisms he and his brilliant wife Dorothy would concoct as the strip grew in scope and popularity.

Oop actually launched twice. In 1930 Hamlin whipped up primeval prototype Oop the Mighty which he then radically retooled and sold to small, local Bonnet-Brown Syndicate as Alley Oop. It debuted on December 5th 1932 and was steadily gaining traction when Bonnet-Brown foundered in the worst days of the Great Depression a year later.

Happily the strip had enough of a popular following that Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate – whose other properties included Major Hoople, Boots and Her Buddies and the aforementioned Wash Tubbs – tracked down the neophyte scribbler and offered him a regular slot in papers all over America. Thus Alley Oop re-debuted as a daily strip on August 7th 1933, swiftly reprising old stories for a far larger audience before starting new adventures. He inevitably won a Sunday colour page on September 9th 1934, the year V.T., Dorothy and new daughter Theodora relocated to affluent Sarasota, Florida.

Sadly for such a revered series with a huge pedigree – still running today, scripted by Joey Alison Sayers and drawn by Jonathan Lemon – there has never been a concerted effort to properly collect the entire epic. There have however been tantalising reprints in magazines and archive editions from Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse and IDW. This intriguing monochrome hardback (part of The Library of American Comics Essentials range) re-presents – in one day per elongated landscape page – the absolutely most crucial game-changing sequence in the strip’s history as the protagonists escaped their antediluvian environs and calamitously catapulted into the 20th century…

Supplementing the cartoon bedazzlement is a superbly informative and candidly-picture packed introduction by Michael H. Price. ‘V.T. Hamlin and the Road to Moo’ reviews the creator’s amazing life and other strip endeavours before starting his magnum opus and what the feature meant to him, before the grand adventure (Monday March 6th 1939 to Saturday March 23rd 1940) opens in a strange land a long, long way from here and now…

A little background: the cave-folk of that far-ago time lived in a rocky village ruled over by devious, semi-paranoid King Guzzle and his formidable, achingly status-conscious wife Queen Umpateedle. The kingdom was known as Moo and the elite ruling couple were guided, advised and manipulated in equal amounts by the sneaky shaman Grand Wizer, and all three constantly sought to curb the excesses of a rebelliously independent, free-spirited, instinctively democratic kibitzer. Our hero – the toughest, most honest man in the land – had no time for silly fripperies and dumb made-up rules of interfering civilisation, but he did usually give in to the stern glances and fierce admonishments of his long-suffering girl “companion” Ooola. The uneasy balance of power in the kingdom comes from the fact that Guz and the Wizer – even with the entire nation behind them – were never a match for Oop and Dinny when they got mad – which was pretty often…

The big change came when Dinny turned up with an egg: all broody and uncooperative. With Oop’s mighty pal out of sorts, the Wizer played a cruel master-stoke and declared that only the contents of the egg could cure the King’s mystery ailment, prompting a mini civil war…

After revolution and counterrevolution Oop & Ooola are on the run when they encounter a bizarre object which vanishes before their eyes. As they stare in stupefaction they’re ambushed by Guz’s men and only escape because they too fade from sight…

Somewhere in rural America in 1939, brilliant researcher Dr. Elbert Wonmug (that’s a really convoluted but clever pun) discusses with his assistant movies their camera took when they sent it into the distant past via their experimental time machine…

The heated debate about the strangely beautiful and modern-looking cave woman and her monstrously odd-looking mate are curtailed as the subjects actually materialise in the room and the absentminded professor realises he left his chronal scoop running…

Before he can reverse his mistake and return the unwilling, unwitting guests to their point of origin, the colossal mechanism catastrophically explodes, wrecking the lab and burying the astounded antediluvians in rubble.

Thanks to an unexplained quirk of temporal trans-placement, time travellers always speak the language of wherever they’ve fetched up – albeit through their own slang and idiom – so after utterly unharmed Oop digs his way out, explanations are soon forthcoming from the modern tinkerers. Before long the cave folk are introduced to the fabulous advances of 20th century America.

