Category: Historical

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Alice in Cryptoland – Bitcoin, NFT and Other Curiosities


By Nicolas Balas, Daniel Villa Monteiro, translated by Margaret Morrison (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-355-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-356-1

This book also includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and literary effect.

Sequential narrative is a nigh-universal, overwhelmingly powerful medium fluent in a host of topics and genres, but the area where it has always shone brightest is in its chimeric capacity to convey complex arguments, positions and states in a clear and compelling manner. Although daubing marks on a surface is possibly our oldest art form, the potential to ask questions, make stories and concisely communicate via that primal process remains infinitely adaptable to modern mores and as powerful as it ever was in exploring the unchanging basics of the human condition.

Narrative plus image – and the interactions such conjunctions can embrace – underpin all of our communal existence and form the primary source for how we view our distant forbears; especially as if employed by incisive, sensitive, uncompromising agents and interlocutors…

That’s never been more apparent than in this short sweet deep dive into one of the most controversial of new modern innovations.

Crafted during the Covid lockdowns and released on the continent in 2023, using the avatar of a cute and appealing young woman disaffected with the contemporary financial, governmental and environmental status quo, writer/educator Daniel Villa Monteiro and animator/illustrator Nicolas Balas jointly outline the pros & cons of cryptocurrencies, addressing the history, development, advantages and pitfalls of Bitcoin, Non Fungible Tokens, Blockchain and other trade/pecuniary artefacts of the digital age in a staggeringly accessible manner that even I could grasp.

Just before coronavirus is set to change human society forever, art student Alice receives an inheritance from her grandmother. Constantly harassed by her “breadhead” banker/financier dad on how best to invest the nest egg, self-aware, system-suspicious, rebellious Alice eventually discovers alternate currency Bitcoin and after some trepidation dives into a new world. As an artist, she thinks visually, using cartoons and graphics to enhance her understanding of this brand new world and even explain what she’s doing to her little brother. The results are so effective that soon she is sharing her images and online tutorials with other curious pre-converts, becoming well known to advocates of digital economy and is on the cusp of a promising new career.

If only she can completely convince herself that it’s all safe and secure…

Warm, beguiling and immensely straightforward Alice in Cryptoland is a charming and readily comprehensible argument for its subject that puts understanding of a bewildering subject first and foremost, not only in its context-rammed ‘Foreword’ and utterly crucial ‘Glossary of Terms’ but also on every lovely welcoming cartoon page.

Why not invest some of your actual capital resources on something that could end your dependence on it?

Originally published as Alice au pays des cryptos by Editions du Faubourg, © 2023. All rights reserved. © 2025 NBM for the English translation.
Scheduled for UK release on 13th May, Alice in Cryptoland is available for pre-order now.

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Ginseng Roots


By Craig Thompson (Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-38661-1 (HB)

This is one of those reviews where I try quite hard not to say too much about the content, because it’s a sin and a form of theft to deprive readers of the joy of it unfolding just for them. You could and should just go buy this now and save time, but if I can’t convince you of that here, please read on and think again…

In no way a sequel to his landmark masterpiece Blankets but every inch and ounce as compelling, engaging and important, Ginseng Roots sees auteur Craig Thompson return to what you or I would deem an incredibly harsh – nigh-dystopian – childhood to craft another incredibly engaging paean of love and fond wonder to his home, his family and his extraordinary life.

In a book encompassing biographical revelation, philosophical rumination and religious re-exploration we see the auteur share incredibly candid events from his profession and career. Wrapped up in a most engaging, amusing and occasionally distressing tutorial on the history and global cultural significance of Ginseng, we see Thompson return to Wisconsin. The Thompson kids were raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, with the Rapture anticipated any day now, but it wasn’t all bad. They were loved, if ruled hard, and here we see how that panned out, as well as the transformative power of comics via a broad, deep and astonishingly informative yarn viewed through the ruminative lens of the Thompson family’s recollections of being child labourers for local farmers growing American Ginseng in the 1980s.

The way it all worked is unpicked with remarkable even-handedness, as the man who became a major force in his field of graphic narrative expression revisits those formative days before embarking on a quest to learn all he can of the How and Why of it all. This involves returning home before ultimately crisscrossing the world with little brother Phil to research a new graphic novel undertaken in the light of potentially losing all he could be to an inexorable physical decline: one destined to take away his self-defining ability to draw…

When first released in July 2003, Blankets started slowly before achieving monumental international fame and near-unanimous critical approval from comics’ Great & Good & Fabled. If you have a favourite author or artist they probably loved the book – and rightly so.

Taking 3½ years to create, Blankets won 3 Harvey Awards, 2 Eisners, 2 Ignatz Awards and a France’s Prix de la Critique. Translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Greek, German, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Czech, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, Slovenian, Estonian, Serbian and Greek, it was latterly published in 17 foreign editions (so far) and kept on winning glittering prizes and acclaim. It’s also won a YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults prize: listed as one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time. You can expect Ginseng Roots to do as well or better, even if young love and tragic foredoomed passions have been downplayed in favour of the inexorable march of time, unsatisfied injustices, midlife crises and failing faculties.

Reading this, you will learn all about a wonder herb, global trade, Chinese medicine, Big Agriculture & pesticides, many flavours of immigrant workers, exploitation and corporate ruthlessness, the economic history of many nations, the narcotic tendencies of comic books of grade school kids, and so much about human nature, that you’ll probably laugh, cry and get angry quite a lot…

Originally released in serialised instalments by Uncivilized Book (between 2019 -2023, as Covid ravaged the US and the world) just as Craig Thompson was confronting presumed career burnout, impostor syndrome and the loss of his ability to draw, the fascinating pictorial discourse is divided into 12 chapters beginning with ‘Real Ginseng Runs’, as Craig, Phil and their sister Sarah reunite at the parental homestead and trade tales of the old days. The reminiscences blend with flashback and flashforwards in ‘Sister Species’ as the story of Ginseng from America expands, with ‘Broad Stripes’ covering the history of Wisconsin – especially the region around Marathon – and growth of Ginseng trading: its use by First Nations before colonisation, white/French and Christian exploitation after that, and eventually an unshakeable connection to Asian nations that bought it from Wisconsin’s farmers and entrenched rivalry with its clearly inferior Canadian competition…

Interviews with old friends and former employers begins in ‘Rock(s) & Roll(ie)’, augmented by modern convolutions in ‘MAGGA’ (Make American Ginseng Great Again!) and ‘Good Seed Sinks’, before Craig’s declining health is more extensively explored in ‘No More Cartoons’. This leads to a vast expansion of purpose that culminates in fact finding missions all over “the orient” and the undertaking of a major literary project as expanded upon in ‘Father Abraham’, ‘Dark Night of the Soil’ and ‘Insam Respects’, before all that global and historical interconnection is pulled together as one big ‘Red Thread’, and laid to bed in grand ‘Agricultural Appreciation’…

So much better read than read about, this marvellously moving memoir and ruminatory treatise is backed up with full contextual ‘Notes’, genuinely evocative ‘Acknowledgments’ and bonus art from the little brother/willing accomplice and henchman on a ‘Phil(er) Page’ and closes with an extended cartoon ad for Craig’s other books – debut tome Good-bye Chunky Rice, Blankets, Carnet de voyage, Habibi and Space Dumplins. You should sample them too and Faber has them all in print for just that purpose.

