Category: Historical

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Paul Robeson for Beginners


By Paul Von Blum, illustrated by Elizabeth Von Notias & Ramses (For Beginners)
ISBN: 978-1-934389-81-2 (PB)

The For Beginners book series produces heavily illustrated text primers: graphic non-fiction foundation courses in a vast variety of subjects from art to philosophy, politics to history and much more, all tackled in an accessible yet properly respectful manner. This particular volume was written by Paul Von Blum, author and Senior Lecturer in African American Studies and Communication Studies at UCLA with a wealth of strips and illustrations by graphic design specialist Elizabeth Von Notias and self-taught multi-media creator Ramses.

If remembered at all, Paul Robeson (April 9th 1898 – January 23rd 1976) is thought of by most people as that African American singer/actor with an incredible bass voice. Maybe some will recall that he was a left-wing political activist who fell foul of Senator Joe McCarthy during America’s infamous “Red-baiting” witch-hunting period.

That’s true enough, but he was also one of the most accomplished and gifted individuals in the nation’s history: a true Renaissance man cheated of his ultimate potential simply because his skin was the wrong colour…

The Introduction lists Robeson’s astonishing accomplishments – all the more amazing when you realise the lack of opportunities if not outright repression facing negroes in segregated America at the time of his birth, and not truly confronted until the Civil Rights movement began gaining traction in the late 1950s.

As told in more telling detail – both in word and pictures in ‘The Early Days’, ‘Paul Robeson the Athlete’, ‘Paul Robeson the Stage Actor’, ‘Paul Robeson the Screen Actor’ and ‘Paul Robeson the Singer’ – the unheralded superman was born in Princeton, New Jersey; the son of a preacher. He was the last of five children in a time and place rigidly defined by class and race divisions.

A brilliant student, Robeson graduated Somerville High School in 1915 and won a four-year scholarship to Rutgers University where, despite initial hostility and actual physical assaults, he became the star of the Football, Baseball, Basketball and Athletics squads, and was twice designated “All-American”.

From there he attended New York University Law School, before transferring to Columbia University Law School. Talented and seemingly tireless, he turned an interest in the dramatic arts into a part-time stage career and also became a professional Football player in 1920. He got married, acted, sang, played Pro ball and kept on studying. Graduating from Columbia in 1923, he worked as a lawyer at a prestigious law firm until the bigotry he experienced from his own subordinates became too much.

In 1924 he switched from stage acting to movies, but still carried on a glittering international career: starring as Othello in London and playing in many hit plays and musicals such as Showboat, Emperor Jones, Stevedore and All God’s Chillun’s Got Wings…

Politically active, he visited the Soviet Union in 1934, spoke out against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War, co-founded the anti-colonial Council on African Affairs and used his name and fame to agitate for social and legal changes in such contentious areas as Southern lynch law and trade union legislation. These activities made him a prime target in the USA and in 1941 J. Edgar Hoover ordered the FBI to open a file on him…

In 1950 the US government took away Robeson’s passport because he refused to recant his pro-Soviet, pro-socialist stance and he became an exile in his own country. He was unable to leave America for eight years, until a Supreme Court ruling decreed the State Department had no right to revoke passports due to an individual’s political beliefs.

Robeson’s life was filled with such social and cultural landmarks. Once free to travel again, he became an international political celebrity and social commentator, using his concerts and stage appearances in places as disparate as Wales, Australia, Russia, East Germany and elsewhere to promote a dream of World “Freedom, Peace and Brotherhood”…

His beliefs, struggles achievements and failures are examined in ‘Paul Robeson the International Activist’, ‘Paul Robeson the Domestic Political Activist’ before culminating in a thorough appreciation of ‘The Final Years and His Lasting Legacy’…

Augmented by a ‘Bibliography’, ‘Selected Chronology’ and creator biographies, this absorbing documentary – available in paperback and digital editions – proves again the astounding power of visual narrative when wedded to the life story of a truly unique individual.
© 2013 Paul Von Blum. Illustrations © 2013 Elizabeth Von Notias & Ramses. All rights reserved. A For Beginners Documentary Comic Book © 2013.

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Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery (New Edition/10th Anniversary Edition)


By Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece, with Clem Robbins (Berger Books/Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-564-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-50670-591-0

What’s prejudice? How does bigotry and that unthinking fear and hatred of otherness work? What happens when haters can’t tell the difference between “us” and “them?” Those are frankly disturbing and astonishing questions first asked in 2008 in an Original Graphic Novel released by DC’s Vertigo imprint that made a lot of noise and changed some lives. The book won acclaim and awards and its subject matter started a few conversations in exactly the right places: classrooms where it became a selected text for high schools and colleges.

This 10th Anniversary edition reprints the original tale in all its moody monochrome glory, backed up by a contextualising Author’s Note (‘I grew up a black boy who looked white’) and Afterword; a copious sketchbook section featuring designs by Pleece and ‘Reading Group Guide/Questions & Topics for Discussion’.

