Category: Historical

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Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: The Little Sister


Adapted by Michael Lark (A Byron Preiss Book/Fireside Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59687-535-7 (TPB)

If you’re going to adapt classic, evocative crime novels into graphic narrative you really can’t start from better source material than Raymond Chandler. His fifth novel, The Little Sister, was published in 1949, after nearly a decade of hard living and work as a Hollywood screenwriter, and it is a perfect example of his terse yet poetic hard-boiled style.

All the beloved and iconic imagery is present in Michael (Gotham Central, Legend of Hawkman, Terminal City) Lark’s static snapshot style as prim Orfamay Quest hires the laconic Marlowe to track down her missing brother, a spiritual soul who seems to have gone off the rails since hitting the sin city of Los Angeles.

Little Orfamay seems wound up pretty tight for such a run-of the-mill case, but the world-weary detective soon starts to take things a little more seriously after the bodies begin to drop and corpses start showing up in the strangest places…

This taut and twisted compote of mobsters, blackmail and double-dealing is an ideal example of a tale adapted well: underplayed art and direction augmented by controlled pace and a sensitive use of a deliberately limited colour palette.

A cool look at a period classic, this is a crime-fan’s dream book, and what’s truly criminal is that it’s been allowed to remain out-of-print.
© 1997 Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc. Text of The Little Sister © 1949 Raymond Chandler, © renewed 1976 Mrs Helga Greene. All Rights Reserved.

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Master of Mystery: The Rise of The Shadow (Will Murray Pulp History Series)


By Will Murray, illustrated by Frank Hamilton, Rick Roe, Colton Worley, Joe DeVito, Edd Cartier & various (Odyssey Publications)
ISBN: 979-8-54I38-708-7 (PB/Digital edition)

In the early 1930s, just as the Great Depression hit hardest, a new kind of literary (and ultimately multimedia) hero was born …or more correctly, evolved. The Shadow afforded thrill-starved Americans measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced periodical novels and over eerily charged airwaves via an iconic radio show.

Made exceedingly cheaply and published in their hundreds for every style and genre, “Pulps” bridged stand-alone books and periodical magazines. Results ranged from unforgettably excellent to pitifully dire, and amongst originals and knock-offs of every conceivable stripe, for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two stars who outshone all others in terms of quality and sheer imagination.

The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier relentless creature of the night darkly dispensing grim justice was the enigmatic vigilante/ultimate detective discussed here.

As seen in Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of The Shadow (successor to this book) the enthralling enigma grew out of a combination of sources: radio show Detective Story Hour and the Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine it promoted; a succession of scary voices variously deployed by Orson Welles, James LaCurto and Frank Readick Jr.) but above all a Depression-era populace in dire need of cathartic entertainment.

From the very start on July 31st 1930, that narratorial “Shadow” was more popular than the stories he highlighted…

How that aural phenomenon was translated into an iconic literary/media sensation and exactly who was responsible forms the basis of this compelling testament as prolific author, scripter and historian Will Murray turns his spotlight on those who contributed to the amalgamated marvel of mystery and imagination.

Following his reminiscence-fuelled Introduction, Murray restates the origin of the character in photo-filled feature ‘The Five O’clock Shadow’ and details how the Street & Smith campaign to make a voice and a feeling real and remunerative spawned a landmark of broadcast entertainment, before ‘Out of the Shadows: Walter Gibson’ offers an engaging and revelatory interview with the magician-turned-crime writer conducted by Murray and Jim Steranko at the 1975 New York Comic Art Convention.

That interview was in a public forum, and the transcript omitted a lengthy digression comprising Gibson’s oral history of the Shadow’s signature fire opal ring. Here – in its entirety – it comprises ‘The Purple Girasol’, after which it’s the turn of ‘Heroic Editor: John L. Nanovic’ to be rediscovered and awarded his share of the acclaim.

Prolific and underrated, successor scripter ‘Theodore Tinsley: Maxwell Grant’s Shadow’ is celebrated all his many works after which we concentrate on illustration as cover artist ‘Graves Gladney Speaks’.

‘Walter B. Gibson Revisited’ revisits an interview with the author from PulpCon 5 (Akron Ohio, July 1976) conducted by Murray and Bob Sampson, discussing his working stance and fellow creatives at Street & Smith, whilst his connection to, expertise and excellence in conjuring and legerdemain are celebrated in ‘Walter Gibson’s Magical Journey’…

Back in the realm of visions, an appreciation of a true master of pulp art exploring the mysterious ‘Edd Cartier: Master of Shadows’ is augmented by acknowledgement of the Dark Detective’s most obvious legacy in ‘The Shadowy Roots of Batman’, with ‘Memories of Walter’ synthesizing the emotions stirred up by the author’s passing in December 1985.

Packed with fascinating detail and elucidatory anecdotes, plus plenty of pictures and photos, this beguiling documentary of bygone times and appreciation of the giant shoulders we all stand on, this so readable tome also includes biographies ‘About the Author’ and ultra-fan Tim King, whose crucial role is covered in ‘About our Patron’.

If heroes and history are important to you this Master of Mystery: The Rise of The Shadow is truly unmissable.
© 2021 Will Murray. All rights reserved. Artwork © Condé Nast & used with permission.

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The Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Volume Two


By Will Murray, illustrated by Gary Carbon, Joe DeVito, Jason C. Eckhardt (Odyssey Publications)
ISBN: 979-8-379327-44-6 (PB/Digital edition)

I’m always saying it, in fact we all are: Something Strange is Going On. Let’s address that situation with a week of detective-themed reviews…

Way back in the days when even the shabbiest waif or emphysema-riddled ragamuffin could read, story periodicals for young and old ruled. Countless stories recounted the exploits of adventurers, do-gooders and especially detectives. None ever matched the cachet and pulling power of Sherlock Holmes. Even today the meta-real household name continues and thrives, both in countless reworkings and adaptations of canonical classics and in new material by and for devoted and dedicated admirers ever-hungry for more…

Holmes wasn’t the first but he is most assuredly the most popular and well known. His success spawned a storm of imitators and tribute acts – some even going on to immortality of their own. In1893, just as The Strand Magazine published the “last Sherlock Holmes story” (The Adventure of the Final Problem – and it nearly was as Conan Doyle held out against incredible pressure from fans, editors and bankers until 1901 when The Hound of the Baskervilles began serialisation) another profoundly British criminologist was beginning his own spectacular multimedia career: Sexton Blake…

As described by physician Arthur Conan Doyle via the narratives of companion and stalwart factotum Dr. John Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ fictional exploits (54 short stories and 4 novels beginning in 1887) popularised and formulated detective fiction: mythologising the processes of observation, deduction, logical reasoning and forensic science. Britain became a nation of crime fans and Holmes went on to repeat the process for most of the planet…

The first exploit was A Study in Scarlet, published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887, with the majority of stories thereafter in The Strand Magazine. Inevitably, the character soon escaped the page to appear in countless, stories, plays, films, television shows, adverts and anything else canny entrepreneurs could think of.