Loving, informatively wistful and never angry or condemnatory, for such a weighty tome, Ginseng Roots is a remarkably quick and easy read, with Thompson’s imaginative and ingenious marriage of text and images carrying one along in the way only comics can. Expect his cartoon avatar of the root to be pinched and copied by ad men for some time to come…

Charming, engrossing and irresistible, this may well be Thompson’s best and most enduring book, but if fate and Ginseng will it, not his last as it is another perfect story in pictures.
This edition © 2025 by Craig Thompson. All rights reserved. Originally serialised by Uncivilized Books © 2019, 2021, 2021, 2022, 2023 by Craig Thompson.

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Take That, Adolf! – The Fighting Comic Books of the Second World War


By Mark Fertig and many & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-987-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Long the bastion of the arcane, historic, esoteric and the just plain interesting arenas of the comics experience, Fantagraphics Books here celebrates the dawn age of Fights ‘n’ Tights funnybooks with a magnificent collection of (mostly) superhero covers culled from the fraught period which most truly defined the comics industry.

Comic book covers are a potent and evocative way of assessing the timbre of an era and a captivating shortcut into worlds far removed from our own. They are also half the sum total of fun generated by narrative art and arguably an art form all their own. In this torrid tome, educator, scholar and writer Mark Fertig (Chair of Art and Art History at Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania and revered film noir expert – check out his Where Danger Lives for more populist fun) offers an erudite, wide-reaching treatise comprehensively addressing every aspect of the four-colour Home Front’s graphic endeavours in support of America’s WWII war effort.

Detailing how Jewish émigré artists’ and writers’ creative influences advocated America surrender its isolationist stance in ‘Four Color Fantasies’ and ‘Building Towards War’, Fertig then traces the development of ‘Red, White, and Blue Heroes’ such as The Shield and Uncle Sam before ‘The Coming of Captain America’ sparks the invention of ‘An Army of Captains’.

After the USA finally enters the war ‘All-Out Assault: August & September 1941’  is followed by an examination of female masked fighters in ‘She Can Do It!’ and reveals how Wonder Woman became ‘An Amazon for the Ages’.

‘Kids Can Fight Too!’ reveals the impact of junior and underage crusaders as well as the sub-genre of Kid Gangs whilst ‘Attaboy, Steamboat!’ confronts head-on the depiction of ethnic characters – both vile foreign predators and monstrous conquerors and decent Pro-democracy non-white types…

From here in the distant future, some of the appalling jingoism and racism is even more disturbing than the tortures, torments and buckets of gore liberally scattered through the images of Evil Nazis and “Japs”…

Next ‘Into the Breach’ addresses the reasons omnipotent heroes such as Superman and Captain Marvel left the actual fighting in Europe and the Pacific to ordinary mortals before ‘Pulling Together’ details the promotion of Home Front solidarity munitions manufacture and the arming of the armies of Freedom. Then Hitler repeatedly gets his just deserts (in graphic effigy at least) ‘In Der Führer’s Face!’

‘Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines!’ follows the development of more human fictional soldiers and heroes whilst ‘More Thrilling Than Fiction’ sees the beginnings of fact-based accounts of true champions such as President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower before ‘Pitch Men’ follows the numerous examples of masked warriors and kiddie-characters inciting readers to help pay for the war through selling war bonds and liberty stamps before ‘On to Victory’ celebrates the end of hostilities and the aftermath.

The fact-packed lecture is also supplemented at the back of the book by creator biographies of industry giants and iconic cover crafters Charles Clarence Beck, Jack Binder, Charles Biro, Hardin “Jack” Burnley, Reed Crandall, Will Eisner, Lou Fine, Irv Novick, Manuel “Mac” Raboy and Alex Schomburg (regarded as the most prolific cover illustrator of the period) but the true merit of this enchanting tome is the covers gathered for your perusal.

Designed to incite patriotic fervour and build morale, the awesome majority of this tome features a potent avalanche of stunning covers from almost every company, displaying not only how mystery men and superheroes dealt with the Axis of Evil in those tense times but also the valiant efforts of “ordinary fighting men” and even cartoon fantasy stars such as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Walt Disney stars such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck…

Shopping List Alert: Feel free to skip if you must…

This book celebrates an absolute torrent of spectacular, galvanising scenes of heroes legendary and obscure, costumed and uniformed, all crushing tanks, swatting planes, sinking U-Boats and decimating enemy ranks, and unleashed before your assuredly goggled eyes by artists long forgotten, and never known as well as more familiar names. This battalion of the worthy includes Joe Shuster, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Eisner, Harry G. Peter, Jack Burnley, Frank Harry, Irwin Hasen, Al Avison, Bob Powell, Edd Ashe, Harry Lucey, Paul Gustavson, Bill Everett, Jerry Robinson, Gus Ricca, Al Gabriele, Charles Sultan, Gene Fawcette, Louis & Arturo Cazeneuve, Gill Fox, Sam Cooper, Jim Mooney, Elmer Wexler, Fred Ray, Dan Zolnerowich, Don Rico, Max Plaisted, Howard Sherman, Everett E. Hibbard, Ramona Patenaude, Pierce Rice, Harry Anderson, Lin Streeter, Dan Gormley, Bernard Klein, Stephen Douglas, Martin Nodell, Charles Quinlan, Dan Noonan, Sheldon Moldoff, Henry Keifer, Marc Swayze, Carl Buettner, Charles A. Winter, Maurice, del Bourgo, Jack Warren, Bob Montana, Bob, Fujimori, Vernon Greene, George Papp, John Jordan, Syd Shores, John Sikela, Alex Blum, Ray Ramsey, R. Webster, Harry Sahle, Mort Leav, Alex Kotzky, Dan Barry, Al Camy, Stan Kaye, George Gregg, Art Saaf, George Tuska, Alexander Kostuk, Al Carreno, Fred Kida, Ruben Moreira, Sidney Hamburg, Rudy Palais, Joe Doolin, Al Plastino, Harvey K. Fuller, Louis Goodman Ferstadt, Matt Bailey, Ham Fisher, Walt Kelly, Wayne Boring, John Giunta, Creig Flessel, Harold Delay, Lee Elias, Henry Boltinoff, L.B. Cole and George Marcoux – plus oh so many more who did their bit by providing safe thrills, captivating joy and astounding excitement for millions.

