Category: Horror Stories

Posted on

Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020


By Mirko Ili? (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-52-2 (Album HB)

This book contains nudity, sexual images, depiction of bodily functions, scenes of distress, oppression and violence, but for Pete’s sake millions died, countless others are still enduring long term debilitating illness and it could all happen again. Grow a sense of proportion or read something else if those are your problems with what’s on show here.

We all respond to stress, horror, terror and slow strangling of hope in different ways. If nothing else, the COVID 19 pandemic (and those many ongoing, still-evolving sequels national governments are so keen to have us ignore at this moment) resulting in global lockdown showed us ourselves in ways we could never have previously imagined. As loved ones vanished from around us, human monsters made money and political capital of the viral winnowing, and forcibly isolated humans turned inward, looked outward from cosy cages and redefined who they were. Many discovered new or long-suppressed gifts and talents. Others just got in much closer touch with what they knew but never had time for, back when the world was “normal”…

Bosnian-born on January 1st 1956, Mirko Ili? is an artist. Living with dyslexia, he especially preferred the visual to the verbal in his formative reading years and made graphic design his area of expertise. Upon achieving success and acclaim he moved to the Big Apple, becoming art director of Time magazine’s international edition and The New York Times Op-Ed section. Before that, though, he was raised in Soviet-era Yugoslavia, absorbing every comic he could find. Shaped, changed and charged-up for life, he entered the magazine marketplace as a creator and storyteller whose efforts were seen far and wide thanks to eye-catching yarns in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Marvel’s Epic Illustrated among others, all riding a global fantasy art boom at that time.

Coming to America confirmed his ascent but took him ever further away from personalised graphic narratives. Design pays more than panels & captions, and Ili? prospered from prestigious, high profile works such as posters and book covers for Steven Heller, Milton Glaser and so many more. He crafted film titles, ad designs, album covers and all the rest of those image-potent fillips that command and reward inspired vision-realisers. With time came more acclaim and many examples of his art added to modern collections including MOMA, SFMOMA, the Smithsonian, Die Nueue Sammlung and various other global institutions.

If you need to know more than what the fulsome creator bio at the back of this tome offers, you should track down his 2012 biography (by Dejan Krši?) Mirko Ili?: Fist to Face…

Meanwhile and however, when almost everyone’s career was put on pause in 2020, Ili? the long-neglected comics storymaker reacted to enforced isolation, prolonged separation and the prospect of an actual Apocalypse by unearthing his own roots. Locked in, he reviewed comforting literary influences and artistic inspirations. Deprived of bustling casual human contact – comprising strangers, casual acquaintances and close friends – he sought ways to make sense and apply perspective and proportion to what so many of us regarded as our long anticipated well-earned Armageddon. Ili? started drawing as he wondered and waited for whatever end was coming…

As explained in supporting text pieces – a contextual Foreword from Mark Hellier and Dave McKean’s appraisal in a concluding Afterword – an inward expulsion of ideas was nourished by Ili?’s past via beloved works by favourite creators… not just comic stars like Tomaz Pengov, R. Crumb, Moebius, and especially Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. Also revisited were craftspeople, artisans, designers, filmmakers, poets and musicians including Magritte, de Chirico and Egon Schiele; Marshall McLuhan, Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground and Dylan Thomas. Ili? referenced formative mythology and religious iconography (image 27 references Saint Sebastian – believed in mediaeval times to defend against plague) and his own earliest comics creations and student days at Zagreb’s School of Applied Arts, to feed his art making addiction and when the world’s new normal began as the year closed, the therapy comics became his A.C. (After Covid) 2020 collection…

As inferred already, 2020 began with Mirko Ili? drawing self-contained single-page stories/statements as something to do and to reflect the mood of unprecedented times. He continued that daily visual diary even as world lockdowns gradually lifted, channelling his continuing anxieties, observations and self-evaluations into striking, shocking surreal pantomimes blending bleak, traumatised imagination with personal motifs and inspirations…

Without another word that procession of explicit, scary, sad and evocative moments unfolds here with gregarious overwhelming humanity reduced to spectres and phantoms avoiding other people. One voluntary ghost is a driven aging artist roaming achingly familiar but alien empty streets. Over 70+ individual vignettes rendered in a variety of liberating styles to challenge the notion of confinement and unflinching rigidity a longer narrative forms. Skilfully manipulating self-imposed creative restrictions whilst inhabiting nested boxes/containers/cells of wordless pages & panels, shining through monochrome palettes and singular subject matter a record of loneliness and isolation running wild emerges.. And yet, somehow, each message of and within borders and boundaries is invested in sparking unique examples of freedom of thought, memory, and anticipation… be that better or worsening days or no future at all…

Extremely explicit, complex, challenging, compressed, claustrophobic, and memorably distressing, this somehow still-mightily engaging gallery of isolated incidents is fully annotated and supplemented by a Visual Reference Index, presenting one compulsive creator’s unflinching documentary testament and uncompromising inner monologues: a physical paradigm of processing in response to solitary daily “constitutionals” undertaken through an eerily distanced metropolis in the fervent hope of touching “normal” again and seeking out a better, more crowded tomorrow…

If you can handle it, you must not miss this marvellous, darkly beautiful memento mori to modern fragility and failures…
Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020 © 2026 by Mirko Ili?, Foreword © Steven Heller. Afterword © Dave McKean. All rights reserved.

Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020 will be released in the UK on September 3rd 2026 and September 29th in the US. It is available for pre-order now and is supported in London by an exhibition running from 1st to 7th September at the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ.

Today in 1875 pioneering US cartoonist Clare A. Briggs (A. Piker Clerk, When a Feller Needs a Friend, Ain’t It a Grand and Glorious Feeling?, The Days of Real Sport, Mr. and Mrs. and father of pioneering woman cartoonist “Miss” Clare Briggs!) was born, sharing the anniversary with the premiere of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie strip in 1924; Carl Giles’ eponymous UK family gag panel Giles in 1946; the loutish launch of Reg Smyth’s Andy Capp in 1957 as well as the birth in 1966 of filmmaker/producer/writer James Gunn (Super, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vols 1 2 & 3, The Suicide Squad; the whole honking’ great DC Extended Universe; Creature Commandos, Peacemaker, Scooby-Doo & Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Brightburn, Superman).

Today also marks passing of creator Frank Godwin (Wonder Woman, War on Crime, Connie, Rusty Riley) in 1957 and groundbreaking black American cartoonist, fan art pioneer and underground comix exponent Richard Edward “Grass” Green (Xal-Kor the Human Cat, Holiday Out, Super Soul Comix) in 2002.

Posted on

Came the Dawn and Other Stories illustrated by Wallace Wood (The Fantagraphics EC Comics artist Library volume 2)


By Wallace Wood, with Al Feldstein, Harry Harrison, Gardner F. Fox & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-546-4 (HC/Digital edition

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content employed for dramatic effect.

EC began in 1944 when comic book pioneer Max Gaines sold the successful superhero properties of his All-American Comics company – including Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman – to half-sister National/DC. He retained only Picture Stories from the Bible, with a plan to produce a line of Educational Comics and with schools and church groups as the major target market. Max then augmented his core title with three more in similar vein: Picture Stories from American History, Science and World History. The worthy but unsustainable project was already struggling when he died in a boating accident in 1947. His son William was eventually convinced to assume control of the family business and, with much support and encouragement from unsung hero Sol Cohen and multi-talented associate Al Feldstein, transformed the ailing enterprise into Entertaining Comics, consequently triggering the greatest qualitative leap forward in comic book history…

After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments, Gaines settled into a bold and impressive publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field to tell a “New Trend” of stories aimed at an older, more discriminating audience.

From 1950 -1954 EC was the most innovative and influential publisher in the US, dominating the genre markets for science fiction, war, horror and crime comics. The company even added a new type of title and another genre with the creation of parody magazine Mad…

This second volume of the Fantagraphics EC Library is a magical and groundbreaking omnibus of horrific tales and human dramas displaying the astounding artistic expertise of Wallace Allan Wood: one of the greatest draughtsmen our art form has ever produced.

Woody was a master of every aspect of the business. He began his career lettering Will Eisner’s Spirit strip, moved into pencilling and inking and latterly, publishing. After years working all over the comics and syndicated strip industries, as well as in legitimate illustration, package-design and other areas of commercial art, he devised the legendary T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents franchise and even created one of the first adult independent comics with Witzend as the 1960s closed.

