Category: Historical

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Suzanne: The Jazz Age Goddess of Tennis

By Ted Humberstone (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-69-1 (HB)

I’m sure by now you have realised that history is utterly filled with women we apparently can’t stop talking about quickly enough. Happily, the medium of comics is one area where we’re digging deeper and revealing obscured accounts of past giants to make vibrant new stories about. Here’s a particularly poignant one that actually qualifies as living memory for many, yet is about a wonder woman so many have literally never heard of…

…And it’s not like these stories are hidden away where none can find them: it’s simply a case of invisibility by tacit omission, WG Grace died in 1915 and Don Bradman played his final Test Match in 1948, but I grew up with – and still hear – their names cited at every modern meeting.

For years Suzanne’s near-contemporary Fred Perry was downplayed if not actually excluded from the history books and media celebration before being reclaimed as a “Great” (politics: you should look him up too, and see how he was mostly rediscovered by the simple expedient of being the last Brit to win a Wimbledon title until 2013!).

For so many stars like Suzanne, it’s hard not to consider a conspiracy of silence was at play amongst previous generations of pundits and sports writers…

This torrid hardback tome opens with a handy diagrammatic guide to the rules of Lawn Tennis before we trace in a carefully audited and beautifully visualised manner episodes of a truly unique individual’s life.

In Paris in 1938, fading American tennis star Bunny Ryan visits an old friend. Her great friend and colleague is dying of the undiagnosable mystery ailment that has plagued her entire life, but which never prevented her from becoming the greatest woman player in history. Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen was born on May 24th 1899 and would die in July 1938. In between, she courted controversy, lived life her way, embraced personal and career scandal, and changed the course of Lawn Tennis.

Her accomplishments were truly astounding. Between 1912 and her death, Suzanne won 241 titles, enjoyed a 181 match-winning streak, was World Number One for 8 years and held a 341-7 match record, but that is only the tip of this social and sporting iceberg…

Our examination truly begins in Nice in 1908, when Suzann’s father Charles observed a (men’s) tennis match and realised the attention and approbation the players basked in. At this time, the pastime was a rich man’s diversion: strictly amateur status with nothing but “expenses” paid to the gentry who indulged in it. There was a thriving women’s game too, but this also was more freak show than serious sport.

Lenglen was an athletic child who loved dance, and the family was comfortable with inherited wealth. Had her older brother not died, her life might have been utterly different, but her father then and there decided that his remaining offspring would be greatest tennis player who ever lived…

How his ruthless ambition shaped the life of sporting superstar who broke all the rules is tantalisingly outlined in snapshots of Suzanne’s life: the men who shaped her career, rare friendships (usually men and women connected to the rarefied world of tennis) and particularly her rebellions.

Suzanne refused to play in corsets, ultimately liberating all female players and pioneering a dashing, vigorous, aggressive style of play. Keenly understanding that she was a centre of attention, she had a clothes designer create a string of daring costumes that forged today’s link between sports and fashion. She drank alcohol between sets, partied hard and won match after match.

Dubbed “the Maid Marvel” by the all-male press that she developed an increasingly hostile relationship with, her personal life consisted of dazzling success, broken by recurring periods of debilitating illness no doctors could understand of properly treat. The only thing that caused temporary remissions was the next tournament…

Possibly her greatest achievement began after an exhibition tour of America in 1921. Here, in the shadow of Prohibition, she met financier Charles Pyle and was asked for the first time to consider becoming a professional player. At this juncture tennis was a sacrosanct, pure and “amateur” game with all rewards and inducements being “under the counter”. Only the clubs like Wimbledon and Nice or the newspapers made any sordid profit from players efforts and labours, whilst the rulers of her country’s Tennis Federation even tried to sabotage her with patriotic nonsense, demanding that she only play doubles matches with French nationals rather than her preferred (and equally triumphant) Bunny Ryan.

In 1926, her eventual acquiescence to Pyle’s offer to join his American league and go on a world tour – brought on by her advancing age and Charles Lenglen’s financial losses – saw her ostracised and exiled from the circuit she had dominated for decades, but also paved the way for fair and equitable remuneration of tennis players, rather than the glad-handing rewards and mutable generosity of being exploited by the rich and privileged…

Rather than a straight catalogue of events and assessment of achievement, this examination is carefully fictionalised and massaged to capture what Suzanne Lenglen may have been. Unwell or unstoppable, confused, angry and always desperately seeking to please her father and still be herself, this bright, breezy account of Suzanne details appalling treatment, but succeeds in painting the Goddess of the Courts as a triumphant survivor and not a victim, thanks as much to the astonishingly engaging and open drawing style of the biographer as an astute appreciation of the times and the players involved.

The revelatory saga also includes an Introduction from founding co-secretary of the Women’s Tennis Association and International Tennis Hall of Famer Françoise Dürr; Thank Yous, Foot Notes and a list of Further Reading, and comes courtesy of staggeringly gifted Scottish cartoonist Tom Humberstone (Doctor Who, Nelson, Solipsistic Pop) and publisher Avery Hill.

You should buy all their books and, if you want more of similar, after buying this you could also check out publishers such as SelfMadeHero, Myriad, NBM and so many more outfits seeking to correct the historical balance through informative entertainments.

Trust me, you can’t lose…

© 2022 Tom Humberstone.

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Bluecoats volume 13: Something Borrowed, Something Blue


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-531-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

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

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

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

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling – comedy – and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou. In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues alone has sold more than 15 million copies of its 66 (and counting) album sequence. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of laughter remains.

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

The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from the second volume – Du Nord au Sud – the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, fighting in the American Civil War. All subsequent adventures – despite ranging far beyond the traditional environs of America and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

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

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

Des bleus et des dentelles was originally serialised in 1983 in Le Journal de Spirou (#2384-2387) before collection into another mega-selling album in 1985. It was the 22nd European release and in 2020 became Cinebook’s 13th translated volume. As Something Borrowed, Something Blue it offers a lighter touch and tone than many, with the underlying horror salved by a kind-of romance and ridiculously surreal black comedy.

Once again Union forces are stalemated with no advance possible. Even the cavalry – under the leadership of utterly deranged, apparently invulnerable maniac Captain Stark – are stuck in dugouts, dodging enemy artillery fire beside ordinary foot soldiers. The zealot’s constant, costly, pointless charges at Confederate gun emplacements have left them short of riders and out of horses…

Sergeant Chesterfield is furious, but Blutch is perfectly happy keeping his head down and playing cards… until a shell lands on his position. By some miracle, he survives, but as Chesterfield brings him to the casualty-packed field hospital, it becomes clear that the odds of remaining so are against him.

Only the sarge’s armed intimidation can get a doctor to even look at his pal, and when they try to hack off Blutch’s leg, only the little man’s hidden gun stops them from completing the unnecessary surgery…

Suddenly, the entire camp’s attention is switched to the hospital, as the General’s latest morale-boosting scheme arrives: volunteer medical assistants – all women…

Suddenly, the entire army is stricken with some malady or other. Even Stark abandons the joy of slaughter to secure some female attention, and a top level secret plan is enacted to retore order. It involves scrupulous triage before any soldier can be admitted for treatment and to make doubly sure of weeding out malingerers, the formidable Miss Bertha will examine every man claiming injury.