These powerful, evocative, charming, funny, thrilling, occasionally daft and often horrific images are controversial these days. Many people consider them Art with a capital ‘A’ whereas close-minded, reactionary, unimaginative, bigoted die-hard poltroons don’t.

Why not Dig back in time (For Victory!) and make your own decision?
© 2017 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. Main text © 2017 Mark Fertig. All comics covers and illustrations herein © 2017 the respective copyright holders All rights reserved.

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High Command – The Stories of Sir Winston Churchill and General Montgomery


By Frank Bellamy & Clifford Makins (Dragon’s Dream)
ISBN: 978-9-06332-901-3 (PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Inexcusably absent as we commemorate the achievements and sacrifices of earlier generations are these twin neglected classics of British comic strip art, crafted by one of the world’s most talented narrative illustrators. These wonderful biographical series originally ran in Eagle, the most influential comic of post-war Britain, which launched on April 14th 1950, astounding readers weekly until 26th April 1969.

It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was at that time concerned over the detrimental effects of American comic books on British children. He posited a good, solid, thoroughly decent Christian-inspired antidote and sought out like-minded creators. After jobbing around a dummy to numerous British publishers for over a year with little success, he eventually found an unlikely home at Hulton Press, a company producing adult general interest magazines like Lilliput and Picture Post. The result was a huge hit, spawning clones Swift, Robin and Girl (targeting other demographic sectors of the children’s market), as well as radio series, books, toys and all other sorts of merchandising.

An incredible number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures in many arenas of media worked on the weekly, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as the star, many other strips were as popular at the time, often rivalling the lead in quality and entertainment value. As was the trend of the times, the content combined fact with fiction, stressing learning and discernment equally with adventure, thrills and fun…

At its peak, Eagle sold close to a million copies a week, but before changing tastes and “musical owners” killed the title. In 1960, Hulton sold out to comics megalith Odhams, who then became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. And so it goes in publishing…

In cost-cutting exercises, many later issues carried (relatively) cheap and oh-so-trendy Marvel Comics reprints rather than British originated material. It took time, but the Yankee cultural Invaders won out in the end. With the April 26th 1969 issue Eagle merged with Lion, and eventually disappeared altogether. Successive generations have revived the prestigious glamour-soaked title, but never its success.

From its glorious Reithian heyday (“Educate, Elucidate and Entertain”) came a brace of brief biographical serials devoted to two men crucial to the war effort that had imperilled the readership’s forebears, and these were originally collected into a classy album by Dragons Dream in 1981.

The first half was reprinted in 2014 as a slim, scarcely seen paperback and hardcover album from Uniform. The Happy Warrior: The Life Story of Sir Winston Churchill as Told Through the Eagle Comic of the 1950’s (ISBNs 978-1-90650-990-3 for the HB and 978-1929154340 for the softcover) came with a scholarly commentary from Richard M. Langworth CBE, but we’re long overdue for the combined volume to resurface.

If you can, go for the High Command edition, but in whatever form you can devour the life story of Sir Winston Churchill and the quiet general (both scripted by Clifford Makins), beginning with the icon of Bulldog Spirit.

Originally titled The Happy Warrior, the prestigious full-page back cover feature (running from October 4th 1957 to September 1958) was Frank Bellamy’s first full colour strip. He followed up with Montgomery of Alamein (Eagle volume 13, #10-27, spanning March 10th to 7th July 1962), delivering twice the punch and more revelatory design in 2-page colour-spreads that utterly spellbound readers, whether they were war fans or not.

Churchill himself approved the early strips and was rumoured to have been consulted before the artist began the experimental layouts that elevated Bellamy from being merely a highly skilled representational draughtsman into the trailblazing innovator who revolutionized the comic page in features like Doctor Who and Garth. The tireless experimenter also began the explorations of the use of local and expressionistic colour palettes that would result in the extraordinary Fraser of Africa, Heros the Spartan and deservedly legendary Thunderbirds strips.

The Churchill story follows the great man from his early days at Eton through military service in Cuba as a war correspondent, and into politics. Although a large proportion deals with World War II – and in a spectacular, tense and thrilling manner – the subtler skill Bellamy displays in depicting the transition of dynamic, handsome man of action into burly political heavyweight over the weeks is impressive and astonishing. It should be mentioned, though, that this collection doesn’t reproduce the climactic, triumphal last page, a portrait that is half-pin-up, half summation and all hagiography.

Bernard Law Montgomery’s graphic biography benefited from Bellamy’s burgeoning expertise in two ways. Firstly, the page count was doubled, and the artist capitalized on this by producing groundbreaking double page spreads that worked across gutters (the white spaces that divides the pictures). This allowed him to craft even more startling page and panel designs.

Secondly, Bellamy had now become extremely proficient in both staging the script and creating mood with colour. This strip is pictorial poetry in motion.

Makins doesn’t hang about either. Taking only three episodes to get from school days in Hammersmith, army service in India and promotion to Brigade Major by the end of the Great War, Monty’s WWII achievements are given full play, allowing Bellamy to create an awesome display of action-packed war comics over the remaining 15 double-paged episodes. There really hasn’t been anything to match this level of quality and sophistication in combat comics before or since.

If you strain you might detect a tinge of post-war triumphalism in the scripts, but these accounts are generally historically accurate and phenomenally stirring to look at. If you love comic art you should hunt these down, or at least pray that somebody, somewhere has the sense to reprint this work.

© 1981 Dragon’s Dream B.V. ©1981 IPC Magazines Ltd.

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Lucky Luke volume 47: Outlaws


By Morris, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-201-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Doughty, rangy,and dashingly dependable cowboy Lucky Luke is an implacably even-tempered do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic, cinematically realised Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant and stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nine decades, his exploits in Le Journal de Spirou (and from 1967, in rival periodica Pilote) have made the sharp shooter a legend of stories across all media and monument of merchandising.