The troubled genius carried the seeds of his own destruction, however. Woody’s life was one of addiction (booze and cigarettes), traumatic relationships, tantalisingly close but always frustrated financial security, illness and eventually suicide. It was as if all the joy and beauty in his existence stayed on the pages and there was none left for real life.

Although during his time with EC Wood became the acknowledged and undisputed Master of Science Fiction art in America, he was equally adept, driven and accomplished in the production of all genres. This powerful collection concentrates on some of his best early crime, horror and suspense tales and includes all the evocative, emotionally-charged social dramas (lovingly dubbed “Preachies”) which Feldstein & Bill Gaines devised to address hot-button issues and challenge the smugly hierarchical status quo of post-war triumphalist America.

These strident, still truly shocking morality plays viciously jabbed at the nation’s dark underbelly, attacking prejudice, police corruption, drug abuse, sexual attitudes, racism, institutionalised intolerance and all manners of hypocrisy. It’s no stretch to consider that these tales, more than any other childhood influence, probably shaped the resurgent liberal attitudes which blossomed as the future “Flower Power” generation reached their majority a decade later. They certainly riled the powers that be who made sure that when the Comics Code Authority was established all such dangerously seditious fare was kept well away from the kiddies…

The stories are re-presented here in stark yet lavish monochrome, with supplementary interviews, features and dissertations, beginning with Bill Mason’s ‘Come the Stories’ weighing the yarns included here with forensic discipline. Then the pictorial parade picks up with rather pedestrian scam caper in ‘The Werewolf Legend’ (Vault of Horror #12 April/May 1950) as an innocent man is convinced he’s a ravening monster. It was scripted by prolific and ubiquitous Gardner Fox, one of Gaines senior’s greatest assets and discoveries. The pencils are by cartoonist Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat, Make Room! Make Room!, The Technicolor Time Machine, Bill, the Galactic Hero) and inked by Wood. Although Harrison found his greatest fame as a prestigious prose author in later years, he was a major player in the comics biz during the 1950s and had worked with Wood as a jobbing production team since they’d met at the Cartoonists and Illustrators school in 1948.

For Haunt of Fear #15 the trio concocted legend of lethal legerdemain ‘The Mad Magician’, whilst an anonymously-authored enigma of ‘The Living Corpse’ (Crypt of Terror #18) edged closer to truly supernatural shenanigans as another illusionist took things too far in pursuit of his craft…

Fox scripted and Harrison pencilled ‘The Curse of Harkley Heath’ in VoH #13, wherein a gothic triangle of greedy heirs come to unpleasant, untimely ends after a will is read, after which Wood began handling all the art chores, starting with ‘Horror-Ahead!’ in HoF #16 (July/August 1950) when rival curio collectors endure a jungle jaunt in search of shrunken skulls and end up the only way they possibly could…

A Noir-tinged new era began when Al Feldstein began scripting for Woody. ‘Death’s Double-Cross’ – from the sublimely mature Crime SuspenStories #1 (October/November 1951) offers the twisted tale of a woman cheating on her husband with his twin brother in a moody masterpiece reminiscent of James M. Cain. Naturally it quickly turns into a nightmare that won’t end pretty…

Fox delivered a final shot in ‘The Man from the Grave’ from HoF #4, which saw a dissolute craftsman commit gruesome murder for his art… and live to regret it in desperate luxury and a relentless, compulsive paroxysm of over-work, before Feldstein’s ‘Terror Ride!’ (Tales From the Crypt #21) finds young lovers who soon regret being the last couple to ride a decrepit Amusement Park’s Old Mill boat attraction. Feldstein’s epic run of stories fill most of this tome and continue in a yarn from Haunt of Fear #5, where Wood’s dark imagination and gift for  rendering grotesques is expertly exploited in ‘Horror in the Freak Tent!’ Here a cruel carnival owner who mercilessly mistreats his exotic employees finally receives a macabre measure of justice…

Crime SuspenStories #3 then provides a fearsome farrago of betrayal and vengeance when two fugitive bandits are ‘Faced With Horror!’ after picking the wrong plastic surgeon to sort out their public notoriety problems, whilst ‘So They Finally Pinned You Down!’ (HoF #6) follows a troubled soul who can’t understand why he’s always stumbling over dead women…

The macabre mayhem concludes with two tasty titbits from Tales From the Crypt #24 & 25, beginning with a classic philandering-murderer-gets-his-come-uppance saga in ‘Scared to Death!’, after which a baroque body-switching melodrama concerning a cunning crone and a lovely young thing compels a bewildered husband to conclude ‘Judy, You’re Not Yourself Today!’…

The remainder of this potent volume is comprised of those controversial conscience-rending polemical passion-plays and human dilemmas Gaines called Preachies, opening with ‘The Guilty!’ as seen in Shock SuspenStories #3 (June/July 1952), which sees a typical small town enflamed by the murder of a young white girl. The Sheriff knows the black kid in his jail is guilty and is just as keen as the mob to spare the State the cost of a trial and takes steps to ensure it too.

… And that’s when the girl’s white boyfriend confesses…

Although stridently moralising and rather heavy handed by contemporary standards, these stories are the very bedrock of EC’s well-deserved reputation as the crusading creators of America’s very first adult comics for mature readers. Moreover, these ugly truths were gloriously draped in so very beautiful clothes, with Wood’s incredible illustrations inspired by the fiercely impassioned scripts, soaring to unparallelled heights of sensitivity with gut-wrenching impact.

Shock SuspenStories #4 took the cultural campaign further in a sordid tale of the innocent witness relentlessly beaten into a ‘Confession’ by cops determined to capture a hit-&-run driver who’d killed their Lieutenant’s wife. So why then, is the grieving officer’s car all banged up and covered in blood? Sheer, old-fashioned anti-Semitism fuels the ‘Hate!’ of a quiet little town and leads to the death of a family too stubborn to be warned. Imagine instigator John Smith’s surprise when his appalled mother tells the entire town that he was adopted and what his true origins are. Shock SuspenStories #6’s ‘Under Cover!’ combines the local Klan chapter’s campaign of punishment-floggings for miscegenation with the end of a crusading reporter who tries to expose the scandal. Tragically, he forgot that there might be almost anybody under those pointy hoods…

In #7 ‘The Bribe’ reveals how even the most honest and dedicated of civil servants can be pushed into abandoning his principles – especially with a loving daughter, her upcoming wedding and crushing society pressure hitting him so hard…

Even today ‘The Assault!’ is potentially the most contentious tale here, exposing how a small town girl with salacious appetites callously guards her precious but precarious reputation by framing an old man for her “rape”. In typical tone for those times, her lie ultimately and inevitably causes two deaths, after which eponymous ‘Came the Dawn!’ from Shock SuspenStories #9 offers a superb  example of Greek tragedy in modern dress. Here a lonely backwoods hermit finds a beautiful naked woman in his cabin and, after a night of mutual passion with the girl of his dreams, discovers that an inmate fitting her description has escaped from the nearby asylum. Only after he’s locked his dream girl outside out does he discover that she’s not the only mysterious blonde lost in the forest…

Far less emotionally loaded but equally devastating is the darkly introspective ‘…So Shall Ye Reap!’ (Shock SuspenStories #10) which sees a penitent, angry young man contemplating every hypocritical act of his pompously pious parents before reaching his own moment of judgement prior to ‘In Gratitude’ launching a simply breathtaking assault on the nation’s double standards after a wounded soldier comes home to a hero’s welcome. However, he savagely turns on his friends and family when he finds out what they’ve done to the “coloured man” who saved his life…

More quirky crime-caper than social commentary, ‘Fall Guy’ (Shock SuspenStories #12) follows the doomed decade that saw upstanding citizen Danny Jansen steal a fortune to please a greedy girl far out of his league only to spend ten years in jail paying for it. Surprisingly, she waited all that time for him, but wasn’t best pleased when he couldn’t remember how to retrieve “their” ill-gotten gains…

A campaign of hate to drive out a man who foolishly admitted to being part-Negro ends in suicide and a sense of smug satisfaction when the bigot-in-charge boasts of his success to the local doctor in ‘Blood-Brothers’ (Shock SuspenStories #13). Imagine the vile cross-burner’s surprise when the aged medic reveals the source of the transfusion which had long-ago saved the happy hate-monger’s life. Next, ‘The Whipping’ (scripted by Feldstein & Gaines for Shock SuspenStories #14) returns to scandalmongering territory, when a dutiful daughter defies her racist father and starts dating an Hispanic boy. Dad doesn’t call it that, and the outrageous steps he and his pure-white buddies take to end the affair horrifically backfire…

The last tale reprinted here is ‘The Confidant’ (Feldstein, Gaines and Wood from Shock SuspenStories #15, June/July 1954), created at a moment in time when public outcries against comics was reaching its fevered peak. It deals with mob-justice and sees an entire town baying for the blood of a newcomer who they “know” has murdered a young girl. Then, when a dark stranger arrives searching for one of his children, the unofficial posse jump to a wrong conclusion with tragic and irreparable consequences…

Please forgive any deliberate vagueness on my part here: the point is to make you want to read these poignant. shocking stories and I don’t want to devalue their impact or spoil your otherwise assured enjoyment…

A detailed history of Woody the flawed genius is provided by historian S.C. Ringgenberg in prose piece ‘Wallace Wood’ after which this truly beautiful book is closed by ‘Behind the Panels: Creator Biographies’ compiled by Arthur Lortie & and Bill Mason before Ted White’s ‘Crime, Horror, Terror, Gore, Depravity, Disrespect for Established Authority – and Science Fiction Too!: ‘The Ups and Downs of EC Comics: A Short History’ offers a comprehensive rundown of the entire EC phenomenon.

