Category: Historical

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The Bluecoats volume 15: Bull Run


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-061-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (and/or Dutch-language iteration De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to supplant the irreplaceable Lucky Luke when that laconic maverick defected from weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival publication Pilote.

From its first sallies, the substitute strip swiftly became hugely popular: one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe. In case you were wondering, it is now scribed by Jose-Luis Munuera and the BeKa writing partnership and we’re up to 66 tomes…

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually adopted a more realistic – yet still overtly comedic – tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer.

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling was comedy and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou.

In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues sold alone has over 15 million copies… and counting. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains.

Here, designated The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy, honest fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen defending America during the War Between the States.

The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from second volume Du Nord au Sud, the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, perpetually fighting in the American Civil War.

All subsequent adventures – despite often ranging far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your run-of-the-mill, whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and ferociously critical of the army and its inept orchestrators and commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled and even heroic… if no easier option is available.

Chesterfield is big and burly, a professional fighting man and proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in patriotism and the esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirking his duty and hungry to be a medal-wearing hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in: a situation that once more stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment.

Coloured by Vittorio Leonardo, Les Tuniques Bleues – Bull Run was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou (#2558-2562) during 1987 and collected into another mega-selling album before the year was out. The 27th continental album, it was Cinebook’s 15th translated Bluecoats album.

Bull Run offers the creators’ trenchant and bitterly hilarious account of the infamous and calamitous first full clash between North and South, which took place on July 21st 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia. That was only 30 miles from national capital Washington DC, near the city of Manassas, from which the Confederates derived their own name for the debacle – the Battle of First Manassas.

A story within a story, it’s the account of what just happened as told by one who survived the debacle sharing confidences with a new recruit who can’t understand why nobody will speak of it…

Safely hidden away Blutch starts talking, telling how before any fighting began, President Lincoln’s generals gave the leader bad advice and pompous assurances, and a publicity campaign to recruit volunteers was badly administered. Moreover, the crisis fostered a festival atmosphere and civilians flocked to the proposed battleground to see the spectacle…

It was certainly impressive. The Union forces included not just American infantry, cavalry and artillery, but also many foreign contingents and brigades: Crimean Zouaves, Italian Garibaldians, Bavarians, Croats, Cossacks, Chinese and more. What a pity nobody drilled them in taking orders in English…

Still angry from being tricked into joining up, Blutch was already wary and could not bear to see the eagerness on the face of his glory-struck comrade Chesterfield. That’s why – when the call came from on high – he broke the habit of a lifetime and volunteered to join the proud few called on to serve drinks and refreshments to the spectators and upper ranks…

Already class divisions had appeared: the cavalry were expressly ordered not to speak to foot soldiers. That would prove catastrophically crucial as the battle unfolded and messages could not be passed…

Most telling of all, the Confederate forces were well-trained, well-disciplined and did not overconfidently consider the battle a foregone conclusion…

With carnage and confusion everywhere, Blutch’s deepest convictions are completely confirmed, and the jolly adventure becomes a complete rout, made all the worse for death-or-glory Chesterfield, who is ignominiously saved from capture or worse by his sneaky pal’s ungentlemanly behaviour and dirty tricks. That’s why the sergeant never talks about Bull Run…

Painfully cleaving to the bald facts of history, this episode is far darker than most, with the underlying horror leavened by a narrative distancing that allows ridiculously surreal black comedy and bitter satire to blossom constantly.

Combining pointedly seditious polemic with stunning slapstick, Bull Run mordantly manipulates the traditions of war stories to hammer home the point about the sheer stupidity of war and crushing cruelty of arrogant elitism. These yarns weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the best kind of war-story and Western: appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1987 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.

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(The Tragedie of) Macbeth


By William Shakespeare, adapted by K. Briggs (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-73-8 (HB)

Depending on how you liken it, William Shakespeare may be one of the most prolific comic scripters in the business. His mighty works have been staged and adapted as graphic narratives for decades in every language you might consider, and frequently allow contemporary artistic collaborators opportunity to be bold, experimental and vibrantly daring.

This is certainly the case with the lovingly crafted vision of American illustrator, performer and educator K. Briggs (Resistance, The New Chapter Tarot) who opts for colour-blind and gender-balanced casting to recount a visually striking and vivid interpretation which makes Scotland itself a player in the mix. Combining the full text with an abundance of mixed media including collage, paints, markers and pure linework, in a procession of nature-informed, magically-motif-ed page designs referencing ancient charts and maps, Illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, Tarot iconography, medical grimoires, nigh-abstract mood-enhancing tableaux and found historical artworks. These function as a moving backdrop to the actors unfolding the tale before your eyes.

What you already know: valiant general Macbeth meets three witches after saving the kingdom of his liege lord Duncan, and comes away with the notion that he will be King instead. Egged on by greed, ambition and his wife, the Thane of Cawdor personally kills the King whilst the monarch graces them with a visit. The red trail includes framing the guards and heirs and then progressively removing all threats to his reign.

However, both he and his Lady cannot escape their own consciences and the witches’ prophecy leads to delusion, disaster, derangement and death, but never glory…

As far as we can tell, Macbeth was first performed in 1606, written for Shakespeare’s patron King James I of England/VI of Scotland. It is an epic tragedy of ill-starred political ambition, the psychological costs of guilt, the consequences of betrayal and inevitability of tyranny, all wrapped up in veneer of supernatural horror.

The story is one of the greatest in world literature, but also a studied hatchet job, with the Bard shamelessly currying favour by ignoring facts and bigging up James’ distant ancestor and antecedent Macduff. The text first appeared in print in the Folio of 1623, but there have been plenty of editions since then.