Working solo with occasional script assistance from his brother Louis, Morris – AKA Maurice de Bévère – produced 10 albums worth of affectionate and thrilling sagebrush parody before formally uniting with René Goscinny, who became regular wordslinger with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie), which commenced in Le Journal de Spirou on August 25th 1955.

They literarily rode together on another 44 albums as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom. The partnership continued when the six-gun straight-shooter switched teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with La Diligence (The Stagecoach). After Goscinny died, Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators. The dream team’s last ride was 1986’s La Ballade des Dalton et autres histoires/The Ballad Of The Daltons and Other Stories.

Morris worked alone again before inviting an inspiring passel of legacy creators to step in. These included Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and others, who all took their own shots at the lovable lone rider. Morris died in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus many sidebar and spin-off sagebrush sagas. Since 2016 Julien Berjeaut, AKA Jul (Silex and the City) has handled the tall tale telling…

Lucky is one of the top-ranked comic characters in the world, having generated 94 albums (if you count spin-off series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, and artist’s specials) with sales totalling north of 300 million in 33 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Our taciturn trailblazer’s travails draw on western history as much as movie mythology and regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk re-exploring and refining key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions and interpretations. As previously hinted, the happy wanderer is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire… but not this time…

We Brits first encountered Lucky Luke in the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun, and again in 1967 in Giggle where he blazed trails as Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as numerous attempts to capitalise on  the English-language success of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had his trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of political correctness gone mad – substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization. In this restored remastered edition, the dogend is restored, so if that’s a problem, stop here and seek out another, later Lucky lark…

First published continentally in December 1954, Hors-la-loi was the 6th European album and an all Morris affaire comprising two short serials. Eponymous lead strip ‘Outlaws’ originally ran in LJdS #701-731 from September 20th 1951 to April 17th 1952, with our hero hired by the railroad companies to end the depredations of Emmett Bill, Grat and Bob Dalton: real life badmen who plagued the region during the 1890s, imported into the strip and given a comedic, but still vicious spin.

A cat & mouse chase across the wildest of wests sees Luke constantly frustrated by close calls and narrow escapes in superbly gripping movie set-pieces until, inevitably, justice claims the killers. At the close of this yarn, Morris had Lucky end the gang forever, but they and the story itself were insanely popular with fans. The villains were comedy gold and ideal foils for Lucky, so eventually they returned in the form of their own cousins, but we’ll tell that tale another time and place.

Actually, lets do some of it right now…

A certified Christmas must-have item, Lucky Luke album Outlaws also carried ‘Return of the Dalton Brothers’ – as first seen in LJdS #755-764 (October 2nd – December 4th 1952). Here, fraudster Bill Boney campaigns to become sheriff of a prosperous frontier town by claiming to be the killer of those infamous owlhoots. He is an absolute “wrong ‘un” but seems utterly unstoppable… until Lucky orchestrates a brief and equally fake resurrection of the bandit brothers. A little rampage and faux lynching and Boney learns a lesson that the townsfolk will never forget…

From the response to that tale eventually came the aforementioned revival, as Goscinny’s third collaboration introduced Les Cousins Dalton in issues #992-1013 (1957) of Le Journal de Spirou. When this iteration of the appalling Dalton Brothers – Averell, Jack, William and devious, slyly psychotic, tyrannical diminutive brother Joe showed up, the course of the strip altered forever…

These youthful forays of an indomitable hero offer grand joys in the wry tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller: a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Scorpion volume 1: The Devil’s Mark


By Stephen Desberg & Enrico Marini, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-62-5 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

It’s Easter. Fancy a bit of biblical epic-ness doused with saucy irreverance?

We in the English-speaking world will have to work long and hard to come anywhere near the astonishing breadth of genres present in European comics. Both in scenario and narrative content, our continental cousins have seemingly explored every aspect of time and place to tell tales ranging from comedy to tragedy, drama to farce and most especially encompassing the broad, treasure-laden churches of adventure and romance. Le Scorpion is a graphic series which embraces and accommodates all of these and more…

Belgian writer Stephen Desberg is one of the most popular and bestselling comics authors in the business. Born in Brussels, he is the son of an American lawyer (European distribution agent for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer) who married a French woman. He began studying law at Université Libre de Bruxelles, but dropped out to follow a winding path into the bande dessinée biz.

It began with plots – and eventually scripts – for Willy Maltaite – AKA “Will” – on Tif et Tondu in Le Journal de Spirou, as he grew into a reliable jobbing creator on established strips for younger readers. He ultimately launched his own with Billy the Cat (a funny-animal strip drawn by Stéphane Colman, not DC Thomson’s be-whiskered boy superhero). In quick succession came 421 with Eric Maltaite, Arkel (with Marc Hardy), Jimmy Tousseul (Daniel Desorgher) and many, many more. Throughout the 1980s, Desberg gradually redirected his efforts into material for older readerships (like The Garden of Desire and, in 1999 he originated contemporary thriller IR$, with today’s historical fantasy joining his catalogue of major hits one year later.

Enrico Marini attended the School of Fine Arts in Basle before starting his creative career. Drawn since childhood to comics and manga, he began selling his artistic skills as the 1980s ended. A stint on junior adventure strip Oliver Varèse led to Gypsy (1993-1996), after which he began collaborating with Desberg on western L’Etoile du Desert. Contiguously crafting detective serial Rapaces with Jean Dufaux, Marini teamed again with Desberg in 2000 on Le Scorpion. In 2007, the illustrator added writing to his repertoire with historical drama Les Aigles de Rome and latterly Batman saga Dark Prince Charming.

A complex historical romp in the movie style of Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers and – if you squint right – Dangerous Liaisons and Pirates of the Caribbean, The Scorpion is a devious rollercoaster of sumptuous epic intrigue laced together with cunning factual underpinnings fuelling the frantic fantasy and chilling conspiracy. This first expansive English-language Cinebook translation is available in album-sized paperback and eBook formats, bundling together the first two European tomes – La marque du diable and Le secret du pape as released in October 2000 and October 2001 – into one grand bulging behemoth of literary and pictorial gold.