At least Ooola is – thanks to the friendly advice of Wonmug’s daughter Dee – but the hulking male primitive is quickly fed up with this fragile place, all snarled up with just as many foolish rules and customs as home…

Storming off to catch and eat something he understands, Oop is suddenly whisked across country in a spectacular and hilarious rampage of destruction – in the best silent movie chase tradition – after falling asleep in a transcontinental freighttrain car. After weeks of wondering, Wonmug and the now thoroughly-acclimated Ooola read newspaper reports of a cunning and destructive “Great White Ape” and make plans to fetch their stray home. The government meanwhile have put top agent G.I.Tum on the case…

The Phantom Ape has plans of his own and, after “trapping” an aeroplane and its pilot, makes his own tempestuous way back to the isolated lab. Eventually the whole story comes out and the displaced primal pair become media sensations, just as Wonmug finally completes repairs to the time machine. Now though, Ooola – and to a lesser extent Alley – are not keen on returning to their dangerous point of origin…

Moreover, not everybody believes Elbert has actually cracked the time barrier and the next segment sees scientific sceptic Dr. Bronson demand proof. However, when he eagerly zips off to experience Moo first hand, he disappears and – after much pleading – Oop is convinced to follow him and find out what happened. When the swirling sensation ends, our hirsute hero discovers what the problem is: the machine is by no means accurate and its focus has shifted,  rematerializing outside a gigantic walled city of what we’d call the Bronze Age…

What follows is a stupendous romp of action, adventure and so many laughs as Oop and Bronson become improbable and forgotten heroes of the Trojan War, turning the so-pretty head of enchanting Helen of Troy and becoming the embattled city’s top warrior generals.

In the 20th century Wonmug is arrested for murder. Dee and his assistant Jon struggle to perfect their chronal contraption but in the end resort to busting the genius out to fix the problem and bring the time-lost wanderers back.

In a race against time that’s all soon sorted and Ooola heads for ancient Greece to save the lost boys. Unfortunately she’s picked up by besieging Greeks and, thanks to her skill with guns, mistaken for the goddess Minerva. The legendary story further unfolds with Oop & Ooola on opposite sides until wily Bronson makes a breakthrough based on his historical knowledge and they all return home in time to save Wonmug from the cops…

Soon a compact time team is established to exploit the invention – but not before Oop returns to devastated Troy to retrieve his beloved stone axe. With Bronson and Ooola in tow he then finds himself swept up in little sea voyage we know as The Odyssey…

Back in America, the team expands after college chum and genius of all knowledge G. Oscar Boom invites himself to Wonmug’s scientific party. With all contact lost, the unscrupulous rogue offers to go looking for them in the untrammelled past …providing he can take his specially tricked-out station wagon. As this stunning collection concludes Boom and a mighty hitchhiker named Hercules have just run into the missing chrononauts as they are about to enter the Amazonian wilds of the Land of Warrior Women…

Escaping the ultimately limiting confines of the strip and becoming a seasoned time travellers Hamlin made the best of all worlds for his characters: Oop and Ooola periodically returned home to Dinny and Moo but they also roamed every intriguing nook and cranny of history – even escaping planet Earth entirely. Hopefully our own future holds the prospect of more such splendid strip sagas. Fast-paced, furious, fantastically funny and bitterly barbed in the wryly acerbic manner of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, Alley Oop is a bone fide classic of strip narrative, long overdue the respect of a complete curated chronological collection.

However, until some enlightened publisher gets around to it, by all means start digging online and in bargain bins for each – or any – of the wonderful tomes already released. It’s barely the tip of an iceberg, but we all have to start sometime…
Alley Oop © and ® 2013 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Asterix and the Griffin (volume 39)


By Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad, coloured by Thierry Mébarki, translated by Adriana Hunter (Sphere)
ISBN: 978-0-7515-8398-4 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-0-7515-8397-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Seasonal Sensations with Gallic Chill… 9/10

Whoops! Missed one!

As we saw a few days ago, Asterix le Gaulois has been around, amazing and amusing the planet since 1959 and become part of the fabric of French life. His exploits have touched billions of people all around the world.

For five and a half decades and for almost all of that time his astounding adventures were the sole preserve of originators René Goscinny and/or Albert Uderzo.

After nearly 15 years dissemination as weekly serials before invariably collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – was the first to be released as a complete, original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new tome was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees. The eager anxiety hadn’t diminished any when Uderzo’s handpicked replacements – scripter Jean-Yves Ferri (Fables Autonomes, La Retour à la terre) and illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, L’Avatar, Le Piège Malais, Tatum) – settled into the creative role on his retirement in 2009.

Whether an action-packed comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or a sly satire for older-if-no-wiser heads, these new yarns are just as engrossing as the established canon. As you already know, half of the epics take place in exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the alternating rest are set in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany where, circa 50 BC, a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resist every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul. This one’s solidly of the former variety as our major cast members make it all the way to “barbaricum”: literally beyond the known world…

Although divided by its Roman conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Armorica, the very tip of the last-named region stubbornly refuses to be properly pacified. Utterly unable to overrun this last little bastion of Gallic insouciance, the otherwise supreme Roman overlords are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – even though the irksome Gauls come and go as they please…