The immortal story has frequently made it into comics form. If you’re one of the precious few people unfamiliar with the tale in its intended format (firstly, shame on you and secondly, go watch it right now; there are many excellent filmed versions in every possible language), this imaginatively welcoming rendition is extremely enthralling and powerful…

Moreover, the plot lends itself to many eras and milieux. You may even have already enjoyed it in epics as varied as Joe MacBeth (UK 1951), Throne of Blood (Japan 1957), Teenage Gang Debs (USA 1966), Men of Respect (USA 1991), and Mandaar (India 2021), amongst so many more interpretations – or even thematically as Blackadder Season 1…

Maybe you have seen it all before, but this is better….

Or if you will permit, “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something Wicked your way comes…”
© K. Briggs, 2023. All rights reserved.

Macbeth will be published on 23rd July 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

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Last of the Dragons


By Carl Potts, Denny O’Neil, Terry Austin, Marie Severin & various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80357-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

The creative renaissance in comics during the 1980s resulted in some utterly wonderful stand-alone sagas which shone briefly and brightly – within what was still a largely niche industry – before passing from view as the business and art form battled spiralling costs, declining readerships and the perverse and pervasive attitude in the wider world that comic books were a ghetto and the natural province of mutants, morons and farm animals (I’m paraphrasing).

Unlike today, way back then the majority of grown-ups considered superheroes adolescent power fantasies or idle wish-fulfilment for the uneducated or disenfranchised, so an entertainment industry perceived as largely made up of men in tights hitting each other got very little notice in the wider world of popular fiction.

That all changed with the rise of comics’ Direct Sales Market. With its carefully targeted approach to selling, specialist vendors in dedicated emporia had leeway to allow frustrated creators to cut loose and experiment with other genres – and even formats.

All the innovation back then led inexorably to today’s high-end, thoroughly respectable graphic novel market which – with suitable and fitting circularity – is now gathering and re-circulating many breakthrough tales from those times, and not as poorly distributed serials but in satisfyingly complete stand-alone proper books.

Marvel was the unassailable front-runner in purveying pamphlet fiction back then, outselling all rivals and monopolising the lucrative licensed properties market (like Star Wars and Indiana Jones) which had once been the preserve of the Whitman/Dell/Gold Key colossus. This boosted a zeitgeist which proved that for open-minded readers, superheroes were not the only fruit…

As the Direct Sales market hit an early peak, Marvel unleashed its own rights-friendly creator-owned fantasy periodical in response to overwhelming success amongst older readers of Heavy Metal magazine. Lush, slick and lavish, HM had even brought a new, music-&- literature based audience to graphic narratives…

That response was Epic Illustrated: an anthological magazine offering stunning art and an anything-goes attitude – unhindered by the censorious Comics Code Authority – which saw everything from adaptations of Moorcock’s Elric and Harlan Ellison novellas to ‘The Last Galactus Story’, the debuts of comic book stars-in-the-making like Vanth Dreadstar and Cholly and Flytrap, plus numerous close-ended sagas which would become forerunners of today’s graphic novel industry.

These serialised yarns of finite duration included Rick Veitch’s Abraxas and the Earthman, Claremont & Bolton’s Marada the She-Wolf and a fabulously enchanting East-meets-West period fantasy entitled Last of the Dragons…

The fable was conceived by then-newcomer Carl Potts, who plotted and pencilled a globe-trotting drama for Denny O’Neil to script, before inker Terry Austin and colourist Marie Severin finished the art for Jim Novak to inscribe with a flourish of typographical verve.

The stylish opus ran intermittently in Epic Illustrated #15 through #20 (October 1982 to the end of 1983) and was collected in 1988 as a Marvel Graphic Novel under the Epic Comics aegis in the expansively extravagant, oversized European Album format: a square, high-gloss package which delivered so much more bang-per-buck than a standard comic.

Thankfully Dover retained those generous visual proportions for their glorious 2016 edition which begins with ‘The Sundering’: opening in grudgingly-changing feudal Japan of the late 19th century where aged master swordsman Masanobu peacefully meditates in the wilderness…

His Zen-like calm and solemn contemplation are callously shattered by a callow, arrogantly aggressive warrior who rudely attacks a beautiful dragon basking nearby in the sun. These magnificent reptiles are gentle, noble creatures, but the foolish samurai is hungry for glory and soon takes his bloody trophy…

After the arrogant victor has left, Masonobu meets Ho-Kan, a priestly caretaker of Dragons. The youth is overcome with horror and misery at such brutal sacrilege, but worse is to come. When the tearful cleric heads back to his temple home, he stumbles upon a corrupt faction of his brother monks covertly conditioning young forest Wyrms; shockingly brutalising them to deny their true natures and kill on (human) command…

‘The Vision’ sees traumatised Ho-Kan returned to the temple too late: ambitious, reactionary monk Shonin has returned from a journey to the outer world gripped by an appalling revelation. He has divined that the quiescent Dragons must be used to preserve Japan from outside influence – especially the insidious changes threatened by the encroaching white man’s world. In fact he has already been training the creatures to be his shock-troops…

When the elders object, Shonin’s zealots slaughter all the protesting monks before embarking for the barbarous wilds of America where they will breed and train an army of killer lizards in the lap of and under the very noses of the enemy. Ho-Kan is one of precious few of the pious to escape the butchery and vows to stop the madness somehow…

A meditative vision shows him Takashi: a half-breed boy whose Christian sailor father abandoned him. The juvenile outcast was eventually adopted by the Iga ninja clan and became a great fighter. Somehow he holds the key to defeating Shonin…

‘The Departure’ sees Ho-Kan hire the Iga to stop the corrupted monks but, when he tries to enlist Masanobu, Shonin’s acolytes capture him. Under torture all is revealed, and the debauched clerics trick the sword-master into fighting the ninjas for them. After despatching all but Takashi, the monks “invite” Masanobu to join them in the West. The elderly swordsman has no idea the saurian beasts he guards are hopelessly degraded monsters now.