The most secret part is that she is actually the hugely unhappy Private Burke in drag. His greatest fear is dying in a dress, but at least he won’t have to explain his new “uniform” to the wife and kids…

Meanwhile, actually injured Blutch is slowly recovering, thanks in great part to the diligent ministrations of nurse Jenny. Angel and patient are always together now, and Chesterfield finds himself increasingly lonely and jealous …but not as much as Blutch’s incredibly smart horse Polka…

As the shirker heals, the military situation is worsening. The unassailable artillery is grinding the Union stronghold to rubble and ruin, but things start changing after another futile Stark sortie leads to the enemy troops learning there are women in their enemies’ camp. Soon, Rebel wounded are demanding that they be treated in the Union hospital too…

The situation is untenable and Chesterfield is going crazy, but the biggest bombshell comes not from enemy guns but little Blutch, as he hobbles around on crutches. The little guy is going to marry Jenny…

Initially horrified, the General unexpectedly agrees to the match, but as preparations take the men’s minds off the perpetual bombardment another shock lands after Stark requests he be allowed to wed “Bertha”…

Moreover, as Mr and Mrs Blutch ride a buggy back to safety and civilisation, Chesterfield discovers the truth about Bertha and is ordered to take his place as a female-presenting triage nurse. When “Miss Cornelia” then discovers how Blutch and Jenny have fooled everybody and escaped the war, he goes ballistic and sets off after the delinquents. He finds them frantically coming towards him scant yards ahead of a Confederate sneak attack approaching the Union camp from the rear.

Suddenly, it’s time for everyone to get back to the real business of war, with the Bluecoats survival dependant on Stark’s insane tactics…

Combining searing satire with stunning slapstick, Something Borrowed, Something Blue deftly delivers a beguiling message about the sheer stupidity of war equally clear  to younger, less world-weary audiences and old lags who have seen it all.

These stories weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the kind of war-story and Western, appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1985 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

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Glorious Summers volume 1: Southbound! (1973)


By Zidrou & Jordi Lafebre, with additional colour by Mado Peña translated by Lara Vergnaud (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: Digital edition only

Until comparatively recently, comics in the English-speaking world mostly comprised comedic or various adventure sub-genres (crime, superhero, horror, sci fi), with only a small but vital niche of “mundane world” ventures, usually depicted via graphic biographies and autobiographies such as They Called Us Enemy, Coma, Death Threat, Love on the Isle of Dogs, Wage Slaves or Sour Pickles offering a different feel and flavour. Even historical sagas were treated as extraordinary moments with larger-than-life characters whenever possible.

What we have never had – and still largely don’t enjoy – is a comics equivalent to general fiction, drama and melodrama. That’s not so in Japan and Europe, where a literal “anything goes” attitude has always accommodated human-scaled, slice of life stories depicting ordinary people in quiet as well as extraordinary moments.

Surely it can’t be that hard to tell engaging stories in pedestrian, recognisably ordinary settings? Medical traumas, love stories, school tales and family tragedies about common folk seem to play well on various-sized screens around the world, so why not in English-“speaking” comics? The closest we seem to get are comedy series like John Allison’s brilliantly superb Giant Days (which I really must review soon)…

People being people is more than enough for our European neighbours. They apparently have an insatiable appetite for everyday events aimed at properly “mature readers”, all joyfully sans vampires, aliens or men in tights. These even have sub-genres of their own. For example, there’s a wealth of superb material just about going on holiday…

So, since our own Government-in-Absentia have ensured that it’s now all-but-impossible for any UK-based citizens to pop across and have une petite vacances in Europe, let’s at least stare covetously at them having a good time. After all, over there holidays are an inalienable right, and they have some simply fabulous tales about a simple break. This is probably the best you’ll ever read…

One of the absolute best examples of fantasy vacations made real, Glorious Summers: Southbound! (1973) is a nostalgia-drenched confection by Zidrou and frequent collaborator Jordi Lafebre: a sublime example of idyllic group memory transformed into graphic sorcery and an everyday account utterly unafraid to temper humorous sweetness and light with some real-world tragedy and suspense…

Perhaps a little context is in order. Summer holidays – “Midi” – are a big deal in France and Belgium. The French even divide into two tribes over the annual rest period, which generally lasts an entire month.

Juilletistes only vacation in July and wield dogma and facts like rapiers to prove why it’s the only way to take a break. They are eternally opposed, heart, soul, and suntan lotion, by majority faction the Aoûtiens, who recharge their batteries in August whilst fully reciprocating the suspicion, disdain and baffled scorn of the early-leavers.

Many European sociologists claim the greatest social division today is not race, religion, gender, political affiliation or whether to open boiled eggs from the top or the bottom, but when summer holidays begin and end…

Les Beaux Étés 1: Cap au Sud! is the first of a string of family visits that began in 2015 courtesy of scripter Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) and illustrator Jordi Lafebre. Drousie is Belgian, born in Brussels in 1962 and a school teacher prior to quitting marking books in 1990 to begin making them. His main successes are school dunce series L’Elève Ducobu, Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, African Trilogy, Léonardo, the revival of Ric Hochet, Shi and many more. His most celebrated and beloved stories are this sequence and 2010’s Lydie, both illustrated by Spanish artist Jordi Lafebre.

The sublimely gifted, empathically sensitive illustrator and art teacher was born in Barcelona in 1979 and has created comics professionally since 2001, first for magazines like Mister K, where he limned Toni Font’s El Mundo de Judy. He soon found regular work at Le Journal de Spirou, creating the romance Always Never and collaborating with Zidrou on La vieille dame qui n’avait jamais joué au tennis et autres nouvelles qui font du bien, Lydie, and La Mondaine.

A combination of feel-good fable and powerful comedy drama, Southbound! begins “now”, as an aging couple sit on deftly-assembled camping seats in their beloved regular holiday spot. Gazing outwards and back, they remember how all their shared yesterdays almost died unborn during that difficult time in 1973…

It’s August then and Maddie Faldérault tries to amuse her four impatiently waiting kids as their father Pierre frantically puts the finishing touches to his latest comic strip. He has to: the publisher has stationed a gofer at his side to deliver the pages directly to the printer the moment the drawing stops.

The pages were due last Wednesday – as was the start of the annual Faldérault escape from gloomy Brussels for a month in sun-drenched France. That sun has long set, but such is the life of a minor star of the Belgian comics industry. Once the job is despatched, dad and long-suffering Maddie bundle the fractious kids into the car that’s been packed for days, heading for the border and some long anticipated R & R.

The kids are immune to bedtimes and wrapped up in time-honoured holiday rituals like shouting, fighting and singing odd songs. Shy lad Louis reads Lucky Luke to his invisible friend “Beekoo”, self-conscious oldest girl Jolly-Julie spars constantly with Nicole – cruelly picking on her weight – and hyperactive toddler Paulette (Peaches to you and her) bounces everywhere seeking attention and “fench fries an’ maynaze”…

They have no idea that it will be the last family holiday. The parents are planning to separate after the break and  have fooled themselves into thinking the odd atmosphere and strained behaviour will be put down to Aunt Liliane being sick with the cancer…

However, as they make their way south, clocking up priceless, inconsequential memories and acting like fools and bandits in overnight camps and rest stops, the strain starts to hit the beleaguered family in ways none will forget…

This tale is a beautifully rendered and realised series of memories stitched seamlessly together. It’s funny and charming and delivers painful blows you never see coming. There aren’t any spectacular events and shocking crises and that’s the point: awful events can happen to any of us… sudden death, job insecurity, funerals, demands for divorce, an abrupt change of mind…

If you’re British – and old enough – this series (six translated albums thus far, plus a French omnibus edition) will stir deep-seated memories of family sitcoms like Bless This House or Butterflies and generational ads starring the “Oxo Family”. If that description doesn’t fit you, I pity your browsing history if you look up any of that…

The rest of you in need of an opening (but unfair comparator) could break out the Calvin and Hobbes collections and re-examine the bits with his embattled parents when the kid’s out of the picture…

Lyrical, laconic, engagingly demure, and debilitatingly nostalgic, this holiday romance is sheer visual perfection wrapped in sharp dialogue and a superbly anarchic sense of mischief.

