Category: Historical

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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.

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Lonesome volume 1: The Preacher’s Trail


By Yves Swolfs, coloured by Julie Swolfs; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-000-5 (Album PB/Digital edition)

In comics, Western skies are at their most moody and iconic when seen through European eyes.

On the Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics. They collectively recognise what too many here still dismiss as “kids’ stuff” as having academic and scholarly standing, as well as meritorious nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as a true art form.

Myths and legends of the American Old West have fascinated Europeans virtually since the actual days of stagecoaches and gunfighters. Hergé and Moebius were passionate devotees of cowboy culture and stand at the forefront of the wealth of stand-out Continental comics series. These range from Italy’s Tex Willer to such Franco-Belgian classics as Blueberry, Comanche and Lucky Luke, and tangentially even children’s classics like Yakari or colonial dramas such as Pioneers of the New World and Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt’s superbly evocative Indian Summer.

Lonesome: La piste du prêcheur debuted in 2018, the first volume of a gritty, historically-grounded drama with supernatural overtones, similar in tone and mood to Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter.

It is crafted by veteran Belgian taleteller Yves Swolfs, who was born in April 1955 and – like most kids of that generation and geographical location – probably grew up surrounded by imported and home-generated cowboy culture.

He studied Literature and Journalism at Brussels’ Saint-Luc Institute before joining Claude Renard’s Atelier R comics studio, in 1978. His first stories were published in the studio’s own Le Neuvième Rêve magazine before stepping out into the field of commercial design and illustration. His first success was a western: Durango was published by Éditions des Archers in 1980 and ran for four decades, under various publishers. The feature was inspired by cinematic spaghetti westerns of the 1970s and served as  a staple source of income as Swolfs experimented with other genres: French Revolution-set historical drama Dampierre (1987); horror fantasy Le Prince de la Nuit (1991); dystopian sci fi thriller Vlad (2000) and contemporary thriller James Healer (2002).

Always busy, in 1999 Swolfs scripted western Black Hills 1890 for illustrator Marc-Renier and in 2003 wrote and drew medieval fantasy saga Légendes, amongst a host of other comics projects. He relaxes by playing in a rock band.

The Preacher’s Trail opens in 1861, with a solitary rider trekking through snow-enveloped wastes in the savage period of mounting tensions leading to the American Civil War. Newly-created territories Nebraska and Kansas have been a proxy battleground for the North and South since 1854, with slave-owners’ agents and radical Abolitionists clashing and stirring up the citizens for religious, political and commercial reasons. Blood has been spilled by anti-slavery “Jayhawkers” and Missouri’s “Border Ruffians” indiscriminately and the entire region is a powder keg waiting to explode.

Into this disaster-in-waiting rides the determined searcher. He’s hunting a proselytizing preacher, and easily overcomes the murderous bushwhackers Abolitionist Reverend Markham stationed in an isolated saloon to deter his enemies. However, before the last gunman dies, the stranger touches him and is granted a vision of where his target is heading…

In nearby township Holton City, the Reverend – surrounded by an army of gunslingers – stridently entreats the people to join his crusade against the abomination of slavery. Many are not roused or fooled, but all are keenly aware that the holy man care nothing for their lives…

The town banker/Mayor Harper may be throwing his support behind the rabblerouser, but local newspaper publisher Marcus has been doing some research and has reached a dangerous conclusion…

As the rider beds down for the night, his thoughts go back to the Indian medicine man who raised him after his family were murdered and he ponders his eerie gift. At that moment elsewhere, farming family the Colsons are being butchered by the Preacher’s acolytes. Markham has judged them to be immoral sinners, but the atrocities he personally inflicts upon the woman prove it’s no God driving his campaign of terror…

Next morning the rider stumbles across the massacre. By now, he’s fully conversant with the Preacher’s methods and ignores the faked “evidence” of South-supporting Border Ruffians, but is astounded and delighted to discover a survivor…