‘The Arrival’ sees the monks and their hidden cargo sailing for California, unaware that an enigmatic “half-breed” has enlisted on a ship closely following. Sole surviving Iga ninja Takashi is bound in his duty and hungry for vengeance. He will not be denied…

When the priests disembark on a remote bay on the American coast their plan to slaughter the sailors and Masanobu goes badly awry after a baby dragon escapes. In the ensuing melee the aged warrior realises the true state of play and flees into the forests.

The First Nation tribes of the Californian forests are helpless before the martial arts and war-dragons of Shonin, until – in ‘The Meeting’ – they meet vengeful Takashi hot on the dragon-lords’ trail. After proving his prowess in combat by defeating the indigenous fighters, he joins with the braves, stalking the monks until they encounter Masanobu who is also determined to end this dishonourable travesty once and for all…

All of which results in a tumultuous and breathtakingly spectacular climax in ‘The Decision’ as the disparate factions collide, clashing one last time to forever decide the fate of a nation, the nature of a species and the future of heroes…

Rounding out this superb resurrection is a splendid and informative treasure trove of extra features comprising creator biographies, sample script pages, art breakdowns layouts, pencilled pages, promo art and portfolio illustrations and an effulgent, fondly reminiscent, informative Afterword from Potts – then embroiled in the laborious process of transferring Last of the Dragons from page to screen…

In its small way, this sublimely engaging pioneering prototype martial arts fantasy did much to popularise and normalise the Japanese cultural idiom at a time of great tumult and transition in the comics business but more important than that, it still reads superbly well today.

This is a magically compelling tale for fantasy fans and mature readers: an utterly delightful cross-genre romp to entice newcomers and comics neophytes whilst simultaneously beguiling dedicated connoisseurs and aficionados renewing an old acquaintance.
© 1982, 1988, 2015 Carl Potts. All rights reserved.

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Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter


By Oscar Zárate (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-07-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Oscar Zárate was born in Argentina in 1942. After studying architecture he worked in advertising until 1971, at which time, like so many other countrymen, he migrated to Europe. Restarting his life and career, his design and painting jobs were augmented from 1977 onwards by illustrating histories of scientific and political luminaries (the …For Beginners and Introducing… series). This led to his adapted literary graphic novels Othello (1983) and Dr. Faustus (1986). A year later he collaborated with Alexei Sayle on Geoffrey the Tube Train and the Fat Comedian and in 1991 the award-winning A Small Killing, written by Alan Moore. He also produced socially active comics strips for Fleetway’s Crisis magazine.

A creator of intellect, passion and sensitivity, Zárate has always delivered far more than expected and in his latest magnum opus advances the potential of graphic biography by combining the avowed popular rediscovery of outsider English Master Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter with a compelling (hopefully, largely fictionalised) drama. The players are three modern day artistic apprentices, devout and dedicated yet adrift and floundering in their own highly personalised searches for integrity and eternal truths. Ultimately, they all finally find ways forward by looking back to a rebel genius inexplicably sidelined by history…

Arturo, Sarah and Fred are all mature-student artists who meet up at a weekly life drawing class in London. Each is passionate about their pastime but cannot escape the crippling pressures their regular lives bring. Arturo is from Argentina and still carries self-inflicted scars of betrayal and failure, as well as the shame of having escaped terror at the cost of his family. It makes him seem gruff, distrusting, weary and cynical …

Architect and imminent grandmother-to-be Sarah is crippled by a different kind of guilt: perpetually wracked by how she is not good enough at anything she does. This recently remanifested when her greatest friend from art school reached out after decades of silence and separation. Back then, Sarah had abandoned and ghosted her on the cusp of success and greatness and has ever since writhed in the torment of debilitating guilt only Catholicism can (self) inflict.

Poor Fred is perhaps the most troubled: an honest, fair-minded worker who accidentally uncovered high levels of tax fraud at work. Even after losing his job because of it, he is still being pilloried: on one side pursued by a journalist who wants him to become a whistle-blower and on the other by a gang of heavies his former bosses hired to ensure his silence…

For nearly a year the trio have gradually become friends, discussing art in after-class pub sessions. Now Fred has become an impassioned zealot with a new love. He’s discovered an 18th century genius who changed the shape of English watercolour painting and then simply vanished from public view and memory.

It’s an injustice Fred is determined to set right…

The story of Thomas Girtin is woven throughout their cumulative tale. He is an intriguing mystery and shining exemplar whose gradually reconstructed history inspires each modern-day acolyte to change the course of their own life. Arturo finds strength from the tragically ill-starred artist’s resolve and courage at a time of widespread and earthshaking political unrest: an outright proudly rebel republican in an avidly monarchist nation, despising, decrying and working against the patronage system that supported his work and kept him in luxury.

Sarah finds inspiration in the driven quest for an almost-mystical connection to Nature and a higher truth. Young Girtin was a contemporary, rival and friend of latterday English icon JMW Turner, and at the turn of the 18th century was rapidly growing in renown. Already recognised as a groundbreaking pioneer outselling his old schoolmate in the cutthroat and exploitative art scene of the day, Girtin never rested, but continually strove to capture the fundamental revelations of reality.

That all ended with his early death in 1802, aged 27. Crucially for Sarah, in his search for the truth of time and the cosmos, Girtin martyred himself: dying due to his own obsessive compulsion to capture the elements in all their ferocious fury and restorative glories…

As for Fred, Girtin’s life increasingly becomes his own. Resurrecting and redeeming the lost painter’s reputation and sharing his mastery with the world becomes his reason for living, driving him to make a pilgrimage in Girtin’s footsteps and thereafter reorder the course of his own remaining years…

The twinned stories are subtly and smoothly presented by Zárate using two different styles of illustrative painting; mixing modern-day pastel tones with stark, sepia-tinted historical episodes that reveal – in his and his characters’ eyes at least – who Girtin was and how he lived, thrived and died.