Vacations are built of moments and might-have-beens, channelled here in compelling clips that make the mundane. This is an irresistible tale of woe, wonder and second starts; all the more perfect because of it.
© 2018 -DARGAUD BENELUX (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) – ZIDROU & LEFEBRE, LLC.

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These Savage Shores


By Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vittorio Astone, Aditya Bidikar & various (Vault Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-93942-440-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with in western comics, award-winning writer Ram V has been making waves since 2016. I will surprise absolutely no one by revealing that Ram Venkatesan’s career actually began in his birthland of India as early as 2012, and we in the west barely noticed…

While resident in Mumbai, he created acclaimed series Aghori before moving to Britain to take a Creative Writing MA at the City of London University. Since then he’s co-created series such as The Many Deaths of Laila Starr; Ruin of Thieves; Paradiso; Blue in Green; Black Mumba and Brigands. He’s also made serious inroads into the US superhero mainstream with stints on Marvel’s Venom and DC’s Justice League Dark; Catwoman, the reinvented Swamp Thing and Batman: Gotham Nocturne.

His stellar trajectory was enhanced by two projects for America’s Vault Comics: Radio Apocalypse and – spanning October 2018 to October 2019 – 5-issue miniseries These Savage Shores. Illustrated by Sumit Kumar, coloured by Vittorio Astone and lettered by Aditya Bidikar, this brooding, violent tale of timeless love and undying monsters is an historical drama tainted with horror overtones, combining gothic pastiche with the enticing mystique of colonial India, even if the events actually occur in the years before England officially conquered the “Sub-Continent” and became the British Empire…

Most enticingly and powerfully appealing, it takes the form of a bande dessinée-styled tale with broad cross genre appeal and is tailor-made for conversion to the large or small screen…

It begins in a paradisical garden where dancer Kori teasingly tests her lover Bishan, coquettishly enquiring what he is and how he was made…

The year is 1766 and, miles distant, a sailing ship of the East India Company carries a most unwelcome cargo. Disgraced scion of English Society’s most dangerous secret, Lord Alain Pierrefont has been exiled for breaking the cardinal rule of his class: being found out…

Eternal, patient and few in numbers, vampires have infested the aristocracy for centuries, leading discreet lives of bloody privilege while literally feeding off the poor. Those humans who reluctantly share the secret also know their place and keep quiet about the occasional atrocity. However, there are some mortals who ruthlessly hunt the clandestine overlords.

When one team almost ends the slumming predator, his peers and kin have no choice but to banish him for the shameful indiscretion of continuing to feed under the shocked gaze of crowds of no longer complacently ignorant human cattle…

With the discretion that sustains them as much as blood imperilled, vampire lords convene and Count Jurre Grano is compelled to despatch his favourite offspring to the ends of the Earth. In this case it’s also a promising new outpost of expansion: the squalid, unprepossessing port of Calicut on the Malabar Coast. The prodigal is left to the dubious care of his representative Colonel James Wilson Smith: a man of vision with dreams of controlling the immensely profitable wares previously carried by the fabled Spice Road of the East…

The merchant soldier’s plan is to divide and conquer for mercantile gain by grooming child-prince Vikram of the Zamorin, but impatient, spoiled Pierrefont will not be reasoned with. Calicut is just another playground to him and Kori his next meal. However, when the vampire traps her, his last thought is that he should have paid more attention to the Prince’s hulking masked bodyguard Bishan – a being also pretending to be merely mortal…

By October 2nd 1766, vampire hunter Zachariah Sturn has reached Calicut, determined to finish his business with Pierrefont. He believes the monster has found powerful and wealthy new allies to shield him and is unaware of the vampire’s actual fate. Reporting meagre progress in a letter to his clergyman brother, Sturn lays plans to topple these obstacles, assuming the boy Vikram has already been turned into a royal vampire…

Meanwhile in Mysore, young prince Tipu (Sultan Fatah Ali Sahab Tipu, known historically as Tipu Sultan, The Tiger of Mysore) meets his father Sultan Hyder Ali, Sahab to discuss the East India Company and their blatant plans for the always-warring rival kingdoms of India. The English are already destabilising the regions and are clearly going to use Vikram of the Zamorin as their wedge for further progress. The prophetic debate is derailed when recently-rejected Smith receives word that Pierrefont is dead – permanently dead – and realizes that there will be Hell to pay once the exile’s unholy family in England learn of it…

As the Sultan attempts to parlay with the Zamorim faction, their rebellious Prince Vikram has decreed a royal hunt to catch the “man-eater” that killed Pierrefont and Bishran bids farewell to Kori. The blatant cover-up does not deter Sturn, who stalks Vikram only to discover there are other, greater monsters serving those in the power in this land…

Pierrefont’s death gives the English justification to attack Mysore, but the international crisis has dangerously personal implications too. In England, Grano has learned of his kin’s death and reacts with typically ruthless disregard for human life. As the western invaders cut inland, Hyder Ali’s pleas for aid from Vikram fall on deaf ears, but his immortal guardian Bishram agrees to help fight the English. In March 1767 as a climactic battle looms, the eternal man-beast ponders how his endless ages of existence have been briefly brightened by love for the mortal Kori, before returning to the current war. Two months later, as Wilson’s soldiers remorselessly advance, Calicut greets another ship from Britain, carrying Grano and a contingent of vampires resolved to lay down their law and avenge a slain kinsman…

The fate of a nation is decided without them, as betrayal leads to British triumph. After waiting too long, Bishan unleashes the legendary beast inside him, but now only spiteful vengeance-taking is possible…

It is too little, too late. In November, the battle-ravaged land endures more horror as freshly-turned vampires roam by night: an undead army commanded by Grano who still obsessively hunts Pierrefont’s killer. The arrogant peer underestimates Vikram and his allies, however, almost losing everything in a brutal clash at the palace gates. His forces devasted, the vampire lord nevertheless succeeds, finally learning how his progeny died, and when Bishran returns a month later, he finds the malign bloodletter has returned to England, but left behind him a keepsake: one who will also abide forever…

The spectacular conclusion comes as Bishan voyages to London for definitive confrontation with Grano: one that will change many lives and determine the future of two kingdoms…

Superbly blending a sparkling and terrible time in history with classic horror themes, dark romance with canny political machinations and stunning action, These Savage Shores is a potent examination of power in all forms and its misuses, gloriously realised by illustrator Kumar (Batman; Justice League; Man-Bat) who also provides a large and lovely gallery of covers and variants here.

Beguiling, exotic wonderment for fear-loving older readers, this is a tale of the east no one should miss.
© 2019 Ram V & Sumit Kumar. All rights reserved.