Thus, a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium, filled with veteran fighters who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there. The residents couldn’t care less: daily defying, frustrating and often terrorising the world’s greatest military machine by going about their everyday affairs, bolstered by magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits and strategic aplomb of diminutive dynamo Asterix… and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelix. And their dog…

In Rome, Julius Caesar is in need of a diversion for his sensation seeking subjects, so when geographer Cartographus claims to have discovered a fabled griffin, the Emperor funds a huge expedition to capture it via legions of soldiers and engineers. The beast resides far to the east in the icy Sarmatian wastes, but the scholar is convinced he can snare it as he has captured a Sarmatian Amazon woman to guide them. Terrifying and seductive, Kalashnikova only sees a chance to return home…

Meanwhile, the frozen lands under discussion have welcomed some familiar friends as Asterix, Obelix and canine wonder Dogmatix escort a very ill (no, no, it’s just a cold, really!) Getafix to the yurt of Fanciakuppov. That cheery shaman had visions of Roman invaders stealing his people’s sacred animal, so his old druid pal has brought a keg of magic potion to resist the incursion. There are, however, a couple of snags…

Firstly, the tribe is proudly matriarchal, with powerful warrior women doing all the fighting. They do it fantastically well, and don’t need help from foreigners – no matter how attractive they might be! – or magic. It’s a good thing too, as local conditions soon render the potion useless and Asterix has to rely on his brains and his giant pal’s innate brawn…

The big guy is quite distracted. Primarily by Dogmatix running away to become a wolf, but also by the obvious attentions of some of the amorous Amazons…

The Roman expedition is led by seasoned centurion Intrepidus, and Cartographus (who naturally has a secret agenda in play) has brought along famed venator (animal-fighting gladiator) Vainglorius, as a specialist to tame the griffin when they find it.

Army morale is low: the commanders squabble constantly, these lands are gloomy, frozen cold, steeped in legends and packed with people and things trying to kill them. Worst of all, when they should be building forts to secure their supply lines, the men are instead fighting each other for the right to guard the prisoner. Aloof, beautiful Kalashnikova disdains and discards them all… and they love it.

When the military monsters capture Fanciakuppov, he is forced to lead the smug raiders to the secret abode of the griffin, but thanks to the hit-&-run tactics of the Gaul-enhanced war women their numbers are so severely depleted, no one thinks they’ll make it back to sunnier climes…

The mission ends in spectacular failure but they do all get to see the fabulous beast before they die…

Packed with hilarious action, genuine chills, potent punning and cartooning delights, this tale provides plenty of pokes at fake news, current affairs, conspiracy theories, a certain global retail/delivery brand, and lands many wry jabs at all sides of the battle of the sexes and role of women in societies ancient and modern.

Asterix and the Griffin is a sure win and another triumphant addition to the magically mythic Gaulish oeuvre for laugh-seekers in general and all devotees of comics.
Original edition © 2021 Les Éditions Albert René. English translation: © 2021 Les Éditions Albert René. All rights reserved.

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Zombillenium 5 & 6: Black Friday and Sabbath Grand Derby


By Arthur de Pins, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-681123-17-2- (HB) eISBN: 978-1-681123-18-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Spooky Satisfaction Guaranteed… 9/10

Arthur de Pins is a British-born French filmmaker, commercial artist and Bande Dessinées creator whose strips – such as adult comedy Peccadilloes -AKA Cute Sins and On the Crab – have appeared in Fluide Glacial and Max. His superbly arch and beautifully illustrated supernatural horror-comedy Zombillenium has become his signature success and led to the overlong hiatus between the last translated volume and the cracking read under review today. De Pins has also orchestrated and co-directed (with Alexis Ducord) a magnificent animated movie, so check that out too…

The Bande Dessinée it was based on is a truly addictive comics cult classic that began in 2009 (serialised in Le Journal de Spirou from #3698 on) and now concludes for English-speakers in this bumper double-book tome (96 huge tabloid pages) courtesy of NBM.

Rendered with beguiling style and sleek, easy confidence, the unfolding saga details odd goings-on in a horror-themed amusement park staffed by actual monsters. As time and tomes went by we learned it is owned and controlled by a cabal of venturesome capitalistically-inclined infernal powers. They had big expansion plans only curtailed by perpetually lethal jockeying for pole position on the diabolical Board of Directors…

The place Zombillenium is a magical entertainment experience celebrating every aspect of the spooky and supernatural, where (human) families can enjoy a day out rubbing shoulders with werewolves, witches and all breeds of bogeyman. Of course, those enthralled customers might not laugh so hard if they knew all the monsters were real, usually hungry and didn’t much like humans – except in a culinary fashion…

The inaugural volume introduced hard-working, exceedingly humane Park Director (and vampire) Francis Von Bloodt, newly-reborn Aurelian Zahner (a pathetically inept thief until he expired at the park to return as a demonic indentured employee) and stroppy British Witch Gretchen: a youthful newcomer interning there whilst advancing her own secret agenda.