The tale itself is set in the segregationist South in the early 1930s and opens at a social gathering in Tuscaloosa with families all happily gathering to see a black boy strung up. As the attendees patiently queue for a picture with the “strange fruit”, a newcomer takes their names and addresses. It’s only when the photographer denies hiring him that Zane Pinchback of New York City’s African American newspaper The New Holland Herald realises he’s pushed his luck and needs to run for his life…

Sadly, however, not before a visiting bigwig from the Ku Klux Klan gats a good look at him and starts wondering…

Safely back north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Zane’s latest headline grabber upsets liberals and shames the perpetrators but the journalist is still unhappy. His exposés change nothing and he feels a fraud: a proud black man who makes a living pretending to be white. He can’t even use his own name – hence the byline “Incognegro” – or face on his widely syndicated columns: that would instantly negate the genetic advantage of a negro who can “pass”…

Things are liberal enough in Manhattan that he and his debonair wastrel pal Carl can intermingle with most folk and go drinking in swish clubs, but Zane knows things can go bad easily enough and resolves to quit and go legit…

His editor staunchly refuses to accept, instead offering him a deal: one more undercover assignment. He is certain Zane will accept. The negro jailed in Tupelo, Mississippi and accused of killing a white woman is a man he’s known his entire life. Heading off in a hurry and readying himself to play the high stakes game of his life, Zane has no idea how complex and convoluted this case will be, or that blithely incautious Carl has invited himself along to a place where his kind of idiocy has lethal consequences…

Author Mat Johnson took inspiration from his own childhood and the activities of Walter White (ultimately Chief Exec of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) who began his career investigating lynchings because of the same genetic quirk as Zane Pinchback…

Available in hardcover, trade paperback, digital editions and even in its original DC/Vertigo edition – Incognegro is smart, funny where it can be and devastatingly effective whenever it needs to be. As well as the racial injustice so savagely skewered here, this is a cunning and engrossing murder mystery with plenty of twists, which even finds room to have a stab at the still largely unaddressed problems of women’s independence and transgender acceptance. If you love great storytelling underpinned by real-world issues, this is something you must see.
Incognegro™ © 2008, 2018 Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece. All rights reserved.

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Obscura


By Luke Cartwright & Lukasz Wnuczek (Marcosia)
ISBN:978-1-64764-746-9 (HB)

We haven’t looked at a really engrossing horror yarn for simply ages, so it’s a good thing that this stunning dose of macabre graphic gothic mania plunked down in my review copies vestibule…

Obscura comes from and is about the Land Down Under (Tasmania actually!): an act of love and perseverance begun in 2012 but finally perfected and released last year by author Luke Cartwright and illustrator Lukasz Wnuczek. It’s presented here for your delectation and elucidation (and probably trepidation)…

Set on the island of Van Diemen’s Land (a former Crown prison colony and site of one of the British Empire’s most appalling atrocities: just look up the Black War if you have the stomach), it opens in 1870 with the rather outré preoccupations of master William Morier. The 12-year old is already a gifted cosmetician and mortician like his father, but his odd-yet-comfortable life is ruined by a double blow: meeting with the spiritualist children Catherine and Annabel White and a scandal involving body-snatching and the local medical school.

The White girls are controversial celebrities in the township, a place even more death-obsessed than most Victorian enclaves. When Annabel ends up on the Morier mortuary slab, dead from causes unknown, William’s path in life is forever altered…

A crafty tale within a tale, the drama resumes a decade later. As well as burying bodies, William is a gifted photographer and, after discussing the profitability of his wife’s childhood scams, sets upon a new enterprise, for his need is great and urgent.

Catherine Morier (nee White) suffers a dire medical malady and her doting husband needs plenty of cash to pay for an operation. His solution is Spirit Photography: combining portraits of living clients with the ghosts of departed loved ones who still cling unseen to them.

Sadly, not everyone’s a believer. A certain policeman keeps hanging around, especially after one of the captured phantasms is seen working in a local shop…

As William gets deeper and deeper into the fraudulent hole he’s dug for himself, the walls between chicanery, criminality, murder and the inescapable horror of the true Unknown start to blur and bleed together…

Mordant and compelling, this bleak tale is rendered in mesmerising monochrome tones and washes (almost like daguerreotypes, maybe?), building a noir edifice of stark choices and unlikely outcomes for the protagonists whom it’s simply impossible to dislike. Especially effective is the period language, which is authentic sounding, remarkably restrained and deliciously sparse. Cartwright is a writer who knows when to let Wnuczek’s pictures do the talking.

A decidedly effective dalliance with the dark and one no lover of period thrillers and slyly witty horror should miss.
Text & illustrations © Luke Cartwright & Lukasz Wnuczek 2019

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Blackjack: Second Bite of the Cobra


By Alex Simmons & Joe Bennett (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-79852-3 (TPB)

Here in the west nearly 150 years of popular publishing – and its spin-off art forms film, radio, TV and especially comics – has generated a legion of legendary (if human-scaled) action adventurers. These larger than life characters have been called Pulp Heroes and their playground is all of human history and every tomorrow…

Whether you prefer Ivanhoe and Prince Valiant, Allan Quatermain, Sir Percy Blakeney, Richard Hannay, El Borak, Bulldog Drummond, Doc Savage, Mack Bolan, James Bond, Jason Bourne or even Indiana Jones, a succession of steely-eyed, immensely powerful men – and even the occasional woman – have girdled the globe righting wrongs and inspiring millions of dreamers. Although some few had friends, colleagues or assistants of colour, I can’t think of a single leading man who was black…

That all began to change in 1957 when Chester Himes began writing his tales of brutal, uncompromising cops Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones in the Harlem Detective novels… but then again, he was writing them from exile in France.

