Category: Horror Stories

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Vic and Blood – the Chronicles of a Boy and his Dog


By Harlan Ellison & Richard Corben (St. Martin’s Press/NBM/IBooks)
ISBNs: NBM edition 978-0-31203-471-9   IBooks edition: 978-0-74345-903-7

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: a legendary animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist surfing the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in pictorial storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. He is renowned for his mastery of airbrush and captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and infamous for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror and beguiling eroticism in his fantasy and science fiction tales. He is also an acclaimed and dedicated fan of the classics of gothic horror literature…

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country.

This album adapts a short story by science fiction iconoclast Harlan Ellison which turned the medium on its head when first published in 1969, spawning an award-winning cult-film and perpetually dangling the promise of a full and expansive prose novel before the eager fans. Much of that intention is discussed in Ellison’s After Vic & Blood: Some Afterthoughts as Afterword which ends the 1989 edition…

I suspect I’ll be long dead by the time the nigh-legendary Blood’s a Rover novel is finally released but at least this stunning graphic novel gilds the apocalyptic lily by also adapting the author’s prequel and sequel novelettes to produce a tale with a beginning, a middle and an ending of sorts…

The post-apocalyptic milieu was one Corben would return to over and over again but it never looked better (if that’s not a grim contradiction in terms) than in the triptych of survivalist terror that begins here with ‘Eggsucker’ as genetically-engineered telepathic war-mutt Blood relates how he and his 14 year old human partner Vic (don’t call him “Albert”) survive on a daily basis amidst the shattered ruins of America after the final war.

Vic is a “solo”, unaffiliated to any of the assorted gangs that have banded together in the radioactive aftermath, scavenging and trading and never staying in one place too long. Blood has looked after him for years: faithful, valiant and protective. The dog has taught the lad everything, even how to speak properly…

After a booze-for-bullets swap goes hideously wrong the partners have a falling-out, but that only lasts until Vic stumbles into trouble again and Blood dashes to his rescue…

Next up is the pivotal tale ‘A Boy and his Dog’ wherein Vic and his canine mentor find a healthy and nubile girl from the sunken puritanical subterranean enclaves known as “Downunders” slumming amongst the ruins of civilisation.

Hungry for something other than rancid rations, Vic follows her and is forced to kill a number of other lustful hunters to possess the tantalising Quilla June Holmes, who bamboozles the horny lad with all her talk of love…

However, it’s all part of an elaborate trap and before long the born survivor is trapped by his own teenaged hormones in the parochial, backward-looking New Topeka underground refuge, destined to be the stud to sire a new generation of humanity for the aging and increasingly sterile Downunder men…

Of course nobody thought to ask the putative mares what they thought of the plan and Quilla June quickly rebels, helping Vic to kill her father and escape back to the dangerous freedom of the surface.

Up above faithful Blood has not fared well: slowly starving whilst waiting for Vic to sow his wild oats and return. He is near death when the fugitives reappear and only an act of true love can save him…

The saga-so-far concludes with a shocking surprise in ‘Run, Spot, Run’ as the increasingly acrimonious Vic and Blood squabble and fall out, whilst starvation, toxic food and savage ghosts torment them both, resulting in a momentary lapse of concentration which leads the pair into ghastly peril…

Fair Warning: many readers will probably feel short-changed by the cliff-hanging ending but there is a conclusion of sorts and the astounding power of the artwork should offset any potential feeling of unfulfilled drama.

This superb collection was re-released in 2003 by IBooks in a celebratory edition which also contained the original short-stories in prose form as well as added extras such commentaries and The Wit and Wisdom of Blood.

Corben’s unique vision captures the weary, doom-laden atmosphere, charged hunger and despondent denouement of the original with devastating effect and this seminal, seductive work is undoubtedly a true classic of the Day-After-Doomsday genre. The artist’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives and the grim gallows humour of the situation has never been bettered than with these immortal stories. This is a book no comics or horror fan should be without.
Artwork © 1987 Richard Corben. “Eggsucker” © 1977 Harlan Ellison. “A Boy and his Dog” © 1969 The Kilimanjaro Corp. “Run, Spot, Run” © 1980 The Kilimanjaro Corp. Adapted versions © 1987 The Kilimanjaro Corp. Colour & cover © 1989 NBM.

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NeMo Balkanski’s FIB Chronicles


By Nemanja Moravic Balkanski & various (the Publishing Eye)
ISBN: 978-0-9868440-0-3

Some creators seduce and beguile but others choose to inform and affect with confrontational shock tactics…

The most wonderful thing about the comics medium is the limitless ways stories and art can be combined to educate, elucidate and entertain. For every Hergé there’s a Harvey Pekar, for every Alfred Bestall a Johnny Ryan (and John Ryan too) and so on, and there are comic strips to suit literally every age and temperament.