Taking the child to Holton, the stranger is unsurprised to see his accounts of the crime and description of the perpetrators ignored. He knows Markham always finds influential supporters like bankers and local politicians. The townsfolk are shaken though. First the newspaper office burns down and Marcus vanishes, and now a massacre…

After ignoring an unsubtle warning to mind his own business from Harper’s hired gun Clayton, the rider’s breakfast is interrupted by Sheriff Abel. He’s more inclined to believe stories about the Preacher, but knows who runs things, if not why…

When the rider leaves town in the morning, it’s with new knowledge gained through his strange gift and furtive conversations with bargirl Lucy, an ally of Marcus. Well versed in the brutal whims of men like Harper and Markham. Unfortunately, her allegiance is uncovered and she pays a heavy price after the stranger leaves…

On the trail, the stalker meets fugitive Marcus and hears what the idealistic journalist has uncovered of an international plutocratic plot to instigate war, but his sole concern is catching the Preacher. Debate distracts them and almost costs their lives when Clayton’s gang ambushes them after they stop at a friend’s cabin. The shootout leaves the stranger with Marcus’ notebook and the psychometrically derived knowledge of what Harper and Clayton did to Lucy, as well as a fierce determination to fix things in Holton before resuming his pursuit of Markham… and this time, the rider will be the one dictating how and where the final clash takes place…

Dark, uncompromisingly gritty, diabolically clever and lavishly limned in a style reminiscent of Jean Giraud’s Blueberry, this is as much conspiracy drama as revenge western with an enigmatic figure slowly discovering himself whilst derailing a plot to change the world. Here the inescapable war that’s looming is not due to a crusade of opposing beliefs but a devious scheme by commercial interests to foment war for profit and their own gain.

Before publication by Cinebook, Lonesome was initially released in digital-only English translation by Europe Comics, so if you don’t want to wait for later Cinebook editions, you can satisfy your impatience that way. Regardless, this is a superb example of a genre standard done right and if you like your west wild and wicked you won’t be sorry…
© Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 2018 by Yves Swolfs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists


By Robert Tressell; adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-910593-92-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Born in Dublin to unfavourable circumstances, Robert Croker – AKA Robert Noonan – (17 April 1870 – 3 February 1911) was a man of many parts. His short, globetrotting, eventful life ended with him a housepainter and signwriter (a skilled trade) dying of tuberculosis in The Liverpool Royal Infirmary in 1911.

In all likelihood nobody today would remember him if he hadn’t spent his off hours in the declining years of 1906 to 1910 writing a book. He failed to have it published in his lifetime, but his daughter Kathleen Noonan persevered and a first (heavily edited, highly abridged and politically redacted) version was released on April 23 1914 – four months before the Great War began. That clash resulted in a changed planet and the first socialist (sic) state…

The full manuscript didn’t reach the public until 1955. Even bowdlerized editions were potent enough to make it one of the most important books of the century. Released under the nom de plume Robert Tressell, the cultural satire and barely-disguised socialist polemic was The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

After reading the million plus-selling, never out-of-print pioneering prose opus of working class literature, you should research the times it was set in and read up on the author, if you want to see how a fascinating man responded to the injustice of his world. There’s a splendid Afterword by the creators in this hefty graphic novel to get you started…

A more jaded person might assume current businesses and governments have also studied the text, with a view to rolling back all the hard-won advances made since then, returning us to the days where workers toiled in a brutal gig economy without safety nets of social housing, medicine or pensions. Work or die was the way of world and it’s well on its way back…

The tale – masquerading, like a Thomas Hardy Wessex novel, as a peek at the lives of poor working folk – was a major influence on thinkers in the aftermath of WWI, and many of the civil rights and common benefits of civilisation that we’re gradually allowing to be taken from us were predicted in its more utopian moments…