America’s history of Jim Crow laws and institutionalised racism throughout the media had driven him away from his birthland and long ago stifled the hopes and aspirations of generations of African-Americans looking for a hero all their own.

That started changing in the radical 1960s, when flunky stereotypes and dumb bad-guy representations began to give way to thoughtful portrayals of fully-feeling human beings, intelligent moral champions and powerful, vital, independent heroes – thanks to the efforts of the same media empires which had for so long censored any such image.

Sadly, one look at today’s News tells us America still has some way to go. And of course, for most of that time Britain has been no better…

That’s a rather longwinded and pompous way of recommending a splendid release from Dover’s superb line of lost and rescued graphic gems: a revived edition and a compelling modern classic of the Good Old, Bad Old Days, resurrected in a softcover or digital collection to astound and enthral all lovers of epic bravado and red-handed justice, packed with the usual extras and bonus material.

Preceded with a Foreword from Joe Illidge and the author’s exhilarating Introduction ‘The Past: A Good Time for a Dark Hero’ and bookended by an effusive Afterword by agent David Colley, you can experience a world of dangerous extremes perfectly realised by Brazilian-born illustrator Joe Bennett (X-Men, 52, Supreme).

Alex Simmons is an award-winning African-American author, playwright, comicbook scripter and educator who has produced innumerable strips, games, shows and art-events all over the world. He’s worked for Marvel, DC, Disney, Archie and others and is a passionate advocate for and champion of equality and racial issues.

In 1996 he finally fulfilled a childhood dream by creating a black character as an equal to and worthy of the fictional meta-kingdom of all his childhood heroes as cited above. Following a cruelly recognisable usual pattern, however, the saga of Arron Day AKA Blackjack proved to be a monster hit everywhere… except America…

Following the first two miniseries from Dark Angel Productions, Blackjack adapted to tough times in the comic biz by moving online as both prose and comics forms and through a serial in “Blaxploitation” magazine Bad AzzMofo. In 2001, there was even an audio adventure – Blackjack: Retribution – recorded in front of a live audience at the Museum of TV and Radio in New York City.

Now, with the first epic extravaganza compiled into one scorching saga, action fans have a chance for another bite of the cherry. During the Great War, Matthew “Mad Dog” Day found fame and a little prosperity as a soldier-of-fortune fighting all over the world; attaining the respect and acclaim no North Carolina negro could have by staying in America…

One particularly savage commission from a thankless Egyptian government sent him into the Sahara and pitted him and his fellow mercenaries against diabolical, nigh-messianic rebel Farouk Tea a la Af’a, know to insurgents everywhere as The Cobra.

After a climactic battle between eternal, implacable foes the Arab raider paid him the ultimate mark of disrespect by not bothering to kill him and his remaining comrades before vanishing back into the trackless wastes…

Back in Cairo days later, the foreign survivors were publicly castigated by an ungrateful populace and Mad Dog’s young son learned a harsh lesson. Arron knew who was truly to blame however and swore one day he would meet the Cobra…

Years passed and in 1923 the boy and his sister learned another salutary lesson when their parents were murdered by unknown assassins in Spain. By 1935 Arron has surpassed his father and become a globetrotting man of wealth and means by way of his own martial talents. Gripped by a keen sense of justice and never one to shy away from conflict or confrontation, he has used that money to challenge the American Way by buying a palatial home on Manhattan’s West Side, flying in the face of hostility and outright bigotry, even from the city police …

However, setting up home and aggravating the powers-that-be suddenly loses its appeal when a cable from Cairo arrives. Old uncle Silas – a white man who was Mad Dog’s trusted lieutenant – has learned the Cobra is back and up to his old murderous tricks…

And so begins a spectacular, ferociously gripping duel in the desert as Blackjack hunts for the man who shamed his father – and might well have had him killed – encountering and outwitting corrupt rulers, suspect capitalists hungry for the region’s as yet untapped riches, and gangs of thugs.

Ferreting out the demon from his past accompanied by a trusted band of comrades and lethal new recruit Maryam, Blackjack blazes his way across the war-torn region to meet his promised nemesis and settle forever the family business so long delayed…

As spectacular as Lawrence of Arabia, as fast-paced as The Mummy (1999) and as satisfyingly suspenseful as Hidalgo, this is pure pulp experience no lover of the genre should miss.
Story text © 1995 Alex Simmons. Illustrations © 1995, 1996 Joe Bennett. Cover art © 2015 Scott Hanna. All other material © 2015 its respective owners. All rights reserved.