Although graphic adaptations are plentiful, original English language comics have not excelled with regard to the Great Detective: a trio of newspapers strips, brief comic book runs by Charlton (1955) and DC Comics (1975) and some few later miniseries by independent publishers such as Caliber and Moonstone. Holmes is, however, an evergreen guest collaborator: popping up to aid everyone from Batman to The Muppets to The Shadow himself.

If you can find them, Scarlet in Gaslight: An Adventure in Terror and A Case of Blind Fear by Martin Powell & Seppo Makinen would provide resolute pictorialist devotees with a rare and worthwhile treat: showing the Master Ratiocinator testing himself against other literary touchstones of the period – specifically Bram Stoker’s Lord of the Undead in alliance with the truly evil Professor Moriarty and then H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man…

He has also faced such contemporary challengers as The Phantom of the Opera and Mr Hyde in the company of Henry Jekyll, Toulouse L’Autrec and Oscar Wilde…

Writers and fans alike share an oddly perverse but clearly overwhelming desire to “mix and match” favourite literary figures: especially from the Victorian Era, that birthplace of so many facets of popular culture. Holmes is so much a household name that his inclusion in any venture is a virtual guarantee of commercial success, but regrettably often no guarantee of quality. Of course, no one can get too much of a good thing and happily Holmes and Watson have thrived under the aegis of many creative stars ever since Doyle’s death. Writers adding to the oeuvre include Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Anthony Burgess, A.A. Milne, P.G. Wodehouse, John Dickson Carr, Anthony Horowitz and so many more, and today I’m sharing the efforts of another with a well-earned reputation in the field….

Will Murray is something of a classic fiction force of nature. Journalist, editor and author, he produces scholarly histories and critiques on cult characters in the Will Murray Pulp History Series (as seen in today’s other posting) and celebrates the pulp experience in general and especially fading genres via new prose stories for the canon of so many landmark literary characters and concepts. Through print, audio and eBooks, Murray has extended the legends and shelf life of The Shadow, Doc Savage (and Pat Savage), The Spider, King Kong, The Green Lama, The Bat, The Avenger, The Destroyer (Remo Williams), Tarzan and The C’thulu mythos, He is especially adept at crafting combinations: teaming individual stars and concepts in team -up tales such as King Kong vs Tarzan…

You’ll probably want to see – or may already enjoy – Murray’s comics too: gems like prose novel Nick Fury, Agent of S.H. I.E.L.D.: Empyre, and visual delights like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (co-created with Steve Ditko), Spider-Man, Hulk, Secret Six, The Destroyer, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Spider, The Gray Seal, Ant-Man, Green Hornet, Zorro, The Phantom and more…

These stories were originally published in magazines and books from MX Publishing, Thrilling Adventure Yarns and Belanger Books, and are set in various periods of the consulting Detective’s long and prestigious career. This tome is the second and latest of two volumes and I’m happy to confide that I enjoyed it so much when my comp copy arrived that I actually paid with my own money to get the first one too…

Following an effusive and informative ‘Introduction’ discussing how this collection concentrates on stories challenging Holmes’ rational mindset and non-rationalistic encounters, the casebook reopens with ‘The Singular Problem of the Extinguished Wicks’ as the investigator reveals his fascination with Spontaneous Human Combustion and its effect on a particularly gruesome demise, after which ‘The Mystery of the Spectral Shelter’ sees Holmes approached by a Hansom cab driver who has had a decidedly close call with a vanishing café used by his professional compatriots…

The irascible ratiocinator’s perennial problem with mind-numbing boredom is highlighted in ‘The Problem of the Surrey Samson’ and assuaged by a theatrical turn whose seemingly miraculous strength does not endure Holmes’ close scrutiny, whilst ‘The Uncanny Adventure of the Hammersmith Wonder’ exposes a body in incredible circumstance and – once properly pondered – sees the detective solve a long-hidden generational crime…

Weird – but still plausible – science and a truly grotesque murder inform ‘The Repulsive Matter of the Bloodless Banker’ before Murray adds his own choice pick to that army of previously established associates.

A ghost story – or is it? – bringing mysteries of ancient Egypt to Edwardian England, ‘The Adventure of the Abominable Adder’ is set in 1903 and introduces the champion of rational thought to his equally estimable but operationally opposite number. This tale sees Algernon Blackwood’s spiritual detective John Silence – Physician Extraordinary also consulted by a terrified client with both valiant advocates needed to solve the mystery.

Silence was among the best of a wave of “ghost-breaker” heroes from that death-obsessed era, appearing in six stories by the prolific Blackwood (1869-1951), beginning with ‘A Psychical Invasion’ (1908).

A genteel and refined war of world-views having been declared, Mind and Soul met again in ‘The Adventure of the Sorrowing Mudlark’ as Dr. Silence asks the esteemed logician to assist a dead woman trapped in an eternal search, before a mythological mystery manifests when a green-hued lad long ago abducted by fairies abruptly returns to a rustic village in ‘The Adventure of the Emerald Urchin’, with Silence again offering unique insights…

With Holmes assuming the narrator’s role, 1908-set conundrum ‘The Adventure of the Expelled Master’ details how he deduced the manner in which a maths teacher was actually murdered despite his body being observed flying up a chimney and rocketing across the heavens, before this embassage into eerie esoterica concludes with Watson’s already crucial role in the stories expanded. It’s 1915 and whilst involved in the war effort the military doctor seeks to drag his old comrade out of retirement to verify the provenance of an unearthed hoard seemingly minted in fabled Atlantis in ‘The Conundrum of the Questionable Coins’…

Wrapping up the investigations are fulsome biographical dossiers on Murray in ‘About the Author’ and artist Gary Carbon in ‘About the Artist’.

Compelling, rewarding and just plain fun to read, these tales are a delight and a must for any Holmesian follower.
© 2023 by Will Murray. All rights reserved. Front cover image & frontispiece © 2023 by Gary Carbon. All rights reserved. Back cover image © 2023 by Joe DeVito. All rights reserved.

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Armed With Madness – The Surreal Leonora Carrington


By Mary M. Talbot & Bryan Talbot (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-0-914224-12-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Mary Leonora Carrington overcame wealth, privilege, entrenched unwanted religion and the repressive straitjackets of her class and gender to follow a dream and be her own self. You may never have heard of her (but should have) and this sublime depiction exploration by Mary M. Talbot and spouse Bryan Talbot – focussing on her most troubled years and humanity’s darkest hours – offers compelling and beautiful arguments for why.

Dr. Mary is an academic, educator, linguist, social theoretician, author and specialist in Critical discourse analysis who in 2012 added graphic novelist to her portfolio of achievements: collaborating with her husband on Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes.

That award-winning memoir/biography of Lucia Joyce was followed by Sally Heathcote: Suffragette (drawn by Kate Charlesworth), The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia and Rain (both with Bryan), all supplementing a glittering educational career and such academic publications as Language and Gender: an Introduction and Fictions at Work: language and social practise in fiction. She is particularly drawn to true stories of gender bias and social injustice…

Bryan has been a fixture of the British comics scene since the late 1960s, moving from Tolkien-fandom to college strips, self-published underground classics like Brainstorm Comix (starring Chester P. Hackenbush – the Psychedelic Alchemist!), early Luther Arkwright and Frank Fazakerly, Space Ace of the Future to paid pro status with Nemesis The Warlock, Judge Dredd, Sláine, Ro-Busters and more in 2000 AD.