Politics aside however, it’s also a sublime realisation and examination of the working classes in all their warty, noble, scurrilous, generous, mean-spirited, self-sacrificing, self-serving, gullible, aspirational, tractable, intractable, skiving, hard-working, honest and human glory: a state perfectly realized in this warm-hearted and supremely inviting comics adaptation by Sophie Rickard, illustrated with charm, simplicity and abiding empathy by Scarlett Rickard. You will also want to see Mann’s Best Friend and A Blow Borne Quietly and their eagerly-anticipated adaptation of suffragist Constance Maud‘s inspirational No Surrender…

The semi-autobiographical story detailed here closely follows a group of workers and their families over a year in the town of Mugsborough: proudly go-getting municipal powerhouse (closely based on Hastings, where Croker had worked) with the usual band of rich, mercantile bastards in charge and on the Council, feathering their own lavish nests with the approval and assistance of the local churches and clergy…

The 23 chapters span a year as seen through the eyes of skilled labourers at a time when jobs were scarce and cut-throat competition had the men who hire them fiercely undercutting each other to secure commissions. The artisans are currently refurbishing an ornate house on the cheap for a grasping boss, under the penny pinching eye of foreman Mr. ‘Unter.

In breaks and off moments the disparate crew – dispassionately at first – discuss the job, the way of the world and ever-present threat of work drying up again. Artisan painter/signwriter Frank Owen argues the greed and dishonesty of capitalism and enlightening sense of socialism to his highly resistant and openly hostile mates. Over many days, they all hotly debate ‘The Causes of Poverty’ and the Church’s complicity in maintaining an unfair status quo in ‘The Lord Our Shepherd’. Further discussion in ‘The Economists’ focuses on the impossibility of making do on ever-diminishing wages and ‘The Ever-Present Danger’ of being thrown away once a worker is no longer usable.

This is no pedant’s dry and dusty tirade. “Tressell’s” arguments are bolstered by the declining state of the wives, elders and children of the workers – most of whom still argue ferociously against improvement of their own conditions. As those above them reduce wages and increase hours, uncaring of the horrific repercussions of their parsimony, Frank and enigmatic associate George Barrington gradually convert many, but a resolute group cannot countenance any change to the old system.

That begins changing in ‘The Truth’, and revelation is heightened after the Church is exposed to ‘The Shining Light’, especially once Owen makes a breakthrough by explaining ‘The Money Trick’ underpinning Capitalism.

The damaging power of booze on the hopeless is witnessed after a night at ‘The Cricketers’, presaging work briefly pausing for ‘The Christmas Party’. A New Year exposes corporate skulduggery and public malfeasance by ‘The Council’ of Mugsborough…

Every opinion expounded by the painters can be seen here and now: echoed on modern TV vox-pop segments with today’s exploited, bread & circus sated citizens repeating that we should let the rich (our “betters”) do the hard job of making the big decisions for us, happily abrogating all responsibility for their own evermore parlous state…

Deepening personal crises auger greater tragedies as ‘The Beginning of The End’ finds a beloved friend condemned to the Workhouse as a cynically tongue-in-cheek glimpse at what the Establishment considers ‘The Solutions’ to poverty lead to a long look at ‘The Meetings’ inside the Municipal Council and how a glimmer of reform is crushed by the prestigious clique…

After a period of scarcity, fresh work at a lower wage comes in ‘The Summer’ before a turning point comes when Barrington challenges the Bosses on a rare day’s holiday jaunt in ‘The Beano’ (slang for “BNO” – Boys Night Out).