The fun starts in The Devil’s Mark, opening with a fulsome flashback to the most critical moment in the mighty Roman Empire’s long and bloody history. At a place and time when nine families secretly own and rule everything, a pact is made placing all their resources – if not actual Faith – in the coming thing: an intriguing new religion to be called Christianity. The families will remain in charge and in control, but now the official face and might of Rome will not be short-lived Caesars, but rather divinely guided Popes…

Tumbling forward to the early 18th century, we see roguish conman, historian, tomb-robber and relic retailer Armando Catalano – and capable but constantly carping assistant Hussard – deftly swiping the bones of long-lost Saint Alastor. These affable scoundrels are blithely unaware that elsewhere, malign forces within the Church are mobilising to change the way the world runs, with especial significance for freewheeling faith-exploiting entrepreneurs like themselves…

The current Pope is a well-meaning, unconventional commoner set on a path of reform, but that doesn’t matter to sinister advisor Monsignor Trebaldi. Even though doctrine should make the Pope infallible – literally God’s hand and word on Earth – the militant cleric gives his allegiance to an older belief than Christianity…

“Cardinal Eagle” has decided to reinstate the direct influence of the nine families using the papacy as his tool of statecraft. That means somehow first reuniting the varied clans who have drifted into isolation and bitter rivalry over centuries. The first step has already been accomplished. Cosmopolitan Rome is now heavily policed by the Order of the Knights of Christianity: warrior monks who are the Eagle’s own paramilitary zealots and a militant faction gaining in strength despite every effort of the incumbent Pontiff to reign them in…

Devil-may-care Armando is the son of Magdalena Catalan, an infamous witch burned after “seducing a high-ranking priest away from the one true faith”. As sign and proof of his ill-begotten origins, their son bears upon his shoulder a birthmark of the devil: a scorpion signalling his diabolical origins. The brand has not stopped him becoming well-known to every rich patron desperate to possess holy relics, but now, inexplicably, it makes him Trebaldi’s personal obsession. However, after the Cardinal despatches seductive “gypsy” Mejai to assassinate Armando, her repeated attempts all fail. It is as if her target has the luck of the devil on his side…

Alerted and affronted, Armando retaliates, even breaking into an inviolable palace to have a discussion with the Pontiff, only to discover a previously-hidden connection between Trebaldi and his own long-dead mother, and that an even greater scandal and mystery have been draped around the circumstances of his birth! The war of wills escalates rapidly, and the Scorpion finally confronts the Cardinal… seemingly paying the ultimate price for his indiscretions…

The drama expands and tensions mount in The Pope’s Secret with an hallucinogenic flashback offering even more clues into the astoundingly long-planned conspiracy, via a glimpse at Armando’s early life following Magdalena’s incendiary execution. This ends abruptly as faithful Hussard rouses him from the death-like coma caused by Mejai’s latest attempt to kill them. With the Romi assassin their prisoner, our shabby heroes seek further information regarding which high-ranking churchman was Armando’s debauched father by boldly infiltrating the Eagle’s citadel. They instead discover the Cardinal has appropriated the Secret Files of the Vatican, and plans to kill the Pope and replace him…

The outlaws are horrified at this travesty and assault on reality. They frantically race back to

Rome to halt the abomination.

They almost make it…

To Be Continued…

Effortlessly blending devious plots and beguiling historical conspiracies with riotous swashbuckling adventure and non-stop, breathtaking action, this blistering, bombastic and exotically engaging period thriller gives Game of Thrones, The Name of the Rose and even frothier romps like Da Vinci’s Demons a real run for their money. The twelfth and latest volume – Le Mauvais Augure – arrived in 2019 after far too long a hiatus, so there’s plenty for fans of the genre to catch-up to and adore…
Le Marque du diable & Le Secret du pape © Dargaud Benelux (Dargaud-Lombard SA) 2000, 2001 by Desberg & Marini. All rights reserved. English translation © 2008 Cinebook.

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Rex Generations


By Ted Rechlin (Rextooth Studios/Sweetgrass Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59512-229-4 (HB)

Got your eggs yet? Some come pretty big…

I’ve never met a kid who didn’t love dinosaurs, and that gleeful fascination doesn’t fade with age or what we laughingly regard as maturity. Ted Rechlin clearly ascribes to that belief too, and has made it his life’s work, whether it’s in his 30+ books (including End of the Ice Age, Jurassic, Epsilon: a Yellowstone Wolf Story, Howl, Comicquest Time Travel Trouble or the award-winning Sharks: A 400 Million Year Journey) or superhero stuff such as freelance commissions for the likes of DC Comics, Dark Horse or Dover Publications.

Rex Generations is an incredibly informative and engaging book about family, rendered with great deftness, gleeful aplomb, and packed with the latest scientific thinking regarding arguably the most famous species of big lizard (or is that bird?) on Earth.

In case you weren’t paying attention, the clan in question is thundering great tyrannosaur Cobalt and his feisty mate Sierra, just getting by in what is nowadays Hell Creek, Montana.

This stunning full-colour hardback, however, opens in the Mesozoic bit of the Cretaceous Period, or approximately 66 million years ago on a very special night. Here our anxious apex predators proudly celebrate the hatching of four eggs, heralding the start of a new generation, after which we’ll closely follow the pack over the next decade or so. The parents teach and provide in a casually lethal environment packed with a wide variety of dangerously capable prey, rival predators and unknown perils of every description.

This is dinosaurs and natural history, not Lady and the Tramp with really big teeth, so brace yourself and your own youngsters with a little spoiler alert: not everybody present at this antediluvian nativity is going to make it…

Compelling, beguilingly educational and splendidly entertaining, T. Rex Generations is a glorious celebration of Earth’s earlier Saurian inhabitants and our enduring love affair with them. Get this read the rest and go wild!
© 2018 Ted Rechlin. All rights reserved.

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Eagle Classics: Riders of the Range


By Charles Chilton, Jack Daniel, Frank Humphris & various (Hawk Books)
ISBN: 978-0948248276 (Tabloid TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Launching on April 14th 1950 and running until April 26th 1969, Eagle was the most influential comic of post-war Britain, and possibly ever. It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was increasingly concerned about the detrimental effects of American comic-books on British children and wanted a good, solid, middle-class Christian antidote. Seeking out like-minded creators, Morris peddled a dummy edition around British publishers for over a year with little success until he found an unlikely home at Hulton Press: a company specialising in general interest magazines like Lilliput and Picture Post.

The result was a massive hit which rapidly spawned age and gender-specific clones Swift, Robin and Girl: targeting other key demographic sectors of the highly lucrative and scrupulously demarcated children’s market. Thanks to printing wizardry, all of these weeklies combined sections of spectacular and lush full-colour pages with cheaper monochrome inserts offering line, wash and tone offerings.