Some of the most evocative and addictively uncompromising efforts that I’ve seen in quite a while appear in this collection from Belgrade émigré Nemanja Moravic Balkanski, whose stunningly disturbing spoofs and edgy cultural pastiches have been gathered into a magnificent oversized full-colour hardback FIB Chronicles.

Balkanski was born in Belgrade in 1975 and, after mastering a multitude of artistic disciplines from comics to graphic design, theatre arts to film-making, and poetry to performance, emigrated to Vancouver 2007. Much of this vintage material contained here (also available as an app) come from his Balkan days, represented in this disquietingly substantial and blackly comic tome under the guiding conceit that the individual escapades of a nightmarish cast of distressing ne’er-do-wells and uncanny outcasts have been gathered into a damning dossier thanks to the scurrilous non-efforts of the far-from-intrepid clandestine agents of the Fabulous Investigation Bureau.

The result is a selection of their most atypical observations – presumably leaked here as a wake-up call to unwitting and complacent humanity…

The iconoclastic strips gathered here date from 1998-2005 and, supplemented by new bridging material in a staggering variety of artistic styles, describe a dark and disturbing underworld of barely perceived and unwisely ignored peril and surreal threat wrapped up in careful pastiche and savage parody…

US cop dramas come under the cosh when corruptly hip detective Cash Money experiences ‘Hair Fear’ and tackles feminist terror in ‘W.T.N. Griffit’ whilst tragic, plucky waif Boy Lyndo gets his shot at a happy ever after in ‘The Final Episode’ and the bizarre habits of a cult of Mel Gibson impersonators is exposed in ‘Gipsons vs Graduates’ after which gay lovers walk hand-in-hand down the wrong street in the weird war story ‘Jelly & Butter’ – a yarn conceived by Balkanski’s long-time collaborator Vladimir Protic.

A theatrical slasher-killer appears in ‘Space (the Final Frontier)’ and scatological stoner anthropomorph ‘Bud Bunny’ plays not-so-nice games with the other animals before fashion-plate Eau de Cologne falls foul of the harpy-ish harridans known as the BigDos in ‘Trigger’ and we are exposed to ‘Johnny McWire Getting the Beating of his Life’ and ‘Mr. Friday Night’ goes home alone yet again…

Booze and Balkan warriors come under the microscope one more in ‘Galactica, the Space Bottlesip’ (based on Branimir “Johnny” Å tulić‘s poem “Sons of Bitches”) after which the file devotes a lot of crazed and crucial pages to cybernetic dreamer Digital Standstill‘s climactic confrontation with ‘BigDo’s’ before we observe a salutary encounter with the ‘Psycho from 134th Street’ (scripted by Protic).

The battle against creeping communism is examined in the uplifting tale of ‘Little Mexico: El Dentista’, the nature of modern relationships in ‘It is My Friend’ and the value of introspection in ‘Sam Lr. Stag: His Life was a Drag’ before the life of a fascist monster is dissected in ‘Shalken Rösse’ and we are treated, in conclusion, to the meteoric rise and political acumen of the transcendent of ‘Melon Pig’, courtesy of Protic and Balkanski…

With additional articles, ‘Declassification Files’, a glossary of new words and expressions and even a few game-pages for the strong-stomached, this tainted love-affair with life’s moist and fetid underbelly is a dank graphic delight that not even every mature and cosmopolitan reader will enjoy: but for those with just the right blend of world-weary insouciance and malignant, undemanding innocence the words and pictures married together here will strike an unforgettable chord.

Strident, cruel, sardonically whimsical, overwhelmingly clever and bleakly hilarious in a Kafka meets Steven Wright channelling Bill Hicks kind of way, this absurdist, hauntingly affecting and astonishingly illustrated book is a uniquely entertaining read the brave and bold and reasonably old won’t dare to miss…
All comics © 2011 Nemanja Moravic Balkanski. Everything else All comics © 2011 Nemanja Moravic Balkanski and The Publishing Eye. All rights reserved.

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Tales From the Plague


By Dennis Cunningham & Richard Corben (Bill Leach Collectibles/Eclipse Comics)

No ISBN/ ASIN: B000GXQ8HA

Richard Corben flowered in the independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a globally revered, multi-award winning creator. He is most renowned for his mastery of the airbrush and his delight in sardonic, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Although never a regular contributor to the comicbook mainstream, the animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist is one of America’s greatest proponents of sequential narrative: an astoundingly accomplished artist with an unmistakable style and vision.

Violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious, his infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, ultra-extreme explicit violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques – but there’s almost none of the latter on show in this intriguing re-issue of his very first comics work: a celebratory new edition sporting a stunning wraparound card cover that was released in 1986.

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, Corben graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 from the Kansas City Art Institute and began working as an animator. At that time, the Underground movement was just stating to revolutionise, reinvigorate and liberate the medium of comics as a motley crew of independent-minded creators across the continent began making and publishing stories that appealed to their rebellious, pharmacologically-enhanced sensibilities and unconventional lifestyles.