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Dreams in Thin Air


By Michael Magnus Nybrandt & Thomas Engelbrecht Mikkelsen translated by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup (Conundrum Press)
ISBN: 978-1-77262-010-8 (HB)

Fantastic battles against overwhelming odds and magnificent, unlikely victories are the lifeblood of graphic narratives – and most of popular fiction, I suppose – but seeing such triumphs in our own mundane mortal coil is barely credible in the real world.

Happily, miracles do occur, and one such forms the basis of this stunningly engaging chronicle of a good heart and love of sport defeating the political skulduggery of an oppressive but publicity-shy superpower.

Delivered as a sturdy and compelling full-colour landscape format hardback, Dreams in Thin Air details the struggle of a young Danish man whose life was changed by a pre-college visit to Tibet: the things he saw and the people he met…

To make the story even more accessible, the man at the centre of events tells his own story, teaming here with Danish comics superstar and educator Thomas Engelbrecht Mikkelsen (Wizards of Vestmannaeyjar, Einherjar) who adds zest, verve and spectacular imagination to the already heady mix.

Following a Foreword by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the story opens near the end as impassioned, frustrated Michael Magnus Nybrandt paces outside the Chinese Embassy in Copenhagen. We haven’t seen it yet, but Michael has gambled years of hard work, devious conniving and soul-destroying dedication on a true long shot!

‘Chapter 1: Towards Tibet’ then takes us back to 1997 as Michael and his friend Thomas land at Lhasa Airport and are only saved from disaster by the quick thinking of Tibetan guide Jamphel Yeshi, who rescues the idealistic Scandinavians from a potentially lethal encounter with bribe-seeking Chinese Guards.

As they ride away from the airport, the Europeans observe over and again the brutal results of China’s annexation and systematic eradication of Tibetan culture begun in the aftermath of the 1950 invasion. Of course, the gun-toting occupiers called it an act of “liberation”…

The white boys’ feelings as they contrast the broken relics of a glorious past with urbanised concrete wastelands inflicted by two generations of self-serving Chinese occupiers are obvious and exceedingly painful, and before long they check out of their state-sponsored hotel and go on a trans-Tibetan tandem ride, looking for the real country…

In ‘The Easy Way’, that joyous if exhausting excursion brings them into constant contact with the earthy, gregarious Tibetans and solidifies a feeling in Michael that he must do something to help them. The revelation of exactly what that might be comes after they arrive at a shattered temple and meet Lama Tsarong.

During their stopover, the Europeans encounter young monks in training and discover the Tibetans’ abiding passion for football – the proper “beautiful game” and not the dandified Rugby played by Americans…

Later, Michael endures a bizarre dream in which he is coach of a Tibetan National Team. That’s clearly an impossible notion. Thanks to China’s political clout and annexation policy, there is no such nation as Tibet, only outlaw enclaves of dispossessed Tibetans living as exiles in well-wishing countries such as India and Nepal.

No politically expedient government on Earth recognises the annexed but unforgotten land and it has no official national standing in any arena… even sporting ones…

In August 1997, Nybrandt returns to Denmark and resumes his education in Aarhus. He is part of the landmark radical education initiative dubbed Kaospilot, but despite all his studies cannot shift his focus away from that vivid dream…

At that time, privately-sponsored Kaospilot trained less than 40 students per year in Leadership, Business Design, Process Design and Project Design. The private school’s educational philosophy stresses personal development, values-based entrepreneurship, socially-responsible innovation and – above all else – creativity.

Although Michael strives to adapt to the program, eventually he gives in to his obsession and retools his lessons and educational modules to the ultimate goal of creating a Tibetan National Football team and securing for them international matches…

That’s when his problems really begin, as the full political might of the People’s Republic is brought to bear, not just on him but also on Denmark itself. In ‘Dharamsala’ that subtle, silent opposition becomes far more overt, even as Nybrandt tirelessly works with Tibetan bigwigs – in the conquered mountain country itself and throughout the rest of the world.

Undaunted, he sources players, finds sponsors bold enough to buck the Chinese government; sidestepping petty-minded obfuscations like visa-sabotage and rescinded travel permits and even terrifying physical assaults from thinly-disguised political bully boys in China’s pay…

The tide starts to turn in ‘Dharma Player’ after a meeting with the Dalai Lama and arrangement of an international fixture against Greenland’s national team. With the threat of public legitimisation of a “non-country”, China begins turning the geo-political screws: threatening economic sanctions that might bankrupt Denmark and even more dire unspecified consequences…

On the brink of defeat, Michael thinks furiously and realises that although the prestige of international sport has caused all his problems, it has also provided a once-in-a-lifetime possible solution. All he has to do is confront the Chinese ambassador and not blink first…

The result was a milestone in the modern history of oppressed, subjugated Tibet and resulted in ‘Ninety Minutes of Recognition’ as China was forced to climb down and allow the match to take place…

Being a true story, this gloriously inspirational tale also offers a photo-reportage-packed ‘Epilogue by the Author’; geographical and socio-political synopsis on the country at ‘The Roof of the World’ and a heartfelt ‘Acknowledgments’ section dedicated to the brave souls who made the miracle happen and brought this book into print.

Compelling, hugely entertaining and astoundingly uplifting, Dreams in Thin Air is a moving and wonderful tribute to the power of sport and the resolve of good people. Don’t wait for the inevitable feelgood movie: read this magnificent graphic testament right now and experience the all-too-rare joy of good intentions triumphing over arrogance and overwhelmingly ensconced power…
English Edition © Michael Magnus Nybrandt, Thomas Engelbrecht Mikkelsen and Conundrum Press 2017.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 14: 1963-1964


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-970-7 (HB)

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur premiered on Sunday February 13th 1937: a fabulous rainbow-colour weekly peek into a world where history met myth to produce something greater than both. Pioneering creator Hal Foster developed the feature after a groundbreaking and astoundingly popular run on the Tarzan of the Apes comic strip.

Prince Valiant offered action, adventure, exoticism, romance and a surprisingly high quota of laughs in its engrossing depiction of noble knights and wicked barbarians played out against a glamorised, dramatized Dark Ages backdrop. The never-ending story follows a refugee lad of royal blood, driven from ancestral Scandinavian homeland Thule who grows up to roam the world, attaining a paramount position amongst the fabled heroes of Camelot.

Foster wove his complex epic romance over decades, tracing the progress of a feral wild boy who became a paragon of chivalric virtue: knight, warrior, saviour, avenger and ultimately family patriarch through a constant storm of wild, robust and joyously witty wonderment. The restless champion visited many far-flung lands, siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes, enchanting generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

The glorious epic spawned films, an animated series and all manner of toys, games, books and collections. Prince Valiant was – and remains – one of the few adventure strips to have run continuously from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (well north of 4000 episodes and still going strong) – and, even here at the end-times of newspaper strips as an art form, it continues in more than 300 American papers and via the internet.

Foster soloed on the feature until 1971 when John Cullen Murphy (Big Ben Bolt) succeeded him as illustrator whilst the originator remained as writer and designer. That ended in 1980, when he finally retired and Cullen Murphy’s daughter Mairead took over colouring and lettering whilst her brother John assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired, since when the strip has soldiered on under the auspices of other extremely talented artists such as Gary Gianni, Scott Roberts and latterly Thomas Yeates & Mark Schultz.

This luxuriously oversized (362 x 264 mm) full-colour hardback (tragically, the series is still unavailable digitally) re-presents pages spanning January 6th 1963 to December 27th 1964, (individual Strips #1352 to 1455) and comes with all the regular bonus trimmings.