The short, sweet, cruelly limited EC back catalogue has been revisited ad infinitum in the decades since its demise. Those amazing yarns changed not just comics but also infected the larger world through film and television to convert millions into dedicated devotees still addicted to New Trend tales. Whether you are an aged EC Fan-Addict, a nervous newbie, or simply a mere fan of brilliant stories and sublime art, Came the Dawn is a book no sane and/or sensible reader can afford to be without.
This edition © 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All comics stories © 2012 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., reprinted with permission. All other material © 2012 the respective creators.

Today in 1904 British cartoon colossus Reg Parlett (Just Jake, Billy Bunter, Mowser, countless assorted strips for Merry and Bright, Funny Wonder, Radio Fun, Film Fun, Knockout, Buster, Valiant, Lion, Whizzer and Chips, Cor!!, Whoopee!, Jackpot, Wow!) was born, sharing the day with Golden age letterer Betty Bentley (Superman, Batman, Starman) in 1916; artist/illustrator/inker Dave Hunt (Transformers, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Wonder Woman, DC Comics Presents) in 1942; Belgian creator Luc Cromheecke (Taco Zip, Tom Carbon & Roboboy) in 1961; writer/letterer John Layman (Chew, Thundercats, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness) in 1969 and writer/moviemaker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Daredevil: Guardian Devil, Green Arrow, Batman: The Widening Gyre, Batman: Cacophony, Jay and Silent Bob) in 1970.

Belgian master storyteller François Craenhals (Karan, Fantômette, Chevalier Ardent, Les 4 As, Pom et Teddy) died today in 2004.

Posted on

Harley Quinn and the Gotham Girls


By Paul D. Storrie, Jennifer Graves & J. Bone, with Brad Rader, Rick Burchett, Patricia Mulvihill, Phil Felix & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9971-2 (TPB) 978-1-4012-9972-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Harley Quinn wasn’t supposed to be a star – or even an actual comic book character. As soon became apparent, however, the manic minx always had her own astoundingly askew and off-kilter ideas on the matter… and any other topic you could name: ethics, friendship, ordnance, coffee…

Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough TV cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iterations, leading to some of the absolute best comics tales in the hero’s many decades of existence.

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all eras and aspects of the character and, without diluting power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and his extended team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form that the youngest of readers could eagerly enjoy, whilst adding shades of exuberance, sophistication and sheer panache that only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to…

Harley was initially the Clown Prince of Crime’s slavishly adoring, abuse-enduring assistant in Joker’s Favor (airing on September 11th 1992) wherein she instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers. From there on she began popping up in the licensed comic book and – always stealing the show – soon graduated to mainstream DC continuity.

Along the circuitous way, Harley – AKA Dr. Harleen Quinzel – developed an outrageous support network of sorts including living bioweapon Poison Ivy and settled into a bizarre love/hate relationship with some of Gotham’s other female felons.

After a period bopping around the DCU she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint, major makeover and appeared as part of a new iteration of The Suicide Squad. Now with numerous motion picture, TV animation and live action small screen presence all in play, let’s look back at one particularly fruitful and significant phase, At heart, Harley’s always been a cartoon glamour-puss, with big, bold, primal emotions and only the merest acknowledgement of how reality works…

Amongst the plethora of comic books generated by the original cartoon show was this smartly sassy romp featuring those aforementioned crime cuties as well some mismatched if not openly antithetical law enforcers. Crafted by Paul D. Storrie, Jennifer Graves & J. Bone, 5-issue miniseries Gotham Girls was released between October 2002 and February 2003: opening with ‘Cat’s Paw’ as super-thief Selena Kyle undertakes a commission to steal something very nasty from agricultural conglomerate Zehn Chemicals.

The Feline Felon’s still determined to open a lion sanctuary with her fee and doesn’t appreciate when the supposedly simple caper is interrupted by juvenile do-gooder Batgirl. However, as they trade kicks, punches and quips, overworked, under-appreciated and overlooked GCPD detective Renee Montoya is taking a closer look at the supposed victims and sees something dirty in the company…

Then, as Bat & Cat ferociously but inconclusively throw down all over town, the masterminds paying for the heist make their move, and it becomes clear that there’s a lot going on that needs to be properly unearthed…

‘Ivy League’ exposes murderous eco-terrorist Pamela Lillian Isley as bankrolling the caper, claiming justifiable and benevolent motives to reclaim her own property from unscrupulous, world-endangering corporate creeps. However, because her bestest pal Harley is as erratic and excitable as ever, a potential Bat/Cat/Plantgirl/Dingbat alliance is thwarted by mutual mistrust and excessive, utterly unnecessary violence. Montoya, meanwhile, is diligently following clues, interviewing greedy biologists and uncovering something at rival agri-company Kayle Corporation…

The fast-moving melee ends in leafy Robinson Park, with Batgirl holding the stolen chemical soup, until ‘Harlequinade’ sees manic, attention-starved Quinn pull a martial masterstroke, delivering the bio-booty to her disturbingly abusive gal-pal and a heavy defeat to Catwoman & Batgirl. Naturally, that’s just when solid police practice explosively brings Montoya to their secret lair for penultimate power struggle ‘I Carry a Badge!’…

Brilliant deduction and a standard-issue firearm aren’t much use against supervillains and giant carnivorous vines though, so it’s a good thing Batgirl & Catwoman have both independently tracked Harley & Ivy. With action amped to maximum, good girls and bad girls clash yet again, and sides are finally drawn for a climactic conclusion, with frustrated cop and masked vigilante hero united at last and resolved to end the chaos in ‘Bat Attitude’.

Of course, that means not just Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn are going to jail…

A superbly riotous rollercoaster ride for kids of all ages, each chapter also deftly explores the interior life, history and motivations of successive stars; offering canny character building and definition most mature-reading tales would be proud to deliver.

Coloured by Patricia Mulvihill, lettered by Phil Felix and with additional layouts by Rick Burchett and Brad Rader, this classy, classically cops ‘n’ robbers riot plays very much like a 1940s movie chapter-play – albeit with outrageous gags, biting dialogue and a blend of black humour and bombastic action. A frantic, frenetic hoot, this is an absolute delight, well worth the price of admission and an irresistible treasure to be enjoyed over and over again.
© 2002, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1927, Charlton Comics editor and Popeye illustrator George Wildman was born, as  was letterer Cory Petit in 1976; both all-star creators Lee Bermejo (Batman: Noel, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, Rorschach) and Leinil Francis Yu (Superman: Birthright, X-Men, Wolverine) in 1977 and Graphic Novelist Nate Powell (March, The Silence of Our Friends, Swallow Me Whole) in 1978.

In 1933 today Milt Caniff’s Dickie Dare strip launched, and Neal Adam’s Ben Casey folded, albeit in 1966. Ten years later Mickey Finn ended, having run continuously since Frank Leonard began it in 1936.

In 2000 we lost Lars Jansson, brother of Tove and continuer of the magnificent Moomin strip (1954 to 1975 in The Evening News and sundry other newspapers). In 2003 controversial Italian comics maestro Guido Crepax (Valentina, Emanuelle, Anita, The Man from Harlem) died, followed three years later by countryman Mario Faustinelli (Asso di Picche, The Adventures of Topo Gigio, Kolosso).

Posted on

Pigeons from Hell


By Robert E. Howard, adapted by Scott Hampton & lettered by Steve Vance (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-69-6 (Limited Edition Album HB), 978-0-91303-568-9 (Album TPB)

This book contains Discriminatory Content commonplace in less enlightened times. This book includes Discriminatory Content used for dramatic effect.