As all individually toiled away in the vast entertainment enterprise, its true nature slowly emerged: for unwary, unlucky mortals the site is a conduit to the domain of the damned and devilish overlord Behemoth: an intolerant capitalist horror insatiable for fresh souls…

Humans in the nearby town know the monsters’ true natures (because work-shy absconders hide from their bosses there), trying many schemes to evict/exorcise the occult occupants. For the uncanny Park workers – who would rather be anywhere else – conditions of employment worsen daily. Zombillenium is regarded as the least profitable holiday destination on Earth and The Board constantly threaten sweeping changes.

For most of its existence – despite the incredible bargaining power of its many monster Trade Unions – the only exit from a Zombillenium contract was the True Death and final transition to Hell, until a cascade of changes upset many apple-carts. Through it all, newcomer Aurelian somehow always shouldered the blame for each new crisis…

Stuck between a rock and a hot place, he gradually adapted to his new (un)life of constant sorrow whilst growing closer to Gretchen – once she shared her own awful life-story with him; revealing what he has become whilst disclosing what her real mission is. The big boob never knew how much she left out…

The saga moved into apocalyptic high gear when Gretchen’s secret agenda unfolded a little and her private plot gathered pace after contacting a loved one in Hell. The bold sorceress promised seemingly impossible liberation, whilst in the mortal world, a long-dreaded day dawned and all arcane artisans and supernatural staff quailed at “Big News”…

Ultimately, incessant pressure and scheming from the bosses below triggered rebellion in the earthside workforce. Most were scared, appalled and resistant, but a significant proportion saw an opportunity they’d long argued for: a last chance to feed and feast and hunt all those obnoxious yet tasty human morsels on the best Black Friday anyonething could have possibly imagined…

 

Mounting tensions sparked cataclysmic battle between supernatural forces and a revolt of the monsters, triggering Zombillenium’s evacuation. Casualties were kept to a minimum but when the dust settled, Francis was out and elite vampire/corporate flunky Bohemond Jaggar de Rochambeau was in charge pro tem: actively encouraging killing unattached or unaccompanied humans. They, typically, now came in droves to the most exciting entertainment experience they’d ever seen…

This infernal escapade hurtles headlong to the end by initially looking back to 1987. In Manchester, England a foolhardy bargain with the wrong entity reveals how Gtechen came to be, before flashing to Black Friday Now. The theme park crisis has become the lede in human news, as dilettante, desperate and even previously disinterested demonic factions sit up and take notice that everything has changed. Zombillenium is sealed and as the world(s) watch, human visitors rapidly move from hostages to bargaining chips without ever really leaving the menu of many of their “hosts”…

With The Board challenged by infernal upstarts, they respond only to the numbers mounting up whilst Gretchen takes to the skies to save as many as she can. That plan goes deep, deep south once an old friend turns up on behalf of the bosses…

As Jaggar goes into spin control mode for massed human media, Gretchen links up with the Unionised park rebels to recalibrate. Their solution is incredibly brave… and undeniably stupid… and begins with the valiant proletarian monster resistance boarding “the Hell Express” to beard the Management in its own stronghold.

Meanwhile, under Earth’s skies, former boss-once-removed Francis Von Bloodt debates with Jagger once and for all modern business methodology in traditional vampire terms…

The economic endeavours expire in grand style after a meeting of magical movers and shakers declares a Sabbath Grand Derby to settle provenance and ownership of Zombillenium and its ambulatory property. When Gretchen and her allies hit bottom, they trigger a high-stakes gladiatorial contest/TV Reality show/magic Rollerball duel with all concerned depending on the scrupled sorceress being able to shake her past and eradicate so many people she used to love.

At stake are all those still alive far above, her family (actual, historical and acquired), humanity in general and control of the most amazing entertainment franchise in existence. And let’s not forget her true opponents are the most sinister, pitiless, duplicitous, morally bankrupt, double-dealing, conniving beings in creation… who are actual devils too…

Available in English in both oversized Hardback Album and eBook formats, this is a seditiously mature and subversively ironic horror-comedy, bringing together cultural archetypes and modern bugbears with smart and sassy contemporary insouciance and a solid reliance on the verities of Nature – Human or otherwise.

Sly, smart, sexy and scarily hilarious, Zombillenium has mastered the remarkable trick of marrying slapstick with satire whilst deftly treading its own unforgettable and enticing path. You’ll curse yourself for missing out and if you don’t, there are things out here which will do it for and to you…
© Dupuis 2020, 2022 by De Pins. All rights reserved. © NBM 2023 for the English edition.