Comics scripting A-Lister Roger Stern (Superman; Avengers; Spider-Man; Doctor Strange; Incredible Hulk; Captain America) discusses and critically appraises the influential force of the newspaper strip on comic books in a picture packed Foreword ‘Swiping Mr. Foster: A Legacy in Four Colors’, offering many potent comparisons and shameless swipes, after which Brian M. Kane expands the argument about Valiant’s lasting influence in ‘Might for Right: A Code of Honor for Sentinels of Liberty’.

The erudite scholar returns at this tome’s close: spotlighting the glorious range of the master story teller in closing article ‘Land and Sea: Hal Foster’s Fine Art Paintings’ in a select gallery of land-and-seascapes, nature studies and illustrative tableau. Captivating as they are though, the real wonderment is, as ever, the unfolding epic that precedes them…

What Has Gone Before: following a failed and ruinous quest for the Holy Grail by the Round Table Knights, Valiant has compelled their return to Camelot and courtly duties. In the months that followed he visited the Great Tor at Glastonbury, met St Patrick and assisted a Papal mission from Rome building a cathedral there. Wars erupted and plots were foiled, and an extended familial rift with long-suffering wife Aleta was healed. A visit to Valiant’s homeland of Thule brought more combat and death and personal injury. With son Arn in tow, recuperation was concluded during a visit of the entire clan to Aleta’s ancestral kingdom in the Misty Isles, with Viking reiver Boltar escorting them to counter Mediterranean pirates and brigands…

At their destination, the family defeated a colonising invasion by rival ruler Thrasos during which the queen delivered twin daughters, to make Valiant a proud father of four. His peace was shattered when fleeing prisoners of war abducted Arn and his commoner pals Paul and Diane, forcing Valiant and Viking shipwright Gundar Harl, into frantic pursuit to prevent their being sold as slaves. By the time they caught up, Arn had already dealt with the problem…

Even with the crisis averted peace was impossible to find. When pilgrims bound for the Holy Land were shipwrecked on the Misty Isles, Val felt duty-bound to offer aid, and used his presence as escort to found a trade mission promoting the produce and wares of his island home. He also brought Arn, whose days of childhood indolence gave way to learning his place in the world…

Many rousing exploits marked their trail from Jaffa to the Dead Sea, Damascus to Baghdad before the pilgrimage ends in Aleppo where Boltar waits to ferry father and son back to a recovered and much wealthier Aleta. However, a brief period of glorious relaxation ends when King Arthur summons them to save Gaul from invading Goth hordes. With safe passage across Europe ended, England’s ruler needed his greatest hero carry a message to the Pope…

As Aleta’s forces secured a sea route to Albion, Valiant and Arn’s perilously mission drew much action but ultimately no satisfaction from the embattled Pontiff.  Undaunted, Valiant devised an alternative trade route between the Holy Father and still-imperilled Christian Britain: visiting what become Spain and France, encountering a lost land where monks were guarded by monsters, dodging Goths and ousting a usurper whilst reinstating the true ruler…

By the time the scattered family are reunited in England, the country endures a new kind of assault, as a charismatic priest is manipulated by scurrilous scholar attendants/business managers to foment a religious revolution…

After cleverly ending the near-insurrection, Val rejoined his family at the site of a church under construction near the fens where he grew up. The lure of his sire’s past beguiles Arn, who explored the boggy waterways and was soon hopelessly lost. Over tense weeks, he experienced the same privations his father had, before being rescued.

Carrying huge wealth destined for Arthur’s coffers, the family thankfully took ship for Camelot, unaware that greedy, ambitious eyes were watching…

The illuminating wonders here resume with those eyes fatally blinking. Opportunistic fellow voyager Ethwald abducts Arn by subterfuge and holds him to ransom for the treasure Valiant is safeguarding for the king. Ethwald fears the knight’s prowess but feels assured a father will do nothing to endanger his heir. He grievously underestimates the murderous wiles of enraged mother Aleta…

The majority part of this two-year tome deals with the anticipation and results of a mass invasion by Angles and Saxons, but the slowly-building saga is comprised of many shorter episodes – adventures both tragic and even broadly comedic – in its ever-expanding tapestry.

After returning to Camelot, the family are feted until Valiant is again called to defend the realm. Arn meanwhile steadily advances from Page to Novice and begins official combat training. Soon he is made a Batchelor-at-Arms and, when the vassal king of Wales dies, is drawn into war.

The former Prince Cidwic hungers for fame, glory and riches, and – deploying his Welshmen and a mercenary Pictish and Caledonian warband – besieges Carlisle in an attempt to annexe Scottish territories. The city is defended by a small contingent of cavalry and engineers led by Sir Kay, but as Arthur prepares a rescue fleet to aid them, Valiant forms and leads a unit of swift-riding messengers from the Novices and Batchelors to keep lines of communication open. The youngest recruit is Arn…

When Cidwic regroups and fortifies his position, the boy plays a crucial role in supporting Kay’s forces and the would-be conqueror’s eventual downfall. As diplomacy and reconciliation take over, Arthur rewards the lad with more responsibility: befriending new King Cuddock, Cidwic’s 12-year old son. As they bond and duty grows into true friendship, the king’s uncle Ruddah seeks to frame Arn for murdering the boy king, and learns to his eternal regret that youth does not equate to stupidity…

The plot foiled, Valiant and Arn make their slow way back to Court, partaking of the many local jousts and tourneys that filled the autumn season and served to keep fighting men in peak form. As they compete they encounter a pair of impoverished, less than noble knights whose response to defeat leaves much to be desired and exposes the sordid underbelly of professional jousting…

Upon reaching Camelot, a joyous family reunion almost ends in shame and bloodshed when cunning schemer Modred attempts to traduce Aleta’s honour and reputation by trapping her and Launcelot in a compromising situation. His vile scheme exposed, the villain flees and encounters a Saxon war party infiltrating the region around the Vale of the White Horse. The long dreaded war with the invaders is starting to happen…

War-wise Arthur deems them to be scouting the land and sends his best men to observe them, with Arn and other knights-in-training as messengers. Sadly, Owen is still starry-eyed and vainglorious, and his inexperience leads to Arn’s capture. Thankfully he is sharp-witted and well-disguised: convincing the Saxons he is a son of infamous pirate Boltar, while turning his situation to England’s advantage by learning the plans of the vast invasion force marshalling overseas. Of course his actions suggest to the keenly watching rescue party that the son of valiant has turned traitor before the boy orchestrates his escape and reports back to Arthur…

Although moving to a war footing, life at Court continues largely as before and leads to personal crisis when a grand tournament intended to hone the fighting spirit of the nation’s champions sparks intrigue, and murder…

Visiting his kinsman Launcelot, Count Brecey of Brittany finds Aleta most pleasing and determines to make her his. That she is a queen with four children he can profitably marry off when he marries her is a huge additional benefit. Used to taking whatever he wants, the overprivileged coward operates through his assassin Hugo, but that deadly killer proves no match for Valiant and his mighty warhorse Arvak, and as a web of sinister schemes unravels, Brecey is forced to abduct Aleta and run for the coast. Thanks to the efforts of his victim and her hotly-pursuing spouse and first son, the Count doesn’t get far and – when caught – compounds his villainy with the worst kind of cowardice…

As summer approaches, Arthur’s preparations intensify, and the entire Court awaits news of a vast fleet of Angles, Jutes, Danes and Saxons. Tensions mount as word comes of established colonies previously defeated by and sworn to Arthur, recant their oaths of allegiance and pick up the swords they had abandoned for peace and acceptance. The lure of imminent plunder is everywhere and the King is forced to remind is noble subjects of their promises to supply fighting men when the nation needs them.