Robert Ervin Howard is justly celebrated for his burly, barbarian sword-&-sorcery creations such as Conan, Kull, Bran Mak Morn and others but as a successful jobbing writer in the heyday of pulp fiction he also turned his blazing typewriter to most of the other extant genres of the era. Moreover, as aficionados of his blistering fantasy fiction are well aware, he was a dab hand at creating tension, suspense and moody macabre horror.

During the too-brief time of his creative peak he crafted a select pack of chilling spooky supernatural stories set in the evocative southern milieu known as ArkLaTex – a doom- shrouded, decadence-driven Deep South meeting-point of the darkest corners of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and his beloved Texas. Deeply moved and inspired by old stories heard at his grandmother’s knee, Howard transformed oft-told anecdotes into timeless masterpieces of terror such as The Shadow of the Beast, Moon of Zambebwie, Black Hound of Death, Black Canaan and especially the yarn under scrutiny here: a chilling confection described by Stephen King as “one of the finest horror stories of our century”.

The tirelessly prolific Howard took his own life in 1936 and the prose Pigeons from Hell (unsold since its completion in 1932) was published posthumously in the May 1938 edition of premier pulp Weird Tales. It has become a classic not just of the genre but also a notional inclusion of the prestigious Southern Gothic movement of writers including Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Tennessee Williams and others.

In 1988 the original text was incorporated into a stunningly lush, lavishly painted deeply faithful adaptation by Scott Hampton and published by West Coast mavericks Eclipse Books, which, despite a later version by Joe R. Lansdale & Nathan Fox in 2008 (published by Dark Horse and reviewed here, remains one of the best horror graphic novels ever produced. This is in no small part due to its being printed on magnificently larger-than-life, glossy square white pages produced in the oversized European Album format of 285 x 220mm rather than the standard US proportions of 258 x 168mm.

Following an impassioned Introduction from Horrorist Supreme Ramsey Campbell the Depression-era exercise in the unnatural opens with ‘The Whistler in the Dark’ as a pair of perambulating New Englanders bumming their way across America on a motoring vacation reach the southlands region of Piney Woods and decide to spend the night in a dark, decrepit, abandoned antebellum plantation house.

Crashing out on the musty floor of the main downstairs room they sink into exhausted sleep, but in the middle of the night Griswell is awakened by bad dreams. They’d begun with replaying their arrival at sunset, discovery of the ramshackle edifice and all the oddly ethereal white birds their presence had disturbed. From there his visions had moved on to their quick, cold repast and weary lapse into slumber before shifting into nightmare feelings of disquiet. When Griswell roused, anxious and disturbed, it was with images of ghostly doves, hidden rooms concealing ancient hanging bodies and a sense that something was hiding just beyond his sight…

Trying to shake himself to full alertness, Griswell suddenly heard an eerie whistling and, helpless, watched his companion John Branner rise – as if sleepwalking – to ascend the grand staircase to the upper storey and into all-enveloping darkness. Incapable of movement, Griswell followed the sounds of Branner’s progress and suddenly, a hideous scream came…

Before he could move, Griswell heard Branner’s slow return. Then moonlight allowed a glimpse of his companion, and the sight was enough to send Griswold screaming helter-skelter into the night…

Reaching their automobile he found the vehicle infested with snakes and kept on running, convinced some unknown beast was at his heels. Careering ever on, he ran straight into a local lawman who instantly emptied his revolver into a shadow that pursued him…

‘Return’ fully introduces capable County Sheriff Kirby Buckner, who surprisingly accepts much of Griswell’s incredible tale and provides historical insight into the woeful tale and sinister reputation of Blassenville Manor as he and the terrified vacationer revisit – in full, comforting daylight – a scene of dreadful slaughter.

Swiftly ruling out the possibility of argument and murder amongst friends, Buckner begins searching the house for the true killer but comes up empty. Furthermore, knowing how bad things would look in a rational courtroom, he invites traumatised Griswell to help him get to the truth, by joining him and spending another night in the house…

‘The Snake’s Brother’ finds them preparing for that horrific prospect by researching the tragic history of the last of the Blassenvilles. In the years following the Civil War, three unwed daughters and a cousin, struggling to maintain the old pile, were eventually joined and chaperoned by their cold, brutal Aunt Celia, who had returned from the West Indies to watch over them.

Celia was a terrifying presence, as harsh with the girls as she was with remaining plantation staff and her own much-maltreated “mulatto” maid Joan…

The legend of the girls’ mysterious and sudden disappearance was common knowledge, but for more details Buckner and Griswold question an aged Negro who used to work on the plantation. When pressed, the still-mortally terrified dotard Jacob reveals a fantastic tale of brutal oppression, serpent worship, voodoo and appalling, unleashed, brooding vengeance… until he is hideously struck down by the power that lurks in the mansion…

Appalled, deeply shaken but more resolved than ever, Buckner and Griswold head for the Manor, mistakenly believing that they have a handle on what unquiet horror haunts the place and how to handle it in final chapter ‘The Call of Zuvembie’. They have jumped to a ghastly and tragic wrong conclusion…

Not only is the original prose work one of the best pieces of horror fiction ever written, but in this rare instance this adaptation – crafted over two long, meticulous years by Hampton – more than matches the power and all-encompassing mood of its source material. This is a classic of graphic narrative and fear fiction no fan will want to miss – but only with all the lights on…
© 1932, 1988 the Estate of Robert E, Howard, Glenn Lord Executor. Adaptation and painting © 1988 Scott Hampton. Introduction © 1988 Ramsey Campbell. Pigeons from Hell © 2008, 2009 Robert E. Howard Properties Inc. (“REHP”). All rights reserved.

Today in 1907 Antonia Yeoman was born: an Australian-Englishwoman cartoonist who became the only female member of Punch’s elite (male only) Toby Club. She shares the date with veteran colourist Gene D’Angelo (The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Blondie, Mandrake the Magician, Beetle Bailey, Superman Family, Action Comics, World’s Finest, Flash, Superboy, Justice League of America), born in 1924; Batman artist Lew Sayre Schwartz in 1926; artist Ricardo Villamonte (Doctor Strange, Saga of Crystar) in 1932; Australian cartoonist, sculptor, caricaturist and satirist Pat Oliphant in 1935. In 1947 Filipino artist Romeo Tanghal (New Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Men of War) arrived on Earth, joined in 1958 by writer/editor Bob Greenberger (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Doom Patrol, Who’s Who in the DC Universe, Star Trek, Suicide Squad), and one year later by Guyanese American illustrator Trevor Von Eeden (Black Lightning, Batman, Thriller), with Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Amazing Spider-Man, The Sandman, Orbiter) coming along in 1963.

British Superman Garth debuted today in 1943, in a Daily Mirror strip by Steve Dowling & John Allard that ran until 1997.

The day also saw the deaths of some major and much-beloved players, such as illustrator Lou Fine (The Ray, Black Condor, The Flame, Uncle Sam, The Spirit, Taylor Woe, Adam Ames) in 1971; All Ages All Star Warren Kremer (Richie Rich, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Little Audrey, Stumbo the Giant, Joe Palooka, Planet Terry, Count Duckula, Ewoks, Royal Roy, Top Dog) in 2003 and in 2012, Chilean cartoonist Themístocles Nazario Lobos Aguirre – AKA “Themo Lobos” – (Máximo Chambónez, Ferrilo, Nick Obre, Alaraco, with his most famous work being Mampato, Cucalón) and Indonesian comics author “R. A.” (Raden Ahmad) Kosasih (Sri Asih, Ramayana, Siti Gahara, Seri Mahabharata, Setan Cebol).

Posted on

Pride & Joy


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins, lettered by Annie Halfacree (Vertigo/Image)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-803-7 ( 2004 Vertigo TPB), 978-1-4012-0190-6 (2016 Image TPB/ Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Garth Ennis has a well-deserved reputation for shocking, moving and wickedly funny storytelling, and is accomplished in blending genres for maximum effect, as his successes with The Boys, Battlefields, Ghost Rider, The Punisher, foundational runs on Preacher and Hellblazer, impious seminal shocker True Faith and a dozen other tales can attest.