Most of them had been reared on and hugely influenced by 1950s EC Comics or Carl Barks’ Duck tales – and usually both.

As can be seen in this intriguiging little tale, which first appeared in Weirdom Illustrated #13 (the “Special Plague issue”) in 1969, Corben started the same way, producing the kind of stories that he would like to read, for a variety of small-press publications including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor, often signed with his affectionate pseudonym “Gore”, and usually introduced by an EC style horror-host or hostess.

As Corben’s style matured and his skills developed, his work began to appear in more professionally produced venues. He began working for Warren Publishing in 1970 with tales in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and latterly, the aggressively audacious adult science fiction anthology 1984. He also famously re-coloured a number of reprinted Spirit strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit magazine.

In 1975 Corben submitted work to the French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and subsequently became a fixture in the magazine’s American iteration Heavy Metal after which his career really took off. Soon he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped making comics but preferred his own independent projects with collaborators such as Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones and Jan Strnad.

This oft-reprinted but now regrettably out-of-print collection perfectly shows the artist’s developing style in an acerbic and customarily wry horror yarn set in the English hamlet of “Chelmesford” during the Year of Our Lord 1664, beginning with the last testament of dying Witch Hunter James Hopkins.

His last legal commission had been the arrest and despatch of widow Ann Ashby, a strange and ugly crone dwelling alone on the edge of town. Following the accusation of a neighbour Hopkins investigates and finds her house filled with strange instruments and small animals…

On arrest she is put to The Test (that’s religious speak for tortured) and an eager and happy procession of townsfolk reveal her suspicious acts and the odd things that occur near her: boys have accidents or fall ill, animals become sick and she talks to chickens…

Once her unholy and depraved acts with animals and blood are disclosed it’s but a short hop to the stake, but even after they have watched her death agonies the still-unsated mob are hungry for more and tear her old shack down.

Soon after, many of the fine citizens of Chelmesford begin to sicken, and the remainder of Hopkins’ account details the grisly and ghastly effects of the plague as it devastates the town…

The concluding chapter is taken from scraps of parchment found hidden in Ann Ashby’s cell and reveal a shocking and ironic twist for modern historians. The supposed witch was in fact a far worse monster than Elizabethan society believed…

The well-travelled foreigner was secretly a brilliant thinker who had formulated theories of biology and natural science centuries ahead of her time. With her home-made ocular devices Ashby was on the trail of a cure for the dreadful pestilence – which she had seen ravage Europe and the East – at least until Hopkins and his self-righteous rabble of superstitious fools and jealous liars seized her…

Remarkably engrossing if a touch wordy, this compelling yarn reveals the core of solid draughtsmanship and pen-and-ink technique which underscores all Corben’s work, in a gritty chiller Hammer Films would be proud of.

Hard to find, but a great read and well worth the effort for all fans of illustrated horror yarns.
© 1986 Dennis Cunningham.

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The Names of Magic


By Dylan Horrocks & Richard Case (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-888-4

Way back when Neil Gaiman was just making a name for himself at DC he was asked to consolidate and rationalise the role of magic in that expansive shared universe. Over the course of four Prestige Format editions a quartet of mystical champions (thereinafter known as “the Trenchcoat Brigade”) took a London schoolboy on a Cook’s Tour of Time, Space and Infinite Dimensions in preparation for his becoming the most powerful wizard of the 21st Century, and an overwhelming force for Light or Darkness.

Shy, bespectacled Timothy Hunter (co-created by John Bolton) was an ordinary lad unaware of his incredible potential: a natural but untutored magical prodigy (and yes, I know who he looks like but the series came out eight years before anybody had ever heard of Hogwarts, so get over it).

In an attempt to keep him righteous the self-appointed mystic guides provided him with a full tutorial in the history and state of play regarding The Unseen Art and its major practitioners and adepts. However, although the four guardians were not united in their plans and hopes for the boy, the “other side” certainly had no doubts. If Hunter could not be turned to the Dark he had to die

The Books of Magic spawned a 75 issue run of issues under the Vertigo imprint plus attendant annuals, mini-series and spin-offs as the neophyte sorcerer struggled to find his way and learn the craft, aided and/or hindered by sort-of girlfriend Molly and a hidden personal history akin to a colossal, convoluted cosmic onion skin. His enigmatic lineage and true origins remained a crushing, crippling but crucially important mystery – especially since all the mystic powers of this world and many others either wanted him dead or enslaved…

By 2001 and the advent of this excellent tome (collecting the five-part Names of Magic miniseries) Hunter is a lonely, isolated fourteen year old runaway with no past, roaming the streets of London. His loving family have been exposed as fakes and surrogates, he’s lost or been abandoned by all his human associates and the final reeling shock was finding out that his real mother was Titania, Queen of Faerie and his sire her mortal falconer and plaything Tamlin…

However when he is simultaneously attacked by a raiding party of the Theena Sidhe from the Higher Realms and a politically influential mortal magician’s cult in ‘Invocation’, Tim is rescued by a sword-wielding stranger and old mentor Dr. Occult and his life is once again collapsing around his ears…

The stranger is Ash; a Walker and one of a hidden human brotherhood who police the ancient magical places of Earth, charged with taking the unwilling boy on a pilgrimage down those venerable lost paths to save his life and find his calling.