Valiant and Gawain are despatched to Cornwall where three local kings are at war with each other and “unable” to honour their word, whilst Arn travels to North Wales where his friend Cuddock is genuinely embattled, plagued by raids of marauding Scotti. He will soon discover, the raiders are sponsored by the Saxon overlord as a distracting diversion…

Whilst one Cornish ruler is steadfast and readily provides promised forces for the army, weak, ambitious and greedy Kings Grundemede and Alrick-the-Fat need a sharp lesson in realpolitik and practical conjuring (learned long ago when young Valiant was attached to the wizard Merlin) before they grudgingly comply…

Their missions successful both the Cornish and Welsh embassages return with their new reinforcements to Camelot to make final preparations for the encroaching Saxon invasion. Thanks to Arn’s prior intelligence warlord’s colonising raiders head for Badon Hill, the perfect site for Arthur’s stout defence…

This astounding clash takes seven weeks to tell, but at the end England is barred to them for generations and the victorious armies return to their own lands. Switching from epic action to wry romantic comedy, Foster then plays with his stars as Aleta and the visiting queen of Alrick-the-Fat indulge in combat matchmaking; each seeking to wed heroic Sir Charles of Cornwall to their respective noblewoman protégés. However, their escalating wiles and schemes make a catastrophic impression on Aleta’s twins Karen and Valeta, who apply what they’ve seen to their own relentless pursuit of boy-king Cuddock, recuperating from nobly-earned wounds and far too naive to endure being the subject of the girls’ first crush…

Employing the clever conceit of lost historical scrolls, the narrative jumps forward some months and resumes with Valiant’s entire family en route to the ancestral kingdom of Thule with bombastic brigand Boltar. The voyage is interrupted by news of marauders assembled by Skogul Oderson, who has united many tribes into a formidable force to ravage Thule.

As the year ends, the far northern chieftain is spectacularly beaten. He never counted on Valiant and wilderness scout Garm organising the scattered selfish homesteaders into a lethally effective guerrilla force who slowly whittle away the raider’s numerical advantage through guile, lethally inventive use of terrain and psychological warfare…

The final instalment here presages even greater adventure as Boltar’s son and Arn discuss a return to the lost continent they had visited: a land latterly dubbed “the New World.”

To Be Continued…

A mind-blowing panorama of visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a tremendous procession of boisterous action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending epic fantasy with dry wit and broad humour, soap opera melodrama with dark violence. Lush, lavish and captivating lovely, it is an indisputable landmark of comics fiction and something no true fan should miss.
All comics © 2015 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2016 their respective creators or holders. This edition © 2016 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Alice Guy: First Lady of Film


By Catel & Bocquet, translated by Eward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-03-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

I’ve reached a ripe – really, really ripe – old age and only learned one true thing: Men should not be allowed to be in charge of history. We have a very nasty and juvenile tendency to balls it up and – I’m going to say – “forget” stuff that women actually did.

I’m not going to embarrass us all with a list of female accomplishments and discoveries excised from the record, but I might wax quite a bit wroth whilst reviewing this superb graphic biography that joins the movement to redress the wrongs done to an extraordinary talent who shaped the primary entertainment medium of the last century and was then made to be forgotten…

Alice Ida Antoinette Guy-Blaché was born on July 1st 1873 and is officially the world’s first female Film Director as well as. by most metrics, the first person to add narrative to the nascent scientific diversion and tent show phenomenon of Cinema. Where once the spectacle of objects moving, ordinary people walking about and trains entering stations was the sum total of creative endeavour, she added storytelling and birthed a whole new world.

However, her legacy was almost erased in the years after she stopped working. At one stage none of her films were officially registered anywhere and to this day no complete archive of her works exists or even a complete record of how many motion-pictures she made…

A well-travelled, well-read daughter of educated parents (her father owned bookshops and a tri-national publishing house in Chile, before war and natural disasters destroyed their fortune), Alice Guy’s connection to photography began in 1894, when she joined a photographic instruments business that would become the mighty Gaumont Cinema empire. She started as a stenographer (possibly the first ever in France), and quickly – pretty much sans any acknowledgement – became company secretary, business manager and – when the explosion of individual technical discoveries converged to make a scientific oddity into an unexpected entertainment phenomenon – the company’s foremost maker of films for public consumption.

Initially indulged and soon eagerly supported and encouraged by (most of) the men in charge Alice Guy wrote the first scripted films, beginning in 1996 with a charming fantasy about where babies come from.

La Fée aux Choux (The Fairy of the Cabbages or, in at least two later remakes benefitting from her technological and narrative inventions, The Birth of Children) was huge hit with the public and resulted in her scripting and/or directing hundreds of further films of varying lengths. A passionate pioneer, she blended strong, visually arresting narratives and constant examination of social inequity and inequality with cutting edge and innovative technology, art direction and set making.

At the turn of the century, Guy made many dozens of sound-enhanced films in the now all-but forgotten “Chronophone” system (synchronising phonographic recordings with projected film decades before 1927’s “Talkies” revolution); championed and perfected location shooting; devised new special effects; instituted purpose-built studios and specialised sets and experimented with colour-tinted film.

In 1906, Guy invented historical/biblical epics and chapter serials with La vie du Christ (The Life of Christ): a 25 part extravaganza employing 300 actors and in 1912 – after moving to America to found her own studio Solax – made the first film with an all-black cast.

Minstrel comedy A Fool and his Money would have had only one African American character and loads of white guys in traditional and popular “blackface”, but when her established white American actors refused to work beside even one actual negro – vaudeville comedian James Russell – she let them all go and hired Russell’s fellow performers instead…

In 1913, she directed The Thief: the first script sold by Harvard student William Moulton Marston, eventual polygraph pioneer and creator of Wonder Woman…

Guy also created groundbreaking feminist satires, and used her films to explore women’s rights and champion birth control politics. She made international dance and travelogue films in incredibly successful “one-reelers” dedicated to sharing the wonders of terpsichorean movement across borders, and always looked for the next new thing, but her rising star burned out after moving to America and ending her marriage to a faithless man who speculated away all their money amidst the chaos of changing economic systems, Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression. Sounds like a classic movie plot, right?

Guy directed her last film – Tarnished Reputations – in 1920, and began an inexorable descent into poverty and obscurity, spending her days seeking to find copies of any of the hundreds of features she had created.

Alice Guy died in 1968, just as other, more appreciative truth-seekers who had taken up her later-life struggle to re-establish her  place in history were finally making headway and returning her to the annals of cinema history.

Written after WWII, her autobiography had languished on a publishers desk for decades before finally being posthumously published in 1976. Since then, a veritable Who’s Who of academics, historians and industry greats have toiled to overturn her erasure. Alice is now getting the acclaim and appreciation she earned incognito. As always, it appears to be one more case of Too Little, Too Late…

All that achievement, accomplishment, disillusionment and ultimate abandonment by her own colleagues and the public she invisibly captivated has been given a sublimely moving human face in this chronological, episodic, dramatized narrative from award-winning graphic novelist Catel Muller (Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult, Adieu Kharkov, Lucie s’en soucie, Le Sang des Valentines, Kiki de Montparnasse, Joséphine Baker, Olympe de Gouges) and crime novelist, screenwriter, biographer and comics writer José-Louis Bocquet (Sur la ligne blanche, Mémoires de l’espion, Panzer Panik, Kiki de Montparnasse, Joséphine Baker, Olympe de Gouges, Anton Six). Here, Alice’s life is traced from cradle to grave in black-&-white “shorts”, concentrating on her family life and relationships, with her astounding energy, creativity and catalogue of innovations and successes acting as a mere spine to form an impression of the woman whose guiding motto was always “be natural”.