One of his least regarded or remembered – in my opinion unjustly so – is this ferocious family saga of a painfully mundane domestic world turned upside down by an unredeemed past. It is a story of pedestrianly ordinary folk with none of the baroque or flamboyant characters that populate regular fiction…

There’s this guy called Jimmy Kavanagh. His wife is long-dead and son Patrick is at that revolting sulky teen age, but at least his little daughter Rachel is still the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Life is hard: his own dad, a war-hero, has just passed on, but the family are doing okay…
That all changes in a moment after Jimmy’s stupid past resurfaces. Back in 1972 he and a couple of his idiot pals reckoned they were going to be big-time hoods when they agreed to rip-off a gang boss. The gig had been planned by the boss’ own bodyguard, Stein, who promised them a million dollars…

Unfortunately for everybody but Jimmy, his pals were real shmucks, and ballsed up the caper. Cops came, busted Stein before he could kill them all and took him away for twenty-to-life. Scared straight by the experience, Jimmy got on with his life… until now. One night he gets a call and his world starts to implode. Coming home to finds the babysitter gutted like a fish. Stein is out and he wants revenge…

Gathering his kids and linking up with his old “colleagues” they go on the run together, but the hunter can’t be shaken and innocent people keep dying. Unable to bond with his son during their entire life together Jimmy finally, tragically connects with Patrick as the sorry saga comes to a small and dirty close…
With chilling echoes of Cape Fear (the 1962 Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum release) this tale examines how ordinary people cope with ordinary evil: a cheap thug with a knife is just as deadly as a horde of vampires. You and yours can only die once – painfully, horribly; but just once. Pride & Joy is a tale about dreams and hopes and heritage, showing how mediocre people cope, illustrated with perfect subtle understatement by John Higgins. Nothing about this story is big or bold or bombastic: but it could really happen. It’s that scary…
© 1997, 2004 Garth Ennis and John Higgins. All Rights Reserved.

Born today in 1926 Mexican writer Yolanda Vargas Dulché de la Parra (Memín Pinguín), sharing the day with artist Phil Noto (Gen13, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Jonah Hex. Green Lantern, Indiana Jones, Captain America) in 1971 and writer/musician/attorney Charles Soule (Daredevil, Letter 44, Swamp Thing, Death of Wolverine) in 1974.

This day in 1975 we lost revolutionary cartoonist Vaughn Bodé (Cheech Wizard, Cobalt-60, Deadbone,) and in 1990 French auteur Yves Chaland (Adventures of Freddy Lombard, Bob Fish, Adolphus Claar, Retro-Spirou).

Posted on

The Marquis of Anaon volume 5: The Chamber of Cheops


By Vehlmann & Bonhomme: coloured by Delf and translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-295-9 (PB Album) 978-1-84918-725-1 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

In 1972 Fabien Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan. Raised in Savoie, he studied business management before taking a job with a theatre group. His prodigious canon of pro comics work began in 1998 and soon earned him the soubriquet of “Goscinny of the 21st Century”. In 1996, after entering a writing contest in Le Journal de Spirou, Fabien caught the comics bug and two years later – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – produced mordantly quirky, sophisticated portmanteau period crime comedy Green Manor. From there his triumphs grew to include – amongst many others – Célestin Speculoos for Circus, Nicotine Goudron for L’Écho des Savanes and especially album series Jolies Ténèbres/Beautiful Darkness, Seuls/Alone and a superb stint on global property Spirou and Fantasio…

Scion of an artistic family, Matthieu Bonhomme received his degree in Applied Arts in 1992, before learning the comics trade working in the atelier of western & historical strip specialist Christian Rossi. Spanning 2002-2008, Le Marquis d’Anaon was Bonhomme’s first regular series, after which he began writing as well as illustrating a variety of tales, from L’Age de Raison, Le Voyage d’Esteban, The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke and so much more.

Now, where were we? Imagine The X-Files set in the Age of Enlightenment (circa 1720), played as a solo piece by a young French protagonist reluctantly growing into and accepting the role of crusading troubleshooter. With potent overtones of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher and similar gothic romances, it all began in 2001’s L’Isle de Brac: first of 5 albums tracing the development of a true champion against darkness and human venality.

Under-employed, middle-class merchant’s son, scholar and pragmatic philosopher Jean-Baptiste Poulain is an ardent disciple of Cartesian logic and former medical student. Well educated but impoverished, he accepted a post to tutor the son of the mysterious Baron of Brac. It was a career decision that shaped the rest of his life…

On a windswept, storm-battered, extremely isolated island off the Brittany Coast, Poulain experienced fear and outrage, superstition and suspicion before ultimately exposing the appalling secret of the island overlord his serfs called “the Ogre”, bringing justice and finality to all concerned. In the aftermath, Poulain left, but could never outrun the obnoxious title the islanders bestowed upon him in their Bretagne argot: Le Marquis d’Anaon – “the Marquis of Lost Souls”…

Two years later Poulain caught a supposedly demonic but actually faith-based serial killer (The Black Virgin), and after that saved Europe from plague (La Providence) and France and the neighbouring Duchy of Savoy from a nigh-demonic cryptid (The Beast)… all without proper recompense or even some career-enhancing renown…

With this final tale (thus far) the much maligned misanthrope begins a passage of personal growth and fundamental change after he and four other complete strangers jointly inherit the vast fortune of fur trader and eccentric dilettante scholar Umberto Leone. He was – according to the protectorate’s French Consul De Trezancour – eaten by three crocodiles in Egypt…

In Paris, at the reading of the will, Poulain is gripped with doubts and suspicions over the ridiculous situation and overly specific cause of death. He compulsively ponders what really happened and why his apparently quick-tempered and obsessive benefactor was even in Cairo in the first place… especially after viewing radical renovations his departed patron had made to his lavish Parisian apartments immediately before his final visit to the Land of the Pharaohs…

Being rich now, finding out is simple and the Marquis of Anaon takes ship for Cairo, where he sees a thriving, energetic but completely alien culture and is met by unctuous, thoroughly unpleasant fixer/agent Charles Ruffin. In a sprawling city ancient beyond belief but plagued by external conquest and endemic factionalism, it soon becomes clear that his guide and escort is there to steer, manage and spy upon Umberto’s heir for exceedingly greedy and dangerous coffee trader and merchant prince Delambre… who also believes Poulain knows more than he’s letting on…

Stationed in Leone’s former dwelling, with Ruffin’s thugs ceaselessly watching, the inheritor soon learns from Leone’s “Negress” Diénéba, (a live-in “service” included as part of the welcome package, but one that the Marqius immediately places under his complete protection) that everyone knew Leone was searching the Great Pyramid of Cheops for something utterly extraordinary. They all – westerners and Egyptians alike – still believe it is physical treasure, but as Poulain proceeds in his investigations and ruminations he meets fringe scientist Richardson and realises that what Leone discovered was far more profound, spectacular and even perilously miraculous…

Further adding to the tensions is a febrile political situation, with the largely immune but always interfering French merchant class gleefully stirring unrest among the Egyptians and allowing roaming militias of Janissary “peacekeepers” to beat, plunder and bully at will, just as long as the pleasures and profits keep rolling in. When Poulain’s researches bring him close to Leone’s dream, he is confronted , challenged by and ultimately adopted by one faction – led by cleric Sheikh Luqman – and becomes an unwilling but grateful disciple of the sage. With his own people and the gold-crazed Janissaries seeking his blood, he finds love and solace with Diénéba, and they voyage to the pyramid. In the long hidden Chamber of Cheops Poulain barely survives the true secret of the edifice and uncovers a second astounding fact that could get him killed… but not like Leone was supposed to have been…

Then after dealing with Delambre it’s a frantic rush to get out of Egypt for the impassioned couple, with a promise of greater magic – and hardship – to come…

This deviously swingeing attack on colonialism and ignorantly fabled “mysteries of the Dark Continent” arrives as another tautly authentic, compellingly scripted saga from Vehlmann, vividly visualised via Bonhomme’s densely informative but never obtrusive illustrated realism. It adds a gripping, utterly enthralling tale of romance and discovery to the canon of a truly superior man’s war against the inherent iniquities of human behaviour. Once again the unsuspected miracles of the natural world and shocking potential of humanity’s creative spark are lensed through the drives and obsessions of an individual at the forefront of  religion’s retreat and birth of rationalism, and the result is pure entertainment gold.