Zombillenium 5 & 6: Black Friday & Sabbath Grand Derby will be released on December 12th 2023 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads please go to http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Lucky Luke volume 38 – Doc Doxey’s Elixir


By Morris, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-141-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper.

Over nine decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums and spin-off series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, with sales thus far totalling upwards of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Originally the brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first – officially – seen in Le Journal de Spirou’s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke actually sprang to (un-titled) laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th of that year.

Morris was one of “la Bande des quatre”– The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and Franquin: leading proponents of a fresh, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School”. It came to dominate Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, E.P. Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin. In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, befriended René Goscinny, scored work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and constantly, copiously, noted and sketched a swiftly vanishing Old West.

Working solo until 1955 (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere), Morris crafted nine albums – of which today’s was #7 – of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow transatlantic émigré Goscinny. With him as regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation on August 25th 1955.

In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote in La Diligence (The Stagecoach). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, whereupon Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. He went to the Last Roundup in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante.

Lucky Luke has a long history in Britain, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo. And that’s not counting the many attempts to establish him as a book star starting with Brockhampton Press in 1972 and continuing via Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally found the right path in 2006.

As L’elixir du Docteur Doxey, today’s yarn spanned December 11th 1952 to 8th October 1953 when originally serialised in LJdS #765-808. The extended serial was then compiled as the seventh annual Lucky Luke album: published in November 1955, with successive volumes launching every year thereafter in that month.

Doc Doxey’s Elixir (entitled “Lucky Luke and Doc Doxey” on the opening page) relates the predatory journeys of a charlatan physician dispensing disgusting and often lethal liquid cure-alls, aided and abetted by his athletic stooge Scraggy. He gulls the public with disguises, near-miraculous instantaneous “recuperations” and equally fast exits.

Their pernicious peregrinations come to an end after poisoning the frontier town of Green Valley, putting dogged do-gooder Lucky on their trail – a long, perilous and relentless pursuit packed with classic and episodic chase gags. Said hunt concludes with the sneaky snake oil peddler behind bars. Of course, he doesn’t stay there long as sequel saga ‘Manhunt’ details his cunning escape, a change of identity – but not modus operandi – and an ultimately unsuccessful plot to murder the wandering cowboy…

Ideal for older kids who have gained a bit of historical perspective and social understanding – although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any Laurel and Hardy film, Chuckle Brothers skit and whatever TikTok clip the waifs of the coming generation (Gen Eric?) titter to – these early exploits are a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd.

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Asterix and the White Iris (volume 40)


By Fabcaro & Didier Conrad, coloured by Thierry Mébarki, translated by Adriana Hunter (Sphere)
ISBN: 978-1-40873-021-8 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-1-4087-3020-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Celebrate the Season in Classical Style… 9/10

Asterix le Gaulois debuted in 1959 and has since become part of the fabric of French life. His exploits have touched billions of people around the world for over sixty years and for almost all of that time his astounding adventures were the sole preserve of originators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.

After nearly 15 years dissemination as weekly serials (subsequently collected into book-length compilations), in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – was the first to be released as a complete, original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new tome was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees.

The eager anxiety hasn’t diminished even now as L’Iris Blanc sees third scripter Jean-Yves Ferri make way for physicist/novelist/musician/comics writer “Fabcaro” (Like a Steak Machine, Les Marseillais, Mars) – AKA Fabrice Caro – who joins in situ illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, Tatum, ASTERIX!). Fabcaro & Didier’s first album/40th canonical chronicle of Asterix L’Iris Blanc was released on October 25th 2023, with the English edition hitting shelves and digital emporia as Asterix and the White Iris one day later.

Although divided by its Roman conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Armorica, the very tip of the last-named land stubbornly refuses to be properly pacified. The otherwise supreme overlords, utterly unable to overrun this last little bastion of Gallic insouciance, are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – even though the irksome Gauls come and go as they please. Thus, a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium: packed with seasoned and terrified soldiers who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there…

Those supposedly contained couldn’t care less: daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine by going about their everyday affairs, bolstered by magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits and strategic aplomb of diminutive dynamo Asterix and the stopping power of his simplistic, supercharged best pal Obelix…

As always, action, suspense and comedy are very much in evidence. There’s a healthy helping of satirical lampooning of the generation gap, fads and trends as well as the traditional regional and nationalistic leitmotifs. Whether as an comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or as a sly and wicked satire for older-if-no-wiser heads, these new yarns are just as engrossing as the established canon.