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Ghetto Brother – Warrior to Peacemaker


By Julian Voloj & Claudia Ahlering (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-948-9 (TPB)

In I971 New York City was a broken, dirty metropolis increasingly divided by top-down, enforced gentrification. From the end of the 1950s the mostly ethnically European population of the Bronx had been moving out into the suburbs – a process dubbed “White Flight” – whilst poorer inner-city newcomers, mostly Blacks and Hispanics, were driven or priced out of their cheap bohemian enclaves in Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown and Soho to fill the vacated places. Those emptied Manhattan regions now comprise some of the most expensive and exclusive real estate in the Big Apple…

Further social assault came when ruthless urban reformer and City Planner Robert Moses slashed the newly-coalescing community of “foreigners” in half by steamrollering the Cross Bronx Expressway right through the formerly scenic Borough.

Subsequent urban blight, administrative neglect and lack of funding soon turned the whole region into isolated islands of forgotten residents, and their hopeless, opportunity-starved kids began forming fiercely territorial gangs to defend spurious concepts of dignity, personal honour and the little territory they called theirs…

The South Bronx became a global byword for urban decay and a breeding ground for violence by the poor upon the poor. By December 1971 it seemed inevitable that the more than 100 gangs situated in the Borough would wipe each other out and possibly take the entire city with them.

…And then something miraculous happened…

This stunning graphic testament and graphic documentary by author and photographer Julian Voloj and artist/illustrator Claudia Ahlering relates in the impassioned words of Benjamin “Yellow Benjy” Melendez how, in the year Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, he formed the Ghetto Brothers, quickly turning it into the largest and most powerful Puerto Rican gang.

It further reveals how the senseless murder of one of his closest friends led to the Hoe Avenue Peace Meeting: a tense, protracted conference where rival gang-lords talked instead of fought and astonishingly agreed to a truce which all but ended gang warfare for a generation.

With fighting curtailed, all those bored, frustrated kids needed new outlets for their pent-up energies and what slowly emerged was Rap, Hip-Hop and by extension today’s big money musical industry and cultural movement of self-expression…

Melendez’s path also encompassed music, but he spent most of his time and energies on turning the Brothers into a rough and ready outreach project for the community, with the gang forming an association with organisations of Puerto Rican nationalism, including the then-new Puerto Rican Socialist Party.

Highlighting long-forgotten events of a critical time through one key individual’s incredible epiphany, this amazing tale – still available in trade paperback and digital formats – then reveals his chance discovery of a hidden and quite shocking personal truth that changed Benjy’s life forever…

Addressing a growing cultural zeitgeist attuned to that time and place as recently seen in books and movie documentaries like Fresh Dressed, Rubble Kings, 80 Blocks From Tiffany’s and Flyin’ Cut Sleeves, this utterly absorbing monochrome chronicle is bracketed by an Introduction from Jeff Chang (author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation) and the compelling, informative photo-essay ‘The Story Behind the Story’ which further explores that groundbreaking meeting at Hoe Avenue and offers biographies and further reading.
© 2015 Julian Voloj and Claudia Ahlering.

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Civil War Adventure volume 1


By Chuck Dixon & Gary Kwapisz with Esteve Polls, Enrique Villagran, Silvestre & Erik Burnham and various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-48679-509-6 (TPB)

From its earliest inception, cartooning and graphic narrative has been used to inform. In newspapers, magazines and especially comic books the sheer impact of pictorial storytelling – with its ability to distil technical recreations of time, place and personage whilst creating deep emotional affinities to past or imagined events – has been used to forge unforgettable images and characters within us. When such stories affect the lives of generations of readers, the force they can apply in a commercial, social, political or especially educational arena is almost irresistible…

Thus, the compelling power of graphic narrative to efficiently, potently and evocatively disseminate vast amounts of information and seductively advocate complex issues with great conviction through layered levels has always been most effectively used in works with a political, social or historical component.

Comics have brought the past to life since they began. Superb examples of a broad view include such triumphs as Jack Jaxon’s Los Tejanos and Comanche Moon or Of Dust and Blood by Jim Berry & Val Mayerik, but the medium is equally adept in crafting more personal biographs such as Terry Eisele & Jonathon Riddle’s With Only Five Plums and others…

And that brings us to another superb re-release from Dover Comics & Graphic Novels (available in trade paperback and digital formats) designed to bring “The War Between the States” to life for younger readers.

Originally published by History Graphics Press in 2009 as Civil War Adventure 1: Real History Stories of the War that Divided America, this marvellous monochrome tome – crafted primarily by comics veterans Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz – switches between actual historical events – with handy maps, diagrams and found writings – and a fictionalised thread of tales depicting how the conflict affected one poor Southern family.

The graphic re-enactments are preceded by a ‘Map of the United States’ detailing the division of the States in 1860 and a‘Civil War Timeline’ which marks key moments and battles (sensibly linking them directly to the stories which follow), after which ‘Choice of Targets’ by Dixon and Esteve Polls offers a text vignette explaining the development of snipers and sharpshooters.