This evolution of a self-doubting quester barely holding at bay the notion that all his schooling is pointless and without worth in a world too big for humanity and just one aspect of a universe beyond any one’s grasp is utterly compulsive entertainment, making The Marquis of Anaon’s mystery milestones a joy no thinking fear fan should miss.
Original edition © Dargaud Paris 2008 by Vehlmann & Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translations © 2016 by Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1914, Canadian Joe Shuster was born. Three years later British cartoonist Reg Smythe (Andy Capp) followed, as did strip writer (Tank McNamara) turned film critic Jeff Millar in1942. That same year Argentinian art wizard José Antonio Muñoz AKA “Muñoz” (Alack Sinner, Joe’s Bar, Sophie, Billie Holiday) was born, with painter Bob Larkin (Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, Marvel Preview, Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan, Doc Savage) arriving in 1949; artist Howard Porter (Justice League, Trials of Shazam!, The Flash) in 1969 and Simone Bianchi (Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight, Original Sin) in1972.

In 1951, creator Dudley Fisher (Myrtle) died as did the stounding Jean-Michel Charlier (Redbeard, Buck Danny, Blueberry, Valhardi, Tanguy et Laverdure) in1989; cartoonist Doug Marlette (Kudzu) in 2007 and Indian artist and humourist Mangesh Tendulkar (Sunday Mood) in 2017.

Posted on

Werewolf by Night Marvel Masterworks: volume 3


By Doug Moench, Don Perlin, Virgilio Redondo, Yong Montaño, Gil Kane, Vince Colletta, Sal Trapani, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5550-2 (HB) 978-1-3025-2941-3 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko & Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was a mass release of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales. The move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (plus narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) again became acceptable fare on four-colour pages. Whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible…

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary stars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist. With its title cribbed from a classic short thriller from a pre-Code horror anthology (Marvel Tales #116, July 1953), Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2. It had been preceded by western-era masked avenger Red Wolf in #1, and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider, but this hairy hero was destined to stick around for a while.

This third chillingly crackers compendium compiles more moody misadventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, as confirmed here by the reprinted full-colour contents of Werewolf By Night volume 1 #22-30 and Giant-Size Werewolf #2-5, collectively spanning October 1974 to July 1975.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed, his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to her beloved boy: relating a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

And so it began…

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell reluctantly expanded the backstory, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached adulthood. Moreover, the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As Jack tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity, he met eventual mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging Hollywood writer who became Jack’s best friend and only confidante after the pair began to jointly investigate the wolfboy’s past. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching birthday.

In the course of their researches they crossed swords with many monsters – human and otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his off-the-books investigation/hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in. A major if faceless foe was exposed in The Committee – a cabal of capitalists seeking to corner the monster market to boost sales who wanted to own the werewolf because he could scare the public, allowing them to create a panic-crazed sales boom – and even vampire lord Dracula.

However the biggest boost to Jack & Buck’s quest (other than Jack’s mutant girlfriend Topaz who could psionically calm the beast!) was learning from fellow lycanthrope Raymond Coker that there was a cure for their condition; sadly it was for a werewolf to kill another werewolf…

With the stage set for some truly outrageous yarn-spinning and Moench at the helm – and almost exclusively pencilled for rest of the run by the criminally underrated Don Perlin – the moonlight comics mysteries resume with the Vince Colletta inked Giant-Size Werewolf #2 as ‘The Frankenstein Monster Meets Werewolf By Night’. Roaming the streets of New York in ‘Prisoners of Flesh!’, the recently resurrected massive but mute monster hops a westbound freight train after overhearing a mystic named Danton Vayla can transplant souls into new bodies…

He arrives in Los Angeles just as Jack Russell discovers Lissa has been abducted by Vayla’s Satanist cult The Brotherhood of Baal who want ‘To Host the Beast’ before cataclysmically clashing with the monster who has only to let the diabolists sacrifice the werewolf and Lissa to gain his heart’s desire. Tragically the innately noble artificial man has far more empathy and compassion than the cultists and prefers his own sorry existence to benefiting from ‘The Flesh of Satan’s Hate!’

Werewolf By Night #22 (Moench, Perlin & Colletta) introduces crazed murder-maniac Atlas, who stalks and slays many of Buck’s movie friends. Moreover, when Russell’s periodically prowling Passenger encounters the ‘Face of the Fiend!’, Atlas beats the beast unconscious. In the morning light, bleary Jack is subsequently arrested for the latest murder…

LA detective Lieutenant Vic Northrup was a friend of deceased former foe Hackett and knows Russell is hiding something, but eventually releases the kid for lack of evidence. Picking Jack up from the station, Buck then reveals he has gleaned the inside story of Atlas and his own personal involvement in the story… just in time to become the next target…

Fortuitously, the werewolf is on hand when Atlas attacks again and the battle explodes into LA’s streets where disbelieving cops have to admit that ‘The Murderer is a Maniac!’

WBN #24 sees Buck introduces Jack to fringe scientist Winston Redditch who claims to have chemically isolated the constituents of the human psyche and thus might be able to suppress Jack’s regular bestial outbursts. Sadly, the benevolent boffin accidentally ingests the serum himself and unleashes ‘The Dark Side of Evil!’ The remorseless sadistic thug he becomes calls himself DePrayve and fights the werewolf to a standstill, giving Northrup opportunity to capture the hirsute “urban legend” which has stalked the city and drove Hackett crazy…

From #25 the art took a quantum leap in quality as Perlin – already co-plotting the stories – began inking his own pencils. When the beast busts out of custody ‘An Eclipse of Evil’ sees Redditch turning his warped attention to the lycanthrope as a potential guinea pig for further experimentation, only for both the feral fury and dastardly DePrayve to be targeted by a deranged vigilante and self-declared “protector of purity” (for which read woman abductor) calling himself The Hangman. The horrific three-way clash results in ‘A Crusade of Murder’, with Redditch hospitalised, the vicious vigilante in custody and battered, bloody-yet-unbowed Jack still free and still cursed…

Eschewing chronological order for the sake of unbroken continuity-clarity, January 1975’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3 pops up here to reveal a ‘Castle Curse!’(Moench Perlin and inked by Sal Trapani) wherein Jack returns to Transylvania after receiving a monster-infested vision of former love interest Topaz in ‘Spawned in Dream… Slain in Nightmare!’ Jack drags Buck and Lissa ‘Home to Slay!’ in the Balkans, finding the old family estate under siege by pitchfork-wielding villagers who have all their worst fears confirmed when he goes hairy and gets hungry, before finally tracking down Topaz in the care – and custody – of a gypsy matriarch with an arcane agenda of her own.

The blood-crazed old witch has a tragic connection to the Russoff line and is exploiting Topaz’s recently-faded but now restored powers to enact a grisly ‘Vengeance in Death!’ upon the villagers by raising an army of zombies. The chain of events she set in motion can only end in slaughter…

Werewolf By Night #27 (March 1975) began a chilling and fantastic extended eldritch epic with the introduction of ‘The Amazing Doctor Glitternight’. Back in the USA, Jack’s feral alter ego runs loose on the isolated Californian coast and is drawn to a cave where a bizarre wizard makes monsters from what appears to be fragments of Topaz’s soul. The eerie mage is actually hunting for Topaz’s dead stepfather Taboo and will not be swayed or gainsaid, even after Jack’s uncontrollable were-beast eviscerates the weird stranger’s monstrous “masterpiece”…

The wizard intensifies his campaign in ‘The Darkness from Glitternight’, heaping horrors upon Jack and friends before capturing Lissa on her birthday and using dark magic to turn her from “simple, ordinary” werewolf into ‘A Sister of Hell’. The spectral re-emergence of Taboo proves a turning point as wolf battles demon-beast and everybody grapples with Glitternight before a ‘Red Slash Across Midnight’ seemingly results in a cure for one of the tortured Russell clan…

Slightly askance of publishing schedules but placed here for sensible reading continuity, April 1975’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #4 offers a long-delayed and much-anticipated clash with living vampire Morbius: beginning with ‘A Meeting of Blood’ (Moench & Virgil Redondo) with the former biologist and longsuffering haemovore tracking his old girlfriend Martine and discovering a possible cure for his own exsanguinary condition. Unfortunately, the chase also brings him into savage and inconclusive combat with a certain hairy hellion and the potential solution is forever lost…

Also included in that double-sized issue is Moench & Yong Montaño’s ‘When the Moon Dripped Blood!’, wherein Jack and Buck stumble across a group of rustic loons all-too-successfully summoning a ghastly elder god. Although great at consuming and converting human offerings and acolytes, the appalling atrocity is apparently no match for a ravening ball of furious fangs and claws…

This dose of shaggy suspense concludes with Giant-Size Werewolf #5 (cover-dated July) which shifted the cast into full-on dark fantasy mode. Scripted by Moench and illustrated by Montaño, ‘Prologue: I Werewolf’ recaps Jack’s peculiar problems before ‘The Plunder of Paingloss’ discloses how the leaders of dimensional realm Biphasia – permanently polarised between night and day – instigate a ‘Bad Deal with the Devil’s Disciple’ on Earth when demonist Joaquin Zairre kidnaps the werewolf…

With the beast dispatched though a ‘Doorway of the Dark Waters’, Jack is soon a pawn in a sorcerous war where ‘Fragile Magic’ on the world of light and darkness allows him and his allies to raid the ‘The Ark of Onom-Kra’ and expose a secret tyrant in ‘Silver Rain, Sardanus and Shadow’…

To Be Continued…

Kicking off the rather meagre bonus section and complementing the cover gallery by Gil Kane, Dan Adkins, John Romita Sr. is a selection of original art by Ron Wilson, Frank Giacoia, Perlin and Kane, topped off by an Introduction by Ralph Macchio first seen in 2018’s Werewolf By Night: The Complete Collection volume 2.