As this monumental tome unfolds and tellingly argues for Girtin’s popular revival and reassessment, the most convincing asset in that campaign are the beautiful original Girtin works. The reproductions of his greatest triumphs – “View near Beddgelert”, “Estuary of the River Taw, Devon”, “Storiths Heights” and his undisputed masterpiece “The White House at Chelsea” – are judiciously folded into the text and include a selection of large gatefold images.

This is a book about Art and a story of artists, operating on the principle that what we see which moves us, we need to share. Once the story’s done here, that can be easily first facilitated by reading erudite and engaging endpiece ‘Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) An Afterword’ by Dr Greg Smith, (Senior Research Fellow, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art) and the attendant Acknowledgements, Permissions, and copious Bibliography sections.

You can always check him out yourself. There are many places online to see Girtin’s work, and even a few museums, if you’re pushy. Then go tell a like-minded friend.
© Oscar Zárate 2023. All rights reserved.

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Mingus


By Flavio Massarutto & Squaz, translated by Nanette McGuiness (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-309-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-310-3

Charles Mingus Jr. was born on April 22nd 1922 in Nogales, Arizona. He was a musical prodigy perpetually held back and frustrated by the response of other people to the colour of his skin. “The Angry Man of Jazz” died in January 1979, having battled all his life whilst composing and performing some of the most groundbreaking music of all time. When you hear some you will either love it or loathe it.

That’s the facts. Anything else you need can be found on Wikipedia or in countless books written about – or by – him…

That kind of dry data isn’t what this celebration is about. Instead, journalist and author Flavio Massarutto and magazine illustrator/educator/graphic novelist Pasquale Todisco – AKA Squaz (Toutes les obsessions de Victor, Diabolik, Pandemonio) – have successfully captured the feeling and flavour of the man and his music, crafting visual cuts of key moments to make a conceptual album of his embattled existence and lasting legacy.

‘Track 1: Eclipse’ focuses on 1940 and a Hollywood backlot where extras in a cheap jungle picture discuss the appalling conditions in their other job. Once more, Charlie advocates merging their union with a white one…

The man is driven. Nothing in life keeps him from the world of words and music inside his head for long…

‘Track 2: Pithecanthropus Erectus’ finds him in New York City in 1956, meeting music critic Nat Hentoff and sharing his ideology and inspiration. It’s taken from the latest release for the astounding Charlie Mingus Jazz Workshop. Two years later and jobbing composer and film scorer Mingus almost yields to commercial pressures in ‘Track 3: Nostalgia in Times Square’…

An activist and resister all his life, the small victories against institutionalised racism start to build as the performer makes waves at the Antibes Juan-les-pins Festival 1960 in ‘Track 4: What Love’. The seduction of the senses crafted throughout comes in waves of limited-colour palette comic snippets, blending reportage with fantasy sequences and is here augmented by Squaz’s reproductions of classic Mingus record sleeve designs.

Here The Clown, Tijuana Moods, Mingus Dynasty and Blues and Roots bring us to the height of the Civil Rights revolution as ‘Track 5: Fables of Faubus’ depicts the response to Arkansas State Governor Orval Faubus closing schools to black students…

With war officially declared, the relentlessly impassioned and driven musician pushed ever deeper into music and social justice before ‘Track 6: Self-portrait in Three Colors’ details how it all proved too much. However, after referring himself to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric assessment, Mingus was caught in racist red tape and only barely escaped an illegal lobotomy…

One of the jazz man’s greatest sins in the eyes of supremacists was miscegenation. Mingus’ relationships with white women (he married two of them) was apparently fed by a drive to unite eternally divided polarities and is addressed in metaphor via ‘Track 7: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady’, after which ‘Track 8: Passions Of A Man’ jumps to the end days when inevitable fame and success were marred by declining health.

Unable to perform on his beloved bass, Mingus moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico for treatment and ultimately surrendered to “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” (ALS). The hallucinogenic end is pictured with grace and wonder before a posthumous scattering of his ashes in the Ganges, all seen through the eyes of his widow Susan Mingus (née Graham)…

The lasting importance of the man is seen from a child’s perspective in ‘Track 9: Epitaph’ before the soul of Mingus is displayed in ‘Bonus Track: Sophisticated Lady’. Harking back to 1972, it shows a true and perfect moment as a concert at Yale is disrupted by a hoax bomb threat. With the hall evacuated and cops trying to hustle him out, Mingus ignores everything and keeps on playing…

Accompanying the conceptual wild ride, an author’s Afterword shares Massarutto’s take on the project and this volume also includes suggestions for further enjoyment in what ‘To Read’, ‘To Hear’ and ‘To See’…

Just like its subject matter, Mingus follows a radical muse, eschews fact and formula and takes us into the heart and soul of a giant, both scary and almost beyond understanding.

This intensely personal assessment and interpretation is less a biography and more a heartfelt paean of appreciation, channelling and exploring the hard, harsh tone of troubled times where talented, dogged souls fought for recognition and survival in a world determined to exploit and consume them.
© 2021 Coconino Press. © 2021 Flavio Massarutto, Squaz. © 2023 NBM for the English version.

Mingus will be published in August 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

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

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Viking Glory: The Viking Prince


By Lee Marrs & Bo Hampton, lettered by Tracey Hampton-Munsey (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-001-7 (HB) 978-1-56389-007-9 (TPB)

During the intentionally anodyne mid-1950s, when superheroes languished in a seemingly inescapable trough, comic book companies looked to different forms of leading men for their action heroes. Following movie trends, in 1955 writer/editor Robert Kanigher devised an adventure comic entitled The Brave and the Bold featuring historical action strips.