The Rosicrucian sages of The Cold Flame of the Golden Lotus, who want to co-opt Hunter’s power or negate his threat potential, have been embedded in the fabric of British Society for centuries and soon have their media tools and pet coppers on the trail whilst the rival Faerie stalkers – supposedly under a truce to leave Tim alone – rely on their own arcane methods to relentlessly pursue the fugitives…

When man and boy rendezvous with the “Trenchcoat Brigade” in Cornwall it is decided to closet the lad at the puissant magical college known as the White School where he can be safely trained in the use of his incredible powers.

Of course, there’s a snag: to enter a student must simply utter their True Name but when Tim tries he discovers that even his own identity is a lie…

Reeling in shock at the School gate, Tim and Ash narrowly escape a police ambush in ‘Trust’ and the boy almost succumbs to a beguiling spell from Lotus master Mr. Lily before stumbling into another Faerie trap. It appears that one clan of Fair Folk has made a pact with the eternal enemy of The Unseelie Court to destroy Tim, but the fugitives turn the tables on their hunters and Tim saves one of them from death, binding her into an unbreakable debt that she must repay twice-over…

‘Secrets’ sees Tim and Ash recruit modern Pagan “Bearclaw” Clarke to their Spirit Quest. However the Cold Flame close in and a police raid disrupts the astral journey before any secrets can be uncovered. Ruthlessly shooting their way out, the trio take ‘Flight’, daringly hiding deep inside the Faerie Kingdoms.

On Earth Mr. Lily turns his attention to Tim’s lost love Molly in his attempts to trap the young mage whilst, after a climactic struggle in Elfland, the seekers are captured and dragged before High King Auberon who denies all knowledge of Tim’s troubles. The Faerie Lord swears to ferret out the renegades working with the Seelie Court, and Tim finally learns his True Name, just before Iolanthe, eager to expend her onerous debt, warns him that he’s walked into another trap…

Battling free, the fugitive four head back to Earthly Cornwall where they wait helplessly for their following foes – both Faerie and Cold Flame – to converge for a final assault. With their backs to the sea and sure death approaching on all sides Tim and crew take refuge in tourist trap Merlin’s Cave, where as the various factions slaughter each other to get to him, the boy finds a hidden door and discovers the whole and unexpurgated ‘Truth’…

Although a series with a lot of highs and lows and one which never really lived up to its promise, Books of Magic was a popular early foray into mature comic publishing for Vertigo and subsequent returns to the characters have proved quite impressive.

Here Dylan Horrocks and illustrator Richard Case – augmented by cover artist Bolton – have recapitulated and reconfigured the past whilst crafting a compelling and enjoyable fantasy yarn that reads well, looks great and stands solid enough on it own to easily serve as an introduction to the saga of Tim Hunter.
© 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Freaks!


By Nik Perring, Caroline Smailes & Darren Kraske (The Friday Project/HarperCollins)
ISBN: 978-0-00-744289-8

We’ve all been in the know for years, us comics fans, but it’s only recently that the big wide world got into the whole mind-boggling realm of superpowers and scary monsters. With such self-aware and crafty shows as Misfits, Being Human, No Heroics and even US imports like as No Ordinary Family, Alphas, The Cape and numerous others, the concept of powers and abilities which take us above and beyond the norm have become as much part of common parlance as “Beam me up Scotty” and “These are not the droids you’re looking for” – and remember when grown-ups and your dad had no idea what those meant either?

Freaks! is a stunning collection of themed prose pieces ranging from compulsively brief vignettes to devastatingly effective epigrams which examine the concept of having a super-power, from the broadly literal such as ‘The Photocopier’ wherein the daughter of a lady who can duplicate herself waits impatiently for her own gift to develop, or ‘Statuesque’ wherein a passionate woman gradually petrifies herself, to far more cerebral and metaphysical forays into the weird world like the bittersweet ‘Clipped Wings’, heartrending ‘Invisible’ or piteous ‘Fifty Per Cent’…

Some are just plain creepy like ‘In her Basket’ and ‘Faulty Baby’ or gut-wrenchingly horrific as with ‘The Boner’ or ‘Damaged’…

Sometimes you can only stop and wonder if the abilities are real at all or just in your head…

Or theirs…

Blending paranormal paranoia with self-delusion and pitting incisive, instinctive intuition against genuine contemplative otherworldliness, these yarns by Carol Smailes and Nik Perring (working individually and in tandem) describe ordinary folk with uncanny gifts and extraordinary people who have mastered the mundane horrors of the world.