That’s counterpointed by a pithy moment during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 when opposing marksmen find themselves in a life-or-death duel…

‘Berdan’s Sharpshooters’ is a short cartoon lesson on the inspired Union soldier who invented the concept of snipers, and is promptly followed by a chilling and heartrending incident of battlefield misfortune in Dixon & Kwapisz’s ‘Home Again’ plus an illustrated info-&-glossary page which reproduces an actual letter from a Confederate lad the night before he fell…

All-Kwapisz affair ‘Mosby Bags a General’ combines a potted history of the South’s most successful raider with a compelling strip revealing how bold Lieutenant John Mosby infiltrated far behind Union lines to capture 58 horses, thirty prisoners and their captain, plus sleeping General Stoughton, all in one night…

‘Tempered in Blood’ (Dixon & Kwapisz) then introduces the narrative strand as the modest Campbell clan are torn apart when, after heated family discussion, both father and first son Tybalt sneak off from the farm to enlist in the Spring of 1861. Each confidently assures themselves that all the shooting will all be over long before harvest as they unknowingly individually abandon Mrs. Campbell and the little sisters to link up with overconfident volunteers massing for what everybody believes will be one fast knockout blow…

After barely surviving the brutal training that turns hunters, croppers and ploughmen into real soldiers, the Southern heroes finally learn what warfare means at Bull Run…

More contemporary terms, facts and historical insight are offered in ‘The War is Joined!’ before ‘The Devil’s Due’(Kwapisz) delves into the atrocity of total warfare as a Bluecoat patrol diligently follows its bald orders to “turn the South into a wasteland”…

A fact-feature page on ‘John Singleton Mosby’ leads to a feature on rising star and flamboyant self-aggrandiser George Armstrong Custer whose rash adventuring leads ‘The Boy General’ (Dixon & Enrique Villagran) into desperate straits against overwhelming rebel opposition… resulting in Custer’s First Stand…

Data pages on the devastating ‘Sharps Rifle’ and double-pronged naval blockade of the Mississippi River spins off into an account of the duel between ironclad vessels and the brilliant countermeasure devised by Colonel Charles Ellet in ‘Ram Squadron’ (Dixon & Silvestre), capped off by a Kwapisz segment detailing ‘Hell on the Mississippi’, as a Union flotilla horrifically fails to sneak past the naval guns established above Vicksburg…

‘Tempered in Blood II’ returns to the troubled Campbell Clan as Ty wakes in the bloody aftermath of battle to discover his best friend Seth has had enough and absconded. However, by the time he’s found and brought back Seth, Ty discovers his own father has similarly fled.

The elder is not running from bloody death but heading home to save his farm from ruin and family from fever, but that won’t make any difference if he’s picked up by ruthless and remorseless Confederate Picquets…

The tragic true tale of ‘Colonel Cocke’ and his unseemly death gives way to the ribald eccentricity of ‘Darnel Dingus is a…’ which reveals the insane and impecunious ends to which some States descended to ensure their manpower obligations were met. The tale is couched in the story of famous war artist Winslow Homer and a practical joking jackass who learns the hard way that war isn’t funny: appended by a grim examination of ‘The Ultimate Punishment’ for desertion under fire and other – even worse – infringements…

The strip section closes with a sobering and ironic tale of comeuppance in ‘The Letter’ (by Erik Burnham & Kwapisz) wherein a burned-out sawbones steals a missive from one of his less-lucky patients and chases a dream to a woman he’s fallen for based solely on her handwriting and prose…

Following one last Kwapisz-illustrated info page – on ‘Battle Field Surgery’ – this stunning introduction to the birth of modern warfare ends with a comparative list of ‘Further Reading’ and a moving notification of how to learn more in ‘If the Valley Was Lost’.

Similar in tone and style to the best of Harvey Kurtzman’s magnificent anti-war classics from Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, this is a rousing, evocative, potently instructive collection amalgamating history and horrific entertainment – and not a little grim wit and actual belly-laughs – to bring a pivotal time to vivid life.
© 2009 Chuck Dixon & Gary Kwapisz. All other material © 2015 its respective creators.

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The Bluecoats volume 2: The Navy Blues


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-905460-82-3 (Album PB)

The mythology of the American West has never been better loved or more honourably treated than by Europeans. Hergé was a passionate devotee, and the range of incredible comics material from Tex Willer to Blueberry, Yakari to Lucky Luke to Camanche display over and over again our fascination with all aspects of that legendary time and place.

Les Tuniques Bleues or Bluecoats began at the end of the 1960s, visually devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius with scripts by Raoul Colvin – who has also written the succeeding 63 volumes of this much-loved Belgian comedy western series. The strip was created on the fly to replace the aforementioned Lucky Luke when the great gunslinger defected from prominent weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival comic Pilote, and became another one of the most popular series on the Continent.

After its initial run, Bluecoats graduated to the collected album format (published by French publishing powerhouse Dupuis) that we’re all so familiar with in Un chariot dans l’Ouest – A Wagon in the West – in 1972.

Salvé was proficient in the Gallic style of big-foot/big-nose humour cartooning, and when he died suddenly in 1972 his artistic replacement Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually leavened the previous broad style with a more realistic – but still crucially comedic – illustrative manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936, and after studying Fine Art, joined Dupuis as a letterer in 1952.

In 1959 he created Sandy – about an Australian teen and a kangaroo – later self-parodying it and himself with Hobby and Koala and Panty et son kangaroo as well as creating the comics industry satire ‘Pauvre Lampil’.