Illustrated by Russ Heath, The Golden Gladiator was set in the declining days of Imperial Rome. Courtesy of veteran draughtsman Irv Novick, Silent Knight fought injustice in post-Norman Invasion Britain and the already-legendary Joe Kubert limned the increasingly astounding and uncanny exploits of a valiant young Norseman dubbed the Viking Prince.

This last strip appeared in all but one issue (#6), before eventually taking over the entire comic, until the burgeoning superhero resurgence of the Silver Age saw B&B metamorphose into a try-out title from its 25th issue.

Those fanciful, “Hollywood-styled” Viking sagas are some of the finest fantasy comics of all time and long overdue for a definitive archival collection of their own. Star character Jon has long been a fan-favourite, regularly returning in DC’s war titles and guest-starring in such varied venues as Sgt. Rock and Justice League of America.

This beautiful, vital and enchanting tale was released to very little fanfare or editorial support in 1991, yet remains a worthy sequel to those early strips and is also long overdue for revival and re-issue…

Scripter Lee Marrs (Pudge: Girl Blimp, Wimmen’s Comix, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Pre-teen, Dirty-Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos, Indiana Jones) took all the advances in our historical knowledge since the 1950s and blended them with the timeless basics of a Classical Edda to entrancing effect. Amidst a culture vibrantly brought to full life by her words and hyper-realist Bo Hampton’s awesome skill with a paintbrush, Marrs took a passionate but reserved traditional archetype and remade him as a fiery young hero of devastating charm, brimming with the boisterous vigour of his mythic breed, before confronting him with his worst nightmare.

In 10th century Scandinavia, Jon Rolloson – heir to Jarl Rollo of Gallund – is an ideal Northman’s son: fast, tough, fearless and irresistible to all the village maidens. However, the greatest horror of his 16 years has finally come for him: an arranged marriage for political advantage. He must leave his home and the Viking life to wed a “Civilised” princess. His joyous days are all done…

Princess Asa of Hedeby is a young beauty every inch his match in vigour and vitality, but also as composed and smart as he is coarse and oafish. Sadly, someone is stealthily seeking to thwart the match, even though Jon’s boorishness is enough to give both fathers cause to reconsider. Following the first meeting, only the Viking Prince’s rash vow to recover a lost rune treasure and slay a fearsome dragon preserves the bargain. The wedding will proceed… once he has found and killed Ansgar, the vilest of all Fire-Wyrms, and not perished in the process…

As well as being a superb scripter of comics, Marrs is an underground cartoonist legend, animator and computer artist who assisted Hal Foster on that other sword-wielding epic Prince Valiant. Her grasp of human character – especially comedically – elevates this classic tale of romantic endeavour into a multi-faceted gem of captivating quality. Hampton has created some of the best drawn or painted comics in the medium (like Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Verdilak, Swamp Thing, Moon Knight, Greylore, Demons of Sherwood, Batman: Castle of the Bat, The Once and Future Tarzan) and this book is probably still the very best of them.

One of the most accomplished and enjoyable historical romances ever produced in comic form, Viking Glory deserves to be on every fan’s bookshelf. Let’s hope that it’s on DC’s shortlist for a swift re-release in both printed parchment and aetheric electrons…
© 1991 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Darkly She Goes


By Hubert & Vincent Mallié, coloured by Bruno Tatti & Clémentine Guivarc’h: translated by L Benson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-313-4 (HB) eISBN 978-1-68112-314-1

Hubert Boulard was born on January 21st 1971 in Saint-Renan, Brittany. Graduating from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers in 1994, he began his far too short comics career as  artist for seasoned pros such as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and others. He was also highly regarded as a colourist, and in 2002 became a triple threat by writing for many top artists.

He began with Legs de l’alchimiste – limned by Herve Tanquerelle – followed by Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim and Miss Pas Touche/Miss Don’t Touch Me – rendered by Kerascoët and many more. Awards piled up as he steered 14 internationally renowned and celebrated series, including Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire?

An activist by nature, in 2013 Hubert helmed and contributed to groundbreaking collective graphic volume Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage and a factor in the proposal becoming law…

His last book was with artist Zanzim: posthumously published in June 2020 soon after his death. Still unavailable in English, Peau d’homme comedically explores gender and sexuality at the height of Europe’s Europe’s medieval religious intolerance and social stratification.

Hubert frequently utilised such eras of “blood and iron” as a backdrop, and Darkly She Goes again confronts modern perceptions and standards via an adventure-based scenario readily recognisable to adults and children alike.

Epic in scope and spectacular in content, the tale is illustrated by Vincent Mallié: a two volume saga entitled Ténébreuse. It was published after the author’s passing and is combined here into one monumental tome.

Born in Paris in 1973, Mallié initially studied economics and history before joining an atelier in 1992 to learn about comics and graphic design. Whilst working as a storyboarder in 1996, he created – with schoolmate Joël Parnotte – a short story that grew into the popular Hong Kong Triad series.

They followed up with sci fi romp Les Aquanautes before Vincent collaborated with Jér?me Félix on L’Arche (2003-2007). Later endeavours include Le Grande Mort with Régis Loisel (2007-2019), reviving and enhancing established serial La Quête de l’Oiseau du Temps (with Loisel & Serge le Tendre) and more.