As you already know, half of the intoxicating epics take place in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the alternating rest are set in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany circa 50 BC. This one’s a little of both as our major cast members make it all the way to fashionable Lutetia before their current Roman problems are solved…

It all begins in the established traditional manner before we cut to Rome where Julius Caesar is defending his record amidst a miasma of growing unrest and depleted morale that has caused a spike in insubordination and desertions from the army that holds the Empire together.

A potential solution comes from Chief Medical Officer/Lifestyle guru Isivertuus, who has devised a blend of pop psychology, life-coaching and philosophical chicanery he calls “the White Iris.” The poetry-heavy flummery seems capable of bamboozling the gullible – basically anyone but Isivertuus – into modifying their behaviours. The military conman proposes visiting Amorica and convincing its downtrodden, defeatist garrisons that the enemy aren’t indomitable or invincible at all.

Hopeful but cautious, Caesar agrees to the quack working his solution on Totorum camp, and also – just to be sure – destroying that pesky village of rebel Gauls…

At first it all goes quite well, with a combination of recycled adages, meaningless homilies and mental homeopathy lifting military spirits and even – when the charming charlatan starts spouting off to the Gauls themselves – dividing them from each other… not a hard task for such garrulous, combustible and opinionated souls…

Soon, no one’s quarrelling and even Obelix’s beloved wild boars are losing the will to fight, but Isivertuus just cannot close the deal. That’s when he changes tactics and woos Chief Vitalstatistix’s formidable wife away with honied assurances that she deserves a better life in cosmopolitan Lutetia. However, it’s all a ploy to deliver her to Caesar and blackmail the Gauls into surrendering…

Once the heartbroken old Chief gets over the crushing rejection and stifles his maudlin carping, he’s off in hot pursuit with Asterix and the big one going along to keep him out of trouble… and safe from said hostage/bride Impedimenta…

Jam-packed with classic laughs, hilarious fights, the usual cameos by the pirates and other old favourites there’s also plenty of contemporary satire: swipes at modern theatre, pop psyche, kick scooters, fusion cuisine, mindfulness and even HS2 before the fun escalates to a crescendo that only proves the truth and power of one old phrase… Amor vincit omnia*.

Asterix and the White Iris is a sure win and another triumphant addition to the mythic canon for laugh-seekers in general and all devotees of comics.
© 2023 HACHETTE LIVRE/GOSCINNY-UDERZO. English translation: © 2023 HACHETTE LIVRE/GOSCINNY-UDERZO

*Love conquers all. Maybe you should read more old books after you get this new one?

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Doug Wildey’s Rio: The Complete Saga


By Doug Wildey (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-210-2  eISBN: 978-1-62302-476-5

There have been many Western comics over many years created by Americans and other nations. Most were banged out as commercial fodder to feed fashion during periods when mainstream media celebrated a periodic re-emergence of the genre. Rio most definitely ain’t one of those.

Working at his own pace for his own pleasure over long years and virtually isolated from the mainstream comics world, the late Doug Wildey – famed animator (Johnny Quest) and comic strip artist (Outlaw Kid) – produced an iconic and elegiac immortal character.

After a meandering trail of appearances at Eclipse, Comico and Marvel, the wanderer most recently settled at IDW resulting in this glorious collection: far more serious art book than collection of wondrous comics stories.

Almost the entirety of this stupendous compendium is shot from Wildey’s immaculate multi-media original art with corrections, amendments and every instance and evidence of the creator’s interaction with the page left for aficionados to enjoy. No flattening bowdlerisation by the print process here: Think of it as a gallery visit in your hands.

The content comprises all Wildey’s published stories, one entire unpublished tale and a final almost-complete saga he was working on when he died. As he was a rather mercurial cove Wildey skipped about a job, wrapping up pages as whim took him, so the missing parts are there in spirit too: as roughs, sketches, pencils or script and layout designs. It’s a fascinating glimpse of a born raconteur and relentless perfectionist plying his trade. Also included are dozens of sketches, pin-ups and other associated images given weight and context through a loving appreciation by Mark Evanier in his Introduction. What more can a fan want?

Well, obviously, a damned fine read…

An old gunfighter and badman in the heydays of the Wild West, Rio is a rangy loner wandering the country just ahead of creeping civilisation, trying to live the rest of his life as best he can as the end draws near.

The saga began as a serial in early 1980s experiment Eclipse Monthly, during the days of American Comics’ Direct Market revolution. Then it was collected into an album-sized compilation and assorted reprints many times since.

In ‘The Hide Butchers’, the iconically world-weary “tall rider” is engrossed on a tricky and dangerous mission. Offered a full pardon by President Ulysses S. Grant in return for stopping the decimation of the Buffalo herds by “Sporting Special”, Rio is in Wyoming Territory vainly attempting to reason with Railway boss Dorsey. These train excursions – wherein customers could slaughter the animals from the comfort of their seats – nearly wiped out the animals, consequently almost starving to their own extinction Indians who lived off them.