Belgian writer Raoul Cauvin was born in 1938 and, after studying Lithography, joined Dupuis’ animation department in 1960. His glittering and prolific writing career began soon after. Almost exclusively a humourist and always for Le Journal de Spirou, other than Bluecoats he has written more than 20 long-running and award-winning series – more than 240 separate albums. Bluecoats alone has sold in the region of 23 million copies.

The protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch, a hopeless double act of buffoons in the manner of Laurel and Hardy, perhaps Abbot & Costello or our own Morecambe & Wise: two hapless and ill-starred cavalrymen posted to the wilds of the arid frontier.

The first strips were single-page gags based around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort but with second volume Du Nord au Sud (North and South) the sorry soldiers went back East to fight in the American Civil War (this scenario was retconned in the 18th album Blue retro which described how the everyman chumps were first drafted into the military). All subsequent adventures, although ranging all over the planet and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history, are set within that tragic conflict.

Blutch is your average little man in the street: work-shy, reluctant and ever-critical of the army – especially his inept commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting when he can, he’s you or me – except sometimes he’s quite smart and heroic if no other easier option is available. Chesterfield is a big man, a career soldier, who has bought into all the patriotism and esprit de corps. He is brave, never shirks his duty and wants to be a hero. He also loves his cynical little pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers and simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in…

The Navy Blues, second book in this translated series, is actually the 7th French volume ‘Les Bleus de la marine’, and finds the lads as usual in the midst of a terrible battle. However, when Blutch is wounded, his cavalry commanders prefer to save his horse rather than aid a fallen soldier, and Chesterfield finds all his cherished dreams of camaraderie and loyalty ebbing away.

Disillusioned, he demands a transfer to the infantry and with the never-happy Blutch beside him tries to adapt to his lowered status. Sadly, Chesterfield discovers officers are the same everywhere and stupidity and cupidity are rife throughout the armed forces. A progression of calamitous transfers eventually lands the pair in the Union Navy at a time of intriguing technological advancement, playing an unfortunately ill-omened part in the development of both Submarines and armoured battleships. As always, their misadventures result in pain, humiliation and not a few explosions…

The secret of Les Tuniques Bleues success…? This is a hugely amusing anti-war saga targeting younger less cynical audiences. Historically authentic, always in good taste despite its uncompromising portrayal of violence, the attitudes expressed by the down-to-earth pair never make battle anything but arrant folly and, like the hilarious yet insanely tragic war-memoirs of Spike Milligan, these are comedic tales whose very humour makes the occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting.

Fun, informative, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the sort of war-story that appeals to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1975 by Lambil & Cauvin. English edition © 2008 Cinebook Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Bob Marley in Comics


By Gaets & Sophie Blitman, illustrated by Olivier Desvaux, Ammo, Didier Millotte, Tanguy Pietri, Matthieu Beaulieu, Jena, Efix, Domas, Simon Léturgie, Sarah Williamson, Cyrille Brégère, Julien Modde, Moh, Armel Ressot, Lu-K, Clément Baloup, Joël Alessandra, Julien Atika, Gil & various: translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-250-2 (HB)

Graphic biographies are all the rage at the moment and this one – originally released on the continent in 2018 – is another cracker likely to appeal to a far larger mainstream audience than comics usually reach. It certainly deserves to as it captivatingly deconstructs the life of a truly unique force in music and popular culture…

If you’ve never heard of Bob Marley or don’t like reggae, you might still want to check this out. The singer was deeply spiritual and it’s never too late to see the light and convert or, failing that, just buy a record…

Gathered in this fetching hardback (or eBook) edition are context-providing essays backing up individual comics sections; each chronological article and comics vignettes written by the ever-informative comics scribe Gaets and journalist/children’s author Sophie Blitman, supported by a veritable legion of illustrators providing vivid and vibrant strips, beginning with ‘From Nesta to Robert’ – limned by Olivier Desvaux.

The early life of the musician introduces us to his mother Cedella Malcolm and the old white soldier she married. With Norval Marley disinherited and promptly absconding, Nesta Robert Marley spent his early years in the rural farming community of Nine Miles in Jamaica until at age six, when he was whisked away to Kingston by his dad… who simply dumped him with another woman and vanished again…

Happily, a few years later Cedella joined the boy who was already showing promise as both a fortune telling mystic and award-winning singer. Rendered in stark monochrome by Ammo, ‘The Rude Boys of Trenchtown’ exposes the appalling poverty Nesta endured and the lasting friendships that privation engendered as they played, made music and hung out together: relationships expanded upon in the essay ‘Growing Up Between Worlds’.

Working in muted full colour, Didier Millotte explores ‘Reggae in the Ghetto’ as Robert Marley – now working as a full-time (14-year-old) welder – and his mates Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer are taken under the wing of pro musician Joe Higgs who teaches young Marley to play guitar…

‘Making Friends in Trenchtown’ details the development of the musical genre Reggae from Ska and Marley’s growing influence after which Tanguy Pietri illuminates sordid conditions and lack of opportunities which compel him to make music his life in ‘A Ray of Light in the Dark’…

Matthieu Beaulieu reveals the unique way poor Jamaicans consumed pop music in ‘Sound Systems, Ska & Studio One’, how the blossoming star is ripped off for the first – of many – times and how he meets wife-to-be Rita Anderson: a relationship which grows in Jena’s vignette ‘Is This Love?’