Inevitably headhunted by America, he worked on key mature-reading titles for DC Comics (Hellblazer, Shade the Changing Man, The Nazz, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Fables, The Dead Boy Detectives and The Sandman) and was a key creative cog in short-lived shared-world project Tekno Comix, before settling into global acclaim via steady relationships with Dark Horse Comics and Jonathan Cape. These unions generated breakthrough masterpieces like The Tale of One Bad Rat and a remastered epic revival of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.

Since then he’s been an independent Force To Be Reckoned With, doing just what he wants, promoting the art form in general and crafting a variety of fascinating and compelling works, from Alice in Sunderland and Cherubs! (with Mark Stafford), to Metronome (as Véronique Tanaka) and his fabulously wry, beguiling and gallic-ly anthropomorphic Grandville sequence, as well as his mostly biographical/historical collaborations with Mary…

In the interest of propriety, I must fully disclose that I’ve known him since the early 1980s, but other than that shameful lack of taste and judgement on his part, have no vested interest in confidently stating that he’s probably Britain’s greatest living graphic novelist…

Here their vast talents combine to capture and expose the early life of a woman driven by a need to create: a forgotten star who resisted powerful family pressure and rejected social conditioning to run away and become an artist. Her choices – or perhaps compulsion – led to pain, isolation, ostracization, desertion and mental illness, before her innate determination, tenacity and sheer will to overcome won her peace, security, success and the chance to make the world a different, better place for those that followed her…

Leonora Carrington was born on April 6th 1917, daughter of a wealthy northern textiles magnate who inherited control of ICI and moved in Royal circles. An imaginative, wilful child raised Roman Catholic, she loved animals, art and stories, particularly identifying with horses, and – when provoked – hyenas…

After continually frustrating her overbearing father (by – for example – sabotaging the local fox hunt), her education was shifted from private governesses to draconian Catholic boarding schools, two of which were compelled to expel despite all the cash Daddy lavished on them…

Her Irish mother was obsessed with introducing her at (Royal) Court, but Leonora wanted to make art and tell stories. Before long she was packed off to a Finishing School in Florence, affording the rebel with the unintended opportunity of seeing the landmarks of human artistic endeavour first hand.

Eventually, with mother playing peacemaker, Leonora was permitted to study painting, firstly at the Chelsea School of Art and then briefly with iconoclastic French modernist Amédée Ozenfant at his Ozenfant Academy of Fine Arts.

Wayward young Carrington had seen her first Surrealist painting in 1927 when she was only ten, and the event marked her deeply. Now able to access more of the works that set her soul afire, she put up with her mother’s ambitions for as long as possible before running away to Paris in 1937: beginning a turbulent affair with the leading light and conceptual leader of the movement. Max Ernest was old, fascinating, selfish, married and German…

Naturally, her father responded by cutting off if not outright disowning her, and an idyllic period – albeit punctuated by moments of violence and terror inflicted on Leonora by the frankly terrifying and justly furious Mrs Ernst – evolved into a retreat.

The “May/November” couple fled south to the rural solitude of Saint Martin d’Ardèche. Here, her writing and art grew wilder and more inspired, but also brought added tension and strain for both of them. Political infighting amongst the male-dominated Surrealist elite and increasing suspicion of the “kraut” Ernst by local neighbours ended the honeymoon period as clouds of war gathered over Europe.

Ultimately, he was arrested as an enemy alien. By the time his friends secured his release, the Nazis had invaded and Ernst was arrested again, this time by the Gestapo who targeted him for his “degenerate” art. On his second bout of freedom, Max bolted to America, supported by friends and eventual next wife millionairess Peggy Guggenheim…

Always nervous, prone to anxiety and now under enormous pressure, Leonora Carrington’s stability took ever-increasing hits as she dwelt alone in her lonely, rustic hostile environment. Upon at last escaping to Madrid with her friend Catherine Yarrow, Leonora arrived in the throes of a full-blown psychotic break and was left to the tender mercies of an asylum.

Here she endured tedium, repression, a brutal drug regimen and electroconvulsive therapy as well as regular sexual assault from her minders. Again controlled by her parents, she was eventually released into the care of a “minder” (these scenes are particularly harrowing – so be warned) preparatory to being bundled off to a sanatorium in distant South Africa.

Instead, she escaped and went to Portugal, linking up with Mexican consular official Renato Leduc. He agreed to a marriage of convenience and – before divorcing her in 1943 – moved her to the safety of his homeland. She thereafter made Mexico home for most of her life.

Many other creative refugees from Europe – especially many old Surrealist friends – had also migrated there and over the succeeding years Leonora prospered, finding acceptance and a new cause. After years of independence and street level activism for gender equality and personal freedom, in the 1970 she co-founded Mexico’s Women’s Liberation Movement. She reunited with old friend and artistic soul mate Remedios Varo who introduced her to her second and last husband. Hungarian photographer/physician Emerico “Chiki” Weisz was her partner in art and practical jokes until his death in 1997.

They had two kids and Leonora grew in stature: making wild and marvellous paintings, murals and sculptures, publishing ten books, starring in numerous gallery and museum shows, confronting Mexico’s totalitarian rulers in the 1960s and always shaping thought and attitudes of, to and about women. She died on May 25th 2011 aged 94, another beloved and revered artistic icon of Mexico who lived life her own way on her own terms.

This epic of creative struggle comes with a full Bibliography and a scrupulously meticulous Notes section, explaining unfamiliar moments or terms and sharing times when the demands of drama superseded the tedious truth of simple documentary fact…

Compellingly scripted with a fine eye for elucidatory minutiae, visually Mary Talbot’s carefully overlaid, chronologically unmoored events ranging from gentle reportage of consensual reality to shocking interpretations of her delusions are realised in soft monochrome tones, interspersed with fiercely dynamic blasts of colour. The technique allows us to share her perpetually overlapping worlds, vacillating visions and hallucinations in a history drenched in narrative symbolism and – naturally – surreal visitations.

Powerful, enraging and uplifting, this mesmerising introduction to yet another forgotten woman of achievement is a sheer delight and will definitely compel all readers to look for more…
Text © 2023 Mary M Talbot. Illustrations © 2023 Bryan Talbot. All rights reserved.

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Corpse Talk: Queens & Kings and Other Royal Rotters


By Adam & Lisa Murphy (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-032-4 (PB)

The educational power of comic strips has been long understood and acknowledged: if you can make material memorably enjoyable, there’s nothing that can’t be better taught with pictures. The obverse is also true: comics can make any topic or subject come alive… or at least – as here – outrageously, informatively undead…

The fabulously effective conceit of Corpse Talk is that your cartooning host Adam Murphy (ably abetted off-camera by Lisa Murphy) tracks down (digs up?) famous personages from the past: serially exhumed for a chatty, cheeky This Was Your Life talk-show interview. It also often grosses one out, which is no bad thing for either a kids’ comic or learning experience.