His staggeringly potent imagery here is augmented by the painterly gifts of Bruno Tatti and latterly Clémentine Guivarc’h, combining to build a painfully authentic feudal world where blood and mud and steel and sinew believably share space with fantastic beasts, sorcery and deviltry of all kinds…

The story opens as disgraced knight Arzhur drunkenly clashes again with former comrades, before being patched up by his inexplicably faithful squire Youenn. Despite the warrior’s best efforts to destroy himself, his life is about to change radically as he has been singled out by a trio of cunning witches…

They have a quest for Arzhur to fulfil: a noble deed that can’t help but expiate his past sins and redeem his reputation – maybe even restore his fortune too. All he must do is save a captive princess from imprisonment in a dark, dank dungeon. Fame, wealth and honour can be his again…

Sadly, the salvation- and honour-obsessed paladin is being played for a sucker, and after blazing in and butchering a dragon, discovers the fair maiden is very much there of her own free will. In fact, Arzhur has slaughtered Princess Islen’s protector, a noble creature keeping her from being seduced and suborned by three mystic hags. They seek to use the captive exile’s inherent power for their own dark designs…

As the fallen knight escorts his unwilling prize back to her father King Goulvan, her story – couched in grief-stricken tones and fiery terms – reveals how Islen’s supernatural mother Meliren was once the undisputed Queen of Evil. She raised a simple man to the highest estate in the land but his elevation could not offset her dark nature or schemes. The unholy marriage spawned a child, but their warring natures soon drove them apart and war broke out over custody of the princess. Thanks to a magic sword and Islen herself, Meliren was destroyed, but after her defeat, her mystic forces transferred to her child, manifested as a terrifying Butterfly Crown and ability to control beasts.

For the safety of all Islen removed herself from the world but the temptation of her legacy meant that ambition and fear gripped all who knew of her…

When Arzhur brings her home, instead of royal joy and rich rewards, he is cast into a dungeon whilst the King rapidly tries to marry his problem child off – preferably to someone living far, far away. Meanwhile, his second wife – fearing for her own son’s claim to the throne – seeks to convince the populace that the demon child is better off dead…

Faced with such appalling betrayal, the princess angrily taps into her power and the three witches see their dark design falling into place…

With the castle under siege by the animal kingdom, Islen liberates Arzhur and they flee, carrying with them the magic sword and invincible armour Meliren gave Goulvan, blissfully unaware of the tragic human cost of their escape…

With Clémentine Guivarc’h providing colour-art assistance, Part Two begins as the fugitives put as much distance as possible between them and the kingdom, even as the three witches actively seek to push Islen further into anger and depravity. Loathing, passion and duty have already led the princess and fallen knight into a carnal mistake and every close call with pursuers pushes her deeper into the seductive coils of sorcerous forces.

Their shaky plan is to hide in Arzhur’s rural homeland, but all too soon, the burden of the knight’s original failure and disgrace, plus his sordid past with most of the region’s young women, makes them a target of self-righteous paladins ready to believe the salacious slanders of the whispering witches.

Their tenuous sanctuary becomes a death trap when Goulvan’s armies invade and the witches possess Islen to complete their decades long plot. Ultimately, the princess must fight for her soul – and perhaps true love – in a sorcerous duel revealing how little anyone can understand – or trust – parents and learn that in life it’s always a case of devils taking the hindmost…

An epic fantasy and deadly dark fairy tale for adults, Darkly She Goes turns narrative conventions on their heads in a sharp and wry exploration of heroism, honour and self-reliance that is the perfect antidote for anodyne and saccharine bedtime stories.

Ténébreuse © 2021-2022 Dupuis – Mallié/Hubert. All rights reserved. © 2014 NBM For the English translation.

Darkly She Goes will be published on June 14th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

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

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Trent volume 6: The Sunless Country


By Rodolphe & Léo, coloured by Marie-Paule Alluard, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-396-3 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Continental audiences adore the mythologised American experience, both in Big Sky Wild Westerns and later eras of crime dramas. They also have a profound historical connection to the northernmost parts of the New World, generating many great graphic extravaganzas…

Born in Rio de Janeiro on December 13th 1944, “Léo” is artist/storyteller Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira Filho. After attaining a degree in mechanical engineering from Puerto Alegre in 1968, he was a government employee for three years until forced to flee the country because of his political views.

Whilst military dictators ran Brazil, he lived in Chile and Argentina before illegally returning to his homeland in 1974. He worked as a designer and graphic artist in Sao Paulo whilst creating his first comics art for O Bicho magazine, and in 1981 migrated to Paris to pursue a career in Bande Dessinée. He found work with Pilote and L’Echo des Savanes as well as more advertising and graphic design jobs, until the big break came and Jean-Claude Forest (Bébé Cyanure, Charlot, Barbarella) invited him to draw stories for Okapi.

This led to regular illustration work for Bayard Presse and, in 1988, Léo began an association with scripter/scenarist Rodolphe D. Jacquette – AKA Rodolphe. The prolific, celebrated writing partner had been a giant of comics since the 1970s: a Literature graduate who left teaching and running libraries to create poetry, criticism, novels, biographies, children’s stories and music journalism.

On meeting Jacques Lob in 1975, Jacquette expanded his portfolio: writing for many artists in magazines ranging from Pilote and Circus to à Suivre and Métal Hurlant. Amongst his most successful endeavours are Raffini (with Ferrandez) and L’Autre Monde (with Florence Magnin), but his triumphs in all genres and age ranges are far too numerous to list here.

In 1991 “Rodolph” began working with Léo on a period adventure of the “far north” starring a duty-driven loner. Taciturn, introspective, bleakly philosophical and pitilessly driven, Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Philip Trent premiered in L’Homme Mort, forging a lonely path through the 19th century Dominion. He starred in eight moving, hard-bitten, love-benighted, beautifully realised albums until 2000, with the creative collaboration sparking later fantasy classics Kenya, Centaurus and Porte de Brazenac…

Cast very much in the pattern perfected by Jack London and John Buchan, Trent is a man of few words, deep thoughts and unyielding principles who gets the job done whilst stifling the emotional turmoil boiling within him: the very embodiment of “still waters running deep”…

Le Pays sans soleil was the 6th saga, debuting in 1998, offering an arduous, chillingly bleak examination of family and duty with the Mountie going slowly mad amidst the extremes of human existence. Posted to the arctic circle where night lasts for weeks, he’s been left behind by fellow officers Charlie and Vaughan, as they conduct an inspection of the region.