Again arguing – but with a much smaller and more vocal group of workmates – Owen and Barrington begin ‘The Great Oration’, overruling and disproving ‘The Objections’ of bellicose working class holdouts – the apologists and willing henchmen who happily betray their own sort for elevated status, extra pennies and the cheery disdain of the capitalists. However, grief has not ended and as talk of elections and the growth of a socialist Labour Party blooms, death comes again. Even here the rich and their lackeys find a way to make a profit in ‘The Rope’ and a sordid exhibition at ‘The Funeral’. After the worker’s death comes what we today call “the cover-up”…

Feelings of hope manifest in final chapters ‘The Will of the People’, ‘The Sundered’ and ‘The New Position’ as utopian ideals and practical solutions are leavened with home truths, and a concentration on making change happen…

Uplifting ending notwithstanding, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a major milestone in the west’s path to becoming truly civilised, and this beautifully accessible iteration – deliciously illustrated in the manner of an inviting children’s picture book – could not be more timely, both as a reminder and warning from history. It’s also a wonderfully human drama gauging the limitations and frailties of the most exploited and vulnerable in society and “a book that everyone should read”.

I didn’t write that, George Orwell did, in 1946. Who could argue with that? Class is class no matter what you think…
© 2020 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2020 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2020 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.

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Bluecoats volume 12: The David


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-849184-30-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 best-selling volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (The Bluecoats) debuted at the end of the 1960s, specifically created to replace Lucky Luke when the 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 to Bluecoats he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. The Bluecoats alone has sold more than 15 million copies of its 65 (and counting) album sequence. Cauvin passed away on August 19 2021 but his vast legacy of laughter remains.

Here, 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 featured 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 especially critical of the army and its inept commanders. Ducking, diving, even deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except sometimes he’s smart. principled or 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 stretches their friendship to breaking point in this deceptively edgy instalment.

The David is the 12th translated Cinebook volume and 19th sequential European release. As Les Tuniques Bleues: Le David it was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou #2265-2275 before collection as another mega-selling album in 1982, with C.H.A.B. & Philippe Francart credited for additional research.

The comedic drama is another based on – but broadly extrapolating upon – actual historical events, specifically the deployment of the CSS David: an early success in the development of submarine warfare. Built in 1863 by businessman T. Stoney in Charleston, South Carolina, it was a 4-man, steam-powered submersible torpedo boat used by the Confederate States Navy to challenge the Union’s shipping blockade. David was largely unsuccessful and one of many different protypes built to challenge the North’s “Ironclads”, with its last recorded action occurring on April 18, 1864. As is usually the case, legend far exceeds factual truth, but that’s no bad thing here as the unlikely warriors undertake one of their most dangerous ventures…

Off the Carolina coast, a Union warship spots a blockade-runner trying to reach port with desperately-needed supplies. As the warship confidently closes in, the steamer sends a signal to shore, and within minutes disaster strikes…

Days later, in Washington DC, Abraham Lincoln and the War Cabinet argue the impossibility of fighting an invisible enemy. With the almost-accomplished siege of attrition endangered, the President orders the mystery solved and neutralised at any cost…

Meanwhile inland, Blutch has had enough of the bloodbath battle tactics of utterly deranged, apparently invulnerable maniac Captain Stark. That glory-addicted cavalry charger has caused the deaths of more Union soldiers than the enemy ever could. Thus, at the end of his tether, the little man has downed tools. Refusing to ride again directly into Confederate guns – apparently 11 times in one day is his limit – he has gone on strike. This leads to detention in a stockade where he happily awaits execution by firing squad. At least, at last, his worries will be over…

Nothing loyal Chesterfield can do will change his mind, but when the time comes, typical army inefficiency keeps Blutch impatiently hanging on. In the meantime, the Generals receive orders to send two spies into Charleston to discover the secret of the invisible ship-killer. Knowing no regular soldiers are crazy enough to volunteer, they ask Gung Ho Chesterfield, and offer his inseparable little pal a full discharge from the army if he goes with him. The wily “Brass” are confident neither pest will return…

It’s not quite a done deal or easily achieved, but eventually the pair roll up in Charleston, disguised as wounded soldiers proudly wearing their grey uniforms. Blutch is feigning blindness whilst Chesterfield sits comfortably in a chair with wheels and directs… as usual!