Culled from the annals of The Phoenix, this regally-themed recollection is dedicated to not-so-private audiences with a succession of famous, infamous and utterly unforgettable royal rogues and rapscallions in what would almost certainly not be their own words…

Catching up in date of demise succession, our fact-loving host begins the candid cartoon conferences by digging the dirt with Ramesses II: Pharaoh of Egypt 1303 BCE – 1213 BCE. He preferred to be called ‘Ramesses the Great’ and our intrepid interviewer incisively traces the “accomplishments” and gift for self-promotion of the dusty legend.

As always, each balmy biography is supplemented by a sidebar feature examining a key aspect of their lives, such as here with ‘How to Make a Mummy’, scrupulously and systematically sharing the secrets of interring the definitely departed, after which we refocus on the ancient orient to quiz Qin Shi Huang Di: Chinese Emperor 259 BCE 210 BCE on his reign and once more sifting truth from centuries of post-mortem PR briefings.

Backing up the inquiry ‘The Emperor’s Tomb’ details the layout of the vast City of Death Qin was buried in, as well as the Palace of Shadows, its terracotta army and the treasures it guarded.

Cleopatra: Pharaoh of Egypt 69 BCE – 30 BCE outlines her incredible life, whilst ‘Barging In’ examines her astounding gold sea-craft – and how it brought her to the attention of back-up lover/sponsor Mark Anthony.

A thankfully thoroughly sanitised account of the sordid exploits of Nero: Roman Emperor 37-68 is supported up by a deconstruction of one of his feasts in ‘Cafe Nero’, after which Justinian II: Byzantine Emperor 669-711 personally explains how his determination and guile enabled him to rule, lose, recapture and retake control of the mighty Late Roman Empire. The impenetrable defences of 8th century Constantinople are then dissected in ‘The Walled City’…

As well as a bit about burned cakes, Alfred the Great: King of Wessex 849-689 reveals remarkable military and civilising feats of the learning-obsessed ruler whilst expanding the knowledge base and defining the fractured kingdoms of ‘The Dark Island’ of Britain.

The Norman conquest is unpicked from the (one-eyed) view of the losing contender in Harold Godwinson: English King 1022-1066. The account is accompanied by an extended look at the historical source document in ‘Born on the Bayeaux’ before the first English civil war is remembered by formable Angevin matriarch Empress Matilda: English Queen 1102-1167. This is followed by a detailed deconstruction of the sturdy castle defensive system in ‘The Old Bailey’.

The Crusades are represented by rival legends made real. First up is admirable and noble Saladin: Sultan of Egypt and Syria 1137-1193, bolstered by a catalogue of Moslem contributions to global civilisation in ‘Gifts of Genius’, after which the unhappy truth about Richard the Lionheart: English King 1157-1199 is laid bare. After debunking centuries of self-aggrandising myths, ‘The Siege of Acre’ traces one of the crusaders’ few actual heroic exploits…

Moctezuma II: Aztec Emperor 1456-1520 relates how his timidity and sense of self-preservation led to the destruction of his dominions at the hands of conquistadores before ‘Temple of Doom’ takes us into the deepest inner workings of the bloodstained ziggurats dedicated to human sacrifice on an industrial scale…

The most complex and contentious period in British history is taken apart by those royals at the heart of it all when Henry VIII: English King 1491-1547 tries to give us his spin on events leading to the reformation. Following ‘Full Tilt – a History of Jousting’ – come ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ – consecutively Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), Anne Boleyn (1507-1536), Jane Seymour (1508-1537), Anne of Cleves (1525-1557), Catherine Howard (1523-1542 and Catherine Parr (1512-1548) – offering their side of the arguments and events.

Their raucous riotous revelations are augmented by a breakdown of the duties of a Queen’s faithful attendants in ‘The Waiting Game’.

Charles II: English King 1630-1685 relates how he came to power following the Second Civil War, backing up personal reveries with ‘A Memoir on Monarchy’ running down the changing role of rulers, after which we cross the channel to hear how it all went wrong for France’s final female autocrat in Marie Antoinette: French Queen 1755-1793. Her fall from grace is abutted by a chilling lesson on guillotine mechanics in ‘Decapitation Stations’.

Contemporary cousin Catherine the Great: Russian Empress 1729-1796 managed to run things largely her own way, but as back-up ‘Tsars in their Eyes’ shows, she was plagued by a constant stream of pretenders, all claiming to be true, proper, better qualified and, yes, male contenders for her throne.

South African rebel and strategic genius Shaka Zulu: Zulu King 1787-1828, recounts how he literally created a mighty nation from nothing whilst ‘The Battle of Isandlwana’ covers how his innovations were used to humiliate the overwhelmingly powerful British Army before the procession of pomp and circumstance closes with Queen Victoria: English Queen 1819-1901, accompanied by a phenomenally absorbing family tree, branching out and into every royal bloodline in Europe: a true ‘Game of Thrones’…

Clever, cheeky, outrageously funny and formidably factual throughout, Corpse Talk unyieldingly tackles history’s more tendentious moments whilst personalising the great, the grim and the good for coming generations.

It is also a fabulously fun read no parent or kid could possibly resist. Don’t take my word for it though, just ask any reader, royal-watcher or republican in waiting…
Text and illustrations © Adam & Lisa Murphy 2018. All rights reserved.

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Queen in Comics


By Emmanuel Marie (narrative) & Sophie Blitman (articles); illustrated by Bast, Riccardo Randazzo, Céline Olive, Antonio Campofredano, Samuel Wambre, Julien Huggonard-Bert, Lauriane Rérolle, Jean-Jacques Dzialowski, Alex-Imé, Francesco Colafella, Samuel Figuiére, Antoine Pédron, Arnaud Jouffroy, Toni Cittadini, Carmelo Zagaria, François Foyard, Paulo Loreto, Dario Formisani, Nicolò Laporini, Luigi Ziteli, Enzo Gosselin & various: translated by Christopher Pope (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-311-0 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-312-7

It’s time for another stunning rock biography: released continentally in 2021 but which will certainly appeal to readers all over the English-speaking world. Another entry in NBM’s superb “…in Comics” sub-strand, it unlocks and unleashes the history of another musical sensation that shook the planet, focussing in particular (how could you not?) on a unique performer who changed popular culture and modern society…

Gathered in this fetching account are context-providing, photo-packed essays bracketing individual comics sections. Here chronological article researched and documented by French journalist/educator Sophie Blitman and sociologist/graphic novelist Emmanuel Marie dramatise those dry facts for a horde of artists to spectacularly realise in comics vignettes…

Our baroque journey begins with the scene stealing front-man as ‘Farrokh’s Childhood’ – limned by Riccardo Randazzo and fleshed out by colourist Luigi Ziteli – views the schooldays of Farrokh Bulsara (September 5th 1946 – November 24th 1991) leaving his childhood home in the British Protectorate of Zanzibar. Son of a well-to-do Parsi family at the tail-end of the British Empire, in 1954 he transferred to St. Peter’s Boys Boarding School in what was then Bombay, India. Dubbed “Freddie” by his classmates, the boy excels at the piano and boxing.