Deemed a threat to profits, Rio is framed for murder by the bigwig’s hirelings – the Grady Parrish gang – and must down a small army of gunmen before he can know any real peace…

His hunt begins in ‘Satan’s Doorstep’ as the trail leads into Apache country and a doomed clash with a cavalry troop led by a glory-obsessed fool who thinks he’s the next Napoleon Bonaparte…

Sole survivor of that desert confrontation, Rio picks up his quarry’s trail in Endsville, Wyoming, before crossing the border to an enslaved Mexican town turned into a ‘Robber’s Roost’ by the bandits he’s chasing. To pass the time, the sadistic brutes play a murderous game with the citizens, but when Rio is captured he deftly turn the tables against them…

Wildey was a master storyteller and a Western Historian of some note. His art graced many galleries and museums, but his greatest achievements are here, where his artistry brings a lost and fabled world briefly back to vibrant life, in spirit as well as look.

Wildey switched over to colour in his own unique style and a more luscious and painterly colour palette, transferring his iconic lone rider from the wilderness to the very borders of the creeping Civilisation he so patently abhorred in a sequel to his original tale of ‘Mr. Howard’s Son’…

Finally pardoned by President Grant, Rio is invited to become sheriff of Limestone City, a burgeoning metropolis less than 100 miles from Kansas City yet somehow a town with no crime! Whilst pondering the offer, he finds old friends already living there; two of the most infamous outlaws in history who – with their families – are living quietly as respectable, albeit incognito, citizens of the progressive paradise.

However, after a botched kidnapping and speculative bank raid exposes the retired outlaws, human nature and petty spite lead to disastrous chaos and a spiral of bloody tragedy which the new lawman is ill-equipped and much disinclined to help with…

In ‘Hot Lead for Johnny Hardluck’, Rio meets a young Dutch kid hardened by exploitative mine work who has chanced upon a fortune. After winning a huge diamond at poker the boy heads for San Francisco, unaware the sore loser has hired thieves to restore what he lost at all costs. Happily, Rio is working as stagecoach guard on the route the kid follows, but even after the fireworks are over, the danger and bloodshed isn’t…

Another brush with famous gunmen informs ‘Red Dust in Tombstone’ as Rio meets up with Doc Holliday and his pals the Earp brothers. Trouble is brewing in town and tensions are high, but Wildey smartly shows us a telling side of all concerned that movies have not…

Wrapping the narratives up with a tantalising promise of what might have been, ‘Reprisal’ is an unfinished masterpiece of cowboy lore as the lone rider saunters into a brewing border crisis. Bandits are raiding ranches, but when the wanderer uncovers a scam with soldiers selling gunpowder to outlaws, the situation explosively escalates into savage tragedy…

This wagon train of wonders wraps with an epic visual treat as ‘Doug Wildey’s Rio Gallery’ re-presents covers, evocative colour illustrations, sketches and model sheets to delight every fan of the genre or just great illustration.

Gripping, authentic, and satisfyingly mythic, these tales from a lost master of his subject and his craft are some of the best westerns America has ever produced and some of the most sublime sequential art every set to paper. Go see why pilgrim…
© 2012 Ellen Wildey. All Rights Reserved. Introduction © 2012 Mark Evanier.

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Follow Me In


By Katriona Chapman (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-38-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Katriona Chapman is a story-maker who has been crafting superb tales in Small Press titles like Tiny Pencil (which she-cofounded), Comic Book Slumber Party, Ink & Paper, Save Our Souls, Deep Space Canine and her own award-winning Katzine. She draws beautifully and knows how to quietly sneak up, grab your undivided attention and never let go – and she hasn’t spent all her life sat at a desk either.

Follow Me In was her first novel-length tale (go look up Breakwater when you’re done here), combining recollections of a particularly troubling time in her life with clearly the most life-affirming and inspirational events one could hope to experience.