Efix delineates Marley’s spiritual growth in historical lecture ‘The Roots of the Rasta Movement’, whilst Domas’ ‘Tuff Gong in Nine Miles’ follows his musical journey to America – until the threat of being drafted into Vietnam – and ultimately to London, where The Wailers become stranded…

Essay ‘The Path to Success’ concentrates upon Marley’s song-writing and musical self-determination which led to the critical meeting with British Producer Chris Blackwell in ‘The Reggae Wave’ (art by Simon Léturgie) and the release of first album Catch a Fire. Now a growing global sensation among young white music fans – as detailed in essay ‘An “International Reggae”’ – Bob Marley and The Wailers retire to Blackwell’s ‘Villa Rasta’ (illustrated by Sarah Williamson), to make more music and bask in fame in their own country whilst enjoying a few rock star trappings of success…

One such is covered in ‘Bob Marley, Rita… And All the Other Women’, recounting the numerous affairs and children the singer indulged in even as the parade of mega-hits began. Cyrille Brégère encapsulates the tone of the times in ‘The Sheriff Died Tonight’ with the financial sharks already circling, as seen in ‘Around the World’ (Julien Modde), leading to the breakup of the founding members…

Throughout this period, Jamaica was descending into political chaos and gangsterism fuelled by economic disparity. This was something no amount of interviews or comments from the pacifist, life-loving musician could affect, but did result in the assassination attempt depicted by Moh in ‘Panic in the Hen House’.

The spark was believed to be proposed peace and reconciliation concert Smile Jamaica, but despite being wounded, three days later the show went on with Marley proudly in the spotlight…

Following more history in ‘The Price of Fame’, Armel Ressot graphically caters a ‘Punk Reggae Party’ as the leading proponents of two landmark musical movements meet and cross pollinate, despite falling foul of British Law, after which ‘From Exile to Exodus’ covers the creation of the classic album before ‘Red Card’ (art by Lu-K) heralds the beginning of the end after an impromptu kickabout in Paris leads to a shocking discovery…

The star’s obsessive passion for the sport of the ghettos is examined in ‘Bob Marley and His Love of Soccer’, as is his refusal to compromise his Rastafari principles by accepting medical treatments unacceptable to his faith. Clément Baloup then pictorially details the escalating civil war in Kingston and Marley’s controversial pre-election solution of a One Love Peace Concert in ‘Ablaze’.

Knowing his end was near, Marley finally visited Ethiopia in 1978 before finishing the album Survival and discovering yet another friend and manager had been stealing from him and his fans. He played controversial concerts in Africa – including the independence ceremony of recently liberated and newly-created Zimbabwe – twice in fact, as the authorities cut the first one short through force of arms – as seen Joël Alessandra’s ‘Roots’.

Penultimate essay ‘For Peace and Unity Among Peoples’ shares his philosophies, awards and legacy, via the peace concerts he headlined, backed up by a moving strip of his final days in ‘All the Way’ (by Julien Atika), after which closing essay ‘Death of the “Pope of Reggae”’ fills in the detail of his passing and ‘What Next?‘ by Gil closes the show with the events of the Tuff Gong’s state funeral and his musical legacy, courtesy of his many children.

Bob Marley in Comics is an astoundingly readable and beautifully rendered treasure for comics and music fans alike: one that resonates with anybody who loves to listen and look. Without it, you’re simply nowhere, man…

© 2016 Petit as Petit. © 2018 NBM for the English translation.
Bob Marley in Comics will be released in the UK in February 2020 and is available for pre-order now. NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads go to NBM Publishing at nbmpub.com

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King: A Comics Biography of Martin Luther King – The Special Edition


By Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-310-1 (HB)

There are books to read, books you should read – and some perhaps, more controversially, that you shouldn’t – and there are important books. The still relatively new field of graphic novels has many of the first but precious few really important books yet.

It’s hard enough to get noticed within the industry (simply excelling at your craft is not enough) but when we do generate something wonderful, valid, powerful, true to our medium yet simultaneously breaking beyond into the wide world and making a mark, the reviews from that appreciative greater market come thick and fast – so I’m not going to spend acres of text praising this superbly comprehensive examination of the man that lived beside – not “behind” or “within” – the modern myth of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over the course of ten years (1993-2002) Canadian cartoonist Ho Che Anderson struggled to produce three comics books propounding a less hagiographic perspective of a man who was as much sinner as saint, but whose determination, passion, energy and often sheer luck (or divine inspiration?) drove a cleansing wedge into a rotting, repressive, stifled society and succeeded in opening enough doors for America’s racial underclass, so that forty years later a black American could be elected to govern the World’s greatest superpower.

Not that four decades is so brief an interlude. But then again, how many European or white Commonwealth countries can boast that their highest echelons of power have made even that much progress?