In 1958, he hears Little Richard for the first time and adds Rock ‘n’ Roll to his eclectic love of Bollywood singers and classical opera. With his band – The Hectics – he plays constantly, honing his skills whilst pursuing his studies until 1964, when revolution creates the nation of Tanzania, forcing the entire Bulsara family to relocate to England…

Following Blitman’s context-packed essay on the geo-political and cultural status quo prior to the move to London, Céline Olive takes us to Kensington in 1969 to experience ‘Youth in London’. Here recent graduate in Graphic Arts Freddie Bulsara makes a living selling clothes on a market stall and tries to break into the big time with his band Ibex. His partner in the rags venture is Roger Taylor, who plays with guitarist Brian May in Smile. One night in September, both bands play in Liverpool and a jam session creates a kind of magic…

A text piece covering college days and tentative early moves in the burgeoning music scene segues into Antonio Campofredano’s bold rendition ‘Everything Starts With a Smile’ (colour by Nicolò Laporini) in 1970 as almost-hitmakers Smile take on pianist Freddie (call me “Mercury”) and discover a voice beyond compare…

A feature on the music biz and Smile precedes a leap to cartoon creativity in 1971 as Samuel Wambre reveals how a mix, match, merge and classified ad brings bassist John Deacon into play even as Freddie doodles out the ‘Birth of an Esthetic’ and Smile become Queen…

A prose feature detailing that transition in the era of Glam-Rock is accompanied by a detailed deconstruction of the band’s iconic “Royal Coat of Arms” before Julien Huggonard-Bert & colourist Laporini explore ‘First Album, Little Success’ as the up-&-comers cut their first LP and sign with EMI in 1972. After a discussion of Queen I, Lauriane Rérolle details the first days of an epic stage and performing legend in ‘We Want a Show!’ seeing Freddie consult fashion force Zandra Rhodes to ensure a once-seen, never-forgotten stage presence all round, duly supplemented and photographically augmented in another informative article…

Laporini’s hues boost Jean-Jacques Dzialowski trip to 1975 as ‘Queen Takes Off’ supported by a feature on the early albums and singles, after which Alex-Imé revisits landmark release Bohemian Rhapsody and how the record company tried to stifle it in ‘6 Minutes Too Long!’, which also offers a rather technical assessment of why it’s so gosh-darned great!

Francesco Colafella & Laporini examine the individual bandmates’ many side-projects and coping methods for too much time in each other’s company. ‘Roger Taylor Goes Solo’ is bolstered by a text feature adding detail and tenor, before Samuel Figuiére explores the supergroup era of ‘Legendary Hits’. Focusing on stadium-shaking anthems takes us to Montreux in Switzerland where Antoine Pédron further details a time when outrageously “decadent” Queen could not do a bad thing in ‘Get on Your Bike!’

A feature on Europe’s Jazz mecca and music the band conceived there precedes Arnaud Jouffroy’s graphic question ‘But Who Was Freddie Mercury Really?’: probing the flamboyant star’s scrupulously guarded private life and astoundingly broad friend network, and is again expanded upon in its prose accompaniment. Next comes the tremor-inducing, fan-polarising shift in musical stance of the Eighties, with its repercussions revealed and detailed by Toni Cittadini & Laporini in ‘Disco Never Dies!’ An attendant article exploring the band at the height of its fame and power is an intro to Figuiére’s graphic interlude as a return to Montreux in 1981 leads to a confrontational collaboration with David Bowie in ‘Under Pressure’ with Blitman’s supporting article detailing the bandmembers’ need to express their individualism.

That theme is further explored in Carmelo Zagaria’s ‘Search for Freedom’: an illustrated interview/skit on how the video for I Want to Break Free scandalised macho nations across the Earth, with the text support explaining the situation and how it all started with the band watching Coronation Street…

François Foyard limns ‘The Works, Rock and Controversy’ as 1984 saw Queen return to its raunchy rocking roots with global tours and 11th album leading to reinvention via the Live Aid benefit event, as a text piece reviews those events and the band’s controversial tour of South Africa (at that time a UN-sanctioned pariah state due to its Apartheid regime)…

Randazzo & Ziteli take an anachronistic peek at ‘History-Making Concerts’ – suitably expanded upon in prose – before Paulo Loreto tackles the beginning of the tragic end in ‘A Final Album Amidst Suffering’ as the vivacious, attention-attracting frontman becomes a recluse due to a mystery disease, and his bandmates organise one last musical hurrah…

The article on HIV and AIDs at that moment in time is a sobering preamble and overture to the star’s final days and recordings – as visualised by Dario Formisani & Laporini – in ‘“Was it all Worth It?” Yes!’ and an abridged overview of everything that has happened since in ‘The Show Must Go On!’ each accompanied by comprehensive prose features.

With beguiling ‘endpapers’ by Enzo Gosselin and an iconic cover from Bast, this graphic appreciation offers a tantalising glimpse at true legends of mass entertainment and an evocative exploration of a one-man cultural and social revolution, who was at once known by all and truly seen by no one.

In so many ways, Queen and Freddie Mercury inspired and united people of disparate views and did so by example and not listening when they heard the words “no” or “but”…

Queen in Comics is an astoundingly readable and beautifully rendered treasure for narrative art and music fans alike: one to resonate with anybody who loves to listen and look. If you love pop history and crave graphic escape, this will truly rock you.

© 2021 Editions Petit à Petit. © 2022 NBM for the English translation.
Queen in Comics is scheduled for UK release May 4th 2023 and available for pre-order now. Most NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other wonderful reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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A Treasury of Victorian Murder Compendium II


By Rick Geary (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-907-6 (Digest HB)

Master cartoonist Rick Geary is a unique presence in both comics and true crime literature. His compelling forensic dissections – in the form of graphic novel reconstructions – of some of the most infamous and groundbreaking murder mysteries since policing began never fail to beguile or entertain.

Although outrageously still unavailable digitally, for many years Geary’s unblinking eye powerfully probed the last hundred years or so in his Treasury of XXth Century Murder series. Prior to that, he first began graphically capitalising on a fascination with Mankind’s darker aspects way back in 1987, via a delicious anthologised tome entitled A Treasury of Victorian Murder.

That initial volume and 3 of the 8 that succeeded it (Jack the Ripper, The Fatal Bullet and The Beast of Chicago) were combined and re-issued in 2012 as a splendidly morbid monochrome deluxe hardback – because, after all, bloody murder is always a black and white affair…

More of his most compelling past triumphs were gathered into a second blockbusting 400-page monochrome hardback to delight fans of the genre and, without a shadow of a doubt, make new converts out of the as yet unconvinced…

Combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and meticulously detailed pictorial extrapolation with his gift for recounting the ruthless propensities of humans throughout history, Geary ceaselessly scoured police blotters, newspaper archives and even history books to compile more irresistibly infectious social sins and felonious infractions.

His unique cartooning style is the perfect medium to convey starkly factual narratives in a memorable, mordant and undeniably enjoyable manner. Each epic endeavour is accompanied by an Introduction and scholarly Bibliography, with most adaptations also offering splendidly informative maps and diagrams to set the stories firmly in place.

Starting off this largely ladykiller-laden catalogue of crime is The Borden Tragedy, digging through an abundance of details surrounding one of the most infamous – if not mythic – crimes ever perpetrated.

In Fall River, Massachusetts on August 4th 1892, prosperous self-made man Andrew Borden and his second wife Abby were found slain inside their own home. Death in both cases was caused by multiple axe blows.