Manning the outpost – a simple log cabin and ever-expanding graveyard – Trent whiles away the relentless, timeless, unending gloom of interminable hours by keeping his journal and wondering when his own sanity will sunder. If he hadn’t been blessed with canine company (he’s called “Dog”) the peacekeeper would be completely crazy by now…

Darkness and unyielding environment call to him like a siren, and as he continually returns to the latest grave – occupied by RCMP officer Sergeant James McBruce – Trent again wonders if he can hold out until daylight or his colleagues come back…

Whenever he feels most embattled Trent recalls the last visit with Agnes when – after years of second-guessing, procrastination and prevarication – he finally declared his love for the widow… and she accepted his proposal of marriage.

Years previously, he had saved Agnes St. Yves – but not her beloved brother – and was given a clear invitation from her: one he never acted upon. Eventually, Philip made a his decision and travelled across the country with marriage in mind, only to learn she had stopped waiting and wed someone else.

More time elapsed and they met again when her husband was killed during an horrific murder spree. The ball was again in Philip’s court and once more he fumbled it through timidity, indecision and inaction. He retreated into duty, using work to evade commitment and the risk of rejection…

His dreamlike reverie is suddenly shattered when Dog hears an intruder. In the icy darkness outside Trent finds a dying native whose last words reveal someone else is lost in the wastes, slowly expiring in an igloo…

Fired by duty and threat to life, Mountie and mutt brave the ebony vastness and eventually find the frozen bolthole. At first glance, they’re too late: only the body of a native woman is there. Dog, however keeps worrying the corpse, and Trent finds it is wrapped around a still living baby. A white baby…

Wracked by mystery and with no proper food for the infant, Trent improvises from his cobbled-together stores before setting out to walk back to civilisation with the orphan but his trek due south towards the sun and warmth soon becomes complicated. Dogging his tracks is an enigmatic stranger, maintaining a steady pace yet never stopping. At the moment Trent first sees a sunrise, the stalker strikes, using that moment of joyous release to swoop in and steal the child.

The kidnapper correctly assessed that the weary officer could not catch him, but completely misjudged how Dog would react to a threat to his “family”…

One mystery is solved and an even greater one – fraught with misapprehension and mistake – then unfolds as the baby snatcher – white journalist James Dunwood – explains that the child is his daughter Mary Little Moon and the woman in the igloo must have been his wife Four Rivers…

As they trek south, Dunwood explains how both had been abducted from the camp of Cree chief Old Storm. After a reporting assignment turned personal, James had relinquished his career for love. He joined the First Nations tribe, but his romantic idyl was shattered when white trader Duncan started selling booze to the Indians and fomented war when Old Storm intervened.

In retaliation, Duncan and his renegades abducted Four Rivers and her newborn, heading north with Dunwood in pursuit. He never quite caught up as they pushed ever deeper into polar regions… and now his beloved was gone.

James couldn’t be more wrong, and as his tragic tale closes, Trent is left holding the baby. He is determined to make things right for Mary Little Moon – and this time, there’s a modicum of happy news to ameliorate the horrors and injustice the Mountie usually wades through in pursuit of justice…

Moreover, as he unravels the morass of confusion and solves the crimes, Philip bonds with the child. Worst of all, upon returning her to the proper guardians, he meets someone who makes him briefly forget all about Agnes…

Another beguilingly introspective voyage of internal discovery, where environment and locale are as much lead characters as hero and villain, The Sunless Country delivers action, endeavour, suspense and poignant drama in a compelling epic to delight all fans of widescreen cinematic entertainment.
Original edition © Dargaud Editeur Paris 1998 by Rodolphe & Leo. All rights reserved. English translation © 2017 Cinebook Ltd.

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Lucky Luke volume 31 – Lucky Luke versus the Pinkertons


By Achdé, Daniel Pennac & Tonino Benacquista, in the style of Morris: coloured by Anne-Marie Ducasse, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-098-6 (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 spin-off series, with sales thus far totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has led to a mountain of merchandise, aforementioned tie-in series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, plus toys, computer games, animated cartoons, a plethora of 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 laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American émigré Rene Goscinny. With Rene 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 died 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 …as in this tale from 2010 which so neatly fits the week’s theme of “detective fiction”…

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 beginning in 1972 with Brockhampton Press, and continuing with Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally and thankfully found the way in 2006.

The taciturn trailblazer regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions, and interpretations. That’s used to sublime effect in Lucky Luke contre Pinkerton released as Cinebook’s 31st album in 2011, but only latterly added to the official continental cannon.

In France, it had graced Le Journal de Spirou #3779-3784 before being compiled and released as the 4th edition of sub-strand Les Aventures de Lucky Luke d’après Morris.

Since the Europeans take their comics seriously – especially the funny ones – they aren’t afraid to be bold or brave and this riotous romp cheekily plays with established chronology and even employs creative anachronism to carry an edged – if not actually barbed – pop at government oversight, the rise of a surveillance state and arguments pro and con concerning necessary evils and zealous protections versus plain old liberty and equality…

In America, Abraham Lincoln has just been elected President . The world is changing and modernity looms, but the nefarious Daltons think nothing of it until a train robbery goes hideously awry.