Entertaining, engaging and subtly informative, the book is supplemented by a vast supporting structure of extras, beginning with a heavily illustrated and highly informative ‘Timeline for Alice Guy’ incorporating pivotal events in the invention of cinema. That’s further augmented by ‘Biographical Notes’: 32 character portraits in prose and sketch form of the historical figures who also feature in this epic saga, as well as a Filmography of the movies researchers have since confirmed and acknowledged, and a Bibliography of films, documentaries and books about her.

If you love film, or comics, justice triumphant or just great stories, you really need to set some records straight and read this book.
© Casterman 2021. All rights reserved.

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Joe and Azat


By Jesse Lonergan (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-570-2 (TPB)

I’m writing this well in advance of publication, with the British media resolutely awash with the worst of all possible candidates for a new Prime Minister. That is of course excluding the one we still have – and cannot seem to pry loose from office. It’s actually comforting to remember that it could always be worse. Here’s a delicious example of a true tale with a hidden message…

Global traveller and cartoonist Jesse Lonergan (Flowers and Fade; Hedra) was born in Sacramento, California, raised in Saudi Arabi and Vermont and then spent two years as an American Peace Corps volunteer, before settling down as an artist and storyteller.

That stint was in the nation of Turkmenistan in the days when the Soviet Union’s collapse released many countries from seven decades of iron repression…

Granted autonomy and self-rule virtually overnight, a lot of Warsaw Pact countries didn’t fare well with instant democracy or Free Market Capitalism. In Turkmenistan, their new leader was also their old one.

Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov became First Secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party in 1985, and was leader of the country until the 1991 coup and revolt that established an independent Turkmenistan. Then – as “Turkmenbashy” – he ruled as president until his sudden and suspicious death in 2006.

The election was on 21st June 1992 and he was the only candidate running, and in 1994 extended his term of office until 2002 through a plebiscite whose official result gave him 99.9% of the vote (because “everybody likes him”). In December 1999, Parliament  – all of whom he hand-picked – spontaneously appointed him President for Life…

As you’d expect, he was a real pip, renaming the days of the week after himself, adding portions of his autobiography to the official driving test requirements and using the nation’s entire budget to send a book of his poetry into space. In a pitifully arid country, he built a river through his capital city – because all great cities have rivers running through them. Images of the ruthless potentate were everywhere: it’s a shame nobody ever found oil in the country… oh wait. They did…?

Seriously though, if you admire the precept that “truth is stranger than fiction”, you will have as much fun reading his Wikipedia page as this superb, charmingly subtle tale of culture shock pretensions and national misapprehensions that begins as young Joe grapples with the outrageous differences between his (mostly) liberal and wealthy homeland and the rules, laws and ingrained prejudices of a newly liberated society still reeling from the scary potentials of liberty and personal autonomy.

Nervous and alone, the Yankee lad slowly finds a friend in the astonishingly upbeat and forward looking Azat: an ambitious Turkmen convert and eager zealot for “The American Way”. Subsequently, most of Joe’s time is spent futilely apologising and explaining what that term actually means, since current reality is as far removed from the US Movies Azat is addicted to as the decades of Russian propaganda he grew up with.

Becoming almost part of the family – as complex and dysfunctional as any western one – Joe is caught in the tidal wave of Azat’s enthusiastic aspirations and daily frustrations, but never seems able – or willing – to staunch or crush them, even though he knows how hopeless they ultimately are…

Poignant, bittersweet, with an end but no conclusion, this is a superbly understated graphic dissertation on the responsibilities and power of friendship, the toxicity of unattainable dreams and the unthinking cruelty of cultural imperialism and unchallenged tyranny. Illustrated in a magically simplistic and irresistibly beguiling manner, Joe and Azat is a delight for any reader searching for more than simple jokes and action. Reading this would actually be time very well spent and could easily change your outlook…
© 2009 Jesse Lonergan. All rights reserved.

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The Bible


By Sheldon Mayer & Nestor Redondo, with Joe Kubert (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3425-6 (HB/Digital edition)

I first reviewed this material back in 2008, even though it didn’t really qualify as a graphic novel or book. This was because the artist I wanted to highlight wasn’t a fan-favourite in America or England (a fact I find utterly inexplicable) and English-language collections featuring his incredible artwork were few and far between.

Eventually a new world dawned where comics can be considered both Art forms and high-ticket commercial artefacts, where the big comic has been reborn as a full-on item of merit. All anything ever takes, is time…

In 2012, the entire affair was reprinted as an oversized (262 x 345 mm) commemorative hardback edition, and latterly rereleased in the digital edition I’m referencing here.

Nestor Redondo was born in 1928 at Candon, Ilocas Sur in the American Territory of the Philippines. Like so many others in that impoverished land, he was deeply influenced by US comic strips such as Tarzan, Superman, The Phantom, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon which were immensely popular and widely disseminated in the entertainment-starved Pacific Archipelago.

Drawing from an early age, Nestor emulated his brother Virgilio who already worked as a comics artist for the cheap magazines of the young country. The Philippines became a commonwealth in 1935, and achieved full-independence from the USA in 1946, but always maintained close cultural links to America.

Nestor’s parents pushed him into architecture, but within a year he returned to comics. A superb artist, he far outshone Virgilio – and everybody else – in the cottage industry. His brother switched to writing and they teamed up to produce some of the best strips the Islands had ever seen, the most notable and best regarded being Mars Ravelo’s Darna.

Capable of astounding quality at an incredible rate, by the early 1950s Nestor was drawing for many comics simultaneously. Titles such as Pilipino Komiks, Tagalog Klasiks, Hiwaga Komiks and Espesial Komiks were fortnightly. and he usually worked on two or three series at a time, pencils and inks. He also produced many of the covers.

In 1953, he adapted MGM film Quo Vadis for Ace Publications’ Tagalong Klasiks #91-92. Written by Clodualdo Del Mundo, it was serialized to promote the movie in the Philippines, but MGM were so impressed by the art-job that they offered 24 year old Nestor a US job and residency. He declined, thinking himself too young to leave home yet. If you’re interested, you can see the surviving artwork by searching online for “Nestor Redondo’s Quo Vadis”, and you should, because it’s frankly incredible.

Ace was the country’s biggest comics publisher, but by the early 1960s they were in dire financial straits. In 1963 Nestor, Tony Caravana, Alfredo Alcala, Jim Fernandez, Amado Castrillo and brother Virgilio set up their own company – CRAF Publications, Inc. – but times were against them …and publishers everywhere.