A huge number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures worked on the key weekly, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as the star, the other strips (and features!) were almost as popular at the time. Many rivalled the lead in quality and entertainment value according to broader tastes of that hope-filled, luxury-rationed, fresh-faced generation. Eagle’s mighty pantheon roped in established radio and film attractions like P.C. 49, soon-to-be TV sensation Captain Pugwash, and more, all already or swiftly becoming stars of other media and guaranteed their own share of promotional tie-ins like books, puzzles, toys, games, apparel and comestibles as well as and all other sorts of ancillary merchandising. And because everyone else did, they also had a cowboy. Deriving as many stars from the air waves as it could get hold of, The Eagle became a pictorialized home for radio cowboy Jeff Arnold/Riders of the Range…

In the 1950s “Cowboys & Indians” ruled the hearts and minds of the public. Westerns were the most popular subject of books, films and comics. The new medium of television screened recycled cowboy B-movies and eventually serials, and soon thereafter series especially created for the stay-at-home aficionado. Some were pretty good and became acknowledged as art – as is always the way with popular culture – whilst most others faded from memory, cherished only by the hopelessly nostalgic and the driven.

One medium we all underestimate today was radio, an entertainment medium ideal for creating spectacular scenarios and dreamscapes on a low budget. Even the staid BBC (the only legal British radio broadcaster) managed a halfway decent western/music show. Written by producer/director Charles Chilton, Riders of the Range ran from 1949 until 1953, six series in total. At the height of its popularity the serial show was adapted as a comic strip in Eagle. The debutant title already heavily featured the strip exploits of the immensely successful radio star P.C. 49. The hugely successful periodical had already tried one cowboy strip – Seth and Shorty – before promptly dropping it.

Riders of the Range began as a full colour page in the first Christmas edition (December 22nd 1950, volume 1, No. 37) and ran until 1962, outlasting its own radio show and becoming the longest running western strip in British comics history. In all that time, it only ever had three artists. The first was Jack Daniel, an almost abstract stylist in his designs who worked in bold, almost primitive lines, but whose colour palette was years ahead of his time. Crude and scratchy-seeming, his western scenarios were subversive and subliminal in impact. He had previously worked on the newspaper strip Kit Conquest and made spectacular use of Hulton’s now-legendary photo-gravure print process – which modern repro techniques and digital systems STILL can’t come even close to recapturing…

The feature spawned a host of solo books and annuals too…

Author Chilton had a deep and abiding fascination with the West and often wrote adventures interwoven with actual historical events, such as ‘The Cochise Affair’ reprinted here. This was the second adventure and had heroic Jeff Arnold and sidekick Luke branding cattle for their “6T6” ranch near the Arizona border when they stumble across a raided homestead. Here a distraught, wounded mother begs for help and reveals that Indians have stolen her little boy…

Taking her to Fort Buchanan, Arnold becomes embroiled in a bitter battle of wills between Chief Cochise and Acting Cavalry Commander Lieutenant George N. Bascom. The lean sparse scripts are subtly engaging and Daniel’s unique design and colour sense – although perhaps at odds with the more naturalistic realism of the rest of Eagle’s drama strips – make this a hugely enjoyable lost gem – and one remarkably short on the kind of stuff that makes much western material of this era so unpalatable to modern readers.

Angus Scott took over from Daniel with ‘Border Bandits’ (September 7th 1951), but was not a popular or comfortable fit. He departed after less than a year. With only a single page of his art included here, it’s perhaps fairest to move on to the artist most closely associated with the feature.

Frank Humphris was a godsend. His artwork was lush, vibrant and full-bodied. He was also as fascinated with the West as Chilton himself, bringing every inch of that passion to the tales. From July 1952 and for the next decade, Chilton & Humphris crafted a thrilling and even educational sagebrush saga that is fondly remembered to this day even if only by those of us somehow still breathing! His tenure is represented here by ‘The War with the Sioux’…

In 1875, gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota and a resultant rush of prospectors resulted in the US Cavalry being dispatched to protect them from the incensed Indians again pushed out of their homelands. Jeff and Luke are hired as intermediaries and scouts, but are helpless as the situation worsens, and weekly-delivered events and incidents inevitably lead to the massacre at the Little Big Horn. There have many tales woven into this epochal historical tragedy, but the patriotically-neutral, dispassionate creativity of two Brits united here to craft one of the most beautiful and memorable…

At its peak, the original Eagle sold close to a million copies a week, but inevitably, changing tastes and a game of “musical owners” killed the title. In 1960, Hulton sold out to Odhams, who became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. In cost cutting exercises many later issues carried cheap(er) Marvel Comics reprints rather than British-originated material. It took time, but those manifestly-destined Yankee cultural colonisers won out in the end. In 1969, with the April 26th issue, Eagle was subsumed into cheap ‘n’ cheerful ironclad anthology Lion, before eventually disappearing altogether. Successive generations revived the title, but never the success. A revived second iteration ran from 27th March 1982 to January 1994 (having switched from weekly to monthly release in May 1991). They same is true regarding the overwhelming dominance of western heroes. I’m sure you already know what happened there…

The day of the cowboys’ dominance has faded now but the power of great stories well told has not. This is a series and a book worthy of a more extensive revival – and fortunately still readily available in collector retail emporia in the real world and digital places. Let’s hope one day someone with the power to do something about it agrees with me. We’d all be winners then…
Riders of the Range © 1990 Fleetway Publications. Compilation © 1990 Hawk Books.

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Noggin the Nog


By Oliver Postgate & Peter Firmin (Egmont)
Noggin the King ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8152-2 (HB)
Noggin and the Whale ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8153-9 (HB)
Nogbad Comes Back ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8155-3 (HB)
Noggin and the Dragon ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8154-6 (HB)
Nogbad and the Elephants ISBN 978-1- 4052-8142-3 (HB)
Noggin and the Moon Mouse ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8141-6 (HB)
Noggin and the Storks ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8144-7 (HB)
Noggin and the Money ISBN: 978-1- 4052-8143-0 (HB)

Baby Boomers like me consider our childhoods – no matter how feted or feral, and personally privileged or dire and deprived – to have been a golden age in terms of liberty, agency and especially entertainment. That’s probably due in large part to being exposed to the gentle, life-affirming fantasy worlds of these guys.

Today celebrating a century of being splendid, Richard Oliver Postgate was a writer, puppeteer, animator and unrepentant itinerant storyteller who was born to an extremely prestigious, overachieving and drama-drenched family. He entered the world on April 12th 1925 in Hendon Middlesex and was eventually educated at Woodstock School, Woodhouse Secondary, the legendary Dartington Hall School/College and Kingston College of Art. He joined the Home Guard in 1942 but when at last called up, declared himself a Conscious Objector – just as his father had during the Great War. Court martialled and sentenced to Feltham Prison, Oliver eventually became a land-worker growing crops. After the war he worked for the Red Cross in Occupied Germany. On returning to Britain in 1948, he went to Drama School and drifted from job to job.