As well as providing plenty of slapstick moments for us, the disguise works well for them and their calamitous progress through the enemy port is painful but largely unimpeded. One very public accident dumps them onto a German-flagged steamer unloading provisions, where – over a little schnapps – the Captain volubly discloses that the South have a diabolical machine ensuring his safe arrivals and departures…

Almost immediately after, Chesterfield and Blutch join crowds rushing towards the seafront to see it in action, and witness the deadly power of the secret weapon sinking another Union ship. When their imposture as veterans fails to get them inside the shipyard housing the devil boat, they resort to cruder methods, ultimately discovering the secret of The David – but only at the cost of their liberty.

Indomitable and utterly dedicated to preserving their own skins, the Odd Couple soon escape, and after failing spectacularly to destroy the weapon, flee desperately for their own lines, frantically pursued by the Confederate army. A sublime chase sequence across swathes of enemy territory proves their wiliness and when the spies are finally recaptured, it’s by their own side and the last person they ever wanted to see again…

With their information changing the shape of the war, Blutch and Chesterfield can only wait for their eagerly anticipated rewards (the big man was promised promotion to Lieutenant if he survived) but there’s a double sting in store as ponderous military procedure glacially expedites their cases…

Combining searing satire with stunning slapstick, this yarn delivers a hugely gratifying poke at the blood-&-glory boys of history. Deftly delivering its anti-war message to younger, less world-weary audiences, The David weds fact to fiction while delivering an uncompromising portrayal of state-sanctioned mass-violence and government’s callous disregard for individual citizens.

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 to appeal to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1982 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2019 Cinebook Ltd.

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David Bowie in Comics


By Thierry Lamy & Nicolas Finet; illustrated by Bast, Martin Trystam, Thomas Gilbert, Marcello Quintanilha, Christelle Pécout, Jérémie Royer, Nicolas Pitz, Monsieur Iou, Christopher, Claire Fauvel, Léonie Bischoff, Joël Alessandra, Samuel Figuière & various: translated by Christopher Pope (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-298-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-299-1

In recent years graphic biographies have become a major component of publishers’ output. This one – originally released on the continent in 2020 – will appeal to a far larger mainstream audience than comics usually reach: unlocking some secrets of someone with many identities; a musician and performer who changed popular culture and modern society and an agent provocateur ushering in a digital age…

Gathered in this fetching account are context-providing photo-enhanced essays bookending individual comics sections. Each chronological article and attendant comics vignette is written by French author/comics scripter Thierry Lamy and author, filmmaker, journalist, publisher, educator and music documentarian Nicolas Finet – who has worked in comics for three decades, generating a bucketload of reference works like Mississippi Ramblin’ and Forever Woodstock).

In this vivid exploration of a one-man cultural revolution, they are supported by an army of illustrators crafting vividly vibrant strips, beginning with ‘The 1950s: Plastic Saxophone’. An introductory text briefing leads to a comic strip nativity scene limned by Martin Trystam, as David Robert Jones is born in post-war Brixton on January 8th 1947. What follows traces his middle class boyhood in Bromley, South London, introduction to music and science fiction by his tragic step-brother Terry, and how his new dad got the little “spaceboy” his first instrument and lessons…

Following a context-packed essay on the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Thomas Gilbert illustrates ‘1962: A Unique Gaze’ as schoolboy David and classmate/best friend George Underwood clash over a girl, inadvertently gifting the future star with his signature look. Another text piece – on the star’s appearance and early relationships – segues into ‘1962-1966: First Bands’, with Marcello Quintanilha delineating how music obsessed Jones and Underwood pursue their dream in a succession of blues bands (The Hooker Brothers, The Konrads, King Bees and others) and cut their first single. Following further text and photo details on those heady days, Christelle Pécout’s strip ‘1966: When David Jones Became David Bowie’ heralds the moment everything changed…