These 47 individual slices of kitchen sink fantasy are written with scathing wit, measured surreality, biting venom and shattering poignancy, all graced and augmented with lavish and plentiful monochrome illustrations by author/artist Darren Kraske.

If you’re looking for alien invasions or flamboyant punch-ups you’ll be left wanting, but if you fancy some exceedingly adult and mostly mature laughs and tears, a few chills and a lot of clever, thought-provoking entertainment then Freaks! is definitely the book for you.
© 2012 Caroline Smailes and Nik Perring. Illustrations © 2012 Darren Kraske. All rights reserved.

This book is part of publisher HarperCollins’ experimental Friday Project where the traditional modes of book creation are augmented by concentration on new digital technology and disciplines as well as innovative methods of acquiring, publishing, selling and promoting their product. For more details you should check out http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/about-harpercollins/Imprints/the-friday-project/Pages/The-Friday-Project.aspx
To learn more about the creators please go to http://www.carolinesmailes.co.uk/
http://nikperring.com/ and http://theargonautsalmanac.blogspot.com/
Freaks! is scheduled for release on April 12th 2012.

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Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales of Horror


Adapted by Richard Corben & Rich Margopoulos (Catalan Communication/Del Rey)
ISBNs: Catalan signed hb 0-87416-013-8   Del Rey pb 978-0-34548-313-3

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: a legendary animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist surfing the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in pictorial storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. He is renowned for his mastery of airbrush and captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and infamous for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror and beguiling eroticism in his fantasy and science fiction tales. He is also an acclaimed and dedicated fan of the classics of gothic horror literature…

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. This collection gathers a number of adaptations of works by Godfather of eerie fantasy Edgar Allan Poe, first seen in issues of Creepy magazine between 1974-1975 and in Pacific Comics’ A Corben Special in 1984.

This superb hardback Catalan collection was re-released in 2005 in softcover by prose publisher Del Rey Books in July 2005.

The terror commences with the moody monochrome madness of ‘The Oval Portrait’ (from Creepy #69, February 1975 and adapted by writer Rich Margopoulos, as were all the Warren originated stories here) wherein the wounded survivor of a duel breaks into an abandoned chateau to recover and falls under the sinister spell of a beguiling painting and seductive journal…

‘The Raven’ is a fully airbrushed, colour phantasmagoria from Creepy #67 (December 1974) which perfectly captures the oppressive majesty of the classic poem, as is the next macabre vignette wherein the focus shifts to ancient Greece and the inevitable approach of death amongst the warriors at a funeral: a wake tainted by an invisible ‘Shadow’ (Creepy #70 April, 1975).

The obvious and worthy star turn of this tome is the artist’s own adaptation of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, created for the comicbook A Corben Special in May 1984 and here expanded and reformatted for the larger, squarer page of this European album.

Traveller Edgar Arnold is trapped in the bilious swamp where the ancestral seat of the ancient Usher clan is slowly dissolving into the mire that surrounds it.

The tainted blood of the melancholic master Roderick and his debauched clandestinely closeted, sumptuously seductive, deranged sister Madeline proves certain to extinguish the family long before the dank Earth reclaims the crumbling manse, but if it doesn’t Roderick is determined to expedite matters himself.

Madeline however, has other dreams and desires and is not above using her unique charms to win her objectives…

Corben – with the assistance of colourists Herb & Diana Arnold – perfectly captures the trenchant, doom-laden atmosphere, erotic charge and cataclysmic denouement of the original and this seminal, seductive work is undoubtedly one of the very best interpretations of this much-told and retold tale.

The artist’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives has never been better exemplified than with these immortal stories and this is a book no comics or horror fan should be without.
© 1974, 1975, 1984, 1985 1993 Richard Corben and Richard Margopoulos. All rights reserved.

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New British Comics volume 3


By various (NBC)
No ISBN:

Here’s a terrific little anthology tome (the third in a very impressive series) for older readers which delivers a tremendous amount of cartoon wonder and literary entertainment. This lovely B5 format compilation gathers a selection of contemporary graphic tales and vignettes by very talented, imaginative and keen creators who aren’t quite household names yet, beginning with the delightful ‘Cindy & Biscuit Save the World (again)’ by Dan White, wherein a plucky lass and her faithful mutt tackle an alien invasion, after which Lawrence Elwick & Paul O’Connell reveal an unsuspected side of ‘Alfred Hitchcock: Master of Suspense’.