This moody masterpiece of macabre menace and aggressive animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated mindbendingly magical moments in Marvel history; tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you feel the urge to indulge in a mixed bag of clawed killers, beastly bloodsuckers and moody young muses this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 2024 MARVEL.

Today Marvel writer/editors Terry Kavanagh and Craig Anderson were born but we don’t when! Far more traditional and open, UK humourist/ cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather (Old Bill) arrived with all his papers sorted on this date in 1887, followed in 1909 by uniquely iconic creator Basil Wolverton (Spacehawk, Powerhouse Pepper, Mad Magazine, Plop!, The Bible). In 1916 comic book artist Mort Leav (The Heap) joined us, followed by Atlas artist/strip star Tony DiPreta (Joe Palooka, Rex Morgan M.D.) in 1921 and Silver Age artistic co-founder Murphy Anderson (Buck Rogers, Captain Comet, Atomic Knights, Hawkman, Flash, Adam Strange, The Spectre, Superman, Jonny Quest) in 1926.

Today in 1977 the 652nd and final issue of UK weekly Sparky was published.

Posted on

Harley Quinn’s Greatest Hits


By Scott Beatty, Kelly Puckett, Jeph Loeb, Paul Dini, Adam Glass, Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Rob Williams, Bruce Timm, Mike Parobeck, Jim Lee, David Lopez, Federico Dallocchio, Jock, John Timms, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, Scott Williams, Sandra Hope, Richard Friend & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7008-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Harley Quinn wasn’t supposed to be a star – or even an actual comic book character. As would soon become apparent however, the manic minx had her own off-kilter ideas on the matter. Created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, Batman: The Animated Series aired in the US from September 5th 1992 to September 15th 1995. Ostensibly for kids, the breakthrough TV cartoon revolutionised everybody’s image of the Dark Knight and immediately began feeding back into the print iterations, leading to some of the absolute best comics tales in the hero’s many decades of existence.

Employing a timeless visual style dubbed “Dark Deco”, the show mixed elements from all eras and aspects of the character and, without diluting power, tone or mood of the premise, reshaped the grim avenger and his extended team into a wholly accessible, thematically memorable form that the youngest of readers could eagerly enjoy, whilst adding shades of exuberance, sophistication and sheer panache that only most devout and obsessive Batmaniac could possibly object to…

Harley was first seen as the Clown Prince of Crime’s slavishly adoring, abuse-enduring assistant in Joker’s Favor (airing on September 11th 1992) wherein she instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers. From there on she began popping up in the licensed comic book and – always stealing the show – soon graduated to mainstream DC continuity.

After a period bopping around the DCU she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint, major makeover and appeared as part of a new iteration of The Suicide Squad. Now, with numerous motion picture, TV animation and live action small screen presence in play, it’s absolutely time to take a look at her eccentric career path…

Collecting material from Countdown to Final Crisis #10; Batman Adventures #12; Batman #613; Gotham City Sirens #7; Suicide Squad #1; Batman vol 2#13, Harley Quinn vol. 2 #21, 2015 and Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad April Fools Special #1, the madcap mayhem commences with a 2-page potted biography of the mad miss in comics form.

Crafted by Scott Beatty & Bruce Timm, ‘The Origin of Harley Quinn’ (Countdown #10, February 2008) economically reveals how troubled psychologist Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel arrived at Arkham Asylum to analyse The Joker only to lose all distance and perspective. Fully falling under his malign spell during interviews, she became his adoring, pliable and utterly despised slave…

A classic and classy semi-solo yarn comes from Batman Adventures #12, (September 1993) where Kelly Puckett, Mike Parobeck & Rick Burchett revealed how Barbara Gordon became a masked adventurer. Student Babs makes a superhero costume for a party in ‘Batgirl: Day One!’ before stumbling into a larcenous ‘Ladies Night’ when that High Society bash is crashed by rapacious gal pals Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy. With no professional help on hand, Miss Gordon must act as ‘If the Suit Fits!’ and tackle the bad girls herself , only to see Catwoman show up for the frantic finale ‘Out of the Frying Pan!’…

A far darker if less comprehensible interpretation graced Batman #613, (May 2003 by Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee & Scott Williams) as an incessant parade of villains du jour in Bat mega-event Hush sees The Joker and Harley invade ‘The Opera’ attended by Bruce Wayne and hidden master villain Tommy Elliot. It’s visually resplendent and shockingly violent, but story content is virtually zero since the entire farrago is just an extracted episode from a far larger and more complex epic. Go read that instead or as well…

Far more satisfactory, ‘Holiday Story’ is by Dini, David Lopez & Alvaro Lopez (Gotham City Sirens #7, February 2010). Here, new housemates Harley, Ivy & Catwoman split up to celebrate Christmas in their own uniquely different ways. This tale is a candid peek into the home-life and history which turned dead-end kid Harleen into an overachieving doctor, athlete and, latterly, lunatic supervillain by introducing the inveterate slimeball who fathered her…

Hitting modern times hard, ‘Kicked in the Teeth’ comes from Suicide Squad #1 (vol. 4, November 2011), wherein Adam Glass, Federico Dallocchio, Ransom Getty & Scott Hanna put Harley, Deadshot, Black Spider, King Shark, El Diablo, Voltaic and Savant through hell and torture as mere preparation for their first mission for top spook Amanda Waller whilst ‘Tease’ (Batman vol. 2, #13, December 2012 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV & Jock) sees Harley reunited with her maniac main man, only to once again suffer from the pernicious, vindictive whimsy and twisted love of the Joker…

‘Tug A’ War’ (Harley Quinn vol. 2, #21, December 2015 by Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, John Timms) finds Harley Quinn a bounty hunter battling former squad-mate Deadshot and setting Hollywood ablaze as she seeks top cash-cow Sparrow Adaro. Things quickly go south when she discovers her target is no crook, simply the wayward spouse of a Showbiz bigwig who only wants his little lady back. Their twisted relationship touches Harley’s heart and she resolves to help, but the former psychologist never expected so many collateral corpses to accrue as she “fixed” the not-so-happy family…

This rough & ready compilation concludes with collaborative effort ‘Evil Anonymous’ from Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad April Fools Special #1, 2016. Courtesy of Rob Williams, Jim Lee, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, Scott Williams, Sandra Hope & Richard Friend this is a light-hearted, self-referential journey of discovery wherein Harley – prompted by another brush with The Joker – attempts to “cure” a number of her fellow criminal killer loons, beginning with bestial winged predator Man-Bat…

Soon, she’s reverted to a childlike state to tackle Killer Moth, Enchantress, Rat Catcher, Toyman and Poison Ivy, although things get a little out of hand when she gets Scarecrow on her couch and goes crazy serious when the Justice League step in. Nobody involved is aware of the insidious mastermind actually pulling the strings to get Harley Quinn back to where she really belongs… and is most needed…

Fast, furiously funny, often unnecessarily dark and making precious little narrative sense, Harley Quinn’s Greatest Hits is nonetheless a potent primer of Fights ‘n’ Tights furore that will give newcomers a taste of what the motley minx can do and should whet appetites for a deeper exploration of her anarchic exploits.
© 1993, 2003, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1920 Golden Age artist Al Avison (Captain America, The Whizzer, Joe Palooka, The Green Hornet, Little Dot) was born, followed by Al Wenzel (Adventure Comics, Superboy) in 1924, an Oh My Goddess creator Kosuke Fujishima in 1964. One year later the amazing Mike Parobeck (JSA, Batman Adventures) arrived, sharing the day with editor/cartoonist Jordan B. Gorfinkel (Batman: No Man’s Land, Everything’s Relative), with artists Juan Vlasco (Spider-Boy, Cable) coming in 1968 and Evan “Doc” Shaner (Strange Adventures, Flash, Aquaman) born in 1985.