In 1957, whilst working as a stage manager for commercial TV company Associated Rediffusion, he observed the appalling quality of children’s programming up close and knew he could do better for the same paltry money offered. Writing Alexander the Mouse he convinced a Central School of Art tutor named Peter Firmin to draw the backgrounds for him. After moving on to short-lived deaf-viewer project The Journey of Master Ho, in 1959 the creators formalised their partnership as independent studio Smallfilms. The rest is history… and fantasy and wonder and charm and devastating nostalgia…

When not shaping the minds of 30-years-worth of kids, Postgate continued trying to save the world and refine its inhabitants. He was active in the CND movement, penning their pamphlet The Writing on the Sky and 1981 book Thinking it Through: The Plain Man’s Guide to the Bomb. In 1986, he created a 15-meter artwork for his latterday romantic partner Naomi Linnell’s book Illumination of the Life and Death of Thomas Beckett, repeating the exercise for The Triumphant Failure (about Christopher Columbus) and triptych A Canterbury Chronicle, which ended up in the city’s Royal Museum Art Gallery and Eliot College Campus…

Working when he pleased, Postgate narrated – in the calm, quietly compelling voice that became hardwired into the brains of millions – radio comedy and documentary shows, more books such as autobiography Seeing Things, and accompanied (arguably) his greatest creation Bagpuss – voted in 1999 the Most Popular Children’s Television Programme of All Time – as the plushly-stuffed purple & white cat accrued awards such as an honorary degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Postgate died – hopefully properly and rightly well-contented – in Broadstairs Kent, on December 8th  2008.

Peter Arthur Firmin was born in Harwich on 11th December 1928. Following training at Colchester School of Art and National Service in the Royal Navy, he attended Central School of Art and Design in London from 1949 to 1952. A creative man of many talents and disciplines, he then worked as a stained-glass designer, jobbing illustrator and lecturer.

Whilst teaching at Central in 1957 he was targeted by audacious, up-and-coming children’s TV writer Oliver Postgate who believed (quite rightly) that clever individuals could produce high-quality kids’ viewing at reasonable cost.

After crafting backgrounds for Postgate’s Alexander the Mouse and The Journey of Master Ho, Firmin became equal partner in new venture Smallfilms, which grew in and out of a shed at the artist’s Canterbury home. The kindred spirits initially produced hand-drawn cartoons and eventually stop motion animation episodes for series including Ivor the Engine, Pingwings, The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Pogle’s Wood/The Pogles, Bagpuss, The Clangers and much more. Postgate wrote, voiced and filmed, whilst Firmin – roping in any family and friends in the immediate vicinity – drew, painted, built sets and made puppets. Their spouses were often dragooned too, if they showed useful talents like sewing or knitting…

During those early days Firmin seemed tireless. In addition to the Smallfilms job he also devised, designed and populated other kids shows such as The Musical Box and Smalltime. In 1962 with Ivan Owen he created a fox puppet for The Three Scampies. That creation soon had his own show and career as Basil Brush…

Throughout his life, Firmin continued his cartooning and illustration career. This included writing and/or illustrating a number of books including Basil Brush Goes Flying, The Winter Diary of a Country Rat, Nina’s Machines and Postgate’s Seeing Things – An Autobiography. Firmin also worked as a printmaker and engraver, designer and educator. In 1994 he was asked to create a British postage stamp and produced a magnificent offering featuring Noggin and the Ice Dragon.

Even at their most productive and overworked, Postgate & Firmin always ensured there was plenty of ancillary product such as Christmas Annuals, comic strips, spin-off books, games and puzzles for their devoted young fans. One of the most charming and enduring was a series of “Starting-to-Read” books released by Kaye & Ward between 1965 and 1973. Postgate & Firmin crafted all 8 books in a kid-friendly format gently sharing the further adventures of the Nicest Norseman of Them All…

In 2016 the octet of all ages, easy-going comedy dramas and gently humorous escapades were rereleased as superb hardcover editions perfect for tiny hands, but are now (at least thus far) out-of-print-&-hard-to-find. Starring the full TV cast and illustrated in a variety of duo-toned line-&-colour tomes, they display all the wit and subtle charm of the irrepressible Firmin whilst Postgate seductively and seditiously showed how much nicer things could be if we all tried a little harder to get on with each other.

This is the Saga of Noggin the Nog… Upon the death of his father, quiet, unassuming Noggin becomes king of the northland Viking tribe known as the Nogs. He rules with understanding and wisdom – generally thanks to his advisors: wife Nooka who hails from the far north (we’d call her an Inuit or Inuuk princess these days), bluff old codger Thor Nogson and wisdom-stuffed talking green cormorant Graculus. Despite many fantastic but necessary adventures, Noggin prefers a quiet home life with his people and his boisterous son Knut…

Noggin the King opens with bucolic pastoral scenes of the Nogs, with the good-hearted sovereign helping his people however he can. However, whilst happily repairing the roof of an old farmer, the ruler dislodges a bird’s nest. Bringing the nest and its occupants back to his castle, he cares for the fledglings and mother, pondering if he is also the King of birds in the Land of Nogs. If he is, then they are his subjects too and thus he is responsible for their safety and welfare. Riven with doubt, the King, with Nooka at his side, sets out on a short quest/ fact-finding mission to confirm his suspicions and is rewarded by the feathered kingdom with a great but grave new honour…

Noggin and the Whale features far more light-hearted aspects of kingship as the mild-mannered monarch celebrates his birthday in the usual manner: doling out gifts to all the children of his realm. This year they all get musical instruments, but when they hold an impromptu concert on a boat in the little walled harbour, the merriment is interrupted by a most insistent whale.

Every time the kids get going the cetacean surges up under the boat and eventually even placid Noggin loss his temper and orders the sea-beast to swim away. Instead it glides over to the open harbour gate and sulkily blocks the way, just as Noggish fishing boats are trying to moor up for the night. Nothing the townsfolk can do will shift the surly creature.