‘Ink vs Paper’ by John Miers is an edgy, multi-layered silent foray into high design and “Hai! Karate!” followed by ‘Animal Magnetism’, the first of two equally speechless jazzy adventures by Elwick & O’Connell starring ‘Charlie Parker “Handyman”…

Scathing social satire is the order of the day in the futuristic unreality show ‘Here Comes the Neighbourhood’ by Matthew Craig & Richard Johnson, whilst more traditional sci fi fare informs the excellent ‘Better Living Through Distance’ by Dave Johnson, and genuine spooky nihilism makes Craig Collins & Iain Laurie’s ‘The Quiet Burden’ the very last thing you want to read at bedtime…

‘Luvvable Lex: Dirty ‘N’ Down’ by Rob Miller offers the unique Celtic insights of a very with-it “Glesga Gangster” before ‘Wonderland’ by Wilbur Dawbarn finally confirms what you’d always feared about the fauns and that Wardrobe to Narnia… After ‘Charlie Parker “Handyman”: Skyscraper Lunch’, Van Nim breaks hearts and shatters illusions of fairytale romance in‘(crack)’.

The thrills and chills come thick and fast in the macabre western ‘Von Trapp’ by WJC and this superb sojourn in strange lands ends with ‘A Complex Machine’ wherein David Ziggy Greene exposes the ghastly, fantastic, impossible truth about reflexology, Chinese medicine and those serene but wizened old gentlemen…

Most of the most popular and impressive creators of the last thirty years broke into the paying end of the business via the Independent, Small Press or Self Publishing routes and as each of the contributors here has a website you can see more at, courtesy of the biographies section at the back, you can get in on the crest of the next wave simply by picking up the luscious little black and white book…
All work © 2011 the individual creators. All rights reserved

To obtain New British Comics check this out, or contact Rob Miller.

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The Bodyssey


By Richard Corben & Simon Revelstroke (Catalan Communications/Fantagor Press)
ISBNs: Signed/numbered Limited Edition 0-8741 603-2-4, softcover 978-0-8741 603-2-1
1993 Fantagor edition 978-0-96238-418-9

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist, springing from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in comics storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. He is renowned for his mastery of airbrush and captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and infamous for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror and beguiling eroticism in his fantasy and science fiction tales.

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. This particular hilarious adult saga developed in response to a stunning 8-plate art portfolio ‘Scenes from the Magic Planet’ from 1979. After serialisation in Heavy Metal #97-102 in 1985, the complete scandalous graphic novel epic was first released in December 1986 and re-published by the artist’s own Fantagor Press company in 1993.

The necromancer Hunghoul has run off (flown actually in a fantastic cloud machine) with Pilgor the Barbarian’s faithless wife Smegmella and the obliviously cuckolded hero is hunting them through the skies but their inevitable death duel doesn’t go well and the hero is dumped into the oceans far below.

Washed ashore in a strange country the massively-thewed champion becomes an object of imminent affection for an undulating Pudenda Beast until rescued by a reptile man named Ytgna – a scurrilous creature with plans of his own which sorely need a mighty muscled dupe and puissant fighter…

The wily lizard enlists the lovelorn hero in his own a quest to locate and liberate the amply pulchritudinous Ammora, and soon their search brings them to the fleshpot quarter of cesspit city Foulmouth where Pilgor catches the eye and steamier regions of androgynous Succulus Agripper, the Brothel Queen of the degenerate metropolis. Being a healthy upstanding chap Pilgor violently refuses the unwholesome unwelcome advances, effecting a spectacular escape and making another implacable, powerful and unforgiving enemy…

Eventually Ytgna and Pilgor locate their quarry – or so they think – but she proves to be far more than they bargained for and the searchers find themselves unwelcome guests of the formidable Amazons of Tumeschia and about to lose their he-man standings until a giant comatose goddess awakes and an extremely phallic giant titan invades. And that’s when the still most-piqued Agripper and his army turn up…

Meanwhile at Castle Bilious the first bloom of love is fading for Hunghoul and Smegmella so the wizard is happy to turn his attention back to Pilgor – who is still keen on exercising bloody vengeance upon them.

With the Amazons and Agripper hard on his heels and the nasty necromancer waiting for him the witless warrior is heading inexorably for a spectacular, eye-popping climax…

I’ve only got the signed and numbered limited edition so the remaining pages might not be in either of the softcover editions, but if you can, ensure you find a copy which ends the saucy fantasy extravaganza with the original portfolio plates from 1979.

In magnificent textured monochrome grey-tones and washes ‘Pilgor Discusses Politics with his Friends’, ‘Hunghoul’s Guards’, ‘Ytgna and his Faithful Ammora’, ‘Machola Seeks a Remembrance’, ‘Uncle Hunghoul Collects a Titbit’, ‘Pilgor Works his Work’, ‘Pilgor drops in at Dinnertime’ and ‘Pilgor’s and Ammora’s Happy Ending’ cap off the wry and whimsically debauched fantasy in a wave of sheer artistic excellence.