Rather than his later neutral narrative stance, here Geary illustrates the “first-hand account” of an acquaintance of youngest daughter Lizzie Borden who – after much inept investigation and public speculation – was settled upon by the authorities as the likeliest suspect.

Many and various suppositions, theories, scandals and gossip-points are scrupulously examined as she stands trial for the crimes – a case muddled by a subsequent axe-murder whilst Lizzie was actually in custody – and the spotlight follows her through the much-protracted case, past her acquittal and to her eventual death in 1927…

The graphic re-enactment is accompanied by a copious photo and text section featuring a wealth of ‘Press Clippings of the Time’ as well as a reproduction of ‘Borden’s Indictment’ and The Boston Advertiser article on her eventual “Not Guilty” verdict.

The Mystery of Mary Rogers concerns the assault and murder of a New York City cigar shop girl which mesmerised the citizenry in 1841. Such was the furore that author Edgar Allen Poe appropriated the events for his C. Auguste Lupin tale The Mystery of Marie Roget: a rather unwise move, since he knew the deceased and thereby opened himself up to loudly-voiced suspicions of complicity…

The facts are that on the 28th July 1841, a number of well-to do-citizens left stifling Manhattan Island for the Jersey Shore and there discovered the body of the “Segar Girl” floating in the Hudson; battered, strangled and with her hands tied across her chest.

A hasty autopsy and even quicker inquest, held under insultingly cavalier circumstances, produced no culprits or suspects but somehow managed to throw suspicion on everyone from the men who pulled her out of the water to her drunken suicidal fiancée and even her own mother…

A talking point for all and sundry from the highest society paragon to the lowliest street trash, her death produced ever-more scandalous revelations and groundless lewd rumours – all scrupulously explored by Geary – over the next few years, but the case remains unsolved still…

The Saga of the Bloody Benders began in largely unsettled Kansas, during the period immediately following the American Civil War, when a family of German-speaking immigrants settled near the Osage Trail. There they built a General Store-&-Hotel equidistant between the nascent townships of Cherry Vale, Parsons and Thayer.

By the time they vanished four years later, provably ten but probably many, many more travellers and settlers had been robbed and murdered. Thereafter, the insalubrious Benders simply vanished from the sight of man…

Geary, with supreme style and dry wit, presents the facts and the best of the rumours in his inimitable style to create yet another unforgettable masterpiece of Gothic whimsy.

The Case of Madeleine Smith focused on the true and scandalous secret affair between Emile L’Anglier, a low-born French clerk, and prim, proper, eminently respectable Miss Madeleine Smith, daughter of a wealthy Scottish merchant.

The slow poisoning of the Gallic Romeo led to a notorious trial in the 19th century and the eventual verdict shocked everyone and satisfied nobody…

The entrancing chronicle of carnage and venality concludes with the epic account of The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, covering the 62 days from 4th March to May 4th 1865, when actor John Wilkes Booth and a band of like-minded Confederate diehards schemed to murder the President (and other Northern politicians they held responsible for the destruction of the South), and how their wild plot came to startling, implausible fruition…

Following the Inauguration Ceremony for his second Term of Office, the normally fatalistic and security-disparaging President Lincoln was troubled by unease, disquiet and dreams of assassination. They might have been possibly generated by the sack-full of death threats stashed away by his Secretary John Hay.

Elsewhere, Secessionist sympathiser Booth was planning a blow for revenge and personal immortality, but increasingly found his co-conspirators a disappointing bunch. Driven and desperate, he persevered for his cause…

All the many players are scrutinised in Geary’s careful examination, with the peculiar circumstances that left Lincoln vulnerable counterbalanced by insights and minutiae provided into his less-than-fanatical nemeses.

Only one of the many assassinations planned by the Secessionist cabal came to anything, and following that foul deed, grisly death-watch and post mortem, Geary’s depiction of the bold but inept manhunt which followed is capped here by Booth’s satisfyingly dramatic end, leaving nothing but the artist’s masterful summing up to ask the questions nobody has answered yet and leave us all with the certain knowledge that this too is a murder still largely unexplained if not unsolved…

These compelling cold cases are a perfect example of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simplistic fantasy entertainment, and such merrily morbid murder masterpieces as these should be mandatory reading for every mystery addict and crime collector.

Such seductive storytelling, erudite argument and audacious drawing produce an irresistible dash and verve which makes for unforgettable reading: Geary is a unique talent in the comic industry, as much for his style as his subject matter and methodology in telling tales. Always presenting both facts and the theories – contemporary and modern – with chilling graphic precision, captivating clarity and devastating dry wit, he attacks criminology’s greatest mysteries with a force and power even Oliver Stone would envy, and every true crime podcaster should admire…
© 1997-2007, 2015 Rick Geary.

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I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi


By Gina Siciliano (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: ?978-1-68396-211-3 (HB/Digital edition)

A denizen of Seattle, Gina Siciliano studied at Pacific Northwest College of Art and has worked as a musician and bookseller whilst self-publishing highly personal comics such as Summertime. In 2019 she released her first graphic novel, a compelling and comprehensive pictorial biography and sociological reassessment of a figure who has become of late a hard-fought-over darling of art historians and feminists.

In recent years, Artemisia Gentileschi has become the desired property of many factions, all seeking to bend her life and mould her struggles and triumphs to fit their beliefs, opinions, and agendas, almost as much as kings, clerics and merchant princes sought to own her paintings whilst she was alive.

Monumental and scholarly, meticulously researched and refined from what is often too much conflicting information and assumptions, this utterly absorbing account successfully restores some humanity and a portion of muddled, day-by-day dancing to stay alive and ahead of the game desperation that must surely have preoccupied the gifted but generally powerless woman under all those layers of heaped-up symbolism…

I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi is an earnest, incredibly engaging narrative built on (whenever possible) first hand quotes and primary sources, whilst also employing some reasonable speculation, extrapolation, and narrative dramatization, all delivered via ball-point pen illustration deriving from Artemisia’s own great works and other contemporary art sources.

Author’s Preface ‘Making New Worlds Out of Old Worlds’ shares Siciliano’s motivations which sparked the project whilst drawing appropriate parallels between creators as subjects of study and how renaissance Europe strangely resonates with modern #MeToo society. Think of it as “A girl artist in 21st century Seattle writes about a girl artist in 17th century Rome…”

The narrative tracks the life of professional artist Orazio Gentileschi and his extended family of jobbing artisans, paying particular – but not exclusive – attention to his daughter Artemisia. Here we see her immediate ancestors and influences: seeing her grow from anonymous assistant to celebrated painter in her own right in a society where women were property, sex objects, servants, bargaining chips or worthless.