Around this time, America came calling again, in the form of DC and Marvel Comics. By 1972, US based Filipino artist Tony DeZuñiga had introduced a wave of his associates to US editors. Nestor drew anthological horror tales for House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Phantom Stranger, Secrets of Sinister House, Witching Hour, The Unexpected, Weird War Tales; fill-ins for Marvel’s Man-Thing; an astonishingly beautiful run on Rima the Jungle Girl #1-7 (a loose adaptation of W H Hudson’s seminal 1904 novel Green Mansions) and ultimately replaced Bernie Wrightson as artist on the first run of Swamp Thing. He also worked on Lois Lane and crafted magnificent tales for Joe Kubert’s Edgar Rice Burroughs/Tarzan titles.

In 1973, Nestor produced classical literature comics adaptations including Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Vincent Fago’s Pendulum Press Illustrated Classics (later reprinted as Marvel Classics Comics). In later years he moved to Marvel to ink – and eventually fully illustrate – Savage Sword of Conan.

During his DC period, he was tapped to draw an adaptation of King Arthur (which DC killed before it was completed (once again some pages survive and the internet is your friend if you want to see them). He also illustrated issue C-36 of the tabloid-sized Limited Collectors’ Edition. These were comics printed twice the height and width of standard comic book and generally a means of selling themed reprint collections, but also became a magnificent vehicle for all-original special events such as the first Superman/Spider-Man team-up, Neal Adams & Denny O’Neil’s Superman Vs Muhammad Ali and many headline-grabbing moments in DC continuity such as the wedding of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl or Superman vs Wonder Woman…

Another ambitious all-new project that was never completed, The Bible was written by Sheldon Mayer (Scribbly; Red Tornado; Black Orchid; Day After Doomsday; Three Mouseketeers; Sugar and Spike) and designed and edited by Joe Kubert. It was planned as the first instalment in a graphic interpretation of the entire Bible, but apparently readers prefer costumed saviours above all others…

A deeply religious man, Redondo had already produced the serial Mga Kasaysayang Buhat sa Bibliya (Tales from the Bible) for the Philippine’s Superyor Komiks between 1969-1970, as well as creating an on-the-job training scheme for young creators there. Over many years he contributed to various Christian comics, including Marx, Lenin, Mao and Christ, published in 1977 by Open Doors, Aida-Zee and Behold 3-D, produced in the 1990s by Nate Butler Studio. He was also a panellist for the first Christian comics panel discussion of Comic-Con International, in 1992.

Stories from the Bible have been a part of US comics since the earliest days of the industry, but they have never been so beautifully illustrated as in this book. Included herein are loving interpretations of The Creation, The Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, The Generations of Adam, Noah and the Flood, The Tower of Babel, The Story of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Also included are single-page information features ‘Digging into the Past’, ‘School Days in Bible Times’, ‘The Ziggurat’ and ‘Soldiers in the Time of Abraham’ all illustrated by Kubert, but the true star is the passionate beauty of Redondo’s, lush, glorious art.

Redondo worked as an animation designer for Marvel Studios in the 1990s. He wrote On Realistic Illustration – a teaching session for the 1st International Christian Comics Training Conference in Tagaytay, the Philippines, in January 1996, but sadly, died before he was able to deliver it.

Whatever your beliefs – and I don’t really care – you wouldn’t be reading this unless comics meant something to you. On that basis alone, this is work that you simply cannot be unmoved by and truly should be aware of. Even if there isn’t a comprehensive collection of his work – yet – this single work stands as a lasting tribute to Nestor Redondo’s unparalleled talent. If you venerate beautiful pictures telling stories, you must see this book.
© 1975 National Periodical Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Lighthouse


By Paco Roca, translated by Jeff Whitman (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-056-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Francisco Martínez Roca was born in Valencia in 1969: a time when Franco’s fascist regime still controlled every aspect of Spanish life. Roca was part of an artistic explosion that benefited from the dictator’s death and a return to liberalising democracy, with his earliest efforts appearing in La Cupula in 1994.

As Paco Roca, he contributed (with Rafa Fonteriz) erotic strips featuring Peter Pan and Aladdin to Kiss Comics and – with Juan Miguel Aguilera – devised experimental 3D series ‘Road Cartoons’ for El Vibora.

Roca’s earliest serious works dealt with aspects of Spanish culture and history: El Juego Lúgubre in 2001 (his fictional yarn about Salvador Dali) and 2004’s Spanish Civil War tale El Faro. These were followed by internationally acclaimed works Hijos de la Alhambra and 2007’s multi-award winning Wrinkles – adapted into equally celebrated and critically-rewarded animated movie Arrugas.

More wonderful stuff you’ll want to see includes Las Callas de Arena (Streets of Sand) and semi-autobiographical Sunday newspaper strip Memorias de un hombre en pyjama from Las Provincias and El invierno del dibujante, about comic creators working for the Bruguera magazine Tio Vivo in the 1950s.

When not astonishing folk with his mastery of graphic narrative and grasp of human nature, Roca makes animated films and hosts his own radio show in Valencia.

After the success of Wrinkles it was only a matter of time before his other works started being translated into English, so bravo to NBM for picking up this sublime, elegiacally esoteric little gem…

The Lighthouse is a digest-sized (234 x 157 mm) duotone hardback – or eBook if you’re digitally inclined – celebrating the solace of imagination, which recaptures the hope of liberation in a beguiling black, blue and white wave of perfectly sculpted images.

Spain: as the Civil War staggers to its end, wounded Francisco flees for his life. The victorious fascistas are gathering up the defeated foe and this wounded youngster has no intention of being interned… or worse. After a bloody and eventful flight, he makes it to the coast and, after passing out, finds himself bandaged and rested in someone’s bed. He is in a lighthouse, crammed with fascinating remnants and artefacts…

After some cautious poking about, Francisco finally finds a garrulous old lighthouse keeper on the beach, joyously hauling ashore flotsam, jetsam and assorted treasures torn from unfortunate vessels during the last storm.

Telmo is a jolly giant, constantly quoting from his favourite books about the sea, although Francisco – a soldier since he was sixteen – barely understands what the old man is talking about…

The elder’s good humour is infectious and gradually infects even battle-scarred Francisco. Soon the boy-soldier is helping the incessantly cheerful senior maintain the great lamp and sharing his only anxiety, about when – if ever – the light will shine again. The government have been promising a new bulb for years and Telmo is convinced now peace reigns again, that moment will be any day now…

To pass the days, the old man combs the beaches for useful finds and tends to his special project: building a fabulous boat to carry him across the waters to the impossibly wonderful island of Laputa…

Gradually, sullen Francisco – perpetually bombarded by the lighthouse keeper’s wondrous stories – loosens up and starts sharing Telmo’s self-appointed tasks and dreams, but that all ends when the boy finds a letter and accidentally uncovers a web of lies…

However, just when the idyllic relationship seems destined to founder on the rocks of tawdry truth, the tirelessly-searching soldiers arrive and a tragic sacrifice in service of those endangered once-shared dreams is required…

A potently powerful tale delivered with deceptive gentleness and beguiling grace, The Lighthouse is both poignantly moving and rapturously uplifting and is supplemented here by a lengthy prose postscript.

Roca’s ‘The Eternal Rewrite’ – packed with illustrations, model sheets, production art and sketches – reveals how the author is afflicted with Post-Release Meddling Syndrome, constantly editing, amending and reworking bits of his many publications, each time a new or fresh foreign edition is announced.

This short, sweet story about stories and imagination is a true delight and a perfect introduction for anyone still resistant to the idea of comics narrative as meaningful art form… or just read it yourself for the sheer wonder of it.
© 2004, 2009 Paco Roca. © 2014 Astiberri for the present edition. © 2017 NBM for the English translation.