An essay on personal reinvention moves the story along to when Bowie studied with theatrical legend Lindsay Kemp, visualised by Jérémie Royer in ‘1969: Ground Control to Major Tom’ and highlighting the role the first Moon Landing played in Bowie’s breakout hit. A feature on the influence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey closes one era as Nicolas Pitz illustrates the meeting of Bowie and his new inspirational inamorata Angela Barnett in ‘1969-1971: Angie’. Her freewheeling lifestyle and attitudes would liberate her eventual husband and drive his rise, as seen in a prose feature and Monsieur Iou’s strip ‘1972: Top of the Pops: The Birth of a Legend’…

Bowie early realised the power of image tied to story and his first musical alter ego is examined in ‘1972-1973: An Alien Named Ziggy Stardust’, courtesy of Christopher, after which Claire Fauvel details the growth of the major musical theoretician behind the stage performer. ‘1972-1973: Bowie the Producer: Lou Reed & Iggy Pop’ sees David save the careers of two fading American icons and gain friends who will save him in his troubled years to come…

Having cycled through two performer personalities – Ziggy and Aladdin Sane – Bowie endured creative ennui and branched out into theatre, as seen in Léonie Bischoff’s ‘1974: A Hint of Science Fiction’. When his proposed adaptation of Orwell’s 1984 foundered, Bowie reinvented key elements for his Diamond Dogs show before the Quintanilha strip ‘1975: Turning to Soul: Young Americans’ outlines the next step in the musician’s mercurial career. Christelle Pécout’s comics contribution reveals how drug abuse and legal struggles with his embezzling manager left Bowie burned out and ready for another reinvention in ‘1976: The Thin White Duke’…

With this chapter’s essay concentrating on Bowie’s role in Nick Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell to Earth, Christopher’s encore art act ‘1976-1979: A Date with Berlin’ focusses on relocation to West Germany at the height of Cold War tensions and creation of a landmark series of albums comprising “The Berlin Trilogy”.

Discussions of minimalism and masterpieces are complemented by Monsieur Iou’s cartoon coverage of the performer’s golden years as ‘1980-1984: The Global Icon: Let’s Dance’ detail Broadway acting triumphs and collaboration with Funk genius Nile Rodgers. Always with his mismatched eyes on the future, Bowie was the first mega-star to grasp the potential of a new phenomenon. MTV’s launch shifted his focus to musical videos and his status grew even more…

Illustrated by Joël Alessandra, ‘1983: Bowie in Film: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’ explores his astounding performance and heralds his gradual move away from pop stardom towards musical exploration and personal experimentation. Trystam returns for ‘1989-1992: Forever Innovating: Bowie and Tin Machine’…

By then, Bowie’s car-crash home life had steadied and Samuel Figuière shares the happiest times as the music man finds his true life partner in ‘1992: Iman’, after which Alessandra illustrates ‘1992-1999: Experiments in Genre’ as Bowie increasingly explored digital technology (in 1997, he released the first digital music single for fans to download) before Figuière visually catalogues ‘2004-2014: Quiet’ as the star’s progressively poor health ends his performing career…

The story ends with one final essay appreciation, supplementing Pitz’s fantasy montage ‘2014-2016: The Last Dance’ commemorating the last work and The End of All The Songs…

A human agent of social change, David Bowie made sublime music, offered groundbreaking and pioneering advocacy of the barely post-natal internet and provided an example for generations of confused kids seeking to fit their own personally perceived oddities into a binary world that never really existed except in the minds of a few hidebound religious bigots.

In so many ways, he inspired and reshaped people on the margins and did so by example. Always aware of what could be, he even patterned the way modern social media and eCommerce evolved. He also made life extraordinary and much of that is captured here.

Also equipped with a Discography, Filmography, Sitography and Recommended Reading list, David Bowie in Comics is an astoundingly readable and beautifully rendered treasure for comics and music fans alike: one to resonate with anybody who loves to listen and look. It can’t actually play you the songs, but you can read it while listening to them on your aural medium of choice, so everything’s Hunky Dory,

© 2020 Petit as Petit. © 2022 NBM for the English translation.
David Bowie in Comics is scheduled for UK release June 16th 2022 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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