Like the cross between the World’s smuttiest Conan story and “Carry On, Barbarian!” this tale perfectly epitomises Corben’s unique visual style, love of the dark and scathingly sharp sense of humour. Combine that with humanity’s apparently insatiable hunger for sex, nudity, monsters and magic and this book becomes another utterly unmissable indulgence…
© 1986, 1993 Richard Corben. All rights reserved.

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Heavy Metal Presents New Tales of the Arabian Nights


By Richard Corben & Jan Strnad (Heavy Metal Books/Simon & Schuster)
ISBN: 930-36844-4

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist, springing from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in comic storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision. He is equally renowned for his mastery of airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Until relatively recently Corben steered clear of the Fights ‘n’ Tights comicbook mainstream. He didn’t sell out – American publishing simply caught up, finally growing mature enough to accommodate him, due in no small part to his broad and pervasive influence…

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comicbooks of the Comics-Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontent older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything-goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent who were increasingly making the kind of material Preachers and Mummy and her lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Creativity honed by the resplendent and explicitly mature 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ perfectly crafted Duck tales and other classy early strips, a plethora of young artists like Corben responded with a variety of small-press publications – including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor – which featured shocking, rebellious, sexed-up, raw, brutal, psychedelically-inspired cartoons and strips blending the new wave of artists’ unconventional lifestyles with their earliest childhood influences… honestly crafting the kind of stories they would like to read.

Corben inevitably graduated to more professional – and paying – venues. As his style and skills developed he worked for Warren Publishing in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He famously coloured some strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit.

Soon after he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped creating comics but preferred personal independent projects with collaborators such as Bruce Jones, Jan Strnad and Harlan Ellison – who provided an effusive introduction here.

In 1975 Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon M̩tal Hurlant and became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal Рfrom which this stunning saga was collected.

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. This particular tome gathers a particularly impressive fantasy serial from the early days of Heavy Metal (specifically from June 1978 to August 1979) which cunningly reveals the final voyage and fate of a legendary hero…

This superb, criminally out-of-print but still readily available fable opens with a history of the charismatic storyteller Shahrazad and how she charmed her murderously strict husband, then goes on to concentrate on the tale she kept from him; and only shared with her wayward sister Dunyazad… ‘Sinbad in the Land of the Jinn’.

‘The Last Voyage of Sinbad’ begins when merchant Badr al-Bakkar recognises a Sufi sage as the legendary seaman and begs to know what turned such a worldly warrior into a penitent priest. As the broken old wanderer speaks of his secret Eighth Voyage a saga of tragedy and wonder unfolds…

Sinbad was a bored and restless husband who broke many of the Prophet’s Holy Injunctions and, whilst drunk one night, encountered a Jinn who attacked him, claiming the sot had killed his wife.

In retaliation the supernatural horror demanded the life of Sinbad’s beloved spouse Zulaykha, but could not find her…

The woman had vanished from the face of the Earth and the terrified adventurer resolved to find her and save her from the vengeance of the merciless Ifrit.

He is aided in his quest by the enigmatic Akissa, who claims to be the selfsame demon wife Sinbad supposedly murdered. She wishes to be divorced from her brutal trickster husband and offers to guide Sinbad and his crew to the magical realm of Zu’l Janahayn, the Jinni King of Kings who can grant any wish should he please. All they must do is find his floating citadel of Ketra…

And thus begins a quest of shocking terror, stupendous action, wanton debauchery and stunning duplicity, which resulted in the near-breaking of our hero, magical horrors and valiant perseverance…

The artist’s infamous signature-stylisation includes abundant nudity, excessive, balletic violence and astoundingly proportioned male and female physiques and these are all prominently displayed in this cunning and beguiling continuation of the fabulous legend of an immortal hero, which still finds room for a brilliantly contemporary twist…

Richard Corben is a unique visual stylist blessed with a love of the dark and graced with a scathingly sharp sense of humour. Combine that with our apparently insatiable hunger for monsters and mystery and this book becomes the ideal treat to while away the witching hour…
© 1978, 1979 Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. Introduction © 1979 Harlan Ellison. All rights reserved.

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The Book of Human Insects


By Osamu Tezuka translated by Mari Morimoto (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-20-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an ideal chiller for those dark nights… 8/10

There aren’t many Names in comics. Lots of creators; multi-disciplined or single focussed, who have contributed to the body of the art form, but we don’t have many Global Presences whose contributions have affected generations of readers and aspirants all over the World, like a Mozart or Michelangelo or Shakespeare. There’s just Hergé and Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka.

Tezuka was born in Osaka Prefecture on 3rd November 1928 and as a child suffered from a severe illness which made his arms swell. The doctor who cured him inspired him to study medicine, and although Osamu began his professional drawing career while at university, he persevered with his studies and qualified as a doctor too. Facing a career crossroads, his mother advised him to do the thing that made him happiest. He never practiced as a healer but the world was gifted with such classic cartoon masterpieces as Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro-boy), Kimba the White Lion, Buddha, Adolf and literally hundreds of other graphic narratives. Along the way Tezuka incidentally pioneered, if not created, the Japanese anime industry.