Instead of their usual duel with Lucky Luke they are ambushed and arrested by an army of detectives employed by iconoclastic, ambitious lawman Allan Pinkerton. The detective then begins a publicity campaign trumpeting that the day of the gifted amateur is done and that Lucky is passe and over the hill…

Untroubled by all the modern foolishness, Luke busies himself hunting a counterfeiting gang but thinks again when Pinkerton pips him to the post and abrasively tells him that from now on, there will be no room for amateurs…

Egotistically sharing his cutting edge crimefighting scheme, Pinkerton unveils modern incarceration, rapid communications, intelligence-led pre-emptive investigation, forensic methodology and ruthless methods of “interrogation” – and operates on the principle that everyone is guilty of something…

He’s compiling incriminating dossiers on everyone, with his legion of detectives building an (analogue) database holding all those dark secrets in one secure office.

Pinkerton’s authority comes from Lincoln, who has made the innovator his chief of security, unaware of the detective’s own vaulting ambition – which includes acting as an agent provocateur and manufacturing threats against PotUS. Lucky sticks to his guns and the old moral ways and battlelines are drawn…

Initially, everything seems to go the way of the moderniser, but his success proves his undoing when a sudden influx of arrests fills all the prisons and the Daltons are given early release to make room. With turmoil gripping the nation and Lincoln’s popularity plunging, Pinkerton seems unassailable until unrepentant recidivist Joe Dalton cherry picks modern ordnance and applies old fashioned predatory behaviour to beat Pinkerton at his own game.

The little monster is particularly impressed by that huge store of files and calculates how much most decent people will pay to keep their secrets unexposed…

Happily Lucky Luke also cherishes the old ways and is ready to set things right his way…

A wickedly wry exploration of the other side of the investigation game, Lucky Luke versus the Pinkertons blends fun and adventure with some salient views of where we’ve been and where we’re going in our ever more urgent quest for safety and security. Nevertheless, the yarn also revels in classic set-piece slapstick and witty wordplay: poking fun at the fundamental components of the genre and successfully embracing tradition with action in another wildly entertaining all-ages confection.
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe: A Trilogy of Crime


Adapted by Tom DeHaven & Rian Hughes; Jerome Charyn & David Lloyd; James Rose, Lee Moyer & Alfredo Alcala, & various (iBooks)
ISBN: 978-0-7434-7489-4 (HB), 978-1-59687-839-6 (TPB 2016 edition)

If you’re going to adapt classic, evocative crime stories into graphic narrative there really isn’t no better source material than Chandler. This follow-up to the adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe: The Little Sister was last reissued in 2016 as Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe: The Graphic Novel: once again the fruit of comics visionary Byron Preiss.

It adroitly adapts three short tales from the master of hard-boiled fiction. Significantly, they are all rendered in a variety of unique and impressive styles by an international array of top-flight creators…

Opening the show is ‘Goldfish’, first published in 1949 and the writer’s ninth short story sale. It preceded his first Marlowe novel by three years and is here adapted by Tom DeHaven (Green Candles, It’s Superman!) & lettered by Willie Schubert. The stylish illustration comes courtesy of British designer/artist Rian Hughes (Dare, I Am a Number) using muted colour tones that have only the merest hint of hue to them. The effect is powerfully evocative and atmospheric.

When former cop Kathy Horne sidles into the tough guy’s seedy office, she brings a tale of lost pearls, an absconded convict and a huge reward just waiting to be claimed. Dragged far out of his comfort zone and sent up and down the Pacific Seaboard, our world-weary shamus is just steps ahead of sadistic, casually murderous Carol Donovan and her gang of thugs in a superb thriller of double-cross and double-jeopardy…

Next up is ‘The Pencil’, scripted by award-winning mystery novelist Jerome Charyn (Isaac Sidel series, The Magician’s Wife, New York Cannibals), brilliantly rendered by British comics legend David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Hellblazer, Wasteland, Aces Weekly) in moody, dry-brush black and white, and lettered by long-term collaborator Elitta Fell. This was Chandler’s 21st – and final – Marlowe adventure, published posthumously in 1959, shortly after the author’s death. You might know it as Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate, Wrong Pigeon or even Philip Marlowe’s Last Case.

Hollywood 1955: Ikky Rossen is a bad man, a career gangster and mob leg-breaker. When he crosses his bosses he hopes Marlowe can get him safely out of the City of Angels before The Organization’s East Coast “button men” send him to Hell. Marlowe knows these are people to be avoided at all costs and only one thing is always true: everybody lies…

Closing the casebook – and somewhat ill-considered and misplaced to my mind – is ‘Trouble is My Business’ as interpreted by James Rose (Thundercats, Savage sword of Conan), Lee Moyer (Starstruck, Dungeons & Dragons) & Alfredo Alcala (Voltar, Swamp Thing, Man Thing, Batman, Savage Sword of Conan), with Schubert again filling the word balloons.

This is a weak tale of vengeful Harriet Huntress who intends to destroy two generations of wealthy socialites mixed up in the gambling rackets originated in 1939: a rather tame and straightforward yarn in comparison to the other stories here, not to mention the landmark first full novel The Big Sleep, which was also published in that year.

Moyer and Alcala do a solid job of illustrating the plot (although it’s a little pretty for my tastes) but the cynical edge that is the hallmark of Chandler’s iconic creation is muted if not actually extinguished here.

Despite ending on a sour note, this is still a superb sample of Detective comics any fan can revel in, with the incredible Steranko cover alone well worth the effort of tracking down…
Adaptations and illustrations © 2003 Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc. Original stories “Goldfish” and “Trouble is my Business” © 2003 Philip Marlowe BV (Estate of Raymond Chandler) All Rights Reserved. “The Pencil” © 1971 Helga Greene, Executrix, Estate of Raymond Chandler. All Rights Reserved.