In both stark black & white and mesmerising colour, Anderson uses all the strengths and tools of sequential narrative to reveal, relate, question and challenge the oft-recounted facts of the Georgia Pastor’s life in this magnificent volume (available in luxurious hard cover and all-purpose digital editions) which was originally released to celebrate Barack Obama’s – and the American people’s – landmark achievement. From here and now he’s looking to have been the last Great – or even Sane – chief of the Land of the Free

Gathered into one compelling tome is this hard-crafted triptych of issues, including restored extra and deleted scenes; the thematically linked one-shot Black Dogs plus many bonus features, as well as a fascinating overview from Anderson; sketches and reminisces, a treatise on his working practises and a gallery of related art.

This is an authentic historical examination and a perfect example of the comics medium at its most effective – incisive biography not pictorial puff piece – and as important a landmark achievement for our art-form as Maus, American Splendor, Watchmen, Pride of Baghdad and Persepolis.

Whenever and wherever we have to defend our Art from decriers and peddlers of prejudice, King will be one of the handful of examples which cannot be refuted, contradicted or ignored. It’s a book no thinking fan or socially responsible human being can afford to miss.
King: The Special Edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All content © 2010 Ho Che Anderson. All rights reserved.

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Comanche volume 1: Red Dust


By Hermann & Greg, translated by Montana Kane (Europe Comics)
No ISBN. ASIN: B000O15YBK

Welcome to another Wild West Wednesday with an self-indulgent peek at a favourite book I first read way back in the 1980s, crafted by two Belgian masters of graphic narrative.

Best known as Greg, Michel Régnier was born in 1931 in Ixelles. The cartoonist, writer editor and publisher, sold his first series – Les Aventures de Nestor et Boniface – at age 16 to Belgian magazine Vers l’Avenir and followed up over many decades with legendary strips such as Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince and Achille Talon in Héroic Albums, Le Journal de Spirou (where he scripted the title feature amongst many others), Paddy and Le Journal de Tintin (which he eventually edited from 1966-1974). One of his new finds on Spirou during this period was an artist named Hermann Huppen…

Greg is estimated to have worked as writer or artist on more than 250 strip albums during his career. He died in 1999.

Hermann Huppen entered the world on July 17th 1938 in what’s now the Malmedy region of Liège Province. He studied to become an interior architect and furniture maker but was thankfully swayed and diverted by comics. His narrative career began in 1963 but really took off three years later when he joined with writer Greg to create cop series Bernard Prince for Le Journal de Tintin. The artist then added to his weekly chores with Roman adventure serial Jugurtha(scripted by Jean-Luc Vernal).

In 1969 Hermann expanded his portfolio further, adding the Greg-penned western Comanche to his seamlessly stunning output. At his time Charlier & Jean Giraud’s epic Blueberry was reaching its peak of excellence…

Bernard Prince and Comanche made Hermann a superstar of the industry – a status built upon with further classics such as The Towers of Bois-Maury, Sarajevo-Tango, Station 16 and many more (I estimate 24 separate series and a total north of 94 albums thus far).

In 1978 Hermann bravely dropped guaranteed money-spinner Bernard Prince to create as (writer and illustrator) Jeremiah but he stayed with Comanche until 1982 (10 albums in total) because of his abiding love for western-themed yarns.

Thanks to digital-only publishing commune Europe Comics, it’s easy to see why in this first translated volume of the sprawling cowboy epic which here introduces a wandering gunslinger who finds a home – if not peace and quiet – after joining a most unlikely band of comrades on a cattle-spread in Wyoming.

Comprised of linked weekly episodes, originally published in 1978, ‘Red Dust’ finds the eponymous, lethally capable shootist wandering into a desolate cowtown just as trouble seems to be brewing.

In fact, even before he gets into Greenstone Falls, the enigmatic Mr Dust has to kill manic mercenary Wally Hondo who refuses to share “his” stagecoach with a shabby drifter…

Moreover, when the stage finally pulls into what passes for civilisation, Red is approached by unctuous fixer Mr Cathrellwho erroneously assumes him to be the latest addition to his growing army of pitiless hired guns…

The mistake is soon cleared up after the newcomer unexpectedly reacquaints himself with Cathrell’s top stooge. Red Dust and the Kentucky Kid have unsettled scores and old grievances in common…

Before long Red learns that the killer elite have all been commissioned to deal with a stubborn rancher refusing to sell out to their mysterious and always unseen boss. Mind made up, the taciturn nomad heads for the 666 Ranch and inveigles a job with crotchety ancient pioneer Ten Gallons and the new ranch owner he dotes upon: a young, lovely and immensely stubborn woman called Comanche…

She is determined to make her inheritance a successful going concern, but has been having lots of bad luck. Red Dust soon determines it’s not her luck that’s at issue after a new herd of cattle she has bought apparently come down with a mystery sickness. As well as exposing a cruel trick, Red also recruits new hands Toby and Tenderfoot following the exposure of a nefarious scam.

That, in addition to decimating Cathrell’s gunslingers when they ambush the ranchers on a shopping trip to town, soon forces the mystery mastermind into the open and reveals just why the 666 is such a valuable property… but only after a few of those old scores are finally settled…

A splendid confection of tradition western themes combined with sleek yet gritty European style, Red Dust is the kind of timeless treat comics fans and movie lover will adore. Don’t miss out on a chance to enjoy one of the most celebrated comics classics of all time…
© 2017 – LE LOMBARD – HERMANN & GREG. All rights reserved.