As the 17th century opened, art – especially painting – had matchless force as currency and proof of power, with royalty and even Popes commissioning religious, classical and mythological works. There was an especial value to images incorporating beautiful – usually partially clothed – women. That Artemisia used herself as a model and sold many, many biblical scenes will provide a clue to the other recurring motif in her life; how so many men sought to possess her…

A story equal parts sordid, infuriating, shockingly unjust and ultimately just like so many others is shared in Parts I, II and III as the childhood, working life, constant betrayals and eventual passing of one of Europe’s greatest art makers is unpicked in forensic detail and with an empathy that is simply astounding. It’s not dry history here, it’s life in the raw…

Moreover, you’ll soon grasp how multifarious levels of politicking from family dynamics to the whims of kings shapes the lives of ordinary people, no matter how talented they are or of worth to the wealthy…

The compelling melodrama of Artemisia’s struggles are augmented by a ‘Reference section’ comprising a truly massive prose-&-picture section of ‘Notes’, offering context, commentary, specific factual detail plus clarification or speculation. It also expands on general points of detail brought up by the main illustrated narrative and provides candid guidance to Siciliano’s own interpretations of a life now fully co-opted by history-writers seeking to validate their own viewpoints.

Should you seek further fuel for discourse – and yes, I did deliberately avoid mentioning the infamous, attention-diverting rape (because everyone else hasn’t) – there’s a copious and colossal ‘Bibliography’ to work through on your own time.

Passionate, enlightening, emphatically empathetic and unforgettable, this is a book for all seasons and all humans wanting to learn from the past and form a fitter future.
All characters, stories, and artwork © 2019 Gina Siciliano. This edition of I Know What I Am © Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Sophie’s World – A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy: Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo


By Jostein Gaarder, adapted by Vincent Zabus & Nicoby, colours by Philippe Ory with Bruno Tatti; translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: ?978-1-91422-411-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

It has long been a truism of the creative arts that the most effective, efficient and economical method of instruction and informational training is the comic strip. If you simply consider the medium’s value as a historical recording and narrative system, the process encompasses cave paintings, hieroglyphs, pictograms, oriental prints, Stations of the Cross, the Bayeux Tapestry and so much more: and pretty succinctly covers the history of humanity…

For well over a century and a half, advertising mavens exploited the easy impact of words wedded to evocative pictures, whilst public information materials frequently used sequential narrative to get hard messages over quickly and simply. In a surprisingly short time, the internet and social media restored and enhanced the full universal might of image narratives to transcend language. Who doesn’t “speak” emoji?

Since World War II, carefully crafted strips have been used as training materials for every aspect of adult life from school careers advice to various disciplines of military service – utilising the talents of comics giants as varied as Milton Caniff, Will Eisner (who spent decades producing reams of comic manuals for the US army and other government departments), Kurt Schaffenberger and Neil Adams. The educational value and merit of comics is a given.

The magnificent Larry Gonick in particular uses the strip medium to stuff learning and entertainment in equal amounts into weary brains of jaded students with his webcomic Raw Materials and such seasoned tomes as The Cartoon History of the Universe, The Cartoon History of the United States and The Cartoon Guide to… series (Genetics, Sex, The Environment et al). That’s not even including his crusading satirical strip Commoners for Common Ground, and educational features Science Classics, Kokopelli & Company and pioneering cartoon work with the National Science Foundation…

For decades Japan has employed manga textbooks in schools and universities and has even released government reports and business prospectuses as comic books to get around the public’s apathy towards reading large dreary volumes of public information. So do we and everybody else. I’ve even produced the occasional multi-panel teaching-tract myself. The method has also been frequently used to sublimely and elegantly tackle the greatest and most all-consuming preoccupation and creation of the mind of Man…

Like organised religion, the conceptual discipline dubbed Philosophy has had a tough time relating to modern folk and – just like innumerable vicars in pulpits everywhere – its proponents and followers have sought fresh ways to make eternal questions and subjective verities understandable and palatable to us hoi-polloi and average simpletons.

In 1991 Norwegian teacher Jostein Gaarder found one that became a global sensation. Oslo-born in 1952, he taught Philosophy and the History of Ideas in Bergen until he retired to write a modern prose masterpiece of allegory and symbolism in the guise of a fantastic mystery and quest saga.

In an assortment of languages, Sofies verden became an award-winning bestseller in Europe, before being translated into English in 1994 and – as Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy – metamorphosed into the top-selling book on Earth a year later.

Translated into 59 languages with sales far in excess of forty million copies, it enjoys regular anniversary rereleases, and has been adapted to the large and small screen in many countries, as well as PC and board games, and all the usual merchandising instances of a global sensation…

In 2022, playwright/comics scribe Vincent Zabus (Le Journal de Spirou, Les Ombres, Incroyable!) and prolific, wide-ranging Bande Dessinée illustrator Nicolas Bidet AKA “Nicoby” and “Korkydü” (Ouessantines, Le Manuel de la Jungle, Belle-Île en père, Sang de Sein, Tête de gondola, Poète à Djibouti, C’est la guerre – journal d’une famille confine) joined forces to translate the philosophical phenomenon into words and pictures: deftly embracing the magically realist underpinnings of the tale by fully exploring and exploiting the self-imposed fourth wall (and floors and ceilings) of the “ninth art”…

Big, bold and embracing wonderment head-on, Sophie’s World – A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy: Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo seductively adapts the first half of Gaarder’s masterpiece as 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen and her best friend Colleen anticipate their first protest event. They are fired up about the planet’s imminent demise and ready to fight for its life, but Sophie’s scattershot passions are suddenly derailed and her curiosity enflamed after receiving an anonymous package asking the somehow compulsively significant question ‘Who Are You?’…

The Who and Why of this enigmatic pen pal transaction completely obsess her after the unseen arrival of follow-up question “Where does the world come from”, and as she ponders, she is lured into the first of some frankly weird if not supernatural proceedings…

As Sophie determinedly seeks answers on a range of conceptual levels, further inquiring despatches literally take her on a journey through all of human development, guided at first remotely, but eventually in the shadow and company of a seemingly benign tutor with an agenda all his own.

…And at every moment and juncture – no matter how wild, impossible or magical – the girl learns and grows…

This initial comics session encompasses cunningly targeted and curated visits, affording up-close-&-personal experiences, via the entirety of the evolution of Western history and culture…

However, as bewildering engagements (or at least gripping, interactive syntheses thereof) unfold in ‘Myths and Natural Philosophers’, ‘Atom and Fate’, ‘Athens and Socrates’, ‘Plato’, ‘Aristotle’, ‘Hellenism’, ‘Two Cultures’, ‘St. Augustine, Averroes, St. Thomas’, ‘The Renaissance’, there’s a turning point in ‘The Baroque’ that unlocks and expands Sophie’s understanding whilst addressing a secret tragedy that unconsciously drives her.

Ultimately, the avid teen discovers other forces in play and unknown actors participating in her lessons, as glimpsed in ‘The Dream of Hilde’ and rebellious phase/phrase ‘A Woman is a Man’s Equal’, and before long the seeker is ready to chart her own course…

Completing the educational brief, this opening discourse includes ‘Author Biographies’ of ‘Nicoby’, ‘Vincent Zabus’ and ‘Jostein Gaarder’ and is absolutely To Be Continued…

Rendered in bright, cheerfully inviting colours in the welcoming manner of a children’s book, this vibrant voyage of discovery is mesmerising in its gently mischievous intensity: an outrageously joyous, entertaining rundown of humanity’s evolution and fundamental principles of thought, cunningly disguised as a superb conundrum to rival any detective yarn. Moreover, the seeds have all been laid for a monumental “Big Reveal” in the next volume…
© 2022 Albin Michel. Based on & © Jostein Gaarder’s novel Sophie’s World. English translation © 2022 SelfMadeHero. All rights reserved.