In 1958 today Anthony Hern & John McLusky’s James Bond strip debuted in the UK’s Daily Express, whilst in 1978, The Walt Disney Company won its copyright infringement lawsuit against underground comix outfit the Air Pirates. In 1997 Jerry Scott & Jim Bergman’s strip Zits launched, and in 2002, the last episode of Modesty Blaise was published.

Today in 1977, legendary pioneering strip cartoonist Roy Crane (Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy, Buz Sawyer) died.

Posted on

Cochlea & Eustachia


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-801-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book contains old-looking modern stories and pictures meant to amuse and creep you out. If you can’t open up and play along, you really should not be reading these books. Don’t even get me started on the nudity and nakedity. Oh, and the butchery and slaughter and body horror. You probably won’t like those either…

Jobbing fantasist Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in many different arenas since the 1990s, beginning with self-published mini-comics before graduating to full-sized, full-length epics like Kill, Kill, Kill and The Squirrel Machine. He has also turned his time and efforts to film, music, gallery works and performance art. A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with controversial graphic novel Chloe, and thereafter spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals, building beguiling webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology or minicomic of his own such as Chrome Fetus.

That last was the original venue for the strangely surreal binary sorority known as Cochlea & Eustachia. They first manifested back in 2001’s issue #5, with obscure and occulted follow-ups including a regular strip feature in Seatle-based weekly paper The Stranger a year later, and guest appearances in Proper Gander, Hoax, Typhon, Blurred Visions and Pood. Then they destructively scurried through Rickheit’s webcomic pages (Chrome Fetus) before inflicting their distracting blend of ingénue iconoclasm and chaos chic through the printed page of splendidly olde worlde graphic compilations like this one.

An avid and avowed student of dreams, Rickheit has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered and open to wide interpretation. His preferred oeuvre is the recondite imagery and sturdily fanciful milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which provided such rich earth for fantasists like Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, whilst his fine, studied, meticulously clear line is a perfect, incisive counterpoint to the frequently challenging logic-bending of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion.

In Short: pay attention, scrutinise carefully, think twice and make up your own mind…

In a shabby, battered manse peculiar contraptions and bizarre trophies of things that should never have existed – let alone be stuffed and mounted – abound. The master of the house is another strange creature and as he awakes from a unique bier and begins to wander the rooms, unseen and undetected wanton mischief makers Cochlea & Eustachia rouse also and resume their apparently aimless peregrinations through the walls, nooks and crannies of the edifice that rests atop a sea of animal skulls…

The nubile, girl-like creatures scutter about in dream-like journeys and progressions, avoiding and yet stalking the wheelchair bound savant as he continues his labours, cultivating creatures of incomprehensible oddity…

Soon, chances manifest for more manufactured calamity and a wildly sedate chase ensues, resulting in capture, shocking indignity and clashes with monsters and giant robots, but as the episode escalates we are left to wonder are the elfin wanderers a binary or in fact trinary partnership? Or is the truth – if such a thing can ever be pinned down and vivisected – something even more baroque and uncanny?

All that basically means is that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling such a sinisterly absurdist confection from one of the most impressively single-minded craftsmen working in comics today, and if you are at all tempted or intrigued you must obtain and soundly secure this splendidly skewed and offbeat chronicle.

Scary, beautiful, disturbing and often utterly inappropriate, the full-colour exploits of masked misfit misses is accompanied by an enticing extra strand in muted monochrome wherein the mysterious masqueraders return to declare ‘How It Works’, after finding a possibly handsome stranger stashed in a box in a starkly surreal swamp…

Visually reminiscent of Rick Geary, Jason Lutes and Charles Burns whilst being nothing like them at all, Rickheit presents a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill, bewilder and possibly even outrage many readers. It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky, blackly hilarious and nigh-impossible to forget. As long as you’re an adult (mere accumulated calendar years certainly count but will probably not be enough) and braced for the absolutely unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this decade – or any other…
Cochlea & Eustachia © 2014 Hans Rickheit. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc.

Posted on

Cochlea & Eustachia volume 2


By Hans Rickheit (Chrome Fetus Comix)
No ISBN: (Album PB)

This book is just like the previous one only much more so. If you feel compelled to carp on about it, please feel free to just form an opinion without reading any of the book itself just as you always do. We’ll be here waiting.

After many, many dreaming years the strangest of relations are again in print as Hans Rickheit moves into publishing his own books. Pumped, peculiarly primal and printed without recourse to editorial bumph or filler, Eustacia and Cochlea volume II offers the gathered sum of his ongoing webcomic, collated into a most beguiling and unsettling travelogue of the bizarre. As ever, think urgent journeys, surprise packages that MUST be opened, and constant forward – and occasionally sideways, downwards and upwards – motion. Sometimes, if the journey is the story, ceaseless forward motion and unleashed imagination is really all the narrative you need. Just ask Jack Kerouac, The Keystone Cops or Wile E Coyote…

At its rawest – and they usually are – Cochlea and Eustacia are incessant, tireless explorers, always seeking, opening things and persons they shouldn’t and finding peril without consequence. Meaning is not the guiding principle here, momentum is, and the landscapes they traverse are bleak mechanistic, vintage, inherently organic if not actually biological and only of relative safety, security and satisfaction. On the surface this is another debauched and scatological body-comedy employing geek horror based on commonplace dream phenomena and actions to shock, but it’s all cleverly (or perhaps simply instinctively!?) manufactured by an artist auteur with questions to ask.

Through exquisite drawing offering hyper focus on extraneous detail, married to obscure super clarity, the girls are subjected to terrors and ghastly sights, but at no stage do they think of quitting or turning back. There’s as much meaning as you can handle but no discernible plot, as the whole point is that dream states are endless progressions with recurring motifs attacked from different angles. My own is walking down an utterly familiar street to a specific destination only to find that somehow I’ve turned onto a sideroad that didn’t used to be there. Finding my way back takes forever and I never get to where I came from or where I want to be. Cop that one, Jung and Freud!

All you need to know is that a vast land of monsters, creepy mansions, bewildering drones and legions of clones are all undertaking their particular personalised Local Rules in a colossal universe whilst thriving inside a dystopian survivor with the face of a teddy bear. Everything inside that scavenging explorer is looking for something. Amidst Things within Things all hollow-framed with detailed surfaces are dangerous pursuers and body-mod devotees, also on vital but inexplicable missions. Nightmare creatures scurry over weird gizmos with surrealist death symbolism, as fields of skulls and bones cover immeasurable exteriors and interiors. Hardly housebroken creatures, C&E prefer the equally endless domestic interiors but it’s not always up to them. Trust is never an issue. Oh, it must also be confirmed that Cochlea and Eustacia are far from unique in their look, drives, wild abandon or presence…

Exotically rendered but highlighting the literal vacuousness of its leads – these are no Ladies! – there is no deeper meaning for these questers, just anxiety, pursuit and search in extremely detail, but all they find is thrown away and forgotten once out of sight. Everything in their reality is anticipatory and lives in nested dolls subsumed in or fleeing from another shell. Yes, you’re probably focussing on the peek-a-boo nudity, but shake off ribald smutty schoolboy jokes. This deshabille is defanged and deprived of the porn markers that would make it tawdry, sordid or sad. Here is a level mirroring saucy postcard or Carry-On cinema caper, not thinly veiled violence against women but an assault on manners, etiquette, expectation and moral strictures.

Think Herriman’s Krazy Kat, (André Francois) Barbe or the most tripped out, freewheelin’ of Underground Commix and just follow in their wake until you get to where they’re not going…

All contents © Hans Rickheit 2025.

Today in 1921 kids comic genius Warren Kremer (Riche Rich, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Stumbo the Giant, Ewoks, Planet Terry) was born, sharing the date with historian and founder of comics fandom Dr. Jerry Bails in 1933; cartoonist Bob Weber (Moose and Molly) in 1934; Italian author Alfredo Castelli (Mister No, Martin Mystère) in 1947; Writer/editor Tom DeFalco (Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, Spider-Girl) in 1950 and Indonesian artist Sami Basri (Voodoo, New Titans, Birds of Prey) in 1979.

This date in 1965 saw the first episode of The Spider in UK weekly Lion, the launch in 1992 of Canadian romcom strip Fisher by Phillip Street and in 1999 the final instalment of prestigious detective strip Rip Kirby.