Able to speak to the hearts and minds of children and adults equally, Tezuka’s works range from the childishly charming to the disturbing – and even terrifying. In 1970-1971 he produced the stark and moody psycho-thriller Ningen Konchuuki for Akita Shonen’s Play Comic, detailing the inexorable rise of a truly different kind of monster for the burgeoning audiences who were growing up and demanding more mature manga fare.

This superb black and white 364 page hardback opens with ‘Spring Cicada’ as failed and broken designer Ryotaro Mizuno ponders the incredible success of golden girl Toshiko Tomura; a bright young thing who has just scooped a major literary prize for her first novel.

Across town a broken-down derelict also toasts her success whilst in a lonely garret a girl hangs from the end of a noose…

Mizuno confronts Toshiko in her moment of triumph, telling her failed author Kageri Usuba has committed suicide. Their tense exchange is observed by muck-raking journalist Aokusa…

Convinced he’s on to something the reporter perseveres and discovers that Toshiko is a modern renaissance woman: emerging from obscurity to become a celebrated actress while still in her teens, she graduated to directing before becoming an award-winning designer. Abruptly she metamorphosed again, writing the stunning novel The Book of Human Insects. Still in her twenties, there seems to be nothing the angelic girl cannot do…

Further enquiry leads the newsman to her desolate rural home where the uncanny genius presents an entirely different, almost wanton aspect. Moreover she keeps there a very creepy waxwork of her dead mother…

Toshiko catches the professional voyeur and agrees to an interview, but before that meeting Aokusa is accosted by shambling drop-out Hyoroku Hachisuka, a once-prominent stage-director who imparts the true story of Toshiko’s resplendent rise to fame and fortune.

Once, the universally approved-of, wholesome girl was a small, timid creature who inveigled her way into his theatre company. Once there she attached herself like a leech to the star, learning her ways and mannerisms. A perfect mimic, Toshiko not only acquired the actress’s skills but also seemed to suck out her talent and inspiration. When the former star quit Toshiko replaced her…

She performed that same slow consumption of the entire company and then turned her attentions to the director…

Moreover, the seemingly helpless waif was utterly amoral, using sex, slander and perhaps even murder to achieve her ends, which were always short-term: she had no goals or life ambitions, but merely flitted from victim to victim like a wasp seeking its next meal…

Ignoring the warning Aosuka persists and discovers that promising writer Usuba once had a room-mate named Toshiko whom she accused of plagiarising her novel…

Intriguingly, the lonely writer’s recent suicide occurred in extremely suspicious circumstances…

During a TV interview Toshiko accidentally meets Mizuno again. Revealed as one of her earliest victims, can he possibly be the only man she ever loved?

In ‘Leafhopper’ Aosuka uncovers another of Toshiko’s secrets when he meets for the first and last time her shady associate Arikawa – a murderous anarchist who cleans ups the lovely mimic’s potential embarrassments – just as she tries to renew her relationship with the bitter and far wiser Mizuno.

Toshiko also meets war criminal and right-wing “businessman” Sesson Kabuto who immediately discerns her true nature and keeps a fascinated but wary professional distance from her…

Toshiko operates almost instinctively and according to immediate desire, but she has a terrifying capacity to clean up any potentially damaging loose-ends. After seducing Arikawa she spectacularly removes him during a political assassination and uses the affair to promote her next book…

Meanwhile Mizuno spirals further into despondency until he meets a prostitute who looks like Toshiko and finally finds redeeming true love – of a sort…

Toshiko almost overreaches her abilities when she is arrested by South Korean security forces in ‘Longhorn Beetle’ but is rescued and forced into marriage by a man every inch her ruthless, remorseless equal, compelling her to even more inspired acts of perversion and survival – which consequentially endangers the wellbeing of everybody in Japan – before ‘Katydid’ brings the unique drama to a shocking, bloody, poignant and utterly unexpected conclusion…

Murder-mystery, Greek Tragedy, trenchant melodrama, serial-killer horror story and much more, this supremely adult tale has hardly dated at all since its release and offers a chilling image of those hidden invisible predators who have supplanted vampires, witches and werewolves in the dark corners of our communal consciousness.

The beautiful maiden as lure and amoral predator possibly began with this truly disturbing tale and the story is one which will stay with readers long after the final page is turned…

“God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka died in 1989 but with ever more of his copious canon at last being released in English there’s plenty of brilliant material for all ages, intellects and inclinations to admire and adore, so why not start right here, right now.

Accept no imitations…

© 2011 by Tezuka Productions. Translation © 2011 by Mari Morimoto and Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.