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Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of The Shadow (Will Murray Pulp History Series)


By Will Murray, illustrated by Frank Hamilton, Rick Roe, Colton Worley, Joe DeVito & various (Odyssey Publications)
ISBN: 979-8-36971-672-4 (PB/Digital edition)

In the early 1930s, just as the Great Depression hit hardest, The Shadow afforded thrill-starved Americans measured doses of extraordinary excitement via shoddily produced periodical novels and over eerily charged airwaves via an iconic radio show.

The “Pulps” were a blend of book and monthly magazine, made exceedingly cheaply and published by their hundreds in every style and genre. The results ranged from truly excellent to pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two stars who outshone all others in terms of quality and sheer imagination. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier relentless creature of the night darkly dispensing grim justice was the enigmatic vigilante discussed here.

Detective Story Hour licensed and dramatised stand-alone crime yarns from Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine, deploying a spooky-toned narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale and set the scene and mood. Think of it as just like our Jackanory, but for grown-ups and rather toned down….

The anonymous usher absolutely obsessed listeners and became known as “the Shadow”. From the very start on July 31st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he highlighted…

Dark Avenger: The Strange Saga of The Shadow is a beguiling and utterly compelling history of how the phenomenon occurred: revealing exactly how that voice evolved through sheer popular demand, smart business acumen and the writing find of a generation, to manifest as proactive character/brand The Shadow: solving instead of narrating mysteries, defending the innocent and punishing the guilty, and reshaping how the public viewed its leisure and entertainments.

Thanks to fervent and incessant demand, on April 1st 1931, the sepulchral stranger began mastering newsstands in his own adventures, mostly written by incredibly prolific and astounding gifted Walter Gibson. He was a journalist, author, historian and aficionado of stage magic and legerdemain who broke records and sired legends under the house pseudonym “Maxwell Grant”.

On September 26th 1937, the radio show was officially rebranded as The Shadow and the menacing call-&-response motto “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!” resonated out unforgettably over the nation’s airwaves and into common cultural currency.

Over the next 18 years, 325 novels were published, usually at the rate of two a month. The uncanny crusader infested comic books, movies, newspaper strip and all the hoopla and merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of an indisputable superstar.

The pulp series officially ended in 1949, although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped the world. This trend generated reprinted classic yarns and new contemporary stories in paperback novels from Belmont Books, catapulting the sinister sentinel back into print in both books and especially comics.

In graphic terms The Shadow had always been a major player. His national newspaper strip – by Gibson & Vernon Greene – launched on June 17th 1940 and, when comic books really took off, the Man of Mystery had his own four-colour title; running from March 1940 to September 1949. Stablemate Doc Savage was also present in his own solo strip…

Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary reworking in 1964-1965, crafted by Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger & Paul Reinman under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint. In 1973, DC acquired the rights, producing a captivating, brief and definitive series of classic sagas unlike any other superhero comic on the stands. Thereafter, DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante and even made him an official influencer of Batman…

After the triumph of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage vigilante for an audience at last acknowledged as mature enough to handle some sophisticated fare. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations and one cracking outing from Marvel, before Dark Horse assumed the license for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

There’s been another movie (1994) and the promise of still another, whilst Dynamite Entertainment secured the comic book option in 2011: reissuing much of those other publishers’ earlier efforts, and releasing fresh Shadow comics sagas closely adhering to the tone, timing and continuity of the pulp epoch.

In prose, new novels by the author of this mighty monograph have followed, including a fan’s dream teaming of the Man of Mystery and Man of Bronze…

Just as compelling as the stories themselves is how the Dark Avenger was born and precisely how he changed the world. This dossier details how it all came about in fascinating detail, beginning in a ‘Preface’ revealing how Will Murray’s 1970’s fanzine Duende has been retooled and remastered. Sharing the secrets and setting the scene, ‘The Men Who Cast The Shadow’ recounts precisely how The Shadow came to be: introducing the hidden men who made him and telling the tale of wonder scribe Walter Gibson.

What follows is a critical appreciation and outline of the publishing phenomenon, divided into discreet eras and tracked by cited individual issues. The formative cases are covered in ‘Phase One, 1931-1934: The Living Shadow to The Chinese Disks’, laying out how Gibson/Dent crafted fortnightly thrillers whilst building a supporting cast, core mythology, rogues gallery and new ways to enchant and confound readers.

The literary deconstruction continues with a period of confident experimentation in ‘Phase Two, 1934-1936: The Unseen Killer to Crime, Insured’, the pivotal payoffs of ‘Phase Three, 1933-1940: The Shadow Unmasks to Crime Undercover’ and confidant consolidation of ‘Phase Four, 1941-1943: The Thunder Kings to The Muggers’.

Firmly established and perhaps more risk-averse because of it, ‘Phase Five, 1943-1946: Murder By Moonlight to Malmordo’ deals with a managed decline. Wartime restrictions, substitute and auxiliary writers like Theodore Tinsley, as well as the series sheer age and ponderous back canon, augured a lack of assured spontaneity, even though the vigilante was now a cinema star too.

Another supplemental scripter signalled interim era ‘Phase Six, 1946-1948: The Blackest Mail to Reign of Terror’ as Noir-tinged, post-war attitudes and style infiltrated the established mystery detective oeuvre before the end came with a too-late return to first principles in ‘Phase Seven, 1948-1949: Jade Dragon to The Whispering Eyes’…

Although the magazine was gone, certain shadows lingered in the place where he’d begun. The 325th and final issue of The Shadow was cover-dated Summer1949, but his radio crusades against crime continued until December 21st 1954. As the Sixties unfolded he was back on the airwaves again, in comics and in new tales, whilst outside America he never went away. The British Shadow magazine, for example, kept on going until 1957…

Wrapping up the investigations, ‘Epilogue’ explores those later years and discusses that Batman connection and influences, before we learn a bit more of the backroom boys. That includes illustrator Joe DeVito in ‘About the Artist’, “angel” Dave Smith in ‘About our Patron’ and Murray himself in ‘About the Author’.

If you’re addicted to classic pulp fiction but need more than just the stories, you really need to check out Will Murray. New prose stories continue the primal legends of Doc Savage – including sidebar novels starring his phenomenal kinswoman Pat Savage; The Spider; the C’thulu mythos; Sherlock Holmes; King Kong; The Green Lama; The Bat; The Avenger; The Shadow; The Destroyer (Remo Williams); and Tarzan even as his astoundingly accessible scholarly books about the characters, era and especially creators, published as the Will Murray Pulp History Series.

You’ll probably want to see – or may already enjoy – Murray’s comics too: gems like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (co-created with Steve Ditko), Spider-Man, Hulk, The Destroyer, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Secret Six, The Spider, The Gray Seal, Ant-Man, Green Hornet, Zorro, The Phantom and many more…

When Sherlock Holmes wrote such informational tracts like this one, they were called monographs. These days we just call them unmissable.
© 2022 Will Murray. All rights reserved.