Suddenly Prince Knut has an idea. He realises why the whale has been acting so strangely and, after consulting with his father, commissions Royal Inventor Olaf the Lofty to create a unique present for the morose marine mammal…

Originally released in 1966, Noggin and the Dragon sees little Prince Knut and his chums pestering the royal couple to let them go on a dragon hunt. Noggin and Nooka are reluctant at first – Dragon Valley is no place for little boys and besides, the best thing to do with dragons is give them sweets and make friends – but eventually the proud parents capitulate to pester power. To ensure things go smoothly they insist doughty old warrior Thor Nogson goes with them, but as the unruly boys trek into a gathering storm, no one has any idea of the shocking surprise in store for them all…

From the same year, Nogbad Comes Back highlights the return from exile of Noggin’s wicked usurping uncle, just in time to try and spoil the King’s annual animal and vegetable show. Living up to his name, Nogbad the Bad tries to win the glittering jewel-encrusted cup for best flora and fauna by devious cheating and, when that fails, through simple shameful theft. Thankfully, Nooka is not as forgiving and kind as her husband and has been keeping a close eye on her outlaw in-law…

The next year saw two more tomes: one of which may have been a notional precursor to one of Smallfilms’ most successful franchise creations. Noggin and the Moon Mouse begins with Knut enacting an official ceremony at a water trough. Proceedings are utterly disrupted when a strange silver ball crashes down and a child-sized rodent-like creature emerges. Caught up in the excitement, the prince and his unruly pals give chase… until Queen Nooka takes charge. After admonishing the boys, she and Noggin befriend the strange visitor (who actually comes from another world) helping him gather odd household items he requires to return to the stars.

And yes, a few years later a peculiar band of armoured woolly beasties began communicating with us all in their universally comprehensible pennywhistle pipings in a little show called The Clangers…

Nogbad and the Elephants proves there are many perks to being royal. One is wonderful presents such as the gigantic gem-encrusted, long-nosed big-eared beast presented to Prince Knut by the King of Southland. Sadly, the wonderful creature is perpetually unhappy and falls under the sway of crafty Nogbad who lures it away to steal its jewelled coat. Realising it’s been hoodwinked, the piteous pachyderm takes restorative action in its own unique manner, compelling Knut to make his first grown-up decision…

The last brace of tales originated in 1973, beginning with hilariously anti-capitalist tract Noggin and the Money. Here Court Inventor Olaf the Lofty suffers a setback in his dream to modernise the nation. Nogs have been happily soldiering on using barter and trade as long as anyone can remember, so when the big thinker creates coins as currency, he thinks he’s made life easier for everybody. Thor Nogson soon disagrees after he’s despatched to acquire eggs for the royal breakfast and meets rather a lot of resistance to this new-fangled commerce nonsense…

Wrapping up the fun is Noggin and the Storks as the King sagely deals with a minor ecological crisis. Sooty Storks have nested on the chimneys of the town for decades, using the heat of human cooking fires to warm their eggs. This year, as the birds are particularly numerous, the populace are continually being smoked out of their own homes.

Despite his people angrily petitioning Noggin to let them chase the pests away, as king of birds as well as people, the smooth sovereign seeks another, more equitable solution. Cue Olaf the Lofty, who has an idea involving an old chalk quarry, a stand of hollow trees, masses of convoluted piping, steel sheets and tons of firewood…

Serenely bewitching, engaging and endlessly rewarding (both these books and their much-missed, multi-talented originators) the works of Postgate and Firmin shaped generations of children and parents. If you aren’t among them, do yourself a great favour and track down those DVD box sets, haunt the streaming services and buy these books and anything else with their names on it. You won’t regret it for an instant.
Text © The Estate of Oliver Postgate 1965-1973. Illustrations © Peter Firmin/The Estate of Peter Firmin 1965-1973.

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John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude


By Lomig, translated by Christopher Pope (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-352-3 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-352-353-0

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

We don’t get nearly enough access to philosophy or big thinkers in comics, but whenever some creator does set out to explore and address deeper issues or formative moments in human culture, the results are more often than not splendidly successful.

Self-schooled author, cartoonist and illustrator Lomig (Le cas Fodyl, Dans la forêt) cut his teeth on edgy, Speculative Fiction graphic novels exploring the declining relationship between humanity and its environment, and here turns his questioning gaze on one of the USA’s greatest naturalists: a man who literally changed the way the nation thought about its lands and populations – human and otherwise.

Here in the form of a bucolic memoir via the explorer’s own words and stunning sepia toned line drawing, Lomig traces Muir’s 1000 mile walk in the woods. It began in September 1867, and on it he collected plant samples, made drawings and recorded the variety of life – plant and otherwise – all the way from Indiana to Florida (and even Cuba). The genesis of the jump from unhappy 29-year-old carpenter to inspired naturalist was almost losing his sight in an accident at a lumber mill.

During his long and dreary convalescence – six months in a darkened room under the care of the remarkable Catharine Merrill: educator, Civil War nurse/physician, cofounder of Indianapolis Home for Friendless Women and the second ever female university professor in the United States – Muir had a revelation. He decided that the rest of his life would benefit humanity by understanding nature…

The long, eventful but astoundlingly non-thtreatening trek ends with Muir finding his promised land in the wild of Yosimte and experiencing another mind-expanding vision of revelation…

Born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21st 1838, “John of the Mountains” was 11 when his father moved the whole family of nine to Wisconsin. From ealrly on, Muir was a prolific and inspired inventor, earning many patents and attending college unhappily before taking up the family business as a woodworker. The accdent that ended that period of his life led to not just the epic trek detailed here, but also a life of pioneering efforts to preserve America’s wild places. The naturalist, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, geologist and glaciologist advocated tirelessly, using skilled argument, charismatic example, books and articles and by creating in San Francisco in 1892 grass roots movement turned activism focal point The Sierra Club.

He also had no truck with war mongers or racists and truly lived his life hoping everyone would just get along with each other. He died on December 24, 1914 and John Muir Day is celebrated on his birthday in California and Scotland as well as many other places..

This beautiful and lavish commemoration is filled with appreciation and wonder for Muir’s life, lifestyle and achievements, and it’s truly terrifying to consider that all the great works of Muir  and his many converts could be so easily undone by a bunch of greedy jerks with mean hearts, stupid policies, orange bottle tans and big black Sharpies…

This lavish, deliciously oversized (280 x 216 mm) sepia-toned hardback is not a history or biography text. You won’t learn much about Muir’s formative experiences in Scotland or time at the Unversity of Wisconsin, but the comprehensive essay and appreciation at the back does cover that in detail, copiously adorned with a wealth of photograpic, drawn and found images from his notebooks. The biography comes from archivist and scholar MikeWurtz – Director of the Holt Atherton Special Collections and Archives/Library of the University of the Pacific at Stockton, California – filling some gaps whilst clarifying the first American naturalist’s place in history and legacy for the modern world.
© Sarbacane, Paris 2023 published in arrangement with Sylvain Coissard Agency. © 2025 NBM for the English translation.

John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude will be published on April 15th 2025 and is available for pre-order now.