At the railway station, a young woman meets up with an old boyfriend. He’s a writer and she draws. It’s been years and they’re still awkward and uncomfortable in each other’s presence. They talk about the time in 2003 when they decided to trek the entire country of Mexico, north to south-east to west. Back then they were looking for themselves. As her mind goes back, she realizes she’s a lot closer to answers than he is…

This hefty yet pocket-sized (165 x 216 mm) hardcover traces that voyage with exquisite detail, relating history, culture, the sights, and most especially the actual, non-screaming headlines and bad-movie images of a young nation with thousands of years of history, architecture and archaeology: a nation that proudly boasts dozens of indigenous cultures living in relative harmony, speaking at least 68 legally recognised languages and constantly being reshaped by political turmoil. Moreover, no traveller should miss this tome – if only for the advice on bugs, minibeasts and illnesses…

Follow Me In is deftly lyrical and enchantingly enticing; a moving and intoxicating graphic assessment of a crucial time in the illustrator’s life, filled with facts, warmth and conflict, offering fascinating data on such varied topic as ‘A Selection of Mexican Foods’, ‘Learning Spanish’, ‘Travel Sketching’, ‘What’s in our Bags?’ and ‘The Conquests’, all equally compelling and useful to know. And through it all, you’ll want to know what happened to our travellers as they transition from kids to grown-ups as much as what they’ll see next in this magnetic story within a story.

Refreshing, redemptive and rewarding, this is a read to chase away all winter blues and existential glums and an experience you must not deprive yourself of.
© Katriona Chapman 2018. All rights reserved.

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Red Harvest – A Graphic Novel of the Terror Famine in 1930’s Soviet Ukraine


By Michael Cherkas (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-320-2 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-323-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because Truth is the Greatest Gift… 10/10

Generally this month varies between Halloween scary stories and material pertinent to Black History month, but today we’re looking at something that is best described as a true horror story.

In 1954 Michael Cherkas was born in Oshawa Ontario. He grew up, studying cartooning at Sheridan College in nearby Oakville, before delving deeper into the art world through Illustration and Design courses at The Ontario College of Art in Toronto. A professional graphic artist, cartoonist and art director for over three decades, he has also – with associates Larry Hancock, John van Bruggen, John Sabli’c – winningly blended social commentary with subversion and paranoic science fiction in comics and books like The Silent Invasion quartet and spin-offs The Purple Ray, The New Frontier and Suburban Nightmares.

Cherkas’ family came to Canada from Ukraine, and Red Harvest is a far more personal comics narrative: one he has taken fifteen years to tell…

The deeply personal passion project details how one prosperous, self-sufficient farming village – Zelenyi Hai – was caught up in and destroyed by the doctrinaire and utterly botched “collectivization of farming” program initiated by Josef Stalin in 1931. That triumph of dogma over logic, common sense and physical practicality stated that the principles of industrialisation be applied to farming to maximise yields, with the resultant increase being sold to the rich-but-failing capitalist nations to secure much-needed funds and resources.

It didn’t work out that way and – aggravated by inefficiency and abetted by levels of regional featherbedding and root-&-branch institutional corruption unmatched until the current British Government started handing out contracts during the Covid crisis – resulted in a wholly man-made famine that killed over five million and displaced millions more.

Ukrainians call that time in 1932 and 1933 the “Holodomor” (literally “death/murder by hunger”). The policy (or naked landgrab) was forcibly applied to the Soviet-controlled (and non-Russian) regions of eastern and central Ukraine, northern Kuban and Kazakstan, with cautious modern estimates reckoning their populations diminished by 35%. However, thanks to decades of Party gag-orders, news-editing and fact-suppression, barely anywhere else knows it ever happened…

How this graphic novel came about – and particularly the powerful illustrative style used – is discussed in Cherkas’ Introduction, and the tale is preceded by a Glossary of language used to add impact and colour to this bleak monochrome masterpiece.

A targeted investigation rather than a straight memoir, the fictionalised saga opens in 2008 as aging Canadian citizen and recently-retired farmer Mykola Kovalenko prepares for his first visit to Ukraine since leaving in 1942. The big event has made him anxious and he’s started dreaming of the past and remembering…

What follows is a compelling yet engaging narrative exposing a war crime and systematic genocide the world has been happy to forget. Rendered with wit, tact and great reserve, it adds meat to history’s bones, tracing the slow, gradual, hopeless decline and repercussions very much in the manner later employed in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. That author also knew human nature, political chicanery; he has painful inescapable truths and a bit of history…

Cherkas is astoundingly adept at giving the many contributory factors and factions human faces: by turn hopeful, enthusiastic, stoic, enduring, fanatical, ruthless, crushed, despondent and ultimately hopeless. By blending Mykola’s contemporary return with the concatenation of cozening deceptions, betrayals, mismanagements, brutally enforced separations, family divisions and stupid changes applied with ruthless inefficiency by Party Officials local and Russian, the author has shone a light on a story that never goes away and never ends happily.

Couched in terms of a family drama, Red Harvest is potent, and unforgettable: a dish we should all dip into and accept that sometimes bitterness is the best we can aspire to.

Red Harvest is © 2023 by Michael Cherkas. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Red Harvest will be released on November 14th 2023 and is available for digital and physical copy pre-orders now.

Most NBM books are available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/.